Who's Who in late Georgian England   The year is 1788 . . . the future George IV is a handsome twenty-six year-old, “the first gentleman of Europe”. Jane Austen is a tween, perhaps already working on her juvenilia. Nelson is newly married and living landlocked on half-pay. The man who will someday become the Duke of Wellington is a nineteen year-old aide-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Brummell, the future king of fashion, is a little boy. Byron is a newborn. Many fans of historical romance are at least passingly familiar with the notables of the Regency era (and if they aren’t, they can avail themselves of the information on Candice Hern’s wonderful site). But I’m guessing that the personalities of the pervious generation may be a bit hazier . . . so let me introduce you to a few of the faces you might encounter in one of my books. As I tend to find my heroes and heroines among the Corinthian (sporting) set, the demimondaine, and the notoriously wild and Whig-ish Devonshire House set, the following list of personalities may be a bit different from the one you’d find in a text book.

THE ROYAL FAMILY   George III, Age 50 “Farmer George” as his subjects fondly call him is perhaps one of the few happily married kings to ever live. He has just suffered his first bout of “madness” (greeting a tree and attempting to shake its “hand”), setting off severe battles in Parliament over how a regent would be established, what the regent’s rights and responsibilities would be, and just who should act. He’s at odds with nearly all of his profligate sons, but none so much as his heir, the Prince of Wales. Queen Charlotte, Age 44 She was in her own right Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Married at seventeen, she is a devoted wife, and mother to a large brood of royals (fifteen children, in all). She is keenly interested in art, music, and botany, and helped to establish the royal gardens at Kew. She is quiet and conservative, but well liked. Prince of Wales, Age 26 George Augustus Frederick seems to have taken strongly after his unmourned grandfather (Frederick, Prince of Wales). While most people remember him as an obese buffoon with a penchant for equally hefty—and often much older—women, at this point he is a tall, strapping young man. He is emotional, sensitive, and a great patron of the arts. Only a few years previously he has contracted a secret, illegal, marriage to the great love of his life, Maria Anne Fitzherbert. Duke of York, Age 25 Frederick Augustus was his father’s favorite son, and had a close relationship with his elder brother, the Prince of Wales. Like many second sons, he was meant for a military career, and by 1784 he had been promoted to major-general and appointed colonel of the Coldstream Guards. That same year he was created Duke of York and became a member of the Privy Council. In 1787, American newspaper accounts alleged that a government plot was under way to invite Prince Frederick to become "King of the United States". In 1788 he took his seat in Parliament. Duke of Clarence, Age 23 William Henry joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman at the age of thirteen. By 1786 he had worked his way up to Captain, and in 1788 he was given command of the frigate HMS Andromeda. He was promoted to Rear-Admiral in command of the HMS Valiant the following year. In this same year (1789) he was finally created a duke, after a threat to run for the House of Commons. Prince Edward, Age 21 Edward Augustus was the fourth son of George III. In 1785, he began his military training in Germany. For our purposes, he is currently serving in the army in Gibraltar as a colonel of the 7th Royal Fusiliers. He will not be made a duke until 1799 (when he becomes the Duke of Kent). He is best known to history as the father of Queen Victoria, but that is years and years away . . . The Princesses The three eldest are Princess Charlotte (Age 22), Princess Augusta Sophia (Age 20), and Princess Elizabeth (Age 18). At this point they are all unmarried.

