D.W. Wilkin's Blog, page 342

Ruritanian Romance: Serializing a chapter at a time Chapter 2

As I have been plugging for the last few weeks, I now present you with the serialization on Wednesday’s of The Prize is Not As Great As You Think. That has been my working title and it is possible that before all is done, something different will suggest itself. Something shorter.

As mentioned it is a Ruritanian Romance. I can’t remember just now how the idea came to me, but then after it did I started to research, and reread such works as Edgar Rice Burroughs the The Mad King as well as the The Prisoner of Zenda to prep for writing my tale.

To prep you, the tale deals with events in the Grand Duchy of Almondy, as I describe ‘bordered the north of Switzerland. To the east was France and now Belgium. The Germanies to the west, and finally the Netherlands to its north. Almondy was landlocked.’

One of the characteristics of a good Ruritanian Romance is intrigue. And as you can tell from the position of the country, the buffer between Germany and France, there certainly will be opportunity for it. With such neighbors, and set 836 years after the conquest. The conquest that took place the same year the William invaded England and defeated Harold. The year of our story begins in 1902, September.

A period of time when the Great War is brewing.

And a period of time when one inside Almondy strives to better himself. We meet our story’s Nemesis in this first chapter. The son of the Grand Prince, but the bastard son. A relationship that reforming Grand Princesses of some generations before excluded from the inheritance. Bastards had until recent times been able to inherit the mantle of rule, but no longer. A change such as this surely can cause resentment, especially in a man who had talents.

Talents that are so much more obvious than say the legitimate son might show. We meet the heir of the Grand Prince, and the current Grand Prince as well. We see a little of the Celebont Palace of Steilenberg which is the capital of the Grand Principality.

I hope you enjoy and should you like to leave feedback before next Wednesday and the next installment, please do so.

Chapter One can be found either at our website

Or here on the blog

In this chapter, a few days after the Pageant of St. Michael, and Prince Reginald not feeling recovered at all from his duties with the statue, or from spending the night out celebrating being rich, alive, and heir to a powerful European throne, he knows that he has to begin the path of providing for the next generation. He has gone to call upon Princess Margaritte, the favorite choice of his father’s.

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Dramatis Personae (so far)

Athelstan Perry-Bastard son of the Grand Prince of Almondy

Prince Reginald Baxter Simeon Fitzroy Perry-Heir of throne of Almondy

Grand Prince Michael Alan Henry Fitzroy Perry-Ruler of Almondy

Michael VII-Grand Prince around 1640’s

Gerald Henry William Fitzroy Perry-2nd in line to Grand Prince

Princess Margaritte-sister of Baron William

Baron William Fitzroy Perry-Leader of government

Places        

Celebont Palace-The permier castle of the Grand Prince of Almondy

Ritzlauer Hotel-Where Athelstan Perry lives

Steilenberg-Capital

Almondy-Our mythical Country, north of Switzerland

2) All The Little Pieces

The manor house, near the outskirts of the city was very fashionable. Reginald had seen it before more than once, though he had avoided going inside nearly all the other times he had been near. He smiled to himself for the expression, ‘like the plague’ came to mind. Not that Princess Margaritte, was anything at all like a plague. Just that an alliance with her, a marriage, would signify the end of his life of freedom. That he would have to start serious work here in the principality. Work that Reginald’s father was more than qualified for, and still willing to do.

With that understood, why then should Reginald worry about taxes, and bread, Germans and railways? The Grand Prince actually wanted to make all those decisions. His father complained all the time that it was too much and he needed help, but Reginald had learned early on that was not the case. That when he had offered to help when younger, the Grand Prince would smile and then thank him. Father would say it was noble of him to offer but that Reginald should enjoy his life before he was forced to wear the crown and make such choices.

After offering a half a dozen times, perhaps more, over the years to really work on serious matters, and always being refused, Reginald took to heart that he should indulge himself.

Perhaps he had overdone it. Certainly the press loved him for overindulgence. He was advised by the owners of not only the papers from Steilenberg, but those in the provinces, that he contributed greatly to their profits. Everyone wanted to read about what he was doing, or planning to do. They liked pictures of the beautiful women he dated, and fortunately the papers only called it dating. Should they report on how many women he slept with, and sometimes more than one at the same time, his reputation might not have been so great amongst the people.

He had one affair that had been placed in the papers so long ago now that no one remembered. It had caused him grief and he had come to an understanding then with the owners of the papers. They could write about all sorts of things that he did, but what happened in his bed, and who with, were never to be reported.

“Highness,” he saluted her by sharply bringing his heels together. Then he leaned over and kissed the proffered hand. Margaritte didn’t rise when he entered, for she too was a princess of the Fitzroy Perry blood. Though he did outrank her, she was establishing her rights.

He had encountered such women before. And of course he had met Margaritte many times. She was one of the most beautiful ladies in Steilenberg. Reginald agreed with his father about that. Was she the woman he would marry? That still was to be determined.

“You do me great honor by visiting, and so early in the day. Why I think the sun has only been up a few short hours,” she said.

“Yes. I saw it rise, for I have not been to sleep yet. Too much to do and so I must burn that candle at both ends,” he replied. A memorized response that he often used.

Margaritte trilled, for that was what her laugh was. Like a little precious bird. She had blond hair, a descendent of one of the infusions from the north. She was one of the many cousins, and anyone who had the least amount of Fitzroy Perry blood seemed to want to proclaim that they were a cousin. Not that his closest cousin Gerald did. More fool him. Reginald would have to tell him that the next time Gerald came to town, he needed to use some scent or other to hide the smell of his cows.

Perhaps that alone was a good reason to marry, to place children between the man and the throne. Every son of Reginald’s would cause the need for his cousin Gerald to come to the capital less frequently. “What would you say to eight sons?” He asked Margaritte. Not only because the thought occurred to him just then, but also eight would be needed to bear the damn platform with St. Michael atop it. He was still sore from that stupid parade. Reginald was sure that he had torn a muscle in his shoulder.

“Eight? I think we need to first marry, and then we shall discuss it.” Margaritte smiled but he saw that it did not reach her eyes. She was calculating what that question had meant.

“You must meet my cousin Gerald. You know he is next in line to the throne after me? It so irks Athelstan. My younger brother has never accepted that he is not in the line of succession.”

“I do not think of Athelstan much,” Margaritte said.

Reginald nodded, “You know most women are like that, but I think that is a mistake. Not that women should like him for his charms or his looks, though you would think with his parents he would look better. No, I think women should like Athelstan for his ambition. And what he will do with that ambition should he find he is disliked.”

She laughed again but not the trill she had before. This was forced. “You make him sound dangerous.”

Reginald nodded, “He is probably the most dangerous man I know. I fear that in the years to come we may find out just how dangerous he is. Father refuses to see it. You should know this also should I court you to be my bride and then the Grand Princess. If we were to have any sons, Athelstan would not necessarily be their friend.”

She did not laugh, “If you feel this way, then why not exile him? Surely you could arrange that.”

“He is the son of my father, and he is my brother. I know his ambition seethes inside of him but until he acts upon it, I will do nothing. It is an unspoken truce between us. He wants recognition for all his efforts for a country he will never lead. I pretend that when I am Grand Prince I will do something to aid in his desires.”

She shook her pretty blonde head. She was twenty three, he had been told, and overripe for marriage. But she was holding herself out for the biggest fish that she could find, and that was him. Did that make cousin Gerald the second biggest fish? Smelling of fish and cow, the man was intolerable.

Well once Reginald was wed and producing some boys, then it would not matter. Cousin Gerald could stay in the country forever. There were other younger cousins who could carry the damn platform during the pageant. And if Reginald had hurt his shoulder, then Reginald would force his father to take a flux and stay in bed next pageant. That was a way to get out of carrying the dame platform. If he had to act as regent for his father for even an hour, it would supersede all other duties and requirements. Athelstan had told him that, but only after they got to the damn top of the hill and the Palace gates this year.

“I am sure that we could spend the hour you have requested to visit talking of your brother. Or perhaps we could engage in a better use of the time. You could compliment me, and I could ask you intelligent questions about yourself and your plans when you become Grand Prince.”

He smiled. She had a mind, or at least she knew how to play to his vanity. It could very well be a trick of hers. He had known that she was bred to lure him to her nest for years. It was why he avoided coming to the manor. He did not want to be caught. Well he hadn’t wanted to be caught.

What an impressive bosom she displayed and not covered by a chemise or any other fabric. It was quite early in the morning to display such charms. And it was quite late at night for Reginald not to be sampling them. The Guardsmen outside who waited for him were quite used to his spending an additional half hour or much longer if he had an encounter with a beautiful lady. He had many such encounters. How far could he take his dalliance with the Princess. Would she give up her virtue before they had an engagement signed and sealed by the lawyers?

It was not a simple matter his marrying, nor he suspected as she shifted herself on her lounge and brought her breasts even better into focus, was the matter something she was going to allow to lay dormant any longer. It was a mistake coming to the manor for that reason. He was not going to get to romp with her that day. She was going to hold her charms until they wed, and then…

“Yes let us talk about you, and your beauty, your intelligence and your ambitions. Of course you are the dream of my father for me to wed, and he has made a good choice. You have just enough Fitzroy Perry blood so that your loyalty will never be questioned by the rabble. You are so beautiful that every man of the realm will consider me lucky to have won you. You are rich, why I have heard that your fortune is even larger than mine, at least that which I admit to.” He smiled. Athelstan had told her that her fortune was larger than his. Not as large as the Grand Prince, probably the fifth or sixth largest in the realm.

“Speaking of my fortune is hardly the way to my heart. Here.” She placed a hand on her left breast, and then reached for one of his hands. Gently guiding it to the same spot. Warm, firm, lush. She was very enticing.

“If you would like, I can remain here, with my hand just so, for quite a long time. It is indeed the most comfortable place I think my hand has ever rested,” Reginald said. Pure flattery of course.

Let Athelstan suck on those eggs.

It was good to be the Crown Prince. He did get to play with a great many pairs of breasts. And he had used that line a great deal as well. Though he was fairly sure that all the ladies he had ever uttered it to, most with no clothing between his hand and the object he held, were not the in the habit of socializing with each other. Or that they related that they had been seduced by the heir to the throne.

Margaritte trilled again.

“I do like your laugh like that. Pleasant.” He remarked and that was a truth. He heard the clock chime a quarter hour. He thus planned another three quarters before he would ride out to his country estate. If he was fortunate, he would reach there after lunch. His day had been changed by his affairs of the night before.

Drinking and carousing, though no woman had taken the edge off the feeling of pressure that was building in his loins. Surely Margaritte was bound to begin to feel his arousal the way she had him seated.

At his estate he would sleep and then when dark came, summon some local lass, or servant girl and take care of his needs. That of course caused his loins to stir even further.

“Ah highness, or should I say hardness, do you think of me and the life we could be having together?” Margaritte said.

“Yes I do you vixen!” He drew quickly away. “Margaritte, I have been a prize in the marriage sweepstakes and you are one of two finalists. The French Ambassador has produced a candidate as well for me to meet. It is unfortunate that I can not proclaim to you that we may arrange a marriage for whether I love you or you love me, is apparently irrelevant. What is important is who will be the best grand princess in the coming years. Who will keep us safest in the event of war. Best we don’t play this game unless you realize that you may not be awarded the prize.”

She sobered up immediately. He knew then Margaritte understood him. He would appreciate making love to her and would do it often if he could. Just as he had others he bedded often. But there was a great chance that she would not become Grand Princess. If she only wish to have such sport when she knew she would wear a crown, then she and he were not going to have such exercise.

“That was rather blunt,” Margaritte said.

“You are a luscious woman and I would love to sink my teeth into you for a bite.” Using a metaphor continued the play between them.

“Yes, but you surmise that you can not have a bite until I am presented my due. I am a princess. Though I know you are no saint, you will be Grand Prince and I am very willing to overlook you and your wild ways till you decide to court me seriously. I thought your presence here today would signal that. Certainly you seemed to behave yourself during the festival.”

She no longer heaved her bosom at him. A shame, for it had been fun to watch, and hold he reminded himself. That pleasure was but a few moments ago. He was definitely going to have to find a woman to sleep with that night. His passions were stirred and he needed to take care of them. But then that was a reason he travelled to his country home. He would be able to do so without interruptions. There was no parade, or building opening for two weeks, and he was damned if he was going to spend them in Steilenberg. It would be winter soon enough and he would be stuck there.

“You thought I was blunt before, Margaritte. I shall be even more so now. You wish to be the Grand Princess. Others wish that also. But for now, I still have some say in the matter. It is my will that decides the matter. Even the Grand Prince has said so. I am lobbied from all sides and many wish you, our own native Almondian. Others believe that we have honored the Germans too much of late and cry for a French cousin to wed. I am sure she will be as appealing to the eye as you are. I am positive that she will be everything that one could wish for in a Grand Princess. Just as you have been raised to be,” Reginald said. He noted she once more was making herself appealing. Her skirts were hiked a little that he could see an ankle as she toyed with her shoe, popping her foot in and out of it.

“There is one question, Margaritte that must be answered. What happens if I do choose the French chit? What do you do with the rest of your life if the prize to which you have been trained and aspire too is in the hands of the Mademoiselle? Do you find yourself a cousin to marry? Do you think at this stage one of the other foreign kingdoms will have you. Would you marry an industrialist like one of the Glaus or Renards?”

“You are rather callous also.”

“Blunt, callous. I have been groomed to lead this nation one day. That is all I am. I have to deal with the reality. You think that you have but one choice, and that I am it. You do not. You have much more should you wish it. I tell you that if you are enamored of the crown you are being played for a fool. Do you want to be the Grand Princess of a nation that is destined to become the battleground of all Europe? Do you not see that my father has led us to that path? That we are not strong enough to become a force in the wars for Europe?” He was angered more than he was aroused now.

She said, “I think I see clearer than you. That you could alter the course of that history should you choose. But you have spent years acting the spoilt prince and letting all Europe think that you would rather play than direct such a theatrical.” Margaritte had color now. He wanted to take her then. If she could prove so feisty, then perhaps she was the one for him. Could marrying her bring enough strength from all of Almondy to the table and keep the Germans and French at bay?

To hell with his manners. He leaned down and stuck an arm behind her back so he could pull her up to him, “What do you say wench, do you want me, or the crown?” Then he leaned in and ravished her lips. A kiss that was long and deep and that she struggled to break free of. He though had a lot of experience with women who were trapped in his arms and tried to get away.

Once he had a woman trapped, he seldom let them go. Not until he had ravished them and they had thanked him for the experience. He did not have the time for that with Margaritte. Nor did he think he could succeed in taking her without her willingness for she had allies. She had relatives that would raise a great fuss should he despoil her and then marry the French girl. A woman whom Athelstan had met and said that she was one of the most beautiful his brother had ever seen. Though Athelstan said he had bet that Margaritte would win his heart. Reginald knew that the gambling dens wagered on whom he would marry

Athelstan and his father, and all the others did not know that his heart would never be won. He would do his duty and marry whomever they told him to. All he wanted was the chance to fornicate with as many women as he could. He had no care for any, and would not allow any to make him care for them. He would have to stop a war, and knew that he could not. Then lead thousands of soldiers into battle and hope that when all was finished, there was still some of Almondy left to rule.

“You are a brute,” Margaritte said and then slapped him hard. So hard that he actually felt the pain from it. Something Reginald usually did not. Nor had he truly thought that he had freed her, but she had gotten free of his grasp in any event. Perhaps that had been a mistake. He would think of it later, maybe. Instead he roared a laugh, though she might realize it as forced.

“Well done. You have spirit. I shall go for I fear I shall not get what I want from you this day. Nor you get what you wish from me. Think though on what I’ve said and what I offer. It may be the best that you can achieve in Almondy.”

She slapped him again. “I would be your wife, not your mistress.” Then she reached and grabbed his member and squeezed until he felt some pain. “This I can get from any man, and probably a great many who are better than you are. You need to think on what I offer. No French hussy is ever going to be the great princess of Almondy that I could be. And if you can not see that, then go back to your whoring. For if you marry me, it will be the last of it. This,” and she squeezed harder so now he knew pain, “Is not going anywhere near me if it is infected by any of your pets.”

Reginald let her go and forced her away so she would release his manhood. “I assure you it is clean and always will be.” He took precautions. Almost always that was. He did not want a disease. “Very well. We both have something to think of. But know that the decision is for the most part out of my hands and that there is not much I can or will do about it. I can choose but from a handful, and I will choose who is best for Almondy.” He didn’t elaborate on what he would decide was best for Almondy.

She seemed to understand that, “Go Reginald. Next time you come to me, be prepared to offer me more than the five minutes of your time you need for your pleasures.”

Margaritte could not be more direct than that. He nodded and left. The clock was now just at half past. He was surprised that he was that much ahead of where he had planned to be. He entered his carriage and settled. They left the long drive to the streets of Steilenberg, not expectig that they should be halted. The Guard captain leaned his head in through the window, “It is Athelstan, sire.”

The manor house as Reginald had observed was surrounded on three sides by the growth of the city around it. Here, close to the outskirts of the city, what had been country not fifty years before, was a small coffee bar, and Athelstan was walking across to the carriage from it. He had raised his hands and was waving, definitely trying to get the carriage to stop.

“Why I just got here and thought I would have a coffee. You said you would not be done until ten. Come have a coffee with me,” Athelstan said as he poked his head in the carriage. He too looked at his watch.

“Are there any pretty wenches there. Move your head and let me look.” Reginald was a little rough as he poked his own head out of the carriage window and forced his brother away. “Very well, that one will do. I shall have her sit on my lap and that will help me quickly forget the Princess,” Reginald raised his voice. “We shall stop here for a while. Athelstan insists it has the best pastry this side of the High Street.”

Athelstan stuttered out a response. “I never said that.”

As Reginald opened the door and climbed down, “Best you hope that it does. These guards can be brutal should they think you have played them for fools. What, by the by, are you doing here. I did not expect to see you for some weeks. I am off to the country where I can rest my shoulder. It still hurts and that was three days ago we carried that fool palanquin.”

Athelstan laughed though it too sounded forced. Much sounded forced that day. “I told you to see a doctor, and not the one with the prettiest nurse to aid them. I told you to go to the one who would help your shoulder the most. I don’t suppose you did.”

“No, I shall do that when I get to Chateau Repos. The doctor there has always been helpful and you should be pleased, he does not have any pretty nurses,” Reginald said.

Athelstan laughed, this time not so forced, “But I have seen his daughters. Have you already sampled their charms? Is that why you hurry to Repos?”

Reginald had to laugh as well, “You know me well enough. I look forward to sport with them as well as other ladies that are in that area. They are very discreet.”

“You have made the entire area your own bordello. How many of the women do you count as friendly and sport with? Five, ten, more?”

Reginald had to allow that it was more. Though not twenty which Athelstan next tried to guess. “No more like a bakers dozen. Yes, I think that is the number exactly, including the girls who are servants at the castle.”

Athelstan shook his head. “I won’t ask about any others. Tell me about the Princess. That will put an end to all this exercise that you are indulging in. Do you not worry that you will use your member so much that it will fall off?”

Reginald laughed. “No, I don’t think that will happen. As for Princess Margaritte. I told her the truth. She or the French girl have the greatest chance at the crown. I just do not know if it will be her, or the other. I suppose something could happen in Cameroon tomorrow and then you would tell me the German Princesses are back in the race.”

Athelstan laughed, motioning for service as they sat down at a table. The guards had done what they always do, cleared a space for him. “I would if it were true. If you listened to the ministers of father’s council you too would think about this often as well. I know it bores you, but as you point out, it will determine whom you marry.”

Reginald shook his head and then seeing one of the barmaids who served close enough to grab. She had been on her way to ask them what they wished in any case. “Be a good girl and keep your prince warm. I think the air is chill.”

Athelstan looked with disdain at the girl. Not her fault that she was closest and that Reginald wanted someone to sit on his lap. Someone to ensure that Margaritte had not damaged him forever. Which, as he ogled the girl in his lap, he found he was not. “It is October. Summer is gone and it will continue to get colder now.” Athelstan said.

“He speaks to me as if he were the older child, and he is not, but you probably know that. All Almondy knows that. So my dear, what should I have? Do you make a good coffee here?” Reginald asked the wench.

“The best in all Steilenberg, highness,” she smiled. He saw that she did not like to be mauled. She was smaller than the princess in the chest. Margaritte did have an impressive chest.

“Good. Call for two glasses. What do you wish Athelstan? Are you going to drink with me and the Mam’selle?”

Reginald tickled her side showing that his hands were capable of more than grabbing her breasts. Then he settled into light caresses that also travelled along her legs.

“Let the girl go, Reginald. I want to talk seriously with you.”

Athelstan so often said that. And just when he had become comfortable like this. “No, you may have the time it takes for them to bring us our coffees. Then I leave for Chateau Repos. My dear, would you like to go to your prince’s chateau in the country? I will feed you and you may drink excellent wines from all over Europe. Come, say you wish to go with me.”

She spoke, “Oh no highness. I can’t. My father and mother will expect me for dinner, and I need the money from this job.”

He laughed, “No doubt you save for your wedding. Samuel,” Reginald raised his voice and two ten crown pieces were placed in his palm. “That is more than enough for the coffee and I should think a good deal for you as well.”

Athelstan tried to snatch the money back from the girl but she was fast and smart. “Sire it is too much.”

The price of a cup of coffee, good coffee would be five bits, ten or twenty where he usually stopped to dine. You could probably get a cups for a bit if you were a commoner in most places in Steilenberg. Though it would be poor quality. Ten Bits to a Mark and a hundred Marks to the Crown. She was given a fortune and that would go along way to paying for her dowry. 20 Crowns might be what a man in the city lived on for two or three months. It was good to do that, especially in front of Athelstan, for it made him angry. His brother received all his living expenses paid for, and an allowance of ten thousand crowns each year.

It was a fortune when a family could live on 500 crowns a year. Reginald, though, was given a million Crowns each year. which he sent to his swiss bankers, and he never wanted for money. Castles were paid for by the treasury. His clothes, his food, even the snapping of fingers and twenty Crowns magically appearing would come from the countries taxes and go back to Samuel very soon. Lord Ramm had told Reginald that he did overspend his budget but they made allowance and he should not worry about it, at least not too much.

The girl certainly felt how he had become enamored of her, and as most did, she snuggled back into him. “Do you wish me to stay here and keep you warm,” she squirmed causing him to feel heated, “or shall I fetch you that coffee?”

“You shall receive a kiss for your trouble from your Prince and then you may fetch me my coffee.” Reginald then held her head with one hand and slowly cupped her breast with the other as he leaned into her and gave her a kiss, opening her lips and probing with his tongue to capture the essence of her. At least as much as he could at such an early hour on the patio of a cafe. Then done, he bucked his legs so she was forced to stand. She giggled, while he spanked her on the bottom and proclaimed loudly that she needed to get his coffee.

Athelstan, who had seen this before, shook his head, once more showing his disgust, and said, “That is terrible. They will not always be so compliant. I fear one day you will be truly punished for that, and for other items as well. Why do you think the rebels try to kill you?”

The girl had run off to the kitchen and Reginald found that the question was funny. Laughing he said, “Is it rebels this week? Is Almondy so filled with discontentment that there are those who wish to overthrow father and I, and the Assembly?”

Athelstan actually tsked. “You know that the Assembly has almost no power whatsoever, and the same for our subjects. They know that it is a sop to show some progress. It has been nearly a century since we fought off Napoleon and kept our freedoms here, or the family its power if you would hear the dissenters speak. So much of Europe has given power to the peasants that our peasants know they are given not even table scraps.”

“Do we tax them more then we did before Napoleon came? Has there ever been a whiff of the Terror here?”

All royalty worried about that. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette losing their lives. All the nobility, and most of the upper class. Then anyone who just looked wrong. The Terror, more than a hundred years over, still was remembered vividly though no one living now had been alive then.

“I can not speak to you. You will not hear what is being said,” Athelstan seemed to talk a great deal when he promised silence so often.

Reginald had nearly enough of his brother, “I do listen you know. Well perhaps you just do not realize. I and the spy masters take a great deal of interest in all this. I worry that our people are dissatisfied every time you speak of it. But then I ask pointedly how many seem to be so upset that they would rise against us. More than eight million adults we have in our country, and if there are a few hundred that would strike father or I down, that would surprise everyone else I talk to. You are the only one that thinks that there are hundreds of thousands of people who want the Fitzroy Perrys gone.”

