A Regency Timeline 1793 Revisited and a new Regency Novel-The Heir

The Regency Timeline

My previous posts I’ve explained that I was working on the Regency timeline. I posted my entries for 1788 thru 1797.

Now I have the 1793 Timeline again. I went back added a significant amount of graphics. I will be doing this with all the years I previously posted and then ensuring that the new years have a lot of graphics as well.        

I have uploaded all these years to the Regency Assembly Press website. You can see a little preview of this below in the picture. I especially like how the Duchess of Alba by Goya looks a lot like Cher.

My sources which include the Internet and The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein as well as the Chronology of CULTURE y Paxton and Fairfield should cover a lot of events. There are now over 5000 listed for the period between 1788 and 1837 when Victoria comes to the Throne. I have also just found a third book I own with timelines in it, very USA centric though. What Happened When by Carruth. I also have added a Dorling Kindersley book , History of the World.

I may post a year at time every so often in between scanning through all these to find something that will be a good article for this blog and the blog at English Historical Fiction Authors. I will also have the full listing up shortly at Regency Assembly Press.

Those who have feedback, it is appreciated or if someone would like a specific year in a future post. The very first entry is to show who was Prime Minister of Great Britain, later it was the United Kingdom, during the period of the chronology. In choosing our dates, 1788 is the first sign of madness in George the III, it is the beginning of the end of the French Monarchy with the riots in Paris, it is the time when the mama’s of the girls during the true Regency would be girls going to London for their own season, and when our heroes are young lads or babes as well.

We need to know of the events that occurred when they were children, as well as what happens when they are on stage in our stories.

Click on the link below or the picture to go to the entry. More years coming. The list is now over 5000 event entries long and growing.

After the Regency Timeline, I plan to do a short addition on Regency Prime Ministers. They always come up in my research and I think we need a page where we can find out all about them in one place. Then, the Edwardian Timeline. I am thinking the years 1890 to 1918 (The end of WWI)

Regency Assembly Press 1793 Tineline

The Writing LIfe

My new writing project is another regency. I am now over 150 pages into it. The heroine of course can not stand the hero, who is trying to understand why she dislikes him so.

I enclose a few paragraphs from the first draft first chapter.

Chapter 1 continued

The choice was taken from her, “Anna, are you still abed. I need your help this day. Mrs. Drake is being a monster and will not listen to ought that I ask.” The countess had entered the bedchamber. From past experience, Annabella knew that if the two ladies were arguing not much would come of it. An impasse would be achieved, and an impartial party needed to be called. Usually though, the Earl arranged such matters. He was also the local magistrate and had many hours practice settling disputes.

“Oh Lady Elizabeth, you know full well that if Mrs. Drake has her feathers all in a ruffle, then the Earl himself does not stand a good change of making any progress.”

“She is close to that stage, I will say that, but she is not there yet. Though I fear should she fight me much longer on this, I will giver her the sack!” the Countess was as mad as Lady Annabella had ever seen her. She had threatened on occasion to sack all the members of the staff that remembered her when she was but a governess. This time, Annabella felt she might actually do such a thing.

“I shall get up and speak to her.” Annabella said.

“Oh, thank you. You know I can not see straight when that women puts her back up to me. I fear that were we in Town and such was to happen, then all would be a disaster for the servants would gossip all about the square and we would be an ondit as quick as Eclipse running a race.” The Earl used that expression all the time. He wanted many to know that his stables were full of horses sired from Eclipses line. Annabella knew that her grandfather had been a great fan of racing and had tried to find a winner six stallions sired by the famed horse.

Her father was a great admirer of racing at a distance, but thought that breeding was more to his liking. He had made a study of it, and several of the horses he sold were champions. Even during his depression over the death of her mother, Annabella knew her father took an active hand in the breeding program. She knew it gave him the only joy during those first few years when the loss had been with him at its strongest. Not a thing she had done seemed to bring him forth from his pains.

“It is a very good thing, then, that Mrs. Drake shall remain here in the country and we shall have but you to rely on for the running of our house in Town.” That thought brought great pleasure to the Countess whenever it was stated. The Earl had made it a rule, the first year of his second marriage, that Mrs. Drake saw to the management of the estate’s great house, but in town, a fifth of the staff was required, and several people were permanent to the house of St. James Square, so the Countess was made the supreme authority there.

Annabella learned from both ladies, but she had to concede that Mrs. Hayes was much better at household management, and the Countess, she was good, when she was well, of supporting the Earl in all endeavors he chose to immerse himself in. She always agreed with the Earl. Made sure when he went to her rooms, less frequently of late, if the gossip of the servants was worth acknowledging, that the Earl’s cares were dealt with.

Lady Elizabeth had spoken of these matters last year at this very time, for it was when they had prepared her for her season. A matter that it was fortunate Annabella had an aunt to help with. The Countess had never gone to London for a season, her father the Vicar not deeming it an expense for a woman destined to be a governess. Lady Beauchamp though had come to the aid of Annabella and secured vouchers to Almacks. Introductions to suitable young ladies and men, and urged the Earl to have a ball in Annabella’s honor.