PERSONAGES   Mrs. Fitzherbert, Age 32 Maria was a wealthy widow when she met the prince in 1784. Less than a year later they were married in a private ceremony in her home. Though her marriage was invalid under the Royal Marriages Act (which required the king’s permission), and illegal (because she was a Catholic), she considered herself the true wife of the Prince of Wales (as did many others). In the late 1780s it is her money which is frequently used to pay the prince’s ever-mounting bills. William Canvendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, Age 40 One of the great Whig lords of his day, the 5th duke was wealthy, handsome, and a powerful force in the opposition to the king. He was also at the center of the Devonshire House set, a group known for its lavish ways and amorality. Currently he is living in a ménage à trois with his wife and her best friend, Lady Elizabeth Foster. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Age 34 She was the daughter of the first Earl Spencer, and a distant cousin of the Whig grandee, Charles James Fox. She was one of the great beauties of her day, and she gathered about her a large circle of notables from the political, literary, and art worlds. Her influence as a social leader extended even to Almack’s, where she was one of the early patronesses. Lady Elizabeth Foster, Age 29 By birth she was a Hervey, which for many will be enough to tell the tale . . . after separating from her husband, “Bess” met the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (in 1782) and quickly became not only Georgiana's closest friend, but the duke’s live-in mistress. She has just given birth to the duke’s illegitimate son, Augustus William James Clifford. Emma Hart, Age 23 The future Lady Hamilton is mostly remembered as the mistress of Lord Nelson, but at the time of this telling Emma is in Naples, living with Sir William Hamilton, the British Envoy to Naples, as his mistress . . . the most shocking part of which is that she was sent there as something of a present by her former lover, Sir William’s nephew! POLITICIANS Horace Walpole, Age 71 Politian, novelist, letter writer extraordinaire, homosexual, future earl . . . he invented the word “serendipity” and was the man who wrote “This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.” The ultimate bitchy wit of his day. William Pitt (the younger), Age 29 The youngest Prime Minster ever, he has held that office since 1783. And though he is considered a Tory, he calls himself an independent Whig (his refusal to deal with Lord North however puts him firmly in the Tory camp). He is a great friend of William Wilberforce, the Abolitionist. The French Revolution will push him steadily to more conservative beliefs, but for the moment he remains a reformer at heart . . . Charles James Fox, Age 39 Fox was THE Whig politician. A notable radical, he supported abolition and the American Revolution. His father was the 1st Baron Holland, and his mother the daughter of the 2nd Duke of Richmond (making him a direct descendant of Charles II). He was brilliant, extravagant, always in debt, and loathed by George III. By the 1780s he was living openly with his mistress, the courtesan Mrs. Armistead (whom he later secretly married).

ARTISTS   Sir Joshua Reynolds, Age 65 Reynolds was arguably THE most important and influential of 18th century English painters. He was one of one of the earliest members of the Royal Society of Arts, as well as one of the founders (and first President) of the Royal Academy. In 1789 he loses sight in one eye and retires from painting. Thomas Gainsborough, Age 61 Though he dies in 1788, Gainsborough was a very important 18th century portrait painter. He was another of the founders of the Royal Academy, and anyone who was anyone was painted by him, from George III and Queen Charlotte on down. His most famous painting is undoubtedly The Blue Boy (c. 1770). Many of his paintings contain his own dog, a white spitz-type or large Pomeranian named Fox. Henry Raeburn, Age 32 Raeburn was a Scott, and originally apprenticed as a goldsmith. He was a self-taught painter, and after marrying a wealthy widow, he took Sir Joshua Reynolds’s advice and studied in Italy. He returned from is travels in 1787 and began what would be a very successful career as a portrait painter. For our purposes he would be the new craze . . . George Romney, Age 54 Romney is probably best known for the dozens of portraits he created of his muse, Emma Hamilton (whom he first met and painted in 1782 when she was Emma Hart). His paintings of rosy-cheeked children are particularly appealing. Thomas Rowlandson, Age 31 He was a painter, a caricaturist, a producer of erotic prints, and the man who gave rise to the "John Bull" personification of the British everyman. His caricatures are cutting, his satires wicked, and his attacks brutal. For most of his career he worked for the printer John Ackerman, owner of the famous print shop on Bond Street. James Gillray, Age 31 Gillray was a brilliant satirist, his cartoons (both social and political) were the Doonesbury of his time period. He was Rowlandson's chief rival. His publisher and printseller was Miss Hannah Humphrey, with whom he lived for most of his adult life. His seems to have burst upon the scene about 1782, and continued to entertain the populace throughout the Georgian era. George Stubbs, Age 64 By the 1780s, Stubbs is the only artist to consider if you’re looking for an anatomical study or a commemorative painting of a famous race horse. In fact, any animal at all, from an exotic import to a beloved poodle is a subject that would be given to no other painter if the owner had a choice. He was also famous for his pastoral paintings of country life and the daily life among the hunting and racing sets. REFORMERS Thomas Clarkson, Age 28 The son of a reverend, Clarkson found his own great calling in the fight for the abolition of the slave trade. His essay on the topic of the lawfulness of enslaving the unconsenting won a prize at Cambridge in 1785 and was published the next year. It had an immediate impact, and set Clarkson on the road he would travel for the rest of his life. He was part of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade (established in 1787), along with Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce. He spent the next two years traveling around England, promoting his cause and gathering evidence for the essays and pamphlets he continued to write and publish. His work provided the basis for the first abolitionist speech of William Wilberforce in the House of Commons in 1789. William Wilberforce, Age 29 He is best remembered as the champion of the abolitionist cause (though he was also a champion of other evangelical causes such as “improving morality” and “spreading the Christian faith” to Africa an India). He formed a life-long friendship with William Pitt while they were both at Cambridge, and was elected to the House of Commons in 1780. In 1787 he was introduced by his friend Sir Charles Middleton to the abolition movement. His strong religious inclinations prompted him to join in the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and he remained the cause's strongest supporter in Parliament from that day on. While his first attempt to end the slave trade in 1789 would be defeated, the cause would eventually win out (1807). Hannah More, Age 43 A religious writer (with a strong puritanical streak), a philanthropist, a poet and dramatist, More had many sides (not all of them pretty). In 1788 she has just published her Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society, and has become involved with the abolition movement. Her philanthropy ran towards setting up religious schools, where the children of the poor were taught reading, the Bible and the catechism, but writing was notoriously absent from the curriculum. She was most severe upon the idea of the rights of women, advising them to know and keep their proper place. Mary Wollstonecraft, Age 29 Though best remembered for her treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and as the mother of Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein) for our purposes she is minor author of children’s books and treatises upon education (Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, 1787). In this same year as this book's publication she moves to London and attempts (successfully as it turns out) a career as an author and translator. Granville Sharp, Age 53 Sharp is a famous abolitionist. He was one of the supports of James Somersett, a black man from Jamaica whose 1771 court case established that slavery did not exist in England, and therefore any slaves brought there were free under the law. He was sympathetic to the American Revolutionaries and supported legislative independence for Ireland. Another of the founders of Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, he is also involved in the establishment of a colony for free blacks in Sierra Leone.