“A few hundred? You talk to fools. It is tens of thousands, even hundreds like I say. You only talk to Fitzroy Perrys, and other collateral family members, so you do not know.” Athelstan nearly spat that last.

The coffee came and the wench saw that they were arguing. She left quickly when he nodded her away. If things worked out that he was to pay other social calls on Margaritte, he would be back to the cafe. This girl had a firm bosom and a round backside. He would want to have her before she completed acquiring all the money she needed for her wedding. He would take care and give her more money then she ever thought to have as a dowry, but then, if he had her virginity, or she let him think that he had it, the money would be well spent.

Reginald said, “I think you misspeak brother, for our spy masters have never let us down yet. You all but praised them a few weeks ago. You can not say it to me both ways, but I find you do this often. Too often. Drink your coffee and take a moment to compose yourself for I would rather talk of something pleasant then something that will anger me. I have had little sleep and it will be near four hours until I reach my chateau.”

Athelstan shook his head, “Then if I can not make you see sense, I shall leave you. I thought to wish you well this next fortnight while you are at your leisure. And to congratulate you on your alliance with the Princess. I see that neither is to be, for we shall part in anger, and you failed with the Princess.”

“Athelstan! You will mind that not only am I your brother, but I am also the Crown Prince. I will not have you spread tales these next two weeks about I and Princess Margaritte. We parted amicably and both must think of what an alliance between us means. She is made to understand that world events and our relations with our neighbors dictate my choice of a bride. You though, you are my brother and I would have us part as friends.”

Athelstan said, “Not this time, brother. And as much as you proclaim me brother, I am still only half your brother. That shall always lie between us and never be a wound that heals.”

Reginald shook his head slowly, “Then I am sorry for it, for I bear you nothing but love.” Not completely true, for when Athelstan exasperated him, Reginald did not love the man.

Athelstan stood and took the coffee cup, drinking in one swig all of it. Reginald had noticed the taste, strong and good. “I thank you for the coffee. Good day to you highness.”

Too much to think of, and he was tired. Was all that really necessary with his brother.

A scene. And in public.

Well one of the other patrons was bound to run and tell this to a paper and it would be all over the city tomorrow. Though Athelstan would end up looking bad. He always did. The papers made the bastard the villain when there was such an altercation. Athelstan could have been in the right and won the argument, but in public, the bastard son of the Grand Prince never won in the papers.

“Come, we are off. Did not the clock strike the hour but moments ago? This is exactly when we had planned to take to the road. How fortuitous is that? My brother almost caused us to be later than we wished.” Reginald climbed back into the carriage then looking for the serving girl who came out of the cafe, he waved and she smiled and waved back. It would provide a nice dream as he settled into the cushioned seats. Though he was jostled almost at every turn, the roads needed improving again, and Lord Ramm said there was no money for it. But a few thousand crowns and the road here could be fixed.

One paper said a hundred thousand would take care of all the streets in Steilenberg. Made ready for automobiles. His vehicle, one of the first in Almondy, was already ahead at the Chateau and he intended to drive it when they arrived. Reginald wanted to be an expert in its operation.

Reginald pondered that it would be good for his people to see their Crown Prince driving such a vehicle. That was another function of royalty. To be a symbol of the entire countries prosperity that all could take pride in. He did that very well. He may have had many woman…

“Highness, ‘ware.” They had left the congested part of the city and were less than a mile from the country proper. They were now outside the new wall, the second wall that surrounded Steilenberg. It had been built at enormous expense and completed just twenty years before cannons had become staples of European armies. Here the buildings were less clustered and a wooded section was ahead that a tree lay across the road. There had not been any heavy winds, or a storm the last few days, so this was not the result of the weather.

“Damn, another attack!” Reginald was not having the best of mornings. A tickle and fondle with two women but nothing more. Another argument with Athelstan and now this. “Look there, those men, they have guns.” His men had guns too. Reginald and a couple of his guards had seen men in amongst the trees. They were all in black. Coats and trousers. Hats brims low over their eyes. Several had rifles and now there were shots.

A horse whinnied as Reginald ducked back from the window and began to look for his own weapons. They were in the carriage. Two Purdeys were secreted in the carriage and he had to get them. His sword was ceremonial, with an edge that was not sharp, it would do him little good in a ranged attack.

Purdeys though were great pistols. And he was a good shot. Not a great shot. But with the cover of the carriage to hide behind, he should be able to fend off an attack. He had seven guardsmen, and the footmen and driver. Then he heard those men screaming and looking to the far side of the carriage, he saw the liveried servants rushing away.

A shot plunked near his head at that window and now they were being attacked from both sides. His own guards were returning fire but he knew that this could not last forever. This stretch led to more of the city about fifty yards ahead of where the fallen tree was. Behind, not more than 100 yards away was a square and a church. The square had houses clustered about it. All this had been the outskirts of a city that would not stop growing.

Another bullet hit the carriage and as Reginald ducked back, he was thinking he should look once more to see if the men in black were close enough for his pistols. He heard one of his guards scream and then another shouted that Franc was dead.

A bell began to sound. Reginald contemplated that the gun battle had been going on long enough that those citizens on either end of this stretch would surely take notice. Then he heard what sounded like rocks hitting the carriage. One, two, three, and more.

“Bombs!” That was Samuel shouting. “Highness get out of the carr…”

There was an explosion and he was tossed about, pain shooting into him from the side and barely could he see that a part of the carriage had dissolved into splinters and destroyed pieces of wood. Then more explosions and more pain. There was a lot of red and white and he could not see out of his left eye, nor turn his face any longer. His right eye fought to stay open and he tried to lift his right arm for he had a Purdey in his hand. It didn’t move and he had no feeling on the left side of his body.

He also did not feel as if he was sitting in the carriage, though he vaguely remembered that he had been crouching. His head was at an angle and despite the pain, he could hear, though it was all mumbled noise. Others were shouting though it was hard to make out. Explosion. Bombs again.

Was help coming?

The pain was bad.

Should he speak. His eye now was closed.

He moaned. He knew that.

Just pain…

A Regency Era Timeline 1817 in progress

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorling Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1817:

Year

Month Day

Event



1817

Jan 17

Jose Francisco de San Martin led a revolutionary army from Argentina over Andes into Chile.



1817

Jan 25

Giocchino Rossini’s opera “La Cenerentola” premiered in Rome. It was based on the Cinderella story.



1817

January

January: The satirical radical journal Black Dwarf begins begins publication in London by Thomas Wooler. Within three months, he will be arrrested and charged with seditous libel. He is acquitted and will continue publishing Black Dwarf until 1824.



1817

Feb 2

John Glover, English chemist (sulphuric acid), was born.



1817

Feb 8

Richard Stoddert Ewell (d.1872(), Lt Gen (Confederate Army), was born.



1817

Feb 12

Argentina’s Jose de San Martin, having led a revolutionary army over the Andes into Chile, helped defeat the Spanish forces at Chacabuco. The royalists lost 500 men in the battle and another 600 were taken prisoner.



1817

Feb 12

Under the leadership of Bernardo O‘Higgins, Chile gained its independence from Spain, when a combined Argentine and Chilean army defeated the Spaniards. O‘Higgins went on to become head of state on February 17, supported by the army but not favored by the oligarchy because he sought abolition of their privileges. Once the threat from Spain was eliminated from the region, opposition to O‘Higgins mounted. General unrest and a poor harvest combined to force O‘Higgins to abdicate his position in 1823. The official proclamation was made on Feb 12, 1818.



1817

Feb 14

Frederick Douglass (d.1895), “The Great Emancipator,” was born in Maryland as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. He was the son of a slave and a white father who bought his own freedom and published “The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass” (1845) a memoir of his life as a slave. “The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.”



1817

Feb 17

A street in Baltimore became the first to be lighted with gas from America’s first gas company.



1817

Feb 18

Lewis Addison Armistead (d.1863), Brig General (Confederate Army), was born. He died leading “Pickett’s Charge” on the final day of the Gettysburg battle.



1817

Feb 18

Walter Paye Lane (d.1892), Brig General (Confederate Army), was born.



1817

Feb 19

William III, King of the Netherlands, was born.



1817

Mar 2

The 1st US Evangelical church building was dedicated in New Berlin, PA.



1817

Mar 3

Mississippi Territory was divided into Alabama Territory and Mississippi.



1817

Mar 3

The first commercial steamboat route from Louisville to New Orleans was opened.



1817

Mar 22

Braxton Bragg (d.1876), Gen (Confederate Army), was born.



1817

Mar 25

Tsar Alexander I recommended the formation of Society of Israeli Christians.



1817

March

March: James Monroe becomes fifth President of the United States.



1817

March

March: Parliament passes the Coercion Acts against seditious meetings, primarily to suppress civil disturbances such as 1816′s Spa Fields Riots and the various activities of the Luddites. Among other things, they temporarily suspense habeas corpus.



1817

Apr 15

The first American school for the deaf opened in Hartford, Conn.



1817

Apr 17

1st US school for deaf  was founded in Hartford, Conn.



1817

Apr 18

George Henry Lewes, philosophical writer, was born.



1817

April

April: The first edition of Blackwood’s Magazine is published, as a conservative rival to the Whig quarterly Edinburgh Review..



1817

April

April: The infamous imposter, Princess Caraboo, makes her first appearance in England.



1817

June

June: Actor John Philip Kemble makes his last appearance on the London stage in the role of Coriolanus at Covent Garden.



1817

18-Jul

On July 18, Jane Austen dies.



1817

Jul 1

Dewitt Clinton (1769-1828) began serving his first term as governor of New York and continued to 1822.



1817

Jul 12

Henry David Thoreau (d.1862), essayist, naturalist and poet, was born in Concord, Mass. His work included “On Walden Pond.” He referred to the three Greek goddesses of fate: Clotho (spinner of the thread of destiny), Lachesis (disposer of lots) and especially Atropos (who holds the scissors that will cut endeavor short). “We have constructed a fate, an Atropos, that never turns aside.” He was also the author of the essays “Civil Disobedience and Slavery in Massachusetts.”



1817

Jul 14

Madame de Stael (51), writer and daughter of former French finance minister Jacques Necker, died. She was intimate with Benjamin Constant and their intellectual collaboration made them one of the most important intellectual pairs of their time. In 2005 Maria Fairweather authored “Madame de Stael.” In 2008 Renee Winegarten authored the dual biography “Germaine de Stael & Benjamin Constant.”



1817

Jul 18

Jane Austen (b.1775), English writer, died at age 41. In 1869 her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published “A Memoir of Jane Austen.”



1817

July

July: Author Jane Austen dies at age 41.



1817

Aug 18

Gloucester, Mass., newspapers told of a wild sea serpent seen offshore.



1817

Aug 24

Aleksei K. Tolstoy, [Kozjma Prutkov], Russian poet, writer, was born.



1817

Sep 21

Carter Littlepage Stevenson, Major General (Confederate Army), was born.



1817

Sep 23

Leon Charles Francois Kreutzer, composer, was born.



1817

Oct 13

William Kirby, Canadian writer, was born.



1817

Oct 15

Tadeusz AB Kosciusko (b.1746), Polish Lt-Gen. and American Revolution freedom fighter, died.



1817

Oct 19

Tom Taylor, British playwright, was born. His play “Our American Cousin” was being performed at Ford’s Theater when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Boothe.



1817

Oct 20

The 1st Mississippi “Showboat,” left Nashville on maiden voyage.



1817

Oct

Pres. and Mrs. James Monroe moved back into the restored White House.



1817

6-Nov

On November 6, Princess Charlotte, then heir to the throne of England, dies with her stillborn son after a painful labor. The nation mourns.



1817

Nov 8

Andrea Appiana (63), Italian royal painter of Napoleon, died.



1817

Nov 9

Edward Richard Sprigg Canby, Major General (Union volunteers), was born.



1817

Nov 10

The Tennessee legislature enacted laws that defined the common boundary with Georgia and created a boundary commission to jointly survey and mark the state border.



1817

Nov 12

Mirza Hoseyn ‘Ali Nuri (Baha’ Ullah), founder of the Baha’i faith, was born.



1817

Nov 20

1st Seminole War began in Florida. [see Nov 27]



1817

Nov 21

Richard Brooke Garnett (d1863), Brig General (Confederate Army), was born. He died at Gettysburg.



1817

Nov 22

Fredric Cailliaud discovered the old Roman emerald mines at Sikait, Egypt.



1817

Nov 27

US soldiers attacked a Florida Indian village and began the Seminole War. [see Nov 20]



1817

Nov

William Wirt was selected as the attorney general. He served for 11 years and 3 months.



1817

November

November: Princess Charlotte dies giving birth to a stillborn son.



1817

November

November: Rossini premiers his opera La Cenerentola (Cinderella) in Rome.



1817

Dec 7

William Bligh (63), British naval officer of “Bounty” infamy, died.



1817

Dec 10

Mississippi was admitted as the 20th state of the Union.



1817

Dec 16

The Georgia legislature enacted laws that defined the common boundary with Tennessee and created a boundary commission to jointly survey and mark the state border.



1817

Dec 28

Benjamin Robert Haydon (d.1846), British painter, threw a dinner party in London to show his nearly completed painting “Christ’s Entry Into Jerusalem” and to introduce poet John Keats to William Wordsworth. Other guests included essayist Charles Lamb. In 2002 Penelope Hughes-Hallett authored “The Immortal Dinner.”



1817

Dec

The book “Northanger Abbey,” by English novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817), was published following her death in July. It was written around 1798-1799 and revised in 1803.



1817



A third Anglo-Maratha War begins as the British governor general Lord Hastings sends troops into Maratha territory while conducting operations against Pindari robber bands.



1817



Colombian patriot La Pola is executed at age 22 by the Spanish firing squad in mid November at Santa Fe. She had been active in the cause of independence for her country, New Granada, since the age of 15.



1817



Dr. William Kitchiner publishes his cookbook Apicius Redivivus, or the Cook’s Oracle.



1817



Jane Austen dies.



1817



John Keats publishes Poems.



1817



Maria Edgeworth publishes Ormond.



1817



Mexican patriot Gertrudis Bocanegra is tried and sentenced by the Spaniards, then executed on October 10 at the age of 52. Her husband was killed in battle and she had been sent to obtain military information and persuade royalist troops to come over to the rebel side. She was imprisoned when caught, along with her daughters.



1817



Napoleon writes on January 9 to Gaspard Gourgaud, “Nature intended women to be our slaves…They are our property, we are not theirs…They belong to us, just as a tree which bears fruit belongs to the gardener. What a mad idea to demand equality for women!…Women are nothing but machines for producing children.”



1817



Samuel Taylor Coleridge publishes Biographia Literaria.



1817



The Bank of New South Wales opens.



1817



The British secretary for Ireland Robert Peel establishes a regular constabulary for Ireland. The Irish will call the constables “Peelers.”



1817



The Dulwich College Picture Gallery opens to the public in the London borough of Southwark. Designed by architect John Soane, it is the world’s first public art gallery.



1817



The Essay on the Principles of Population by Englishman Thomas Malthus is republished, which rejects any form of artificial birth control and states that the misery of overpopulation is necessary to stimulate industry and discourage indolence.



1817



The Royal Mint replaces the gold guinea with a new gold sovereign coin.



1817



Walter Scott’s Rob Roy is published.



1817



Waterloo Bridges, built by Scottish civil engineer John Rennie, opens.



1817



Antonin Carême creates a spectacular feast for the Prince Regent at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. The death of Princess Charlotte from complications of childbirth changes obstetrical practices. Elgin Marbles shown at the British Museum. Captain Bligh dies.



1817



Bolivar and a small force return to Venezuela and establish a base inland in the rain forest along the Orinoco River.



1817



In Britain, real wages have been declining at least since the late 1790s, as Britain has been burdened by war against France. From this year on and into the next century real wages in Britain will be rising. 



1817



The British sign a Maratha kingdom, Nagpur, into its system of alliances. Those opposed sack and burn the British residence at Poona (Pune). 27,000 attack a British force of 2,800 a few miles north of Poona — the beginning of the Third Anglo-Maratha War.



1817



Francis Beaufort (1774-1857), Irish-born hydrogapher, authored a best-selling travel book about the southern coast of Turkey.



1817



John Bradbury, Scottish naturalist, authored “Travels in the Interior of America in the Years 1809, 1810 and 1811.”



1817



William Hazlitt, the finest of the romantic critics, published “Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays.”



1817



Dr. William Kitchiner authored his cookbook “Apicius Redivivus, or the Cook’s Oracle.” It included 11 ketchup recipes, including 2 each for mushroom, walnut and tomato ketchups, and one each for cucumber, oyster and cockles and mussels ketchups.



1817



Thomas Love Peacock, a friend and neighbor of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, authored his comic novel “Melincourt.” A character in the novel was based on Shelley.



1817



David Ricardo published “Principles of Political Economy and Taxation.” In this he argued for the labor theory of value. Ricardo here explained why the best farmland often makes money for the landlord, not the farmer.



1817



The multi-volume “Flora Brasiliensis” was commissioned by Maximilian I of Austria. The definitive volume on Brazilian botany was completed in 1906.



1817



 Work began on the Erie Canal, more properly named the New York State Barge Canal. The canal connected Lake Erie with the Hudson and opened on October 26, 1825. The canal was proposed by NY Gov. Dewitt Clinton and detractors called it “Clinton’s Folly.” Workers were paid a quart of whiskey a day plus $1. [see 1826]



1817



The Univ. of Michigan was founded by a Presbyterian minister, John Monteith, and a Catholic priest, Gabriel Richard and Judge Gus Woodward. The Univ. of Michigan was established by a Michigan Public Act under a Board of Regents.



1817



Tuscumbia, Alabama was founded by the US government.



1817



The New York Stock and Exchange Board (NYSE) was formalized and established its first quarters in a rented room at 40 Wall St.



1817



Frederick Eberle was tried for illegally conspiring to prevent the introduction of the English language into German Lutheran church services in Philadelphia.



1817



Britain banned private coins. They had been issued to address a major shortage of government coinage. From 1787 to 1797 and again from 1811 to 1818, the greater part of Great Britain’s stock of coins came not from the Royal Mint in London but from a score of private mints in Birmingham.



1817



The Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City was completed.



1817



In Egypt Giovanni Battista Belzoni discovered the tomb of Seti I.



1817



Baron Karl de Drais de Sauerbrun of Germany invented the draisienne, the first 2-wheeled, rider-propelled machine and exhibited it in Paris in 1818. The vehicle came to be known as the “velocipede,” a 2-wheeled running machine without pedals.



1817



Pedro Moreno and Victor Rosales died fighting Spain in western Mexico. Their bodies were among 14 later placed in urns as hero’s of Mexico’s 1810-1821 independence movement. In 1925 urns holding the remains were sealed in crypts at the Independence monument. Others in the urns included Miguel Hidalgo and Ignacio Allende.



1817



The Dutch and French agreed on a final pact to divide the control of St. Martin Island. The southern Dutch half comprises the Eilandgebied Sint Maarten (Island Territory of St. Maarten) and is part of the Netherlands Antilles. The northern French half comprises the Collectivité de Saint-Martin (Collectivity of St. Martin) and is an overseas collectivity of France.



1817



Spain formally accepted the principle to abolish slavery.



1817-1819



Titian Ramsey Peale was curator at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia; and again from 1825-1931. He helped amass one of the largest and earliest systematic collections of insects in the US. He invented special book boxes for mounting moths and butterflies between sheets of glass.



1817-1924



Pierre Joseph Redoute printed “Les Roses.”



1817-1825



James Monroe became the 5th President of the US. [see 1758-1831, Monroe]

A Regency Era Timeline 1816 in progress

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorling Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1816:

Year

Month Day

Event



1816

Jan 12

France decreed the Bonaparte family to be excluded from the country forever.



1816

January

January: Lord Byron’s wife leaves him, taking their infant daughter Ada with her.



1816

January

January: Napoleon’s carriage, captured at Waterloo, is displayed at Bullock’s Museum in London.



1816

Feb 5

Gioachino Rossini’s Opera “Barber of Seville” premiered in Rome.



1816

Feb 13-14

Teatro San Carlo in Naples was destroyed by fire.



1816

February

February: Rossini debuts “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” (“The Barber of Seville”) in Rome where it is badly received with much hissing and booing from the audience. The second performance was a rousing success.



1816

Mar 6

Jews were expelled from Free city of Lubeck, Germany.



1816

Mar 20

the U.S. Supreme Court, in Martin vs. Hunter’s Lessee, affirmed its right to review state court decisions.



1816

Mar 31

Francis Asbury (b.1745), English-born US itinerant Methodist minister, died in Virginia.



1816

Apr 21

Charlotte Bronte (d.1855), English novelist, writer of “Vilette” and “Jane Eyre,” was born in Thornton, England. “Better to be without logic than without feeling.” In 1999 Brian Wilks published “Charlotte in Love: The Courtship and Marriage of Charlotte Bronte.”



1816

May 12

Lord Grimthorpe was born. He was the designer of “Big Ben,” the most recognized structure in London.



1816

May 24

Emanuel Leutze, US painter, was born. His work included  “Washington Crossing the Delaware” (1851).



1816

May

May: England’s Princess Charlotte marries Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.



1816

May

May: George “Beau” Brummell leaves England to escape his creditors, never to return.



1816

May

May: In the wake of rumors of marital violence, sodomy, incest, and adultery, Lord Byron leaves England, never to return.



1816

Jun 6

There was a 10″ snowfall in New England in this “year without a summer”. The oceanographer Henry Stommel and his wife Elizabeth described this year in their (1983) book “Volcano Weather: The Story of 1816, The year Without a Summer.” The 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora lofted a cloud of ash that turned this summer into a virtual winter with snow in Europe and New England.



1816

June

June: Luddites make well-organized efforts to smash machinery in riots at several industrial centers in England.



1816

Jul 3

Dorothea Jordan (65), French actress, mistress (William IV), died.



1816

Jul 6

Philipp Meissner (67), composer, died.



1816

Jul 9

Argentina declared independence from Spain. Argentina assumed that the Malvina Islands were included.



1816

Jul 11

Gas Light Co. of Baltimore was founded.



1816

Jul 21

Paul Julius Baron von Reuter (d.1899), founder of the British news agency bearing his name, was born in Hesse, Germany, as Israel Beer Josaphat.



1816

Jul 27

US troops destroyed the Seminole Fort Apalachicola, to punish the Indians for harboring runaway slaves.



1816

Jul 31

George Henry Thomas (d.1870), Union general in the Civil War whose bravery at the battle of Chickamauga earned him the nickname “the Rock of Chickamauga,” was born.



1816

July

July: Argentina declares independence from Spain.



1816

July

July: Playwright and stateman Richard Brinsley Sheridan dies at age 64 .



1816

July

July:Dorothea Jordan, actress and long-time mistress to the Duke of Clarence (future King William IV), dies at age 54.



1816

Aug 14

Great Britain annexed Tristan da Cunha.



1816

Aug 24

Daniel Gooch, laid 1st successful transatlantic cables, was born.



1816

Aug 27

Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, a noble from Devon, England, bombed Algiers, a refuge for Barbary pirates. He flew the green, white and black flag of St. Petroc. In 1836 the battle was pictured in a painting by George Chambers, Senior. Pellew was subsequently named Lord Exmouth.



1816

August

August: Britain returns Java to the Netherlands.



1816

Sep 5

Louis XVIII of France dissolved the chamber of deputies, which had been challenging his authority.



1816

Sep 12

Russian agents commenced construction of a Western-style fortress commanding Waimea Bay on the island of Kauai, named Fort Elizabeth after the Russian czarina. Before the fort was completed, Hawaiian King Kamehameha acted to force the Russians out. The Hawaiians finished construction of the fort and renamed it Fort Hipo.



1816

Oct 7

The 1st double decked steamboat, Washington, arrived in New Orleans.



1816

Nov 3

Jubal Anderson Early (d.1891), Lt. General (Confederate Army), was born.



1816

November-December

November-December: Mass meetings organized by radical Spenceans (named after radical Thomas Spence) descend into the Spa Fields Riots.



1816

Dec 2

The first savings bank in the United States, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, opened for business.