She had callers. It was so. Three had emerged that she thought were charming. Their idea, she quickly learned was to marry her and beget a son so that the inheritance to the estate of Combe Edinsley and the title would pass to the boy, and they would come into management of the Earl’s wealth, once he was dead. None of the men who paid the compliment of proclaiming their lover for her was as sincere as their love for the inheritance.

Last season ended in disaster.

This season was not going to end the same. She was determined, but she would have some competition amongst those she had spent time with the previous year. Lady Beauchamp’s only daughter was to be presented this season, and Henrietta was a beauty. Much more than Annabella. Perhaps not destined to inherit a fortune. Lord Beauchamp, her cousin and the patriarch of that side of the family was not twenty and five, and yet the purse strings of the Beauchamp lands and fortunes were in his hands. A fact that the Earl spent a great deal of time trying to keep from letting all of the Beauchamp money slip through his nephews fingers.

When Viscount Beauchamp, the father had died, the son had debts of well over ten thousand, Annabella had heard. They were made whole of course, but the new Viscount, still, she heard the servants say, was prone to wager at White’s well over a thousand in a night. Many nights he would lose, but as all servants knew and were apprised of such matters, many nights her cousin the young Viscount would lose as well. Such matters concerned her aunt for she received an allowance from her son, and her son had to set aside money for Lady Henrietta’s dowry.

Annabella, dressed in the red frock and on her way to confront Mrs. Drake wondered what her own dowry was to be. Her father said it would be adequate, but she knew that most of what her father could give was tied to the estate. That basically until they produced a boy child, all the monies of any substance would be for her cousin. Unless her father saw fit to spend every penny and bankrupt the estate. Something he would be entitled to do, but would leave a poor taste for those who stayed after.

And all these thoughts had made an assault on her the last few days as she readied to move to London for the season with her family. She was the hope of keeping the title in the family or of marrying so well that she need not worry about the estate and people of Combe Edinsley or Bath.

“Mrs. Drake, all is in hand I take it? A move you have done many times since father decided to return to Town and sit in Lords some years ago.”

“Aye Lady Anna, all is in hand, except every single person of this house has forgotten all that we did but a year ago. They close rooms up, instead of pack. Knowing full well that we should pack first, see the family off, and then close up the rooms. Those assigned to the library decide they wish another assignment and without consulting myself, they trade. Yet they trade with one who has no notion of reading and so the books your father has listed that he would take to London, the footmen in the library, have no idea and so they have been entire shelves of books into boxes so that the Earl may have them in Town.”

Mrs. Drake looked cross. Annabella knew that the next thing that would be related would be tales about how Lady Elizabeth had interfered as well. That should Mrs. Drake say anything aloud that criticized the Countess, then Annabella would have to give the housekeeper a scold. “I have asked that coffee be brought to the day room. We shall have it all to our selves, and I should then like to discuss with you a matter of importance. Will you please join me.”

“Of course my lady, whatever you wish.” It was clear that Mrs. Drake thought her other duties were far more important, but she knew that refusing Annabella was no longer something she could do. Annabella was grown up now and soon, if the journey to London for the Season truly worked out, she would have her own household to manage.

When they opened the door to the room, Annabella saw that on two of the chaise lounges, the servants had put white cloth over them. There was a small card table, with four chairs about, that hadn’t be prepared for the family’s abandonment, and it would serve for the tray of refreshment that Thomas, the footman, was approaching with. Annabella pointed to the table and after the footman left, they say. Mrs. Drake, poured the hot liquid from the silver pitcher, and then added cream and sugar as well before handing Annabella the porcelain cup.

“I think that while we are away, it may indeed be time to redo some of these rooms. Did not you and Lady Elizabeth finally agree on colors and papers?” Annabella seeded the ground with an action she knew had resolved well.

Mrs. Drake, tense, answered, “Yes, though the Earl has been reluctant towards any change.”

“Because all the rooms had been last changed by my mother. I think that his lordship has run out of time and excuses while we are away this Season. Father will no doubt be asked to be in government, he does let his opinion be known so often in Lords, that I am informed he has followers in both houses. Mr. Perceval has written to father a great deal these last months and I believe he and the others of the cabinet rely on father for support.”

“It would be a great recognition if your father were asked to be a part of the cabinet. It is something that he greatly deserves.” Annabella had first thought that servants all thought that way. But she had grown wise as she had left the schoolroom. She saw that most of them did think that the Earl of Bath was a man to be respected as he was by many. But on any given day, jealousy or envy, or just hate and malice, lay behind the eyes of those who looked to the Earl as their employer. Man was only free when he had no master, and all men, even kings, had masters.

“Then you must understand, Mrs. Drake, how important we make the estate look modern. Both inside and out. I am sure Lady Elizabeth’s true fears is to be hostess, as she will have to be, to a house full of those involved in the running of our kingdom, or our empire. That is what shall occur in short order, and you know how Lady Elizabeth feels about being thrust amongst all the old families. She is terrified more than she will ever say of our trip to London.”

Mrs. Drake had calmed down from her seeming scatterdness that Annabella had observed. “Yes, Lady Elizabeth still, after all these years, still is trying to resolve her place in society. She is a Countess. She must act as such.”