1816

Dec 4

James Monroe of Virginia was elected the fifth president of the United States. He defeated Federalist Rufus King.



1816

Dec 10

The estranged wife of poet Percy Shelley committed suicide by drowning in London’s Hyde Park. 20 days later Percy married Mary Godwin, author of “Frankenstein” (1818).



1816

Dec 11

Indiana became the 19th state.



1816

Dec 13

E. Werner von Siemens, German artillery officer and inventor, was born.



1816

Dec 13

Patent for a dry dock was issued to John Adamson in Boston.



1816

Dec

Henry “Orator” Hunt made a speech in Spa fields in East London which was disrupted by a group of revolutionaries who murdered a gunsmith plundered his shop. They then set off for London, but the insurrection was quickly put down.



1816

December

December: Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley marries Mary Godwin (daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin), shortly after his first wife commits suicide by drowning in the Serpentine.



1816



A gold medal is awarded to French mathematician Sophie Germain, 40, by the Académie Française; she was previously denied the award twice before because of her sex. She is the first woman ever invited to attend sessions at the prestigious Institut de Paris.



1816



Caroline, Princess of Wales, is now traveling through Greece, Ephesus, and Jerusalem while the Prince Regent is at home enjoying his mistresses.



1816



Cold weather persists throughout the summer of 1816 in much of the world’s temperate zones creating the “year without a summer,” especially in North Amerca. The unusual climate is likely due to a major volcanic eruption in Indonesia, and inspires Lord Byron’s poem “Darkness.”



1816



Emma is published by Jane Austen.



1816



Jane Austen’s Emma is published.



1816



Joanne Bethune, a schoolteacher in New York, founds The Female Union Society for the Promotion of Sabbath-Schools.



1816



Lady Caroline Lamb publishes the novel Glenarvon anonymously.



1816



Lord Byron publishes several important poems this year, including “The Siege of Corinth,” “The Prisoner of Chillon,” and “Prometheus.”



1816



Percy Bysshe Shelley writes Hymn To Intellectual Beauty.



1816



Poet Thomas Love Peacock publishes his first novel Headlong Hall.



1816



Samuel Taylor Coleridge publishes the poem “Kubla Khan” (though he claims to have first written it in 1797).



1816



The British Museum purchases the Elgin marbles for £35,000 and they become a permanent display.



1816



The governor of New South Wales, Lachian Macquarie, grants to Elizabeth Macarthur and her husband John, 600 acres near Camden as recognition of her work toward improvement of agriculture in the Australian colony.



1816



The income tax is abolished in Britain (it will be reintroduced in 1842).



1816



Year Without a Summer: Unusually cold conditions wreak havoc throughout the Northern Hemisphere, likely caused by the 1815 explosion of Mount Tambora.



1816



Income tax abolished. A “year without a summer” follows a volcanic eruption in Indonesia. Mary Shelley writes Frankenstein. William Cobbett publishes his newspaper as a pamphlet. The British return Indonesia to the Dutch. Regent’s Canal, London, phase one of construction. Beau Brummell escapes his creditors by fleeing to France.



1816



George “Beau” Brummell, the man who had once decreed the aristocracy’s fashions, flees England to escape creditors.



1816



No longer society’s darling, Lord Byron also leaves England never to return alive.



1816



In France, the income of working people in terms of what it buys (real wages) begins a four-decade decline. 



1816



Because of the Tambora eruption, 1816 will be known with the year without a summer.” Amid the gloom in Britain, Mary Shelley writes a scary story: “Frankenstein.”



1816



The British return to the Dutch their empire in Indonesia.



1816



Spain’s military drives Simón Bolivar from New Grenada. Bolivar flees to Jamaica and then to Haiti.



1816



Jacques Louis David (1748-1825) painted the portrait: “Comte Henri-Amedee de Turenne”.



1816



Caspar David Friedrich, German romantic artist, painted “View of a Harbor.” It was soon purchased by Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia as a birthday present for the crown prince.



1816



William Smith published his “Strata identified by Organized Fossils.”



1816



William Cullen Bryant, James Fennimore Cooper, and Washington Irving were popular writers of this period.



1816



Robert Adams, the 1st Westerner to reach Timbuktu, transcribed an account of his experiences there as an enslaved American sailor.



1816



Jane Austin completed her last novel, “Persuasion.” In 1995 it was made into a film by a British company.



1816



Gioachino Rossini composed his opera “Otello.”



1816



The American Bible Society was founded. The first president was Elias Boudinot. He was succeeded by his vice president John Jay. In 1998 its library had 53,000 copies of the Bible in over 2,000 languages and dialects.



1816



Elijah Goodridge of Newbury, Massachusetts, was tried for committing robbery on his own person and then having Ebenezer Pearson arrested for the crime.



1816



The US passed the first tariff to protect its industries.



1816



The Second Bank of the US was chartered. It over-lent wildly and then called in its money sparking financial panic. Pres. Jackson ended its special status in 1836.



1816



Indiana was admitted to the Union.



1816



Pittsburgh was incorporated on the site of old Fort Pitt.



1816



Medical records from upstate NY showed that a patient paid 25 cents to have a tooth pulled and $1.25 to have a baby.



1816



Henry Hall, a Cape Cod farmer, discovered that sand spread over wild cranberry plants induced good growth.



1816



The California poppy was correctly described and named by Adelbert von Chamisso, a native Frenchmen driven to Germany by the revolution. He was appointed naturalist with the Russian scientific and trapping voyage of Kotzebue and developed an intimate relationship with the ship’s surgeon, Dr. Johann Frederich Eschscholtz, for whom he named the San Francisco poppy, Eschscholzia californica. [see 1792,1794, 1825-1833]



1816



Gouverneur Morris (b.1752), chief writer of the US Constitution (1787), died at Morrisania, NY. In 2003 Richard Brookhiser authored “Gentleman Revolutionary,” a biography of Morris.



1816



In London, England, William Cobbett brought out twopenny version of his Weekly Political Register on a single sheet of paper to avoid the stamp duty.



1816



Robert Stirling, British clergyman, proposed a sealed heated air engine to compete with the ubiquitous steam engine. His Stirling engine converted heat into mechanical energy by compressing and expanding a fixed quantity of gas.



1816



Beau Brummell, English dandy, first sought obscurity to escape his creditors.



1816



Lord Byron (George Gordon), English romantic poet, separated from his wife Annabella (d.1860) following an incestuous relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh (d.1851). In 2002 David Crane authored “The Kindness of Sisters: Annabella Milbanke and the Destruction of the Byrons.”



1816



Lord Byron and guests gathered at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva, Switz. It was here that Byron challenged his guests to write a ghost story. This led Mary Shelley to produce Frankenstein in 1818 and John Polidori to create his short story “The Vampyre” (1819).



1816



Lord Elgin sold his Parthenon sculptures to the British government for 35,000 pounds. A request in 1811 for 62,400 pounds had been rejected. Elgin later fled to France to avoid his creditors.



1816



Two British naval ships under Captain Basil Hall landed at Okinawa, in the Ryukyu archipelago, which was then known as Loo-Choo. In 1818 Hall published an account of his voyage: “Account of a Voyage of Discovery to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island.”



1816



General A.P.Yermolov served as Commander of the Russian army in the Caucasus. Military pressure intensifies as Russian troops continue to advance deep into Chechnya. Chechnya responded by stepping up its resistance movement, which, for more than 30 years, was headed by Beibulat Teimiev.



1816



In France Dr. Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec invented the stethoscope.



1816



In France  Joseph N. Niepce developed the first photographic negative. His earliest recorded image, an 1825 print of a man leading a horse, sold for $443,220 in 2002.



1816



In Germany Johann Maelzel patented the metronome a couple of years after it was drawn up by Dutch inventor Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel.



1816



Saartjie Baartman (26), taken from S. Africa in 1810, fell sick and died penniless and friendless in France after being exhibited as the “Hottentot Venus.” Her body was dissected, her brain and genitals were bottled, and her skeleton was wired and exhibited in the Musee de l’Homme in Paris. In 2002 her remains were returned to S. Africa. In 2003 Barbara Chase-Ribaud authored the novel “Hottentot Venus” based on the Baartman story. In 2007 Rachel Holmes authored “African Queen: The Real Life of the Hottentot Venus.”



1816



Mohammed Ali Pasha, Ottoman ruler over Egypt, sent Fredric Cailliaud, a French goldsmith and mineralogist, to find the Roman emerald mines of southeastern Egypt.



1816-1841



Ellen Sturgis Hooper, American poet: “I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty; I woke, and found that life was Duty.”



1816-1865



C.J. Thomsen, curator during these years of the Museum of Northern Antiquities (later the Danish National Museum), formulates the three age system, from stone to bronze to iron. He was probably helped in his ideas by the work of Goguet.



1816-1876



Saunders Cushman, American actress: “To me it seems as if when God conceived the world, that was Poetry; He formed it, and that was Sculpture; He colored it, and that was Painting; He peopled it with living beings, and that was the grand, divine, eternal Drama.”

A Regency Era Timeline 1815 in progress

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorling Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1815:

Year

Month Day

Event



1815

Jan 5

Federalists from all over New England, angered over the War of 1812, drew up the Hartford Convention, demanding several important changes in the U.S. Constitution.



1815

Jan 8

US forces led by Gen. Andrew Jackson and French pirate Jean Lafitte led some 3,100 backwoodsmen to victory against 7,500 British veterans at Chalmette in the Battle of New Orleans in the closing engagement of the War of 1812. A British army marched on New Orleans without knowing that the War of 1812 had ended on Christmas Eve of 1814. A massacre ensued, as 2,044 British troops, including three generals, fell dead, wounded or missing before General Andrew Jackson’s well-prepared earthworks, compared with only 71 American casualties. Among the British victims were Gen. Sir Edward Pakenham and the Highlanders of the 93rd Regiment of Foot. In 2000 Robert V. Remini published “The Battle of New Orleans.”



1815

Jan 11

Sir John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, was born in Glasgow, Scotland.



1815

Jan 21

Horace Wells (d.1845), dentist, was born. He pioneered the use of medical anesthesia and was the 1st to use nitrous oxide as a pain killer.



1815

Jan 30

The burned Library of Congress was reestablished with Jefferson’s 6,500 volumes.



1815

January

January: Andrew Jackson defeats British troops in the Battle of New Orleans. The Treaty of Ghent had been signed on December 24, 1814, but news of the peace does not reach New Orleans until February.



1815

January

January: Emma, Lady Hamilton, famous mistress of Lord Nelson, dies in Calais where she had fled to escape her creditors.



1815

January

January: Lord Byron marries Anne Isabella Milbanke.  



1815

Feb 3

World’s 1st commercial cheese factory was established, in Switzerland.



1815

Feb 6

The state of New Jersey issued the first American railroad charter to John Stevens, who proposed a rail link between Trenton and New Brunswick. The line, however, was never built.



1815

Feb 11

News of the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, finally reached the United States.



1815

Feb 24

Robert Fulton (b.1765), steamboat pioneer, died at age 49. In 2001 Kirkpatrick Sale authored the biography: “The Fire of His Genius.”



1815

Feb 25

Napoleon left his exile on the Island of Elba, intending to return to France.



1815

Feb 26

Napoleon, escaped from the Island of Elba, and 1,200 of his men started the 100-day re-conquest of France.



1815

Feb

Congress appropriated funds for the restoration of the White House and hired James Hoban, the original designer and builder, to do the work.



1815

February

February: Napoleon escapes from Elba.



1815

7-Mar

On March 7, having escaped Elba, Napoleon lands in France and heads for Paris, growing an army as he goes.



1815

Mar 1

In France, returning from Elba, Napoleon landed at Cannes with a force of 1, 500 men and marched on Paris.



1815

Mar 1

Sunday observance in Netherlands was regulated by law.



1815

Mar 2

To put an end to robberies by the Barbary pirates, the United States declared war on Algiers.



1815

Mar 5

Friedrich (Franz) Anton Mesmer (b.1734), German physician who pioneered the medical field of hypnotic therapy, died in obscurity in Meersburg, Swabia (now Germany). He was suspected of having seduced a pretty pianist while attempting to cure her blindness through hypnosis.



1815

Mar 20

Napoleon Bonaparte entered Paris, beginning his “Hundred Days” rule. He had escaped from his imprisonment on the island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany. He gathered his veterans and marched on Paris. At Waterloo, Belgium, he met the Duke of Wellington, commander of the allied anti-French forces and was resoundingly defeated. Napoleon was then imprisoned on the island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic. In 1997 Gregor Dallas published: The Final Act: The Roads to Waterloo.” the book includes a good account of the Congress of Vienna.



1815

March

March: A new alliance mobilizes to oppose Napoleon’s renewed threat to peace. Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Britain raise a combined force of one million men,



1815

March

March: Napoleon raises an army and marches into Paris where he takes over the government again for a period known as The Hundred Days.



1815

Apr 1

Otto von Bismarck (d.1898), German statesman, was born. He founded the German Empire and was the chancellor of Germany, the Second Reich, from 1866-90 [1971-1990]. The Iron Chancellor created the modern social insurance state when he introduced transfer payments to appease worker insecurities. “History is simply a piece of paper covered with print; the main thing is still to make history, not to write it.” “Every man had his basic worth – from which must be subtracted his vanity.



1815

Apr 5

Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, in the Java Sea began erupting. [see Apr 10]



1815

Apr 6

At Dartmoor Prison in southwest England 7 American prisoners were killed by British soldiers under the command of Captain Thomas G. Shortland. Some 6,000 prisoners were awaiting return to the US. A farmer’s jury with no victims or witnesses issued a verdict on April 8 of “justifiable homicide.”



1815

Apr 10

A third of the 13,000 foot Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, was blasted into the air. Some 50,000 islanders were killed and the whole planet was shrouded in a debris of sulfuric droplets. In 2006 scientist reported finding traces of Tambora society.



1815

Apr 24

Anthony Trollope (d.1882), British novelist, was born. His 47 novels included “The American Senator.” His 33rd novel was “The Way We Live Now.” “Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion of himself.” An essay by Cynthia Ozick on the novel is in her 1996 book “Fame and Folly.”



1815

Apr 28

Andrew Jackson Smith (d.1897), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.



1815

Apr

British General Arthur Wellesley, duke of Wellington, began assembling troops at Brussels, Belgium. 73,000 British troops were joined by 33,000 German, Dutch and Belgian troops preparing to face Napoleon. Prussian Gen. Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher gathered an army of 120,000 southeast of Brussels.



1815

May 5

Eugene-Marin Labiche, French playwright, was born.



1815

May 29

Cornelis de Gijselaar (64), politician, patriot, died.



1815

18-Jun

On June 18, Wellington defeats Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.



1815

Jun 1

James Gillray (b.1757), British caricaturist and printmaker, died. He is famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810.



1815

Jun 8

The Congress of Vienna ended. Negotiations had begun in 1812 to rearrange Europe following the defeat of Napoleon. The final conclave began Nov 1, 1814. In 2007 Adam Zamoyski authored “Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna.”



1815

Jun 16

Napoleon defeated the Prussians at the Battle of Ligny, Belgium.



1815

Jun 16

A French attack at the crossroads called Quatre Bras badly mauled the British army, but failed to rout it or to take the crossroads. Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte had marched into Belgium to find himself confronted by two allied armies, which he tried to split apart. Although similarly battered at Ligny that day, the Prussian army also retired intact. Both armies would face Napoleon again two days later at Waterloo.



1815

Jun 17

A heavy rainstorm prevented French forces from catching up with Wellington’s army as they retreated to Waterloo.



1815

Jun 18

British and Prussian troops under the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and his forces at the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium. The French elite troops of the Imperial Guard wore bearskins to appear more intimidating. Afterwards Britain established towering bear skin hats for soldiers in ceremonial duties and to guard royal residencies and the Tower of London. Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher made a short speech to his troops saying that he was pregnant and about to give birth to an elephant. He was taken from the front in protective custody and missed the battle. Napoleon lost over 40,000 men at Waterloo; the British and Belgians lost 15,000; the Prussians lost 7,000. The total losses in 3 days of fighting was later estimated at 91,800. In 2002 Andrew Roberts authored “Napoleon and Wellington.” In 2005 Andrew Roberts authored “Waterloo: Napoleon’s Last Gamble.”



1815

Jun 22

Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated a second time.



1815

Jun 30

US naval hero Stephen Decatur signed a treaty ending attacks by Algerian pirates. Commodores Stephen Decatur and William Bainbridge had conducted successful operations against the Barbary States of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli  [See Aug 5].



1815

June

June: British caricaturist James Gillray dies at age 57.



1815

June

June: Despite Napoleon’s return to power, the Congress of Vienna has proceeded, and finalizes its last act nine days before Waterloo. The results of the Congress are too complex to list. Click here to read the Wikipedia entry that describes the Congress in detail.



1815

June

June: Final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. He again abdicates in favor of his son, but the Allies’ entry into Paris puts an end to the Bonaparte regime.



1815

June

June: London banker Nathan Mayer Rothschild receives carrier pigeon reports from Belgium advising him of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. Feigning gloom, he depresses the price of British consols by selling short, then has his agents buy them up at distress prices, and when news of Wellington’s victory sends prices sky-high, Rothschild sells, reaping a great fortune on the London Exchange



1815

Jul 7

After defeating Napoleon at Waterloo, the victorious Allies marched into Paris.



1815

Jul 8

With Napoleon defeated, Louis XVIII returned to Paris.



1815

Jul 9

The 1st US natural gas well was discovered.



1815

Jul 9

King Louis XVIII left Ghent for France.



1815

Jul 15

Napoleon Bonaparte was captured and exiled to St Helena. [see Jul 17]



1815

Jul 17

Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered to the British at Rochefort, France.



1815

July

July: The French Legislative Assemblies vote to restore Louis XVIII to the throne.



1815

July – December

July – December: Britain suffers economic depression as demand for military supplies abruptly ceases and as Continental markets are unable to absorb backlogged inventories of English manufactured goods. Prices fall, thousands are thrown out of work, and 400,000 demobilized troops add to the problems of unemployment.



1815

Aug 1

Richard Henry Dana (d.1882), US jurist, novelist, lawyer and sailor, was born. He wrote “Two Years Before the Mast.”



1815

Aug 5

A peace treaty with Tripoli, which followed treaties with Algeria (Jun 30) and Tunis (Aug 28), brought an end to the Barbary Wars. Commodores Stephen Decatur and William Bainbridge had conducted successful operations against the Barbary States of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli.



1815

Aug 8

Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, to spend the remainder of his days in exile.



1815

Aug

The merchant ship Commerce, under Capt. James Riley (1877-1939) of Connecticut, wrecked off the northwest coast of Africa. He survived captivity under Muslim slave traders and endured a lengthy trek across the Sahara. He later authored “Sufferings in Africa” (1817) and “An authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce” (1818). In 2004 Dean King authored “Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival.”



1815

Sep 8

Alexander Ramsey (d.1903), territorial governor of Minnesota (1849-1853), was born near Harrisburg, Pa.



1815

Sep 9

John Singleton Copley (b.1737), American artist, died in London.



1815

Sep 26

Russia, Prussia and Austria signed a Holy Alliance. “Justice, charity and peace” were to be the precepts that guided the Holy Alliance as envisioned by Czar Alexander I of Russia. The alliance of Russia, Austria and Prussia was formed after the downfall of Napoleon and later all European rulers signed the agreement except the prince regent of Great Britain, the pope and the sultan of Turkey. With no specific aims beyond mutual assistance, the provisions of the Holy Alliance were so vague that it had little effect on European diplomacy. Metternich quietly replaced the entire alliance by the purely political alliance of 20 November, 1815, between Austria, Prussia, Russia and England.



1815

Sep 28

Joachim Murat’s fleet sailed from Corsica to Naples.



1815

September

September: American painter John Singleton Copley dies at age 77.



1815

Oct 7

Marshal Ney, one of Napoleon’s most trusted field commanders, was condemned to death and shot for having left the services of the King.



1815

Oct 8

General Joachim Murat’s forces landed at Pizzo, Italy.



1815

Oct 13

Joachim Murat, marshal of France and King of Naples (1808-15), was executed.



1815

Oct 17

Napoleon (d.1821) arrived in St. Helena.



1815

Oct 22

Ascension Island was garrisoned by the British Admiralty. For administrative purposes it was treated as a ship, the HMS Ascension.



1815

Oct 29

Daniel Decatur Emmett, the composer of “Dixie,” which became the unofficial national anthem of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Organizer of one of the first minstrel shows, “Dixie” was written in 1859 as a concluding number, or “walk-around,” for a minstrel show. Emmett died on June 28, 1904.



1815

Oct 31

Sir Humphrey Davy of London patented miner’s safety lamp after being hired by the Society for Preventing Accidents in Coal Mines.



1815

October

October: Napoleon begins his final exile on the island of St. Helena.



1815

October

October: Sir Humphry Davy patents the miner’s safety lamp for use in coal mining.



1815

Nov 1

Crawford Williamson Long, surgeon and pioneer (use of ether), was born.



1815

Nov 2

George Boole (d.1864), English-Irish mathematician and logician (Boolean algebra), was born.



1815

Nov 3

Adrien Louis Victor Boieldieu, composer, was born.



1815

Nov 12

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a social reformer and militant feminist, was born in Johnstown, New York, and graduated from the Troy Female Seminary in 1832. She worked closely with Susan B. Anthony and served as president of the National Woman Suffrage Association. She died on October 26, 1902. She said, “The male element is a destructive force” in an address to the Women’s Suffrage Convention in Washington, D.C. in 1868.



1815

Nov 15

John Banvard, painter of the world’s largest painting (3 mile canvas), was born in NYC.



1815

Nov 20

The treaties known collectively as the 2nd Peace of Paris were concluded. Austria’s chancellor Klemens von Metternich helped create a “Concert of Europe,” a system by which 4-5 big powers kept miscreants in check and managed the affairs of smaller states for over a decade.



1815

Nov 25

Johann Peter Saloman (70), composer, died.



1815

Nov 27

Cracow, Poland, declared itself a free republic.



1815

Nov 28

Johann Peter Salomon (70), composer, died.



1815

November

November: A second Treaty of Paris signed, and is much harsher to France than the 1814 treaty. France is reduced to its 1790 boundaries, losing the territorial gains of the Revolutionary armies in 1790-92, which the previous treaty had allowed France to keep. It also requires France to support a 150,000-man Allied army of occupation.  



1815

Dec 10

Ada Lovelace (d. Nov 27, 1852), Lord Byron’s daughter and the inventor of computer language, was born. In 1998 the sci-fi film, “Conceiving Ada,” was directed by Lynn Hershman-Leeson.



1815

Dec 22

Spaniards executed Mexican revolutionary priest Jose Maria Morelos.



1815

Dec 31

George Gordon Meade (d.1872), Union general, was born. He defeated Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg.



1815



A Quadruple Alliance is formed to maintain the Congress System by Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia.



1815



France’s boundaries are restored back to their original 1790 dimensions with the Second Treaty of Paris.



1815



Humphrey Davy invents the miners’ safety lamp.



1815



In a final act of the The Congress of Vienna, the Austrian and Prussian monarchies are restored, the German Confederation replaces the Confederation of the Rhine, and Belgium and Holland formally unite to become the Kingdom of the Netherlands.



1815



Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm publish their second volume of Folk Tales for Children and the Home, adding 70 new fairy tales to the collection.



1815



Jane Porter publishes The Pastor’s Fireside.



1815



John McAdam’s new method for surfacing roads (a hard, durable process of crushed stone and gravel, similar to asphalt) is adopted by England. The new process came to be known as “macadamization” and roads were said to be “macadamized.”



1815



Lord Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty” is published in his collection Hebrew Melodies.



1815



Napoleon (The Little Corporal) escapes from Elba and marches on Paris, beginning the Hundred Days war.



1815



Napoleon is defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and exiled again, this time to the island of St. Helena.



1815



Percy Bysshe Shelley writes Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude.



1815



Portrait painter Thomas Lawrence is knighted by the Prince Regent.



1815



Russia, Austria and Prussia form the Holy Alliance.



1815



The Battle of Waterloo.



1815



The Corn Laws introduced import tariffs to support domestic grain prices against competition from less expensive foreign-grain imports, causing a significant increase in the price of grain (called “corn” in England).



1815



The English Corn Laws are enacted to restrict corn imports.



1815



The rebuilding of Brighton Pavilion by John Nash begins, replacing the neo-classical pavilion with a Mughal-inspired pleasure palace of minarets and onion domes.



1815



The Serbs revolt against Turkey in the Balkans, and their leader, Milosh Obrenovich is recognized as the Prince of Serbia by the Turks.



1815



Walter Scott publishes The Antiquary and Guy Mannering.



1815



Napoleon I of France defeated by the Seventh Coalition at the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon is exiled to St. Helena. The English Corn Laws restrict corn imports. Sir Humphry Davy patents the miners’ safety lamp. John Loudon Macadam’s road construction method adopted.



1815



Just before Easter, American David Tenant, Earl of Brentfield, finds himself in A Dangerous Dalliance with lovely artist Hannah Alexander.



1815



In the Indonesian Archepelgo, Mount Tamobra has been inactive for thousands of years, but on April 10 it begins a week of eruptions. Its debris in the stratosphere reduces sunlight. In the Northern Hemisphere in September there are days with no sunlight. Crops fail and livestock die in much of the Northern Hemisphere, creating the worst of 19th century famines.



1815



Napoleon returns to France in February. He inspires men to reach again for glory, and his final military defeat comes June 18th at the Battle of Waterloo. 



1815



Adolph Menzel (d.1905), German painter, was born. He combined elements of many styles and was considered the greatest artist in Germany at the time and was Prussia’s foremost historical artist. He was considered Germany’s French Impressionist.



1815



J.M.W. Turner made paintings in this summer renowned for their red skies. The coloration was due to the April 5 eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia.



1815



The novel “Emma,” by English writer Jane Austen (1774-1817), was published.



1815



Nathaniel Coverly Jr. and ghostwriter Nathaniel Hill Wright published a fictitious narrative of the adventures of Lucy Brewer, a “Female Marine” who disguised herself as a sailor and served as a marine in the War of 1812.



1815



John Roulstone of Sterling, Mass., penned the first 3 stanzas of the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb” after his classmate Mary Sawyer came to school followed by her pet lamb.



1815



William Smith (d.1839), British geologist, made the 1st geological map of England and became impoverished in the process. In 2001 Simon Winchester authored “The Map That Changed the World.”



1815



The San Francisco de Asis church de Taos, New Mexico, was completed and still operates today as a parish church. It is one of the 6 adobe missions scattered along the western shoulder of the Sangre de Cristo mountains between Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico.



1815



Mackinaw Island, Michigan, was permanently signed over to the US.



1815



Jose Francisco de San Martin, governor of Cuyo, Argentina, founded a militia and prepared for an attack on Spanish royalists in Chile.



1815



Austria’s chancellor Klemens von Metternich helped create a “Concert of Europe,” a system by which 4-5 big powers kept miscreants in check and managed the affairs of smaller states for over a decade.



1815



The city-state of Geneva, briefly the capital of the Kingdom of Burgundy, and then a republic, became part of the Confederation of Switzerland.



1815



The British Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, warned the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, that Czar Alexander must be watched and resisted just like Napoleon.



1815



Britain passed a law severely restricting grain imports from European neighbors. Austria retaliated with tariffs on wool and cotton. Sicily raised tariffs on textiles, Sweden raised tariffs on silk, wool, cotton, iron steel and copper. English manufacturers formed the anti-Corn-Law League to lobby against the measure.



1815



Britain took action against pirate sheikhs protected by the Wahabis, later rulers of Saudi Arabia, because ships of the East India Company were attacked in int’l. waters. Britain allied with the ruler of Muscat and Oman and Mohamed Ali of Egypt.



1815



The British took over Ceylon (Sri Lanka).



1815



British debt reached 745 million pounds.



1815



Following the wars with Napoleon John Barrow, 2nd secretary to the admiralty, directed the British Navy to a campaign of exploration. In 2000 Fergus Fleming authored “Barrow’s Boys,” an account of the expeditions he generated.



1815



Nepalese soldiers, later known as Gurkhas, began serving in the British military.



1815



The first German Burschenschaft (fraternity) was founded in Jena, Germany.



1815



Authorities in Milan issued an edict that forbade gambling in the back rooms of the opera houses including La Scala.



1815



Giovanni Battista Belzoni, Italian hydraulic engineer and vaudeville entertainer, arrived in Egypt and began to search for tombs of pharaohs.



1815



As part of the post-Napoleonic settlement at the Congress of Vienna, most of Lithuania was absorbed by Russia.



1815



Switzerland became officially neutral.



1815-1820



The current Mission Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara, Ca. was built around an earlier structure damaged by earthquake. It is the 10th of California’s 21 missions and is the only one with twin towers.



1815-1848



This period in US history was later covered in the book “Waking Giant: American in the Age of Jackson” (2008), by David S. Reynolds.



1815-1862



Edwin P. Christy, originator of the popular Negro minstrel shows.



1815-1864



Eliza Farnham, American reformer: “The ultimate aim of the human mind, in all its efforts, is to become acquainted with Truth.”

Regency Giveaway winner

Giveaway

Our winner was Ambre who came up with “A Trifling Disguised.”

For those who would like to get the prize for themselves, it is on sale at Amazon and will be available all across the internet and at bookstores after November 15th.

TWO PEAS IN A POD

TWO PEAS IN A POD

978-0-9829989-3-9

Love is something that can not be fostered by deceit even should one’s eyes betray one’s heart.

Two brothers that are so close in appearance that only a handful have ever been able to tell them apart. The Earl of Kent, Percival Francis Michael Coldwell is only older than his brother, Peregrine Maxim Frederick Coldwell by 17 minutes. They may have looked as each other, but that masked how they were truthfully quite opposite to one another.

For Percy, his personality was one that he was quite comfortable with and more than happy to let Perry be of a serious nature. At least until he met Veronica Hamilton, the daughter of Baron Hamilton of Leith. She was only interested in a man who was serious.

Once more, Peregrine is obliged to help his older brother by taking his place, that the Earl may woo the young lady who has captured his heart. That is, until there is one who captures Peregrine’s heart as well.

Even though it is released in .mobi for the Kindle, I of course have the ability to send it to you in all formats for your eReaders and computers.

How to have won

But to enter the contest I should like some interaction.

1) One favorite word from the Lexicon which you can see each separate letter here in the Blog by looking at previous days postings, or go to the entire lexicon at the Regency Assembly Press website, here (Regency Lexicon)

2) (Optional) Your name of course (if you are registered and signed into WordPress then I can click back to you if you are the winner, but if you are not,) and an email or some way to get you the prize!

3) (Optional) And if you are super proactive, what eBook format you would need should you be our winner!

4) (Really Optional) Regular followers of my Blog will know about Jane Austen and Ghosts, one of our other novels. As Jane deals with old B Horror Movie legends in Jane Austen and Ghosts, we would like the name of a B movie legend (and please let us try not to repeat since it will be fun to see how many we can come up with. So to start off, I will give one as an example, Boris Karloff)

A Regency Era Timeline 1814 in progress

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorling Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1814:

Year

Month Day

Event



1814

Jan 2

Lord Byron completed “The Corsair.”



1814

Jan 27

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (b.1762), German philosopher, died.



1814

January

January: Edmund Kean performs for the first time at Drury Lane, in the role of Shylock, and was an immediate success.



1814

January

January: Lord Byron publishes The Corsair, which sells 10,000 copies on the first day.



1814

January

January: Phillip Astley, proprieter of Astley’s Amphitheatre who is recognized as the “father of the modern circus,” dies at age 72.



1814

Feb 9

Samuel Jones Tilden, philanthropist, was born.



1814

Feb 10

Napoleon personally directed lightning strikes against enemy columns advancing toward Paris, beginning with a victory over the Russians at Champaubert. During the Napoleonic Wars a British naval officer proposed the use of saturation bombing and chemical warfare to undermine the strength of Emperor Napoleon.



1814

Feb 21

Nicolo Gabrielli, composer, was born.



1814

Feb 27

Ludwig von Beethoven’s 8th Symphony in F, premiered.



1814

Feb 27

Napoleon’s Marshal Nicholas Oudinot was pushed back at Barsur-Aube by the Emperor’s allied enemies shortly before his abdication.



1814

Feb

A man claiming to be an aide-de-camp to the armies fighting Napoleon landed in Dover and claimed that Cossacks had butchered Napoleon and that Paris had fallen. Stock prices soared and conspirators sold shares at a 15% profit before the fraud was unmasked.



1814

Febraury

Febraury: A Frost Fair on the Thames takes place when the river freezes. This will be the last frost fair ever, as milder climates and increased embanking make the river less likely to freeze.



1814

February

February: Beethoven premiers his Eighth Symphony (Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Opus 93) in Vienna.



1814

Mar 10

Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by a combined Allied Army at the battle of Laon, in France.



1814

Mar 27

General Jackson led U.S. soldiers who killed 700 Creek Indians at Horseshoe Bend, La. [in Northern Alabama] Jackson lost 49 men. In 2001 John Buchanon authored “Jackson’s Way” and Robert V. Remini authored “Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars.”



1814

Mar 29

In the Battle at Horseshoe Bend, Alabama, Andrew Jackson beat the Creek Indians. [see Mar 27]



1814

Mar 30

Britain and allies marched into Paris after defeating Napoleon.



1814

Mar 31

Forces allied against Napoleon captured Paris.



1814

March

March: The Allied armies of Russia and Prussia enter Paris.



1814

March

March: The Duchess of Oldenburgh, sister of the Tsar, enters London in great state. A grand banquet is held in her honor at Carlton House.



1814

Apr 2

Henry Lewis “Old Rock” Benning, Brig General in Confederate Army, was born.



1814

Apr 4

Napoleon Bonaparte first abdicated at Fontainebleau. He was allowed to keep the title of emperor. [see Apr 11]



1814

Apr 11

Napoleon Bonaparte (45) abdicated at Fontainebleau a 2nd time and was banished to the island of Elba, a small island in the Mediterranean, retaining the title of emperor and 400 volunteers to act as his guard. He was granted sovereignty over Elba and a pension from the French government. [see Apr 6]



1814

Apr 15

John Lothrop Motley, US historian, author (Rise of Dutch Rep), was born.



1814

Apr 20

Napoleon departed for exile in Elba.



1814

Apr 26

King Louis XVIII landed on Calais from England.



1814

Apr

The Duke of Wellington led 60,000 troops against 325,000 French troops at Toulouse and defeated them just days after Napoleon abdicated the throne.



1814

April

April: Napoleon abdicates in favor of his 2-year old son, Napoleon II, but the Allies refuse to accept him.



1814

April

April: The Battle of Toulouse is one of the final battles of the Napoleonic Wars, fought four days after Napoleon’s surrender of the French Empire to the Coalition nations. News of the wars’ end has yet to reach the south of France, and so thousands of British, Spanish, and Portuguese soldiers, under the command of Wellington, and French soldiers under Soult’s command, die in the battle unnecessarily.



1814

April

April: The Bourbon monarchy is restored in France under King Louis XVIII.



1814

April

In April, Napoleon is banished to Elba and an estimated 12,000 British civilians flock to Paris to play.



1814

May 4

Napoleon Bonaparte disembarked at Portoferraio on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.



1814

May 4

Bourbon reign was restored in France. Louis XVIII was crowned as successor to his guillotined brother.



1814

May 5

The British attacked Ft. Ontario, Oswego, New York.



1814

May 6

Wilhelm Ernst, violinist, composer, was born.



1814

May 6

George Joseph Vogler (64), composer, died.



1814

May 11

Americans defeated the British at Battle of Plattsburgh.



1814

May 12

Robert Treat Paine (83), US judge (signed Declaration of Ind), died.



1814

May 17

Norway’s constitution was signed, providing for a limited monarchy. Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden.



1814

May 29

Empress Josephine (1804-14), first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, died. She maintained grand roses at Malmaison, where there were an estimated 250 varieties.



1814

May 30

The First Treaty of Paris was declared, after Napoleon’s first abdication. It returned France to its 1792 borders and secured for the British definite possession of the Cape of Good Hope.



1814

May

May: Joséphine de Beauharnais, former wife of Napoleon and first empress of France, dies at age 50.



1814

May

May: Marquess of Wellington is made Duke of Wellington.



1814

May

May: The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the wars between France and the Coalition nations, restoring the 1792 border of France, and exiling Napoleon to the island of Elba.



1814

Jun 1

Philip Kearney, Union Civil War general, was born. He was killed at the Battle of Chantilly, Virginia.



1814

Jun 3

Nicolas Appert (b.1749), French cook, died. He was the winner of a 12,000 franc prize offered by Napoleon for developing a method to preserve food. His original canning method took 14 years to develop and used glass jars sealed with wax reinforced with wire.



1814

June

June: England’s Princess Charlotte, having come of age, is formally presented at Court.



1814

June

June: The Prince Regent, visiting dignitaries, and several generals from the late war review 12,000 troops in Hyde Park as part of the formal Proclamation of Peace.



1814

June

June: White’s Club sponsors a ball held at Burlington House to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon. Beau Brummell is one of the organizers. Nearly 4000 attendees include the visiting Tsar of Russia and the King of Prussia.



1814

Jul 5

US troops under Gen. Jacob Brown and Gen. Winfield Scott defeated a superior British force under Maj. Gen. Phineas Riall near the Niagara River at Chippewa, Canada. British casualties exceeded 500 compared to some 300 Americans.



1814

Jul 7

Sir Walter Scott’s (1771-1832) novel “Waverly” was published anonymously so as not to damage his reputation as a poet.



1814

Jul 18

The British captured Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.



1814

Jul 19

Samuel Colt, inventor of the first practical revolver, was born.



1814

Jul 22

Five Indian tribes in Ohio made peace with the United States and declared war on Britain.



1814

Jul 25

British and American forces fought each other to a stand off at Lundy’s Lane (Niagara Falls), Canada, in some of the fiercest fighting in the War of 1812.



1814

July

July: Walter Scott’s Waverly is published anonymously. (He thought the romantic novel might harm his reputation as a poet.)



1814

Aug 7

Pope Pius VII reinstated the Jesuits.



1814

Aug 9

Andrew Jackson and the Creek Indians signed the Treaty of Fort Jackson, giving the whites 23 million acres of Mississippi Creek territory. This ended Indian resistance in the region and opened the doors to pioneers after the conclusion of the War of 1812.



1814

Aug 10

John Clifford Pemberton (d.1881), Lt Gen (Confederate Army), was born.



1814

Aug 13

Treaty of London-Netherland was signed to stop the transport of slaves. By agreement Britain paid the Dutch £6 million in compensation for the Cape of Good Hope. [see May 30]



1814

Aug 14

British marines landed near the mouth of the Patuxent River in Maryland and began marching overland to attack Washington, DC.



1814

Aug 24

5,000 British troops under the command of General Robert Ross marched into Washington, D.C., after defeating an American force at Bladensburg, Maryland. It was in retaliation for the American burning of the parliament building in York (Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. Meeting no resistance from the disorganized American forces, the British burned the White House, the Capitol and almost every public building in the city before a downpour extinguished the fires. President James Madison and his wife fled from the advancing enemy, but not before Dolly Madison saved the famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. This wood engraving of Washington in flames was printed in London weeks after the event to celebrate the British victory.



1814

Aug 24

The US Capitol and White House in Washington D.C. were burned and sacked by British General Robert Ross and Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn. This made Congress realize the need for quick transportation and sparked the digging of the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal.



1814

Aug 25

British forces destroyed the Library of Congress, containing some 3,000 books.



1814

Aug

After the British burned the White House in 1814, President James Madison lived in the nearby Octagon—so named because of its unique eight-sided shape—until the end of his term.



1814

August

August: A public celebration of the peace is held in London, including a reenactment of the Battle of the Nile on the Serpentine in Hyde Park, the transformation and illumination of the Temple of Concorde in Green Park, balloon assents, and fireworks.



1814

August

August: Princess Caroline, estranged wife of the Prince of Wales, leaves England.



1814

August

August: The “Burning of Washington” by British forces destroys most government buildings, including the White House.



1814

Sep 11

An American fleet led by Thomas Macdonough scored a decisive victory over the British in the Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812.



1814

Sep 12

A British fleet under Sir Alexander Cochrane began the bombardment of Fort McHenry, the last American defense before Baltimore. Lawyer Francis Scott Key had approached the British attackers seeking the release of a friend who was being held for unfriendly acts toward the British. Key himself was detained overnight on September 13 and witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry from a guarded American boat.



1814

Sep 12

The Battle of North Point was fought near Baltimore during War of 1812. British General Ross was killed by a sniper’s bullet in a skirmish just prior to the main battle. The battle proved to be strategic American victory, but since they left the field in the hands of the British, tactically it was a defeat for the Americans.



1814

Sep 13

British ships bombarded Ft. McHenry under the command of General Armistead. Francis Scott Key watched the bombing from a detained American boat. The British used red glaring Congreve rockets and air bursting bombs during the war.



1814

Sep 14

In the dawn light Francis Scott Key saw that the American flag still waved over Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812. He looked on from the deck of a boat on the Patasco River nine miles away and wrote “The Star Spangled Banner.” The lyrics were alter adopted to the British tune “To Anacreon in Heaven,” which had also served as Irish drinking song and a number of other songs. “The Star-Spangled Banner” was officially recognized as the national anthem in 1931. The 40 feet long flag had been made by Baltimore widow Mary Young Pickersgill and her 13-year-old daughter just a month before the attack. In 1907 the flag was donated to the Smithsonian.



1814

Sep 15

The words of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” written by Francis Scott Key following the Sep 13 attack on Fort Henry, was printed on a handbill without the name of Francis Scott Key and originally known as “The Defense of Fort McHenry.”



1814

Sep 21

“Star Spangled Banner” was published as a poem.



1814

Sep

Alexander I of Russia entered Paris at the head of an anti-Napoleon coalition.



1814

Sep

The Congress of Vienna convened in late September and continued to June 8, 1815. Friedrich von Gentz of Austria served as secretary to the Congress. It was held after the banishment of Napoleon to Elba. The congress aimed at territorial resettlement and restoration to power of the crowned heads of Europe with Prince Metternich of Austria as the dominant figure. Viscount Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington represented Britain. Alexander I stood for Russia. Talleyrand stood for France. Prince von Hardenberg stood for Prussia. In 2007 Adam Zamoyski authored “Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna.” In 2008 David King authored “Vienna 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War and Peace at the Congress of Vienna.



1814-1815

Sep to Jun

The Congress of Vienna was held after the banishment of Napoleon to Elba. Prince Metternich of Austria was the dominant figure and it aimed at territorial resettlement and restoration to power of the crowned heads of Europe. Viscount Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington represented Britain. Alexander I stood for Russia. Talleyrand stood for France. Prince von Hardenberg stood for Prussia. In 2007 Adam Zamoyski authored “Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna.”



1814

September

September: The failed British bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore is a turning point in the American war, and the American defense of the fort inspires Francis Scott Key to compose the poem later set to music as “The Star Spangled Banner.”



1814

Oct 3

Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov (d.1841), Russian poet and writer (Demon), was born.



1814

Oct 4

Jean Francois Millet (d.1875), French painter, was born.



1814

Oct 17

Two giant porter vats at the Horse Shoe Brewery on London’s Tottenham Court Road burst when the securing hoops failed. The 25-foot-high vats were owned by Sir Henry Meux and. Several lives were lost along with an estimated 8,000-9,000 barrels of porter.



1814

Oct 19

Mercy Otis Warren (b.1728), Massachusetts playwright, died.



1814

Oct

The name Uncle Sam, a nickname for the United States, was coined during the War of 1812. Workers at Samuel Wilson’s meat-packing plant in Troy, N.Y., which supplied provisions to the U.S. Army, joked that the U.S. stamped on the barrels bound for the troops actually stood for their boss Uncle Sam Wilson. Army contractor Elbert Anderson, Jr. sought bids to provide food for the 5,000 soldiers at the Greenbush Cantonment near Troy, NY. The firm of E. & S. Wilson (Ebenezar and Samuel, d.1854 at 87) provided many of the rations in oak casks labeled “E.A.-U.S.,” as required by the contract. A quip attributed the casks to Elbert Anderson and his Uncle Sam. Later government property in general became referred to as “Uncle Sam’s.” [see Sep 7, 1813]



1814

October

October: At the Horseshoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road, a large vat containing over 3500 barrels of beer bursts, demolishing houses and killing nine people.



1814

Nov 5

Having decided to abandon the Niagara frontier, the American army blew up Fort Erie.



1814

Nov 6

Adolphe Sax (d.1894), instrument maker and inventor of the saxophone, was born.



1814

Nov 7

Andrew Jackson attacked and captured Pensacola, Florida, defeating the Spanish and driving out a British force.



1814

Nov 13

Joseph Hooker (d.1879), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.



1814

Nov 23

Elbridge Gerry (b.1744), former Massachusetts governor (1810-1811), died in office as vice-president of the US under Madison (1812-1814).



1814

Nov

Unable to pay in specie [i.e. gold] as required by law, the US government offered to pay its debt in paper. Most banks refused to accept the Treasury notes as security and war bonds fell to 60 cents on the dollar.



1814

November

November: Congress of Vienna convenes to redraw the European political map after the defeat of Napoleon. Much scheming and secret alliances between delegates abound.



1814

November

In November, diplomats at the Congress of Vienna carve up Napoleon’s former holdings.



1814

Dec 1

The shallow-draft steamboat Enterprise, completed in Pittsburgh under the direction of keelboat captain Henry Miller Shreve, left for New Orleans to deliver guns and ammunition to Gen. Jackson.



1814

Dec 2

Marquis de Sade (74), writer, died.



1814

Dec 13

General Andrew Jackson announced martial law in New Orleans, Louisiana, as British troops disembarked at Lake Borne, 40 miles east of the city.



1814

Dec 14

The steamboat Enterprise, designed by keelboat captain Henry Miller Shreve, arrived in New Orleans with guns and ammunition for Gen. Jackson. It was immediately commandeered for military service.



1814

Dec 19

Edwin McMasters Stanton, US Secretary of War (1861-65), was born in Ohio.



1814

Dec 24

The Treaty of Ghent between the United States and Great Britain, terminating the War of 1812, was signed at Ghent, Belgium. The news did not reach the United States until two weeks later (after the decisive American victory at New Orleans). The treaty, signed by John Quincy Adams for the US, committed the US and Britain “to use their best endeavors” to end the Atlantic slave trade.



1814

Dec 24

Austrian Emperor Francis I appointed Joseph Ritter von Prechtl as the first director of the Polytechnical Institute of Vienna.



1814

December

December: The Treaty of Ghent is signed ending the war between the United States and Britain. It does little more than restore the pre-war staus quo between the nations, with no gain to either side.



1814



Actor Edmund Kean as Richard III. Kean burst onto the London stage in 1814, rousing audiences to “uncontrolled enthusiam.” He continues to be regarded as one of the great tragic actors of all time.



1814



Caroline, the Princess of Wales, aged 46, leaves England on August 16. Her husband, the Prince of Wales is greatly relieved to see her go.



1814



Fanny Burney’s The Wanderer is published.



1814



France prohibits abortion with a new law that allows it only “when it is required to preserve the life of the mother when it is gravely threatened.”



1814



Francisco Goya paints The Third of May 1808, depicting the execution of Madrid rebels on that date.



1814



Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park is published.



1814



Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres paints La Grande Odalisque, commissioned along with several other pieces by the Queen of Naples.



1814



La Grande Odalisque by Ingres, 1814. 
His contemporaries considered the work to signify Ingres’ break from Neoclassicism, indicating a shift toward exotic Romanticism.




1814



Louis XVIII becomes King of France, ruling until 1824.



1814



Massachusetts becomes a cotton cloth producer.



1814



Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba. His wife, Marie-Louise, returns to Vienna and is awarded the Duchy of Parma. His ex-wife, Josephine, who never stopped using the title Empress, dies at Malmaison.



1814



Sweden signs the Treaty of Kiel and gains possession of Norway.



1814



The allied army reaches Paris.



1814



The Anglo-American war ends with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent.



1814



The Battle of Bladensburg near Washington, D.C., is fought between 7,000 untrained U.S. militiamen and 3,000 British Regulars, who march into and burn most of the public buildings, including the executive mansion. Admiral Cockburn of the Royal Navy vows to capture Dolly Madison and parade her through the streets of London, but she outsmarts him by first gathering and hiding important documents, including a portrait of George Washington, and then disguising herself as a farmer’s wife and escaping to Georgetown. The executive mansion is set ablaze and gutted, but will be rebuilt and known from then on as “The White House”.



1814



The Burning of Washington.



1814



The Congress of Vienna begins, where heads of state meet to discuss the settlement of postwar Europe (lasts to 1815).



1814



The Times of London installs the first steam-driven, stop-cylinder printing press, permitting the newspaper to print 1,100 sheets per hour.



1814



The Treaty of Paris is signed and ends the Napoleonic Wars.



1814





1814





1814



Invasion of France by allies leads to the Treaty of Paris, ending one of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba. The Duke of Wellington is honored at Burlington House in London. British soldiers burn the White House. Last River Thames Frost Fair is held, which was the last time the river froze. Gas lighting introduced in London streets.



1814



A negotiated  treaty ends the War of 1812-14 and restores “peace, friendship, and good understanding” between the United States and “His Britannic Majesty.” 



1814



Russian and Prussian forces enter Paris. Napoleon is exiled to the island of Elba. The terms of peace between the victors and France are settled in another Treaty of Paris. The victors over Napoleon gather at Vienna — the Congress of Vienna — to create a stable Europe to their liking. 



1814



5  At the Congress of Vienna, September 1814 to June 1815, the British, Spain, Portugal, a politically new France, and the Netherlands are meeting to discuss the world without Napoleon, and they agree to eventually abolish the slave trade. 



1814



Mir Ali created a full-length portrait of Persia’s Fath-Ali Shah (1771) shortly after Shah’s loss of a major battle against the Russians.



1814



Jacques-Louis David created his painting “Leonidas at Thermopylae.”



1814



Pierre-Paul Prud’hon (1758-1823), French artist, drew his “Bust of a Female Figure.”



1814



ETA Hoffman’s “Best Tales of Hoffman” was published.



1814



Rossini composed his opera “Il Turco in Italia.”



1814



The Avila House, a thick-walled adobe building at 14 Olvera in Los Angeles, was built.



1814



The Monterey Custom’s House was built by the Mexican government on the Monterey Peninsula in California.



1814



The 1st Odd Fellows arrived in the US from Europe. The fraternal organization was founded in Europe in the 18th century. [see 1819]



1814



Andrew Jackson called the followers of French freebooter Jean Lafitte “hellish banditti.” Jackson later revised his opinion and asked Lafitte to aid him against the British in the defense of New Orleans. Many of the 4,500 men behind Jackson‘s entrenchments at New Orleans on January 8, 1815, were followers of Lafitte.



1814



David Farragut, a ship’s boy on the frigate Essex, was captured by the British when the Essex was defeated by the British.



1814



Jose Dario Arguello, Spanish-born commander of the Presidio, served as the governor of Alta California. He was later buried at Mission Dolores.



1814



The Marquis de Sade died. His writings included “Justine,” “Juliette,” and “120 Days of Sodom.” In 1999 Neal Schaeffer published “The Marquis De Sade: A Life,” and Francine du Plessix Gray published “At Home With the Marquis De Sade: A Life.”



1814



Jose Francisco de San Martin (1778-1850) became general in chief of Argentina’s Army of the North. His primary mission was to protect Argentina against Spanish royalists in Peru.



1814



In Austria rebuilding began of the 14th century Arenberg Castle following a major fire.



1814



In Legazpi, Philippines, the Mayon volcano erupted and 1,200 people were killed.



1814



The Kingdom of Sardinia was united with the Kingdom of Liguria.



1814-1864



Hong Xiuquan, believed himself to be the second son of God. In 1851 he declared himself king of China and the world. In 1853 his Taiping army took the city of Nanjing as its heavenly capital. He ruled there until 1864. When the Qing (Manchu) government troops tightened their siege he died from eating what he said was manna sent by God to alleviate his believer’s starvation. His story is told by Jonathan D. Spence in God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan.



1814-1876



Mikhail Bakunin was an authoritarian anarchist.



1814-1903



Nicolaas Beets, born Sept. 13, died Mar. 13. Dutch poet and prose writer. He was a professor of theology at Utrecht after 1874. In 1839, while a student in Leiden, he published under the pseudonym of Hildebrand the first version of his Camera Obscura (completed 1854), a remarkable collection of stories and essays filled with keen observations, insight into character, and humorous episodes.



1814-1969



In Hohenberg, Bavaria, C.M. Hutschreuther operated a porcelain factory and inscribed his ware with various marks. e.g. A crown over the initials CM in a shield with 18 on one side and 14 on the other was used from 1950-1963.

Ruritanian Romance: Serializing a chapter at a time Chapter 1

As I have been plugging for the last few weeks, I now present you with the serialization on Wednesday’s of The Prize is Not As Great As You Think. That has been my working title and it is possible that before all is done, something different will suggest itself. Something shorter.

As mentioned it is a Ruritanian Romance. I can’t remember just now how the idea came to me, but then after it did I started to research, and reread such works as Edgar Rice Burroughs the The Mad King as well as the The Prisoner of Zenda to prep for writing my tale.

To prep you, the tale deals with events in the Grand Duchy of Almondy, as I describe ‘bordered the north of Switzerland. To the east was France and now Belgium. The Germanies to the west, and finally the Netherlands to its north. Almondy was landlocked.’

One of the characteristics of a good Ruritanian Romance is intrigue. And as you can tell from the position of the country, the buffer between Germany and France, there certainly will be opportunity for it. With such neighbors, and set 836 years after the conquest. The conquest that took place the same year the William invaded England and defeated Harold. The year of our story begins in 1902, September.

A period of time when the Great War is brewing.

And a period of time when one inside Almondy strives to better himself. We meet our story’s Nemesis in this first chapter. The son of the Grand Prince, but the bastard son. A relationship that reforming Grand Princesses of some generations before excluded from the inheritance. Bastards had until recent times been able to inherit the mantle of rule, but no longer. A change such as this surely can cause resentment, especially in a man who had talents.

Talents that are so much more obvious than say the legitimate son might show. We meet the heir of the Grand Prince, and the current Grand Prince as well. We see a little of the Celebont Palace of Steilenberg which is the capital of the Grand Principality.

I hope you enjoy and should you like to leave feedback before next Wednesday and the next installment, please do so.

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1) An Audience with Father, the Prince

“We FitzRoy Perry’s have a responsibility to so many, and for which we get this as our reward.” The man who spoke waved his right hand about to show he meant all the opulence that the castle that surrounded them provided.

He was a large man. Not in the sense of tall, though at one time, we’re the paintings of his youth truthful, he had been taller than most.

No he was large in girth.

And he was aged. For he was no longer young, and years of extravagant living had shown its toll upon that frame.

Not many but his doctors would speak of such matters to him. For he was a prince more than he was a man.

He continued, “Do you boys not see how it all connects. We have certain duties and I know that neither of you like a good many of them very much, but they are our duties.” Their father, for not only was he a prince, but he was their parent as well, cleared his throat. Often the last two or three years he seemed to have much stuck in his throat that needed such attention.

As a son of a prince, listening to his father speak at such times was part of his own duties, trials and tribulations.

“Now boys, you and a few others have to do these obligations for we have the original blood in our veins of the Conqueror. To think the same year that William the Bastard took over that little island to the west, we here in Almondy had our own conquest and so many do not give us credit. 836 years ago this next Saturday and the damn Archbishop is on me because you both said you’ve had enough and won’t appear in the procession.”

The three were in the very small throne room. The room that their father thought would intimidate them in a comfortable way. He sat in a gilt rimmed upholstered chair. Recently reupholstered for each year the Grand Prince decided he wished it done and the foam in the seat needed it as well. The Grand Prince’s weight forced that issue.

The room had three large tall windows that looked over the inner courtyard of the Celebont Palace. The largest Palace in the capital of Almondy, and the home to the Perry family. Here giant red draperies from the top of the windows, almost to the height of the twelve foot ceiling hung and framed the windows. Aside from their father’s throne the room was devoid of any other furniture though there were still tall metal sconces for fat candles that could have given the room light. The sconces unused now that gas lamps had been installed in all the rooms of the palace. The heavy gold plated floor sconces had yet to be removed since no one could decide whether to sell them, or melt them down.

The throne was atop three steps, and a little stool was placed in front of it should the Grand Prince choose to rest his feet there. Their father’s many illnesses caused him to use it more often then not. Across from the windows was a fireplace. There was nearly one in each room, though the palace also had radiators throughout now as well. Here though, three large logs had been laid and were burning brightly.

Their father was not happy. The First FitzRoy Perry by name, Michael the Bloody Handed, had come to Almondy in the year 1066 with his vassals and retainers and a goodly part of the men who knew that going west with William was death.

No one could beat Harold, that was the wisdom of the day and why would anyone want to? William had no claim. All fabrication and a toad’s turd if you asked Athalan. He had but a short name, while his elder brother, heir to the throne and born of a noble lady had a good long name. Reginald Baxter Simeon FitzRoy Perry. Athalan Perry, no extra cognomens since he was a bastard child. Though Athalan reflected when the princess died, the Grand Prince had the courtesy to recognize him and declare his blood FitzRoy.

Athalan was not a prince though and was only treated marginally respectfully by his brother Reggie. It had been Reggie’s idea to protest the yearly celebrations where it was the princes with FitzRoy blood who lifted a ceremonial palanquin on their shoulders and carried it up the hill. The long hill. The steep long hill from the Assembly Hall to the Celebont Palace.

Some said the road was steeper than the road in Scotland that led through the city of Edinburgh to the famed castle there. Reggie had gone in all ceremony to Scotland and seen for himself, then came back and assured all it was true. Almondy had a longer and steeper road. The Scots did not think then that anyone would ever threaten their castle any longer. Here, all Almondians could tell you how they were the only country in Europe that when Napoleon came knocking almost a hundred years ago, he saw the Grand Prince and heard those famous words, “Piss off you little Runt!”

Seventeen days the foolish French did their best to assault the hill. Their cannon balls could not breach the walls that were fifty feet thick. The French soldiers became exhausted on the climb up to the castle. It made it rather easy to pick them off.

Volleys of the Almondian’s own cannon and shots from their rifles destroyed thousands of the French. Napoleon sat down to sign a treaty ceding to the Principality what had been their rights since Michael the Bloodly Handed had come and seized the throne and lands by treachery.

Athalan knew he would tire as the French had for this would be his seventh year in the ceremony if Reginald was forced to take part again.

Almondy bordered the north of Switzerland. To the east was France and now Belgium. The Germanies to the west, and finally the Netherlands to its north. Almondy was landlocked. Two great rivers flowed to the sea from the country and the French and Walloons, no one called them Flemings since all thought it hilarious to call them Walloons, would never try and stop their trade. An Almondian roused to anger, was not a pretty sight.

Such was the legend at least.

“Father, you have not marched in the Saint Michael day parade for nearly forty years. It is a tradition that has long since fallen into disdain,” Reggie said. Except that wasn’t true. It was in disdain in Reggie’s circle of nobles. The common people, Athalan well knew, loved the festival. Especially the part where those of FitzRoy blood were pelted by almonds and tomatoes. Mostly very overripe tomatoes.

Fortunately only children under the age of fifteen were allowed to throw at the FitzRoy men. No one knew what had been thrown at the First Michael. (Some believed that it was balls of dung.) The Almondian Conqueror had used subterfuge to come and kill his wife’s distant cousin who held the castle. It was much smaller than. No almonds either, that had been brought in during the 1700s for a country called Almondy needed to have almonds the Grand Prince then thought. Tomatoes had come to the Almondian farms at that time as well.

Reggie continued, “We even wear clothes from the fifteen hundreds like the English Henry the Eighth. Michael FitzRoy, who we know was not a bastard son of a king, just a bastard, though a knight, took the castle by subterfuge. When he left the castle as prince of these lands, he was pelted by the people, not when he was entering it.”

The Grand Prince said, “True enough. But it is a tradition and the people need their traditions.”

“Father, this can not be what was intended when the tradition started…” Reginald was a pill.

That he had not been killed by the radicals, despite three attempts, always left Athalan perplexed. He had never told the radicals how their failed attempts were so disappointing. They were a group that had started from three students he had met his first year at university. They griped at him as if he could change his father’s policies. Athalan was not even in the succession because he was a bastard. A damn cousin was next in line, Gerry FitzRoy Perry who had moved to the country.

Athalan had listened to everyone being mad about something for so long, back at university that he just took the money from his allowance, which he had found ways to augment, and gave those old friends some.

Well a great deal actually. He wanted them to show with action what their words were. So many spoke ill of the Crown and all that it did. He thought of his father’s reign and it had been marked by inaction and the exploration of personal pleasure. The Grand Prince of Almondy had lived the life of Prince Edward of England, now king Edward, long before that monarch had thought to. Though as King, succeeding the eternally long lived Victoria last year, Edward was showing that he could put aside his princely ways and act like a ruler.

Athalan’s father never had. Athalan was of the opinion that Reginald would live as their father did, as a libertine. The Grand Prince, at nearly seventy, had three mistresses he took to his bed and fondled. Though from what the youngest of the three ladies said, that was all that he could do. She said more for the press however. The papers and reporters were quite titillated by thinking their old prince virile. They also thought that Reggie was also just such a man.

Athalan knew his brother was with little boys, well teenage boys that he favored. But Reggie knew some of what the people wanted and gave it to them. He courted three rich heiresses as well as paraded himself across the Courts of Europe. The next grand princess would be the mother of a land greater than Belgium or the Netherlands and the perfect buffer between France and Germany.

The choice of the next grand princess was something that royalty from all the lands of Europe wanted to influence. It was a shame that Napoleon did not survive, or his nephew, for a royal house in France surely would have been easier to negotiate a bride from than the daughter of some industrialist or politician.

“You very well know how the tradition started and it is near as old as our family line, the oldest in Europe. Only a male succeeds in the FitzRoy line and all our young men march in the procession to show they are willing to bear the insults of our people, and that they may be honorable enough to lead them. Michael’s own hand wrote this tradition that started as he neared his tenth year of rule. It allowed him to have an army from all the commons else the peasants surely would have stood aside, even though they had ten good years under Michael, and allowed the French to conquer us. And then the year after the French tried some damn German pissant who thought he could be king was at it. We walk in the procession and carry the palanquin with the statue of Saint Michael, and it is not coincidence that it looks a lot like the First Grand Prince. You will be pelted by almonds and tomatoes. Or would you rather give the vote to all the men of the principality?”

They had kept that modern travesty away from the country. Which is why so much support had grown for Athalan’s friends. Almondy was near the last country to keep the vote in the hands of the powerful. Being born a noble, or elected to a high position in the church and you could speak in the Assembly. And if you had the thousand crowns the Grand Prince required in rents from land, and only land, half of which money went to the crown, could you take a seat in the Assembly. God forbid you were a merchant and did not have such land, for then the crown took seven of ten of every coin of profit. Having land rents of the thousand crowns or more and your taxes were reduced to half to the grand prince. It made a great difference. No one wanted to give up their lands.

The road to power was shifting though. The new men in the Assembly had shown that. They were becoming scarred at what the anarchists could do. Athalan knew that he would have to make a correction there and take more leadership from them. Especially once they did succeed and kill Reggie.

Reggie wasn’t a bad brother. He never called Athalan a bastard to his face though Athalan, when spying on Reggie, had heard him remark so to his friends. Reggie made jokes at his expense. Athalan had planned to eliminate Reginald long before that though. Athalan had planned Reginald’s death for a very long time. Bastards had become Prince before in Almondy. It was the blood of FitzRoy that was important. Only later Princesses had gotten some weak Princes to outlaw bastards.

The commoners even believed that Michael the Bloody Handed was a bastard, but he had added the FitzRoy when he had seen the castle on top of the mountain and thought how should he take it. First that famous prince came as a beggar to the gates and was given a meal and saw all inside the keep. Saw that it had few weaknesses, the only place really to take it was the gate and then the best way was from inside. Michael, family legend said, had more men outside then they had inside.

How he took the castle next was treachery. The night before he came to take the castle he sent near three quarters of his men up the road to the castle and short of the wall, they slipped a few feet down the side of the mountain road and cowered, covered by leaves and branches waiting for the signal. Michael with his fellow knights, for he was a knight, the son of a knight, came with an icon of Saint Michael on their shoulders, just as Athalan and Reginald were to carry in the pageant.

Approaching the gates as penitents, and as it was the feast day of Saint Michael that Michael the Bloody Handed came, the gate was raised. Here the twenty knights held the gate open as the rest of their band came and seized the keep. Michael spared the women and children, the old and those who did not fight. The rest were put to the sword. Soon enough, during the first ten years, Michael attracted other men, those who were not rewarded by William but had helped him at Hastings, or those others who should have gone and had not, or those who saw no future after losing alongside Harold.

They came to his lands speaking Norman and Saxon, Frank and Jute, and from these he knew that one language must guide them, as well as one culture. His. Frankish speech and culture took over in an area that grew large, near 150 miles at its base and three hundred miles in length.

Athalan said quietly to Reginald, “Brother, you know how you often say the Grand Prince calls the tune and we but dance the jig? Well this is one of those times. You and I can sit here another hour, or two or three and argue with father and I assure you, I can see his face, nothing will change his opinion, or his command. Our cousins already come from all over Almondy and ready themselves for the ceremony. One day you will no doubt have a similar conversation with your son.”

Athalan then said louder, “But father, it is not the law, only tradition that the peasants place icons to represent their societies on the altar we carry. It is only tradition, not law, that hundreds of wreaths are made by the women of such societies and that they too are placed on the litter we must carry. That is what Reginald complains of. Eight FitzRoy men are hard pressed to carry such a weight.”

Last year they barely made it. One of his pet attacks coordinated by his tame anarchists was to overload the palanquin. Not that he did not also mind his position as a carrier, but he did not think the weight was going to be so much. The damn fools were boasting in the taverns that the prince and other nobles would surely fall before reaching the gates of the palace this year.

Many thought it an ill omen if a prince fell and often the reigns of such princes had not been the best. Though one would say the greatest of Grand Princes, Michael the Seventh, had been their best and lasted forty-eight years. He had fallen every year that he had carried the Palanquin. Almost as if he had done so on purpose so that when he did reign he would break the myth. The middle of the seventeenth century saw his reign.

Michael the Seventh was the only man the principality ever thought could actually become a king. That would have been something.

And something that had been clamored at in the Assembly also since Belgium and the Netherlands both had kings, and were both smaller nations. Why did not Almondy have a king as well? Their father told them often not to wish for that headache. Being a Prince was difficult enough he would say.

Athalan had no idea what their father meant, for a King or Grand Prince of Almondy both had the same job function. Rule and discuss with the Assembly how best to rule. The Assembly though still did not have a strong hand. They had a great voice, but the tax collectors worked for the Grand Prince. Thus the money went into the Grand Prince’s vaults.

The army was paid for by the Grand Prince and so too any bright ideas that the Assembly came up with. When they either tried to raise money, or spend it, it had to be something that the Grand Prince agreed to. If money was involved, and money was involved in nearly everything, the Grand Prince decided to be involved in everything the Assemblymen talked about.

Athalan knew that it would be a great problem if his Anarchists continued unabated. He was slightly concerned that when they did succeed in killing Reginald, they might think themselves so powerful that they would dictate terms. The only term Athalan wanted dictated was that after he brought down cousin Gerald, Reginald’s successor, they would think they owned him. Athalan did not want his subversives to realize that as he took Almondy from a Grand Principality to a Kingdom proper. They could try and obstruct him and make the country a republic.

Thus he had to kill one of the three old friends whom he started in the professional Anarchy business. They needed to remember who was the leader, and pay heed to the future king.

The full plan was get rid of Reginald, bring cousin Gerry to power as the heir to the Grand Prince, but highlight how the Grand Principality was anachronistic. Then in time when his father died, and he, the valued counselor to the Prince and Grand Principality would be shunted aside after a coronation of cousin Gerald Henry William FitzRoy Perry. The Assembly, and his allies there, would propose a change in the laws of succession. It would allow Athalan Perry to become Grand Prince. To be the heir of his cousin.

Killing Gerald after that would pave the way for his reign. Then Athalan would kill the second of his three insurrectionist friends. It was all so beautiful and would work, if only the fools could first kill Reginald.

Having Reginald and their father at odds until his brother was assassinated was just one thing he did to show all of Almondy how useful he was. Athalan made peace between the Grand Prince and his heir each time they fought. And the press always seemed to know of it.

Athalan of course had set up the issue about the pageant so they would have yet another fight. He had suggested to Reggie that they should not carry that damn statue of Saint Michael as they had done every year. That it had weighed so much that Reggie almost passed out last year. Though Athalan had also ensured his brother was drugged and doped the night before the previous pageant. Reginald was not at his best when they marched in the procession. Athalan had also paid a bounty to many of the teenagers who were tossing almonds and tomatoes to hit the Crown Prince, and not the others.

A good joke. Then today he had reminded his brother how people were making plans to load the palanquin to even worse then the previous year. Athalan was nearly ready to place a bet that Reginald would disappear the day of the festivities. Other Princes had done so. They had paid for cousins to stand in their place. Those Princes had bad reigns as well. That was something that Michael the Seventh had not tempted fate to see if he could disprove. He even had made it law that should a Prince not attend and take one of the eight spots that were offered to all of the royal line to take, they should move down one notch in the succession. It made it an incentive that they take their place. In the last 200 years since, no Prince who was first or second in line to the crown ever missed the festival of carrying the statue of St. Michael on his litter.

Here it was late September and the festival a week away. Then harvest would come. The plans to eliminate Reggie needed to take place soon for then they could have a installation in the spring of Gerald as the new heir. That would also give Athalan time to prepare his cousin for his abdication. To get the Assembly, which retired from the beginning of the Festival till after the New Year festivities, a chance to draft the legislation for Athalan to have a place in the succession.

He had to get rid of their father as well, of course. That was easily done. The man had gout, he had diabetes, he had a poor heart, and twice had heart attacks already. He ate like a glutton, and drank like two fish. Athalan knew he need do nothing but wait, and his father would implode.

It was a good lesson for him, for Athalan had to control his desires. Thus he never had more than two drinks in a day. He did not eat more than one plate of food at a sitting, and regularly exercised his body.

Reggie thought that sitting a horse, a woman or a boy, was all the exercise he required. He already had put on those extra pounds that showed he would definitely take after their father. A Prince whom the populace had been making many jokes of the last five years. Another action that could trace its roots to Athalan. He wanted to instigate regime change but he had to be careful about it. He had a copy of the Communist Manifesto and knew that there were dozens more of the book in Almondy. Karl Marx was a not hero of the peasants, but he could be. Easily.

And that would not do. There had to be a balance, as there was in England, between the power that was given the people, and the power that was retained by the crown. Which meant that Athalan would take very seriously the peoples grievances the minute that his brother was blown up.

Though the press had been eager to note that after each of the three other attempts, Athalan had risen in the Assembly to speak to the other members about the grievances of the people. That something needed to be done for attacks on the Crown were highly irregular and needed to be stopped. He had even mentioned that the monies taxed on all who were not Assemblymen should be lowered to the same rate as those in the Assembly. He had told them he had mentioned that to his father and instead of seventeen palaces that the royal family maintained, and forty two castles, some quite obsolete, as artillery had become so strong, not to mention Machine Guns, that just maintaining the twelve that the army thought was necessary, four palaces and two hunting lodges, would allow them all to live at a lowered taxed rate.

The Grand Prince had been furious with that idea, though it was good. Other cuts elsewhere could probably reduce the rate even further, but Athalan was not going to cut his nose to spite his face as that saying went. He would do a great deal to become King of Almondy, but he would not relegate himself to anything other than the richest man in Almondy also. Their father had wealth, hidden in banks in Almondy and in neighboring Switzerland, Germany and France that was accounted to be close to three hundred million crowns. That was not a small fortune at all. Athalan was sure his older half brother also had access to such funds. At least five million.

Athalan was given an apartment to live in, though it was nice. Atop the Ritzlauer Hotel, the second nicest lodging in Steilenberg, the capital of the country. If you did not get your own palace. Reggie had his own palace, and two others stood vacant that the family owned in Steilenberg. If Athalan had been legitimate, then perhaps he would have had one also. Every other legitimate prince, son of the Grand Prince had always had one. But Athalan was made to know he was a bastard by such contempt.

Such slights he just allowed to accrue for it would not be long before his revenge would be conducted.

In the conversation about the festival the Grand Prince stared at his sons, and then nodded, “I shall make it a ruling that only five of the societies, and five of the ladies auxiliaries, may place items on the palanquin. How does that sound? Reginald, you will do this thing. You know full well that should you not, you will never be Grand Prince and that fool Gerald shall follow me.”

“Yes father, I know. Of course I shall carry the statue of St. Michael for the festival. And I shall be the first in the field at harvest and all my other duties. It is just wearisome.”

“Remember the compensations,” the Grand Prince said. “This will all be yours one day. And soon I should think, as there are no cures for all the ailments I have. Least of which I have never heard of a man cheat death when that gentleman comes to call. Be he Prince or Commoner.”

His father fixed his gaze away from Reginald to himself, “Now Alan,” their father would not call him the name that his mother had bestowed on him, “The oldest son of Baron William is about to turn sixteen and should take a place holding the palanquin. He is a big lad.”

Athalan was ready for that, though Baron William’s son was big. “Yes, he turns sixteen in three weeks, long after the Festival and by tradition he can not carry the litter until that age. Only has the tradition been bent for the direct sons of the Grand Prince, not his cousins. I may not be a legitimate son, father, but I am your son and tradition has long held that the bastards of the FitzRoys may make up the additional carriers. Even the first fifty to sixty years more bastards of our forebears carried the statue then did the Prince’s true sons.”

“Ha, the first Michael was a great deal more generous with his seed then even I, ha!” The Grand Prince thought he was the first Michael on occasion. Athalan thought that their father might also be a bit delusional and had asked the doctors to ensure that if there were signs of dementia, that they keep such quiet. That rumor then had begun to spread about the Palace and Steilenberg. Sometimes the game of overthrowing the legitimate side of his family did not require his hand and was very rewarding.

The Grand Prince continued, “Well I have already promised Baron William, for he has long been a favorite of the court and I desire to return a favor… Why do you look so cross? Are you not given everything that you need? Do I ask much of you? I could have left you in your mother’s care and you would never have the luxuries I provide you with.”

Athalan said, “No sire, but I should remind you that I am your son as well as Reginald. I have rights defined in our laws and constitution as set down by all the Grand Princes before you. I have as much FitzRoy blood as does Reginald. You sir use me ill if you deny me a place in front of the peasants the few times a year I do appear. Baron William should not press you on this for my honor will be placed into question. I do not think he wants that for himself or his boy.”

Athalan was considered a very good swordsman. The soldiers of the army and the guard challenged him often to see if they could learn from him, or fight as well as he did. Only a handful ever could. The Grand Prince sometimes had enemies that had grown to big for their homburgs. Three Athalan had been ordered to kill by the Grand Prince. Something that only his father and he knew. Something that had first brought to mind that perhaps he could engineer a change of succession that would include him.

If one looked at the other governments of the world, bastards, women, the most tenuous link to a throne caused a new dynasty. It was time for that, and Athalan was hard at work bringing it about. “You will not challenge my cousin to any duel,” his father said.

“Sire, I did not say I would. Should he forget these foolish notions about jumping his son ahead of tradition. By extension do you think I did not know the age of the boy and that this would be my last year to carry the palanquin. Why did I devote my mind so hard to finding a solution that Reginald and you could agree upon?”

“Very well. I shall tell Baron William to wait. I do not think he will be friendly to you in the Assembly. He heads your party, does he not?” The Grand Prince asked.

“He heads the Conservatives, father. Something that almost every man who carries any Perry blood holds true to,” Athalan always said such not agreeing that he was himself a Conservative. That party was not going to keep them on pace to advance with the rest of Europe. Already they had fallen behind, for they had no colonies in any other part of the world. Not having a port had hindered the race for raw materials.

Instead Almondians had gone to the many colonies of the other nations and carved out places for themselves that their allies and enemies had not thought about. Almondians were great craftsmen in wood, and in almost every colony that had something the Crown needed, there were carpenters from Almondy.

When other craftsmen who might be better arrived in such colonies that were not Almondian, then there always seemed to be some sort of scuffle and bones were broken. Nine times out of ten the Almondian craftsman seemed to be unscathed and the other hurt so terribly that they decided to leave. The times when the Almondians were hurt, that situation was reversed within six months when several more Almondian craftsmen would arrive to reaffirm their leadership as carpenters for the world’s colonies.

It was quite a position for if you need a house, or a building, you would hire an Almondian to build it. It gave the Almondian ex-patriots good footholds wherever they needed to be. A policy that the Grand Prince and his ministers carried out no matter who seemed to have the most seats in the Assembly. A policy that Athalan was quite interested in. There too, he had the ministers in charge of it report to him. He kept his fingers in many pies.

The most important pie though was the army. Which his father nominally headed but asked Reginald to attend all the functions. Athalan had volunteered to take all the military parades, maneuvers, and camping activities. Leaving his brother to enjoy all the parties and dressing in his fine uniforms.

“I do so love the Conservatives. You give them privileges, invite them here to the royal palace twice a year, or to a hunt, and then they are loyal for life. I tell you that you can make any Liberal one by giving them a title and telling them the land that they purchased already is their land grant. They just fold over. Any foolish ideas about giving the commoners a vote is gone. And what would they vote for? Those university friends of your Alan know very well that once you are qualified to elect someone to the Assembly and you do so, nearly everything that they debate is worthless. Once they thought to limit my taxes, I crushed that right enough…” The Grand Prince was lost in his remembrances. This could go on for some time.

Alan had told his father that he would let many in the Assembly know of his idea for lessening the tax all round, but that it would seem then to threaten the small power that the entitled had. That they would never do for Almondians seemed to be anything but altruistic. Perhaps the nonenfranchised were altruistic, but those who had everything did not want to give it up.

That was the angle that Athalan worked, for there were easily nine who should have the vote and didn’t of every ten. And that was not including women. He was a martyr to all their needs for ladies all could see how Reginald was treated so favored, and Athalan was the hard worker. Once he was King that would change. He might even give all a few more powers for in this day and age, who couldn’t. England, Germany, the others all giving some rights to the peasants. France the worst of the lot. If most of the western border was not along France, then perhaps they might keep their crushing hold of power. But even those damn Americans clambered still about being free.

The damn American Ambassador knew not to spout his words about liberty except at the invitation of the Crown. Every so often those who worked in the American Embassy could not help themselves.

“Father, are we done? I have to prepare myself if I am going to haul that hunk of metal up the dame hill again this year,” Reginald said.

“Yes, we are. You will remember that Michael the Seventh’s son was still carrying the statue until he was past sixty. I think you won’t have to do it much longer, but best you choose one of these women to marry and ready a princess for the throne. You must produce a son as well, else that nincompoop Gerald will be your heir. Thirty and wants to be a farmer. Do you know he had the audacity to come and ask for a loan to improve his lands.”

Athalan had urged the man to do so, “Father, he has forty acres and is the second in line for the throne. His house has all of two bedrooms and the barn, perhaps can hold four cows for milking and two or three horses. I should think that a man so close to the throne would have an allowance, or larger inheritance.”

“Yes well my father cut his cousin off. Father was to marry Gerald’s great aunt. She was a looker I am told, though there are now no pictures of her anywhere in the principality. This was after the war, you understand. Father was all set to rebuild our country and make it stronger since we had done so well against Napoleon. Every concession we had ever had to fight for was restored us. We are the biggest in every direction we have ever been because of what my father negotiated in Frankfurt. That though was where Gerald’s aunt met the American. Some part of their delegation to the peace treaty event. Instead of returning to Steilenberg with my father and his uncle, she ran off to America. No one knows what became of her then. The man who took her was dismissed from government service of course for it strained our relations with the United States all the years my father ruled as Grand Prince. He also did his best to beggar that side of the family. Not hard to do since Gerald’s father gambled, and he no longer had any claim on the tax monies. They are not poor, for I am sure that Gerald has some few thousand crowns a year to support him.”

That Athalan was not sure of. If the man had five crown a week after everything was paid for to buy a decent meal or good Almondy Ale, he would be surprised. Almondy Ale was plentiful and actually tasted good. It was noted for the taste of almonds and its cheap price. What better way to keep the peasants happy then cheap ale?

Gerald was poor and would he be offered ten thousand crowns to abdicate to Athalan when the time came, that would make everything perfect. Why would Gerald wish to stay for Athalan had taken him to the Assembly some few times and shown him how hard it was to listen to the debates. He had shown Gerald all the most difficult things that were discussed. Things Athalan said had to be attended to else the whole of the country would fall apart.

Reginald said, “I shall marry father. Perhaps even your favorite, Margaritte. She is a looker and well educated. You have always wished that I marry her.”

Athalan could not blame his brother. That was who he had chosen to be the Grand Princess. Athalan had great plans for her, and she was beautiful as Reginald had said. She was also the sister of Baron William who led the Conservatives and would make any change necessary to the succession laws if his sister were to become Grand Princess.

“I think brother that you have no chance there. Your proclivities with the many ladies of Steinlenberg has sure to have been brought to her notice.” And if not Athalan could ensure she found out about the ladies and the boys Reginald liked.

“While there are other ladies, and a few of them Princesses, who would not mind presiding over the court here and have little discomfort should they encounter any of your former lovers. Princess Margaritte, I think, should not like the shame of such an encounter.”

The Grand Prince nodded, “He’s right you know. Margaritte is my favorite, but you won’t do for her, more’s the pity. Probably be the best women we would find for the role no matter how hard we look. She might even like someone like Gerald. He is even a couple removes further away then you are, I think, from her bloodline.”

“I’ve also looked to ladies other than those of the family, sire. I can journey again to the court of Wilhelm and see what creatures he has to offer soon.” Reginald said.

Their father cringed. “Not another German. Your mother was German. The French would think us firmly in their camp were we to increase that blood into the line. Best take a French diplomat or two with you so that you can look and discard. If they think you want to marry any German Princess and I know there are more of them than any lass in France, we will be having the war of 1870 again. We sent sixty thousand to that fiasco and the French have not forgiven us since. Marrying a French woman would do wonders for us. If not a Princess, they have Duchesses, Countesses, and they don’t behead them any longer.”

Reginald laughed at that old joke. He always did. His mother had been part of the reason that they had joined the Prussians in that last war and helped Germany become a nation. Bismarck had pimped Reginald’s mother to the Grand Prince and tied them up in an alliance. The French had not been any threat to anyone but the Prussians. It would have been smarter to have been neutral, but in Europe now, there was very little ability to remain neutral. Germany looked to Almondy now as something that should cleve to their motherland.

Except the true motherland for most of Almondy would have been France. The first FitzRoy Perry was French, and the lord who he took the keep from was also French. That more than half of the land that the country became may have been German was not as important as Steilenberg having been French 800 years before. Even if they had given it a German name. They were an amalgamation and very proud of it.

That they were a buffer between so many countries, the crossroads of Europe, gave every Almondian pride. It also meant that some countries could march right through them to get at another enemy. Part of the job of being the Grand Prince was to ensure that the other nations stopped thinking that. Marrying one great lady from one power, or marrying another was not only good business to keep all nations at bay, but also now had the royal family tied to every other royal family that Europe boasted.

It meant that even as a legitimized bastard, Princesses were even interested in Athalan. Princess Margaritte for instance had actually spoken to him nicely. Especially as he did not sleep with any woman across Almondy that had taken his fancy. He had his affairs, but no one seemed to care, or have reported on them in the papers.

“Father, if you please, we have discussed the parade and the festival. I do not think we shall get anywhere if we spend time talking to Reginald about his love life. Or the lack of a Crown Princess for our country. Perhaps if you did to him what you so often threaten me with. That he must marry by spring else you will cut him off.”

Reginald scowled, but the Grand Prince said. “You have suggested that before and the Assembly has even begun to advise it. Yes. I must consider such an action. Reginald, find a bride by Christmas else I shall listen more closely to your brother about this. Now go boys. You must each have something to do.” Athalan nodded and then Reginald turned and they made their way out of the room. The Grand Prince calling for servants who would help him to his quarters.

“Well done. By Christmas he will forget once more. It is two years you have told him to cut me off and he never has nor will he.”

Athalan forced a laugh. “Yes, but if I did not say it, we would still be there. And he would surely talk to you of every woman in France for your bride. You must make inroads after the Festival and find a bride. The Principality requires it and father is right, you are not getting any younger.”

“But no German?” Reginald asked his advice.

“No. Bavarian perhaps, but no German. Though hurry if you desire that. I think Bavaria will be swallowed up by Wilhelm as well. They have a voracious appetite. Actually a Bavarian might be the only woman the French will allow you of Germanic stock. They may think that such an alliance with them, and pressure by us, could cause the Bavarians to withstand the Germans. They would be wrong I am sure, but the Bavarians have to know that once Germany wants them, they will disappear. Their own heritage and culture and traditions all gone to the religion that Wilhelm makes of the new Germanic power. That is the danger against us for more than a third of our people have Germanic blood. We have a great deal of Germanic blood Reggie. All those German Princesses so many times.”

“Yes, and we also have French blood you will recall too, as well as English, and Dutch and Danish, Flemish, I could go on.”

Athalan laughed, “Yes you could. I take my leave of you and go to meet with the General in charge of the parade route. He wants to tell me the same as he did last year. How many men he will have. Where he will set up the stands for people to sit, all that he has made plans for. Tonight at the Rathskellar?”

“Yes, at Nine, right?” Athalan nodded knowing his brother would say all he wanted was two drinks and then order a second dinner and drink ten or twelve giants mugs. It was an image that made Reginald beloved by the drunks of Steilenberg and scared all the rest of his future subjects. Just as Athalan planned.

A Regency Era Timeline 1813 in progress

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorling Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1813:

Year

Month Day

Event



1813

Jan 2

In Vilnius, Lithuania, Russian Army head M. Kutuzov announced the end of war in Russia.



1813

Jan 4

Isaac Pitman (d.1897), inventor (stenographic shorthand), was born in Britain.



1813

Jan 11

The 1st pineapples were planted in Hawaii (or 1/21).



1813

Jan 18

Joseph Farwell Glidden, inventor of barbed wire, was born.



1813

Jan 22

During the War of 1812, British forces under Henry Proctor along with Indian allies under Tecumseh defeated a U.S. contingent planning an attack on Fort Detroit.



1813

Jan 22

A combined British and Indian force attacked an American militia retreating from Detroit near Frenchtown, later known as Monroe, Mich. Only 33 men of some 700 men escaped the battle of the River Raisin. Over 400 Kentucky frontiersmen were killed.



1813

Jan 24

Theodore Sedgwick (b.1746), arch-Federalist and former Massachusetts Senator (1796-1799), died. In 2007 John Sedgwick authored “In My Blood: Six Generations of Madness and Desire in an American Family.”



1813

Jan 29

Jane Austin published “Pride and Prejudice,” a blend of instruction and moral entertainment.



1813

January

January: British forces defeat American forces at the Battle of Raisin River in Michigan.



1813

January

January: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is published.



1813

January

January: Leigh Hunt is imprisoned for libel after an attack against the Prince Regent is published in the Examiner.



1813

January

January: The Luddite movement is smashed by English troops and magistrates with greatly expanded powers provided by the Frame Breaking Act; 17 of the Luddite leaders are hanged, many others are transported.



1813

January

January: The Philharmonic Society of London is founded, “to promote the performance, in the most perfect manner possible of the best and most approved instrumental music”.



1813

Feb 18

Czar Alexander entered Warsaw at the head of his Army.



1813

Feb 24

Off Guiana, the American sloop Hornet under Master Commandant James Lawrence sank the British sloop Peacock.



1813

Feb 26

Robert R. Livingston (66), US diplomat (Declaration of Independence), died.



1813

Feb 27

The 1st federal vaccination legislation was enacted.



1813

Feb 28

Russia and Prussia formed the Kalisz union against Napoleon.



1813

Mar 3

Office of Surgeon General of the US army was established.



1813

Mar 4

The Russians fighting against Napoleon reached Berlin. The French garrison evacuated the city without a fight.



1813

Mar 8

The 1st concert of Royal Philharmonic.



1813

Mar 15

John Snow (d.1858), obstetrician, was born in York, England. He worked on the epidemiology of cholera.



1813

Mar 19

David Livingston, explorer found by Stanley in Africa, was born in Scotland.



1813

Mar 21

James Jesse Strang, King of Mormons on Beaver Is, MI. (1850-56), was born.



1813

Mar 25

The first U.S. flag flown in battle was on the frigate Essex in the Pacific.



1813

Mar 27

Nathaniel Currier, lithographer for Currier and Ives, was born.



1813

March

March: The first concert presented by the Philharmonic Society of London is performed in their Concert Rooms in Hanover Square, and includes works by Haydn and Beethoven.



1813

Apr 10

Joseph-Louis Lagrange (b.1736), Italian-born mathematician, died in Paris. He is considered to be the greatest mathematician of the eighteenth century.



1813

Apr 14

Junius S. Morgan, US merchant, philanthropist (Metro Museum of Art), was born.



1813

Apr 14

Joachim Nicolas Eggert (34), composer, died.



1813

Apr 15

U.S. troops under James Wilkinson sieged the Spanish-held city of Mobile in future state of Alabama.



1813

Apr 19

Benjamin Rush (67), physician, revolutionary (signed Declaration of Independence), died.



1813

Apr 23

Stephen Douglas (d.1861), the “Little Giant,” was born. He debated Abraham Lincoln for a seat on the U.S. Senate and later lost to Lincoln for the presidency of the United States. He argued that the Declaration of Independence did not mean to include blacks.



1813

Apr 27

Americans forces under Gen. Zebulon M. Pike (34) captured York (present day Toronto), the seat of government in Ontario; Pike was killed.



1813

Apr 28

Russian Gen. Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov (b.1745) died. (April 16 Old Style) Kutuzov forced the French army to leave Russia along the path it had devastated when it entered the country.



1813

Apr 29

Rubber was patented.



1813

Apr

Captain David Porter of the U.S. Navy sailed the USS Essex into the Galapagos Archipelago after a six month journey around Cape Horn, eager to find a way to help his country in their powder-keg relations with Great Britain. Capt. Porter made his first landfall at a place called Post Office Bay, on Charles Island, and raided the barrel there that served as the informal but effective communications link between whaling ships and the outside world. The primitive post box, a barrel system of drop-off and pick-up, had been established some 20 years earlier, but its efficiency had become well-known. Inside of half a year, Capt. Porter and the Essex had captured 12 British whalers and devastated the whale British industry in the Pacific, forcing a reallocation of Royal Navy ships to a distant region far from the “home front” in North America.



1813

April

April: American forces attack and pillage the town of York (later called Toronto) and occupy it for 11 days before being driven out by the British.



1813

May 2

Napoleon defeated a Russian and Prussian army at Grossgorschen. During the Napoleonic Wars a British naval officer proposed the use of saturation bombing and chemical warfare.



1813

May 5

Soren Kierkegaard (d.1855), Danish philosopher and theologian, was born. He founded Existentialism and believed that man’s relation to God must be an agonizing experience. “Truth is not introduced into the individual from without, but was within him all the time.” His books included the philosophical novel “Diary of a Seducer.”



1813

May 9

U.S. troops under William Henry Harrison rescued Fort Meigs from British and Canadian troops.



1813

May 10

Montgomery Blair, lawyer in the Dred Scot case, was born in Franklin County, Ky. The case decided the limits of slavery.



1813

May 22

Richard Wagner, German composer, conductor and writer, was born in Leipzig, Germany. He composed “The Flying Dutchman.”



1813

May 27

Americans captured Fort George, Canada.



1813

May

May: Napoleon defeats an Allied army at the Batle of Bautzen.



1813

May

May: Napoleon defeats an Allied army at the Battle of Lützen,



1813

Jun 1

The U.S. Navy gained its motto as the mortally wounded commander of the U.S. frigate “Chesapeake”, Captain James Lawrence (b.1871) was heard to say, “Don’t give up the ship!”, during a losing battle with a British frigate “Shannon”; his ship was captured by the British frigate.



1813

Jun 5

Captain James Lawrence died from his wounds as the Shannon towed the Chesapeake to Halifax. Lawrence was buried with honors on Jun 8 and his remains were later sent to NYC for burial in Trinity churchyard.



1813

Jun 6

The U.S. invasion of Canada was halted at Stoney Creek, Ontario.



1813

Jun 8

David D. Porter, Union Admiral, was born.



1813

Jun 21

The Peninsular War ended. It began on February 16, 1808, when Napoleon ordered a large French force into Spain under the pretext of sending reinforcements to the French army occupying Portugal.



1813

Jun 24

Henry Ward Beecher (d.1887), American clergyman and brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, was born. “Even a liar tells a hundred truths to one lie; he has to, to make the lie good for anything.”



1813

Jun 26

Metternich met with Napoleon at Dresden and informed him that he must sue for peace if he wanted continued Austrian support.



1813

June

June: British forces defeat American forces at the Battle of Stony Creek on Lake Ontario.



1813

June

June: H.M.S. Shannon of the Royal Navy destroys the U.S. Navy frigate Cheseapeake outside of Boston Harbor.



1813

June

June: Wellington defeats Joseph Bonaparte at the Battle of Vittoria in a last major offensive that drives the French armies from Spain.



1813

June

In June, the Battle of Vittoria ends Napoleon’s conquests, for now.



1813

Jul 15

Napoleon Bonaparte’s representatives met with the Allies in Prague to discuss peace terms.



1813

Jul 31

British invaded Plattsburgh, NY.



1813

July

July: In response to a public snub by the Prince Regent, Beau Brummell utters his famous line to Lord Alvanley: “Ah, Alvanley, who is your fat friend?” The prince, once a close friend, never spoke to Brummell again.



1813

Aug 9

After reports that British naval vessels were nearing St. Michaels, Md., to attack the shipbuilding town that night, the county militia placed lanterns on the tops of the tallest trees and on the masts of vessels in the harbor; and had all other lights extinguished. When the British attacked, they directed their fire too high and overshot the town.



1813

Aug 10

A number of British barges manned by marines shelled the town of St. Michaels, Md., on the Chesapeake Bay. Residents had hoisted lanterns to treetops and masts and caused the British canons to overshoot their mark. One house was hit by a cannonball on the roof and the ball rolled across the attic and down the staircase frightening Mrs. Merchant as she carried her infant daughter downstairs.



1813

Aug 14

British warship Pelican attacked and captured US war brigantine Argus.



1813

Aug 23

At the Battle of Grossbeeren Prussians under Von Bulow repulsed the French.



1813

Aug 23

Alexander Wilson (b.1766), Scottish-born poet and naturalist, died in Philadelphia. He had completed 7 volumes of “American Ornithology” and was working on a 8th volume when he died.



1813

Aug 27

The Allies defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Dresden.



1813

Aug 30

Creek Indians massacred over 500 whites at Fort Mims Alabama.



1813

August

August: The Battle of Dresden results in a victory for French troops led by Napoleon against a Coalition force of Russian, Austrian, and Prussian troops. The Coalition lost 38,000 men, the French 10,000.



1813

Sep 7

The earliest known printed reference to the United States by the nickname “Uncle Sam” occurred in the Troy Post. [see Oct, 1814]



1813

Sep 10

The nine-ship American flotilla under Oliver Hazard Perry wrested naval supremacy from the British on Lake Erie by capturing or destroying a force of six English vessels in the War of 1812. With Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s flagship unable to fight, an outmatched British flotilla faced the prospect of a remarkable victory. But Perry only transferred his pennant to another ship and fought on. American Captain Oliver Hazard Perry led his home-built 10-vessel fleet to victory against a six-vessel British squadron commanded by Captain Robert H. Barclay in the Battle of Lake Erie. Perry’s triumph, marked by his legendary message to General William Henry Harrison, “We have met the enemy and they are ours,” was of great strategic value for the United States because it ensured American control of the Northwest Territory. During the battle, Perry left his badly damaged Lawrence and transferred his motto flag, reading, “Don’t Give Up the Ship,” to Niagara. From there he continued the fight.



1813

Sep 13

John Sedgwick (d.1864), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.



1813

Sep 24

Andre-Ernest-Modeste Gretry, composer, died at 72.



1813

September

September: American forces are victorious over the British at the Battle of Lake Erie.



1813

September

September: Robert Southey is appointed Poet Laureate of England.



1813-1901

10-Oct 12:00 AM

Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer was born. Best know for his operas.



1813

Oct 5

The Battle of Moraviantown was decisive in the War of 1812. Known as the Battle of the Thames in the United States, the U.S. victory over British and Indian forces near Ontario at the village of Moraviantown on the Thames River is know in Canada as the Battle of Moraviantown. Some 600 British regulars and 1,000 Indian allies under English General and Shawnee leader Tecumseh were greatly outnumbered and quickly defeated by U.S. forces under the command of Maj. Gen. William Henry Harrison. Tecumseh (45) was killed in this battle.



1813

Oct 9

Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer (Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida), was born. [see Oct 10]



1813

Oct 10

Composer Giuseppe Verdi was born in Le Roncole, Italy. [see Oct 9]



1813

Oct 17

Georg Buchner, German playwright (Danton’s Death, Woyzeck), was born.



1813

Oct 18

The Allies defeated Napoleon Bonaparte at Leipzig.



1813

Oct 16 to Oct 19

In the Battle at Leipzig (aka Battle of the Nations) Napoleon faced Prussia, Austria and Russia and suffered one of his worst defeats.



1813

Oct 26

Canadian militia defeated American forces at the Battle of Chateauguay.



1813

Oct 29

The Demologos, the first steam-powered warship, was launched in New York City.



1813

October

October: America forces are victorious at the Battle of the Thames in Ontario, but are soundly defeated by the British at the Battle of Châteauguay River (Spears) in southern Quebec.



1813

October

October: The Battle of Nations at Leipzig against the allied Coalition (which now includes Sweden and Saxony) is one of the most decisive defeats suffered by Napoleon. It is considered the largest battle in Europe before World War I, with over 500,000 troops involved and 120,000 casualties. The battle brings an end to the kingdom of Westphalia (its king, Jérôme Bonaparte flees to France), and the liberated German states join the Coalition.



1813

October

October: Wellington advances his troops into France. He wrests a first victory on French soil from Marshall Soult at the Battle of Bidassoa.



1813

Nov 2

Treaty of Fulda. After the Battle of Leipzig (Oct 16-19) King Frederick I of Württemberg (1754-1816) deserted Napoleon’s waning fortunes. By a treaty made with Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich (1773-1858) at Fulda, Hessen, Germany he secured the confirmation of his royal title and of his recent acquisitions of territory, while his troops marched with those of the allies into France.



1813

Nov 3

American troops destroy the Indian village of Tallushatchee in the Mississippi Valley. US troops under Gen Coffee destroyed an Indian village at Talladega, Ala.



1813

Nov 6

Chilpancingo congress declared Mexico independent of Spain.



1813

Nov 12

J. H. St. John de Crevecouer, French explorer and writer, died. He had spent more than half of his life in the New World and contributed two important concepts to the American consciousness. The first is the idea of the “American Adam,” that there is something different, unique, special, or new about these people called “Americans.” The second idea is that of the “melting pot,” that people’s “American-ness” transcends their ethnic, cultural, or religious backgrounds.



1813

Nov 16

The British announced a blockade of Long Island Sound, leaving only the New England coast open to shipping.



1813

Nov 29

Giambattista Bodoni (73), Italian stamp cutter, publisher, and type font designer (bodoni), died.



1813

November

November: Dresden surrenders to Allies forces.



1813

November

November: Wellington pursues Marshall Soult deeper into France and defeats his army at the Battle of Nivelle.



1813

Dec 8

Ludwig van Beethoven’s 7th Symphony in A, premiered.



1813

Dec 10

Zachariah Chandler, US merchant and politician, was born. He founded the Republican Party.



1813

Dec 19

British forces captured Fort Niagara during the War of 1812.



1813

Dec 20

Dr. Samuel Mudd, doctor who helped Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, was born. [2nd ref. says 1833]



1813

Dec 30

The British burned Buffalo, N.Y., during the War of 1812.



1813

Dec 31

Some 83,000 Prussian and Russian soldiers pursued Napoleon across the Rhine at Pfalzgrafenstein Castle.



1813

December

December: Beethoven premiers his Seventh Symphony (Symphony No. 7 in A major, Opus 92) at a charity concert in Vienna for wounded soldiers.



1813

December

December: London’s Westminster Bridge is lit by gas, as well as other areas of Westminster, including seven residential customers.



1813



Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth cross the Blue Mountains.



1813



Elizabeth Fry, an English Quaker, works to improve the conditions for women held in Newgate Prison, where there is no segregation of prisoners by sex. She will be instrumental in introducing education and employment into the British penal system, and will eventually open soup kitchens for the poor.



1813



Led by King Frederick William II, the War of Liberation from France begins in Prussia.



1813



Lord Byron publishes the Oriental Tales: The Bride of Abydos and The Giaour.



1813



Matthew Flinders calls the continent ‘Australia’.



1813



Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes Queen Mab.



1813



Russia and Prussia sign the Treaty of Kalisch against France, their coalition soon joined by Britain, Austria and Sweden.



1813



The allied forces begin to march against and invade France.



1813



The Charter Act of 1813 asserted the sovereignty of the British Crown over territories in India held by the British East India Company, and deprived the Company of its Indian trade monopoly.



1813



The Duke of Wellington defeats the French army at the battle of Vitoria in Spain.



1813



The French are defeated and driven from Spain by Wellington at the Battle of Vittoria.



1813



The French are defeated at the Battle of Leipzig (Battle of the Nations) by the Austrians, Russian and Prussian combined armies.



1813



The French are victorious at the Battle of Dresden.



1813



United States First Lady Dolly Madison 40, serves for the first time, ice cream, at the Presidential inauguration party for her husband James on March 4.



1813



Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is published. William Hedley’s Puffing Billy, an early steam locomotive, runs on smooth rails. Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry starts her ministry at Newgate Prison. Robert Southey becomes Poet Laureate.



1813



The first “Regency romance,” Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is published (although she would not have called them romances, a term reserved for high adventure then, and in her day, they were contemporary stories).



1813



Napoleon’s move against Russia has delayed Russia’s ability to protect their fellow Orthodox Christians, the Serbs, who have been rebelling against Ottoman rule. The Ottoman Empire moves against rebel Serb areas, and Albanian troops plunder Serb villages.



1813



Napoleon has failed to win enough friends. In Spain, British and Spanish forces defeat his military. Napoleon withdraws from Germany after the Russians, Prussians, Austrians and Swedes defeat him there. His Confederation of the Rhine falls into history’s trash bin.  



1813



Laura Secord walks 20 difficult miles to warn of a surprise attack by an invading U.S. force. She is to be a Canadian heroine. 



1813



Raphaelle Peale, son of Charles Willson, painted his still life “Black-berries.”



1813



The Rossini opera “L’Italiana in Algeri” had its premier in Venice. [see 1808]



1813



In New Mexico El Santuario del Senor de Esquipulas was built. It is a tiny chapel near the village of Chimayo, and one of the 6 adobe missions scattered along the western shoulder of the Sangre de Cristo mountains between Taos and Santa Fe. Rumor has it that Don Bernardo Abeyta, a Catholic penitent from Santa Cruz, found a buried crucifix here in 1810 while on a pilgrimage. Native Americans called this valley Tsimayo-pokwi and believed it to be holy ground.



1813



The US federal government was almost broke from the war with Britain but was able to get Stephen Girard, wealthy ship owner and banker, to help finance the war effort. Congress quickly moved to charter the Second Bank of the US.



1813



Immigrants John Jacob Astor, David Parish, Alexander Dallas and Stephen Girard stepped in to provide over $9 million to finance the US War of 1812.



1813



A new 45 carat blue diamond emerged in France. It was guessed to have been cut from the 112 carat Blue Diamond of the crown jewels. The 112 carot stone was recut in 1673 to 67 carats.



1813



John (Cameron) Gilroy of Scotland sailed from England on the Isaac Todd to Monterey, Ca., where he was dropped off to recover from scurvy.



1813



A troop ship returning from the War of 1812 was blown ashore at Cape Pine on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula. All 350 passengers died.



1813



Andrew Jackson received a bullet wound that shattered his left shoulder. The bullet was not removed until 1832 and was later suspected of causing lead poisoning.



1813



Zebulon Montgomery Pike, the American explorer who has a Colorado mountain named for him, died leading an attack that captured York, now known as Toronto, in the War of 1812. Pike, born in New Jersey in 1779, sighted in 1806 but did not climb the mountain that would later be named Pikes Peak in the Colorado Rockies. Pike led two expeditions from 1805 to 1807, one in the upper Mississippi region of the Louisiana Purchase and the second in what is now New Mexico and Colorado. As a brigadier general, Pike was killed, when a powder magazine exploded as he led the assault on York, then capital of upper Canada. Some 320 Americans were killed or wounded in the explosion.



1813



In Australia explorers Gregory Blaxland, William Wentworth and William Lawson blazed the first trail from Sidney across the Blue Mountains to the fertile western plains.



1813



Bennelong (49), an Australian Aborigine, died. He was one of the first Aborigines to live among white settlers after the landing of the First Fleet in 1788, when he was kidnapped and employed as a cultural interlocutor by the British. Bennelong had adapted to the European way of life, teaching the colonizers about Aboriginal customs and language and learning to speak English, but ultimately became an alcoholic.



1813



The British government removed the British East India Company’s monopoly of trade with India.



1813



William Charles Wells presented a paper to the Royal Society in which he introduced the idea of natural selection to explain why people might vary in skin color in different climates.



1813



In Canada American militiamen burned down the town of Niagara-on-the Lake.



1813



The Tokujo-maru, a Japanese ship with a cargo of rice for Edo, was blown off course. Three surviving crew members were picked up 18 months later by a British ship off the coast of California.



1813



Prussia took over Danzig.



1813



The Prussians introduced the Iron Cross during the Napoleonic wars.



1813



The Clark family of Paisley, Scotland, began manufacturing cotton thread. By the 1840s members of the family moved to the US and in 1866 developed a twisted cotton thread for sewing machines, which they named O.N.T. (Our New Thread).



1813



A Swiss traveler discovered the Great and Small Temples of Ramses II at Abu Simbel in Egypt.



1813-1820



The classic Vietnamese love poem “The Tale of Kieu” was written by Nguyen Du (1766-1820). It was based on an earlier Chinese novel entitled “The story of Kim-Van-Kieu “, written by an author under the pen-name of “Thanh-Tam Tai-Nhan” in the 16th or the early 17th century.



1813-1828



Russia gains control of northern Azerbaijan due to the weak local power of the khanates. Industrialization and oil extraction are expanded.



1813-1843



Robert Southey was the poet laureate of England over this period. He was the author of “The Three Bears.”



1813-1855



Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher: “Truth is not introduced into the individual from without, but was within him all the time.” “Don’t forget to love yourself.”



1813-1887



Ellen Wood, English playwright and journalist: “It is not so much what we have done amiss, as what we have left undone, that will trouble us, looking back.”



1813-1891



Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte, linguist, amassed a collection of some 14,000 books on linguistics. Because his special interest was the Finnish and Estonian languages, he gathered extensively from the whole Baltic region. The collection was sold in 1894 to the Newberry Library in Chicago from a London bookseller.



1813-1908



Thomas Mellon, American empire builder and judge, made his fortune in real-estate speculation and founded the Mellon Bank.

The Regency Giveaway

A few hours left to visit the Regency Lexicon and post a comment to win an ebook copy of Two Peas in a Pod.

Choose one selection from the Lexicon and leave in the comments section.

RenTech: Serializing a chapter at a time Steam and Thunder Chapter 1

Today we begin the weekly serialization of Steam and Thunder. I expect to have one chapter, having gone through my editing process, ready for you each week.

If you feel so inclined to provide feedback for the project that would be great as well.

Steam and Thunder takes a look at the marriage of Steam, invention and innovation to feudal society and the agrarian economies that exist around such a period.

We had the boiling of water. We had pinwheels (400 BC). We had steam rooms in the stone age.

How long before someone thinks to just put a covered pot of boiling water that releases steam and pushed a pinwheel around? The genesis of the steam engine.

An Aeolipile was discussed by Hero of Alexandria in the first century.

We have Taqi al-Din describing a steam turbine in 1551.

Our story takes place in a world, much like our own, but a few hundred years earlier, where we meld the properties of steam and create a rudimentary engine. One that can turn into a functional engine.

But that is part of the backstory that you will find here. Though the period of invention and hard work to turn a simple device that turns a little windmill device and toots a horn into a working machine will take years, those that participate along the way will contribute to not only one innovation, but others that are suggested by it.

And these innovations will need men and women to build them. The second sons and daughters from the farms who seek a different life, a more lucrative life in the cities where new made factories support the building of new devices.

That is the world that I create and work towards showing you here.

In this chapter, a prequel of the main story we meet our hero, Jacklincoln Cartwright. We also meet his family who are supporting characters to him. We see a little of the city that he was born at. Here is a city that we see described so we get context as to the era that Jac was born. We also meet another character Master Builder Mikonal Gearman who will be the guide for Jac during the novel. We see that we are at the first use of Locks on Canals in our mythical country of Hornik.

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Steam and Thunder, Chapter 1

As age overtakes us, memory from childhood fades. There are moments, as adults that are embellished, that still remain vivid. Jac would always think that the birth of Princess Annaxier was his first memory. Her birth and the firelights.

His father, a simple maker of carts, awakened Jacklincoln, his eldest son early that day. It was still dark night outside. Jac knew as an adult that the dark bled off quickly in the summer months, and Princess Annaxier had been born very near the vernal equinox. Samathon Cartwright woke his son and speedily dressed the boy of three cycles. They ate two pieces of yesterday’s bread with honey on it. Sam the Cartwright was the only journeyman at the shop of Milosk Cartwright, his uncle.

Master Milosk’s shop was the most renown in all of southern Hornik for its craftsmanship, but also for its artistry. It was not the largest foundry, yet it served. New cart designs though were produced with a consistency every five cycles since Samathon had come of age, and before that every eight to ten cycles when Milo was in his prime. Often extra care was taken with the carts. Artistic carving would adorn them throughout, making them much more valuable than anything utilitarian that was produced by rivals.

Sam was proud of the growing family his wife Vivan had given him. Three children and a fourth on the way. Master Milosk provided him with his own tenement in the compound and they had a lordly three rooms. His uncle Milosk had been glad of his nephew coming to him when his own son died of the wasting illness, and now as Milosk hands were too crippled and pained to do much work, Sam handled most of the production with the three apprentices, while Milosk handled the sales. Soon enough Samathon would be the master.

The birth of an heir to King Lancellnick Farserit was the cause for a national celebration and his majesty had made the official day to be Verday, with Holyday the next. It was two days without work and the Kingdom of Hornik rejoiced at the simple decision also. Annaxier was a healthy five day old child and the word would have reached near every part of the kingdom of Hornik by Verday.

The city of Cawless was two days ride by royal messenger from the capital of Firtoskin. With more than ten thousand souls, it was the fifth largest city in the Kingdom. The foundry and shop of Master Milosk was located along the river edge, in that part of town, south of the nobles great houses, that many of the premier shops used.

Next to the foundry was the smaller shop of Master Fenntrel, the wheelwright. On the opposite bank of the Vernis was the smithy of Master Jamestash whom supplied the two wrights with their metal stock at reasonable prices. As with many of the class of craftsmen, the three were all distantly related.

Further down stream, where the Vernis picked up speed at a slight narrows was the Lumber Mill of Master Carlincoln. He was a young thin faced man. Known to be parsimonious with his guildens and free with his coppens, but enjoyed the location established by his great-grandfather on the banks of Vernis. Master Carlincoln also had several other Masters as partners in his endeavors, including the Wheelwright, Cartwright, and Blacksmith. His father had run into severe monetary difficulties and loans from these men helped him. It was with regret that Carlincoln could not overcharge the three men, as he did with most others.

The town had several other areas of Craft and Artisan shops, but the banks of the Vernis had attracted the first such men, and their proximity to the Vernis and the Nobles ensured that they were the most heavily trafficked. Often other parts of Cawless, such as the jewel shop of Master Gunthertic in Portside, would be given the custom of the great, as true genius was seen in the products there. But eventually Maser Gunthertic’s success would give him the means to move to the banks of the Vernis as well.

The shops and foundries along the bank of the Vernis were all painted woods of golds and greens, blues and oranges. Rich colors and hues abounded. Then fancy signage showed the nature of the shop. The Cartwright boasted glazed windows that looked out in broad expanses from the second stories that overlooked Riverroad and the Vernis. A wealthy merchant establishment indeed that could afford so much glazing.

The shop of Milosk Cartwright was fortunate to be on the east bank and thus Sam and Jac would not have to cross at either the great Conqueror bridge, or the two lesser bridges, The Little Deem, or Southside to make their way further into town.. Usually the bridges were so packed with people that the few minute walk was considered something to be avoided. Ferrymen ran little boats back and forth across the Vernis for a few coppens, but this day, with many from the outlying areas coming to the celebrations, it could take more than a round to cross. The ferrymen were all relishing the extra profits to be had from such a grand celebration.

Samathon had often thought of purchasing a small boat when his children were a little older so that they could go on the Vernis. Samathon’s cousin had one when they were children, but after his death, Milosk had gotten rid of it.

Jac remembered the journey through the very awake city. It still took a round for a trip that would usually only take a third of that. Through the lane of the Saltcellars, where bright colors ruled, past the great houses of the Merchants who traveled the country and the continent bringing back wares from all parts. Only the lighter blues, greens and white would be seen here. And the middle of the street had a lush greensward strip running it’s length.

Then down the Street of the Goldsmiths, which was where the big moneylenders now had their establishments. Here the window glazing had become even more prodigious than that along Riverroad. The hues of the moneylenders were dark browns, deep umbers, blacks and forest greens. Nowhere in the city was there a spot of purple on a house. That sacrilegious color had no place in Cawless. Traveling street of Goldsmiths would take one unto Temple Square.

Here the three great faiths had their places of worship.

The One True faith, with it’s giant domed temple was dwarfed by the great hall of Mortonish. The pantheon that had roots in ancient Neveria and still had many of the lower classes worshipping it. A father god that protected farmers surely appealed to those that worked the land. Its sanctuary upheld by the dated arches and buttresses that the great engineers of Neveria had postulated and created. Finally the official synagogue of Krien, which the Conqueror had adopted as his god, when taking Hornik away from the family of Great Ishyurk who had followed the One True faith. Nobles were equally split between the two greater faiths, as they termed them.

The Way of Lancecoin the Third, last ruler of the Ishyurk line who had founded the city of Cawless, led the short distance from Temple Square to the King’s Grange. Surrounded on three sides by the great palaces. The King’s Palace, which King Lancellnick visited each three cycles or so predominated on the north side of the greensward. It had been the center of government for the first two Farserit kings before they moved the capital back to the rebuilt Firtoskin. During the Conquest, Firtoskin had been nearly raised to the ground after a siege that lasted more than a cycle.

On the East side of the large square whose grass was generally maintained by a herd of shaggy haired goats under royal protection, the Palace of Justice stood. Here the King’s Governor, lord Colndefroc currently, the Baron of Harnmere, ensured that the cities administration was managed. The Palace of Justice was a third larger than the King’s Palace, for it had many men devoted to the running of the city who lived and worked within. One of the city barracks of the constabulary also housed within that palace. Lord Colndefroc though would be glad to leave after his four cycles as Governor, for the rooms allotted to him and his family were smaller than his manor home in Harnmere. The third side of the field was the Palace of the Marshall. Smaller than the other two, but a fortified building that housed the Cawless Regiment. Two thousand men who served as the defense of the city and the surrounding countryside. When King Lancellnick’s father had restricted the private armies of his nobles to small groups of bodyguards only, the royal army took on a more permanent and more important significance.

The royal Palace was on the northeast side of the square and it stood grandly alone facing the square with great stout walls of wood that had been reinforced with river stones and mortared in place. Large wrought iron gates and fencing were seen at several intervals in the granite façade for it was a place of reign rather than rule. If need be, the King would retreat into the Palace of the Marshall with its impregnable walls. A thirty foot space separated the fortress from the street and the neighboring buildings. Several rich merchants and craftsmen had built shops in the nearly twenty other buildings that lined the southeast side of the great square along with the fortress. The Palace of Justice stood alone with no wall or fence to separate it, though only four points provided access.

The Palace was raised two steps above the entire Grange. It fronted the Northwest side of the square and two entryways a similar distance apart were seen in it’s long face. They were mirrored by two entrances on the far side of the building that gave way to Hangman’s Square.

That square catered to not only the occasional final sentencing of justice, but the shops and establishments that lined the square were themed for those of less pious pursuits than others. The licensed bordellos, gambling dens and several liquor hovels were scattered about the square that hosted a trade market every Terraceday, except when there was to be a hanging. Then it became more like a county faire, with gaiety and laughter. A scene that many of the Governors could not stomach nor understand. Certainly the citizenry of Firtoskin did nod not act the same when the Grand Palace of Justice there carried out a sentence.

The southwest side of the King’s Grange held a mix of mostly the homes of the well to do and nobility, though here three merchants, and four taverns were also ensconced. It was the King’s Grange that the official celebrations were to take place, though it should be mentioned that citizenry saw to much activity in Temple Square as all three great religions held fairs honoring the king’s first child. What went on in Hangman’s Square was incendiary as could generally be expected. In later cycles those who had wandered into the Square and were fortunate to have any memories of it would remember streets flowing with wines and ales, and later vomit, offal and worse, as a party that began the previous night continued on through the next. Lord Colndefroc finally did order his many constabulary deputies into the fray and rousted the square clear when he thought it was safe to do so. During the day he just kept those that he correctly discerned as rabble, away from the official celebrations, the next block over.

Jac pulled at his father’s collar, “Da, ta lies. Da, ta lies.”

“Yes Jac.”

“Purty Da. Purty!”

“Yes. It is for princess Annaxier.”

“Pincess…”

Sam was patient with new words., he repeated slowly, “Princess.”

“Pah rin cest.” Jac grinned knowing how good he sounded.

“Annaxier.” Sam knew this would be difficult. Full nomens were hard even for adults. It was why once an acquaintanceship turned into friendship the small nomens were used.

“Ah hex hair.”

“Close enough Jac.” The young boy let out a laugh. He then glanced again as another burst of the firelights blazed into the sky.

It had been a long day but the nap Jac had taken allowed him to be wide awake for the early evening display. Sam had wondered if after the Juggler’s and Fire Eaters the boy could fall asleep.

They had retired to Master Mikaelstan’s glass shop, which was on the King’s Grange. Mik, a short round man with red cheeks and singed eyelashes, had offered his hospitality a few weeks before as announcements of the queen’s delivery date loomed, and plans were related of the celebration that was going to take place. Mik did a good deal of trade with Sam and his uncle and so a good friendship backed the offer.

Sam had bought Jac treat after treat, Fried Dolingus, Nanabar’s, hot rolls dipped in anicort. The little boy ate some of each treat and Sam finished whatever his son couldn’t. Mik had two children, each a little older than Jac. The three played with toys for a bit after Jac woke from his nap, then grabbing a few bites of Evenmeal, they all ventured back to the square for more of the entertainments.

As dusk settled, Mikaelstan opened his roof for viewing of the firelights. King Lancellnick, Lord Colndefroc and the city burghers were paying enough to provide a show that would be longer than half of a round. Many other men of business that Sam delighted in knowing and meeting, with their children, also gathered on the roof. The women clustered down below and gapped out the window.

Jac did not remember what the men talked about that night, for he was too young to know the conversation, but he knew from later cycles as his father related the tale how Sam had made several advantageous alliances and these contacts later helped with making the cartwright foundry even larger than it had been under great uncle Milosk. Since there was no room along the Vernis to expand, Samathon would eventually add to the yard by purchasing land across the street of Riverroad and just a touch down that was for sale. Here he set up works just to handle the axles and undercarriage construction.

Through these cycles of industry of Samathon Cartwright, Jac led a charmed life. As the son of a respected craftsmen and artisan he was rather blessed in the great scheme of society. There were many other children less well taken care of then there were better taken care of. The Cartwrights were close to the gulf that separated the merchants and craftsmen from the truly wealthy. Even those of the nobility whose wealth diminished with the tide of time and were less fortunate then the Cartwrights strove to maintain the appearance of far greater circumstances.

* * *

The Cartwright clan, and it grew as the foundry grew, saw a time of prosperity. Sam sent for the son of his mother’s cousin to apprentice, and his wife’s nephew also came into the business. The children of Sam and his relatives were tutored privately at the main house as Milosk doted on the many relations filling his home. When Samathon’s second son, Coloskthon was born, the grand old man brought the entire family into the great house to live.

Vivan had little time if she were not to live in the great house. She spent most of her midday there already seeing to the running of the Master’s household and had little time to see to her own, especially when trying to nurse a newborn. Thus Milosk solved all by bringing his heir and family all under one roof.

In their education, Jac and his older sister Kathierin excelled at their studies showing a provenance for numbers. They could write well but at age six and seven, neither of the children showed much affinity for the love of words.

Where Jac also showed skills was in the shop. His father had started him polishing the chrome joinings and the brass. From there Jac took to do fitting on the small axle joints where a small hand was deft and useful. It was shortly after this that the Cartwright Foundry was pleased to offer a new wheel joint that used ball bearings. It had taken three moons to perfect, but when Jac had showed his father his idea after playing with his marbles and applying it to Master Fenntrel’s wheels in the shop. All could see the wheels rotated with more ease.

It was priced at twice what a normal axle but it was due to last longer and take more abuse. Master Fenntrel was given the opportunity to learn the secrets of the bearings so that he would not lose business too terribly. For with wheels lasting longer, he would be selling less of them. He resented Jac on some days, but generally it was not ill that he thought.

At first the wheels sold slowly and so Fenntrel thought they would not catch on, then as they sold better, he was the only one supplying them and so made handsomely at it. Eventually he did note that over the long run there would be less wheels sold. He was fortunate that he had been gifted the technique of making the new wheels, for he had a great advantage over other wheelwrights. Within two cycles he had opened a new foundry in Firtoskin on the profits and the ability to say he was the builder of the original smooth wheel.

Vivan however ensured that Master Fenntrel put aside some money for her son Jac from each cycle’s sale. Fen’s good fortune was the result of her son’s design. Fen would have done so for the gift of the great idea. He had thought to give the lad ten guildens when he reached his majority, some twelve cycles hence, but that would have been a pittance compared to the new money Fen was making. He had made two guildens on the new wheels in its first season alone.

Vivan had a brother who had become a pater in the holy religion of Krien. Though he preached in the far north at Delham, Pater Lincarjirt ensured that Fen received some special attention from his holy brethren. Vivan was happy to note two paters and a clerk pay a social call on Master Fenntrel a few moons after the first wheels began to sell. Jac had been given the letter from his uncle, now a senior pater in the Holy religion.

“Sister, I bid you greeting. I have been informed by my brethren of Cawless that my nephew Jacklincoln will be well rewarded for his gift to your Master Wheelwright. As the church takes but a tenth part of all that is good of it’s parishioners it was felt that such a gifting from your Master to young Jac should be no less. Indeed we find in holy text some precedent for just such. I believe that the Master shall come to an accounting each new moon and store the funds for young Jac in the same local establishment that brother Samathon stores his own funds. I pray that this eases your mind and that our young rapscallion Jac shall see an earthly reward for his good deeds, as he will no doubt receive a heavenly one for his constant prayers to Krien the Maker.”

The letter went on to say other nice things, but Vivan had shown the way to good husbandry of the wealth. Further Jac’s good fortune was needful of rewarding he that had ensured it. Jac always gave his tithe, though many did not, to the Holy religion of Krien. He sent his gifting to his uncle and overtime this mutually helped his uncle Lincarjirt also.

The new wheel and axle cart, with its greater reliability saw to a very great commission for Samathon and the foundry. It was fortunate that Milosk lived to see the papers signed with the agents of King Lancellnick himself. For thirty carts were commissioned for work on the great canal. The canal would start in Cawless on the banks of the Vernis and wend it’s way to Marest, Julon, and finally to Firtoskin. The canal was a great project overseen by Master Builder Mikonal Gearman with over a hundred workers. Master Gearman was one of the three Master Builders then in the King’s employ.

All these thoughts of the world of Jac’s youth were tied to who he was. What he was to become. It all led to the day that changed all.

As memories went, the day that Jac fell into the canal and nearly was caught in the lock was his second memory and it was horrible and good both. It was the Firtoskin Canal that had recently been built and was being tested. Jac was sure that he had caused his Great Uncle Milosk’s death, for it was his uncle that had taken him to walk along the new stretch of canal to the first lock and look upon the wonder.

It was Master Builder Gearman who had invented the idea of the locks and sold them to the king. Two of the new locks were in use in Firtoskin and linked the Greater Themis with the Lessor Themis river. The rivers that had served to guard the north and south sides of the city for many centuries, until the city itself had expanded beyond their courses.

Jac remembered the moment as the event that caused his uncle to die three days later. Milosk never recovering from his running to try and catch the boy who shot over the artificial waterfall created by the two gates opening. Others would remember it as quite a different event. For a week later Jac had produced the first rudiments of the Steam Twirler. That was what Jac first called it.

Jac had thought a great deal of his experience as both he and his great uncle Milosk were put to bed that day. Jac of course was blamed for the event though no one said more than a word about it. Milosk assured Samathon between horrible hacking coughs that the boy was not at fault and eventually Sam must have believed it. Other eyewitnesses, including Master Gearman were to confirm this, but Jac never took those words to heart. Jac had been close to the embankment when it gave way. The immediate events happened so quickly, that Jac would doubt forever memories and assurances that he had stood behind the marker lines that the workers had placed. The rush to try the great gates had seen them tested before a slurry coat had been placed over the embankment to keep it from eroding. Jac would find it always hard to believe that he could not have prevented his own falling into the canal.

Instead Jac listened to his Great Uncle’s hacking cough from the floor below, or the tea kettle screech as steam was forced out of it signifying the water for tea was ready. Herb tea had proven to cure a variety of ills, and Milosk was dosed with several infusions. Jac was given the Erwine, Chamomile and Satchthyme tisane thought to ward off colds. He didn’t catch one so perhaps it did work. Milosk however never rose from his bed again. He passed gently and the family took to mourning even as the shop continued to work on the carts of the King’s great commission. Twenty had been delivered and ten more were still due.

The tale then belonged to others but Jac had been told much of it.

* * *

Master Gearman stopped by the shop every few days for his guilt was unabsolved. Even as Jac returned to the shop and took up his tasks of polishing and joining, he had applied his free time to making the steam twirler. Combining the ideas in his head of the rushing through the Lock and the Tea Kettle, he spent some rounds working on the device.

The prototype of two days work sat chuffing in a corner of the shop to the annoyance of the apprentices and two journeymen that Master Samathon employed. Master Gearman arrived once again to try and bring comfort to the Cartwrights and himself.

“What is this noisy contraption, eh? A new mice scarer?” Gearman grinned at the hodgepodge collection of copper, iron, brass, rust, wire, rope and cloth.

“It’s young Jac’s. Built it a few days ago. Makes an infernal noise every so often.” Karlplatt, the senior apprentice said.

“Every quarter round, give or take.” Henriforlu, the cousin of Sam’s who was now a journeyman in the shop said. “You should note that apprentice, it is a precision.”

That stopped Master Gearman. He looked closer. “This wheel, it spins.”

“Aye. Jac says twirls. Look at it. I tapped it out. I believe Jac has it so you can adjust to twirl to about two thousand times per round.” Mikonal reached for chalk and a board. He quickly did some calculations.

“Surely it is a child’s toy. Jacklincoln is not yet seven winters of age.” Karlplatt was nearly sixteen cycles and so knew something of the world.

Mikonal was entranced and reached a tentative hand to touch the wheel. “Here, wouldn’t do that if I were you. There are some nasty sharp ends all over it. Man could get cut up some, eh Karl.”

“Alright, so I got a little scratched.”

“Blood all over the shop and your hand is still bandaged from the burn you took. Light work for the better part of next week too, I should think,” the older Henri smiled beatifically.

Master Gearman noticed then the heat from the article. And the small pile of coal nearby. He noted a little casement at the bottom where the coal was obviously placed.

“I have to feed it every round or so.” Jac had come into the shop just then and Master Gearman jumped for he had not heard the young lad enter or approach next to his shoulder.

“You startled me child.”

“I am sorry master.”

“No, do not be sorry. Jacklincoln Cartwright, do not be sorry. They tell me this is your work. Is that so?” Gearman had looked away from the hodge podge of tubes, and wheels, steam and coal to fully focus on Jac. Jac would have thought the man reluctant to have looked at anything but his steam twirler. The master had sunk down to his knees to put them more on an equal height, and he stared into the Jac’s face.

Jac for his part was slightly ashamed. The death of his great uncle haunted him then. “I know I should be more at my studies Master, but it was in my head and I needed to finish it.”

“In your head. In the boy’s head. Ha. Ha-ha. Ha.” And Gearman let out a laugh and scooped Jac up and swung him about. “He says it was in his head, his head. He says it was in his head.” The King’s Builder, a man of considerable influence and power amongst all those of trade began to sing and dance about the workshop. Soon Jac was laughing too as he flew when Mikonal spun him about. Karl and Henri both stood in awe until Henri shook himself free from his momentary shock and then began to clap out a beat to Mikonal’s impromptu tune.

Karl looked as if he thought the world was mad. Even as the quarter round came and the infernal contraption let out a screech that caused the three others to laugh louder. Then Henri and Jac both started singing to the little song. Karl turned to leave and fetch the master but he needn’t have bothered as Master Samathon and then Vivan, and all the others who were about the Foundry came to see the commotion.

“Here now, what is in whose head… And Jac, when Master Gearman has put you down, I would be obliged if you put the fire out in that apparatus of yours.” Sam used his stern fatherly tone. Sam had told Jac he was proud that his son had created another device, though he wished it was something useful like the ball bearing wheels that were a boon for business. Jac had said that perhaps there was a way to level the bouncing in the carts by putting braces along the axle, but he had yet to work on that. Sam said he wished he would.

“No Master Cartwright. Do not allow Jac to place that fire out. That fire will change the world. This apparatus as you all call it, it is wonderful.”

Vivan was not one to allow a moment to pass, “Of course. Jac is very smart. Anything he makes is bound to be wonderful as such.”

“I think we had best go inside and talk this over. Why is the steam thingus so wonderful?” Samathon asked.

“Because it does a thing that until now only the Gods could do for us. It creates power.”

They all looked at each other, many not sure what that meant. Then Vivan noticed the wheel turning and she looked startled. “The wheel. It turns and there is no wind, or stream, or horse. The wheel turns.”

“Aye the wheel turns,” Master Builder Gearman said.

Sam was a bit slower. He had spent a lifetime learning a craft and an artisanship that did not stretch to new invention. If his son had not thought of a way to make a wheel better, he would never have had them to sell. “Oh praise Krien. Praise Krien.” He let out a sob, then he started to cry.

“Master Cartwright, you should rejoice, not cry.”

“Indeed Master Gearman, I do rejoice. I cry of happiness. My son is blessed.” They began to gather those who should return to the house, and those who needed to go back to their duties, and soon order was restored at the foundry. But an event such as this only led word and rumor spread which is precisely what began. It was a round before Karlplatt was sent on an errand outside the foundry to Master Jamestash’s smithy, but once there he couldn’t but relate to Tomlerty, an apprentice of Master Jamestash the story of what Master Gearman said and did in the foundry earlier.

It took another couple rounds before everyone in the Smithy had heard the story and Master Jamestash left immediately for the Cartwright foundry as soon as heard the story, garbled though it was, but by then word had reached two other establishments through the apprentice grapevine. By the time Master Jamestash paid his respects to Master Samathon matters were all but settled. And as James heard the news and was shown the device, Master Fen arrived with his senior journeyman to see the steam twirler also.

Master Gearman had begun the proceedings in the dining room of the great house with only Master Samathon, Mistress Vivan and Jac in attendance. “First Jac, you have created something that will be very beneficial to the kingdom. I don’t want you to go about telling people of this invention of yours willy nilly. It is a great secret.”

“But it wasn’t anything.”

“The lad has good speech. You have a tutor for the boy?” Master Gearman noted this. Vivan nodded.

“Yes we have one for all the children. Goodman Marshorurn teaches all the children their numbers and letters.”

“Drawing?” She shook her head. “We’ll have to rectify that. In addition we shall have to add to your curriculum, the study of elements, of powers and of arcane lore. Especially what we have from the Neverian masters.”

Samathon was taken by the pace of the builders thoughts. “Are you not speeding along now. Jac is but nigh on seven. And those lessons are expensive.”

Mikonal sat there for a moment then tilted his head back at an awkward angle and began to laugh yet once more. He started to rock and hit his hand on the table as he laughed, and Sam joined in though he did not know why. Vivan looked at the two and crossed to the side board where she had a bowl of fruit, tankards and some ale which she busied herself preparing to bring to the table. She shook her head in exasperation knowing that when serious business needed to be done, best it was left to women, for men were too easily sidetracked with their particular humors.

“No, I surely must have…” Mikonal tried to speak.

“I thought I made it clear…” He tried again.

Finally taking hold of himself, “My dear Master Samathon, I wish to apprentice your son. I shall pay for his lessons. I shall see him educated so that one day he too shall take his place as a Builder and most definitely with his talents, should they continue in this wise and prosper, he too shall be a King’s man.”

Master Builder Mikonal Gearman was not married, though he had been a Master of his craft for five cycles by then. Seeing nearly forty winters. He had journeyed to far lands, as he had related in prior visits to the Cartwright foundry and had entertained old Milosk the day before Milosk died with a long tale of his cycle long journey to, and study at, the court of the Sultan of Justabul.

“That can not be. He is my oldest and he shows sign of being a great Cartwright.” Samathon had plans for young Jac from the moment the Midwife had shown him the young babe shortly after the birth. He had made the plans during his wife’s first pregnancy when she bore their daughter Kathierin. If Sam thought of it, he had made the plans when he had chosen to become a Cartwright and apprenticed to his uncle.

Master Gearman nodded then spoke, “Ah I understand. No, I know I have no child, and that is the crux of the matter. You naturally wish your son to takeover the business from you. Yet not always does a son follow his father. I recollect that this was the business of your Uncle?”

“Yes, that is so,” Samathon said.

“And your father, what is his trade?” Vivan stood behind her husband and nodded to Mikonal so that her husband could not see. She knew this was the correct path to take and also one that perhaps she would not have to then speak herself.

“He was a farrier.” Samathon was adept enough to know where the logic would take them. “Even so, my brother is a farrier, and it is a proud business.”

Mikonal blanched and stroked his beard. “Even a builder is a trade to be proud of.”

“Aye that is true. I meant no insult,” Jac’s father said.

“I do not take offense, Master Cartwright.” Mikonal reached for the tankard that had been placed in front of him. “I merely say that you perhaps have gifts in the way of making carts. Jac has gifts of another nature. You told me yourself it was his inspirations that led you to the new wheels that are on your cart, and perhaps one day greater enhancements would be forthcoming as Jac came into his own. Well this day he surely has done so.”

“But even if we were willing,” Vivan now spoke, “The fees to the Guild of Builders to start an apprenticeship are high.” She did not relate that they most likely had the money. Milosk Cartwright and Samathon Cartwright had made good money these cycles. She had husbanded it very well and saw that it earned interest from the money houses on Goldsmiths row. She had the family money in three of them so no one knew quite how much they had, but a normal Cartwright foundry, even one the size of Samathon’s should have been hard pressed to produce the Guildens needed to place a son in the Builder’s Guild.

“This that you say is true. Yet it is also true that a Master, such as myself, may instruct the Guild that he shall pay the cycle registery fees to the guild as he deems, and also may waive his apprenticeship fees. My father was not a farrier, that is a trade. My father was a serf. He and my mother and my three siblings and I worked the lands of Baron Nedilrick up Yarvil way. We had a plot about a third the size of your foundry yard. When I was twelve, my father took me aside and told me I was too smart to work all my days in the dirt and then die having achieved nothing. He sent me off to Yarvil with all our savings, not quite Two Guildens. I was old as apprentices go, yet I survived my cycle.”

It was the law that if a peasant could live for a cycle and a day free of his land, he was free forever. Mikonal took another drink of his ale. “I first apprenticed to a Stone Mason and there I learned much about mass, and structure. I worked on the Guildhouse in Yarvil. It was ten cycles in the building and I grew to manhood. I learned enough to know that I knew little of the craft of building, though I dare say I knew quite a bit more than the apprentices of Master Builder Kevthon of Yarvil. He noticed and noted that I had the skills of a journeyman. He told me to get my twenty Guilden and he would sponser me to the Guild.”

Twenty Guilden was a lot of money. It would buy many carts from Samathon. A Guilden was considered the cost of one cycles worth of oats that a person might live on. Twenty was an enormous amount. “That seems very expensive.” Samathon charged two Guilden as an apprentice fee, and as many Masters did, let the boys work their way out of the debt. It was possible that by the time they were ready to become a senior apprentice they would have done so. Samathon also had to put things in perspective. Since Princess Annaxier had been born and he had made such good contacts with others when they all watched the firelights from Master Mikaelstan’s roof, much more than twenty Guilden passed through his hand. Vivan had just recently told him that this cycle, with the contract for the King, they would see 80 Guilden, and surely keep more than a tenth part of that for their household.

“It was. At first I thought I would never earn such. But I persevered. It was then I traveled to the land of the Sultan of Justabul. I visited the courts of the King-Emperor of Nosgovia and the palaces of the Kings of Giurance and Vonaria. I was what you might call a pirate and adventurer. I saw the great Cathedrals, Synagogues and Temples, Fortresses, Castles, Keeps and Palaces. I learned more about my craft than many another. And I earned my twenty Guilden and then some. I returned to Yarvil and Master Kevthon was true to his word. I became a builder. At the conclusion of my second project, the Gardens of the Duke of Brisac, I was an admitted Master. It just took the Guild two more cycles to acknowledge that.”

Mikonal laughed again as did Sam. Sam felt he had to wait three cycles beyond when his skill was such to be acknowledged a Master. Perhaps he would still be waiting if his Uncle Milosk had not told his Guild brothers that all the work was being supervised by his nephew and it was long past time that they acknowledged it also. “I wish you to think long about the life that Jac should lead. You could have lived happily as a Farrier perhaps, but I think you know that you are much happier Cartwright as a Cartwright.” The two men laughed at the wit and had another quaff of ale. Sam’s tankard ran dry and his wife hurriedly filled it. She knew how to keep him happy.

Mikonal wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and beard. “I could never be happy as a peasant and glad I am that I saved a sister and one brother from that life. My father died whilst I was in Giurance. My mother was dead before that. The peasant’s plot I am told is still there, worked by some other family. Mine have found a life somewhat happier, though I think my sister’s husband is a brute.”

“All you men be brutes when the drink is upon you, and that be truth. So no more of this here ale till you have some bread in your stomachs. There is good bees honey there for dipping and spreading, and it does not come cheap.” Vivan snatched the pitcher away from the table and stood guard over it as she placed it back on the side board.

Jac sat on a bench near his mother, and listened intently. He followed most of what his father and Master Gearman had said but not all. He did understand about apprenticing to the Builder. And that he did not want to do.

“I want to be a Cartwright,” Jac spoke up and this focused all the adults to look at the mostly forgotten lad. “I want to stay here with Da and mother.”

That alone was enough to change Samathon’s mind. It was what he said when his own parents sent him across the whole of Southern Hornik to apprentice to his uncle. Sam picked his son up and put him on his knee. “Now Jac, it just might be that Master Gearman has something we should listen to. Not many lads have the chance to become a builder. There is great fame in that line, and if you become one of the King’s men…” Samathon knew that with a position like that, his son would never have to worry.

“Pardon, but I think that being a builder is just the start. Jac, you have created something that we builders have long been striving for. We have only been able to create so many windmills, and watermills, and the improvements we have made add very little to that…” Jac here interrupted.

“Oh but you can save a great deal of, I call ‘em horse steps, but there must be a better name. I calls it that because of all the steps horses go about the midden when they are making ta power. ‘Ways you can save a good third if use the er, my, um, the wheel balls we, I mean Master Fenntrel makes.” Jac could keep straight the terms of who made the small ball bearings and axle couplings for the wheels that he had thought of, but when he was excited, it was hard to keep track of all the relationships.

Master Mikonal paused and thought. “Yes of course, the resistance has lessened therefore allowing more energy to be produced with less effort. That Master Cartwright is why the Builders need your son more than any other trade. And as I said, I think this is something more than just Builders. Perhaps the Guild of Creators is what Jac has formed and one day we all will have forgotten what life was like with out the things that Jac has shown us. A device that produced power with just some coal…”

“And some water. And you have to use a lot of pipes back and forth…”

“Ha. Ha-Ha” Master Mikonal laughed again. “No Jac don’t share just yet. We must come to terms. You want to protect your creations and we want to see more of them.”

“Aye.” Vivan spoke, “I understand the Master now. Jacklincoln Cartwright attend me. What do you like best? Thinking these new things out, or making the carts in the shop. And you know you can not lie to me, and you also know it will be long cycles before you get as good as your Da and can do all he does, but these apparatus and contraptions of yours, you make alive now. What is it you be liking best.”

When his mother spoke like that, he knew it was hopeless to lie. “I like …rap…ns.”

“What was that. Don’t speak like you have mud in your mouth. Say it proper.”

Jac looked up at his father, there was moisture around his eyes, “I like my contraptions.”

Master Mikonal breathed out heavily. “There it is then. I shall do this. I shall waive the apprenticeship fee and shall take him under my guidance now. It is still early for the lad, you are not yet seven, so it is two cycles early, but we shall use that time well. Jac can learn much and he has his letters so he can read some of the great tomes. I hope you can learn languages, some of the work I have is not in Hornish.” Mikonal smiled. “Well most of the good stuff I have is not in Hornish.”

Samathon laughed this time. “It is what I always said about you builders. Most of what you devise is other’s work.” He bounced Jac lightly on his knee and the little lad grinned from the pleasure of it, not realizing that soon he wouldn’t have that comfort again.

“True, very true. As for the apprenticeship, young Jac I shall take your device to King Lancellnick, and I think shortly after that I shall be taking you to the king also. There we shall surely obtain funds to make many more of them and use them in places where they will do a great good. And for every one we sell, I shall give you a tenth of the profits.” A very generous arrangement and one that Vivan was familiar with due to her brother’s instigation over the matter of the wheel bearings.

Vivan said, “No. It shall be half of all that Jac thinks of, you shall divide equally.” Mikonal looked at Mistress Vivan.

“Now Goodwife Cartwright…” He did not get any further than that when she stared him down.

“It shall be half and I shall tell you why. If Jac’s creation is even a bit as good as you say, then we could make them here, and not worry about costing business from any other Master as we did with the Wheel bearings. We could make them here and sell them here, and Jac would get all the profit. And I do not think it would be long before King Lancellnick and his nobles came to our doors. A gift of one of the contraptions to Governor Colndefroc should bring a few royal commissioners round our door pretty quick.

“No Jac will apprentice to you because you can help him to learn more about what he likes and is good at. For that you will get half of all he creates. Mind I don’t say that he should get half of any of your trade as it now is.” Some trade and craftsmen had merged their establishments over time and that would have been the meaning there. What Vivan presented was fair and adequate to both parties. Mikonal knew that if he wanted to exploit Jac there would be ample opportunities later, but then there might be consequences to that also. Jac also may have been a two idea wonder, though Mik doubted that.

“Son, you say the thing needs coal.” Sam looked at Jac, then at Mikonal slowly, and the men both looked at Vivan.

“Aye, or wood. Coal burns better, it’s hotter, less smoke and lasts longer.”

“There’s some big coal deposits bout ten or twenty leagues northwest of the city. I be wondering how much they would sell for?” Sam supplied.

“Indeed a very grand thought, a very grand thought indeed…”

Things settled quickly after that. When the Canal at Cawless was finished and Master Mikonal moved to the next stage, Jac would begin his apprenticeship. During that time the two masters combined money and bought some of the coal fields north of Cawless and over the next two moons built a few devices with the Steam power that would end up being practical indeed. But finally the day came when Jac left his family and another world opened to him.