SPORTING SET   Tom Johnson, Age 38 Johnson is the current bare-knuckles boxing champion of England (since 1784). In Puglistica, he is described thusly: "His strength, science and 'bottom' gave him rank superior to all his contemporaries. But his greatest excellence was his surprising coolness and judgment." Henry Angelo, Age 28 Angelo’s father came from Italy in 1755. Angelo Senior was a fencing and riding instructor who made a name for himself by besting well known English and Irish fencers. He promptly opened his own salle, Angelo's School of Arms. He was the fencing master to the young princes, and in 1763 published an illustrated guide to fencing, L'Ecole d'Armes. Henry was a fencing master like his father, and he took over the Angelo salle in 1785. It was a fashionable meeting place, and often held exhibitions by visiting foreign champions (such as St. George and d'Eon). Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Age 43 Joseph de Bologne was a true Renaissance man. He was the illegitimate, half-African son of a French planter, who raised him as a gentleman in Paris, and left him the incredible sum of fifty thousand pounds. Joseph was not only a champion fencer (who visited England in this capacity as a guest of the Prince of Wales), but a world-class violinist and composer, and Marie Antoinette’s personal music instructor! Henry Angelo said of St. George, "No man ever united so much suppleness with so much strength … his attacks were a perpetual series of hits and his parade was so close that it was in vain to attempt to touch him". Chevaliere d’Eon, Age 78 Let us start with the facts: D'Eon was a Frenchman who lived the first half of his life as a man and the second half as a woman. He was a spy, a diplomat, and a captain of dragoons. He claimed that he disguised himself as a woman and became a maid of honor to the Empress of Russia. There was rife speculation that he was, in fact, a woman. After some very complicated goings on in the 1760s he was left exiled in London. He ignored this fact, returned to France, and demanded that the French government recognize him as a woman. The French King and court agreed, so long as d'Eon dressed like a woman. In 1785 he returned to England, where he lived the rest of his life (continuing to cross dress until his dying day). In 1787, he bested the much younger Chevalier Saint-Georges in an exhibition match. When he died, doctors examined his corpse and found it to be anatomically male. THEATRICAL SET Mary “Perditia” Robinson, Age 31 In1779 her performance as Perdita in Garrick’s Florizel and Perdita (his adaptation of Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale) she captured the attention of the Prince of Wales. Her previously published book of poems had already brought her the patronage of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. When her affair with the prince ended in 1781, she blackmailed the Crown into granting her an annuity. In 1783 she suffered a mysterious illness that left her partially paralyzed. By the late 1780s, she is a distinguished poetess, "the English Sappho." Mrs. Jordan, Age 27 Dorothy Jordan was a famous actress. By the late 1780s she was mistress to the Duke of Clarence (the future William IV) and by all appearances set up with house with him a most conventional manner (though she continued her career on the stage). In the end she would spend the next 20 years with the duke, bearing him ten children, only to left by him in the rush to produce a legitimate heir to the throne following the death of Princess Charlotte. But for our purposes she’s young, beautiful, sought-after, and for all intensive purposes “married” to a royal duke. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Age 37 Sheridan's first play, The Rivals, was produced at Covent Garden in 1775. He quickly made his name and fortune and bought a share in Drury Lane. His most famous play, The School for Scandal (1777), is considered one of the greatest comedies of manners in English. He was elected as a Whig to the House of commons in 1780. Sarah Siddons, Age 33 Sarah was the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century. Her entire family were actors, and she grew up in her father's traveling company. In 1775, as a member of David Garrick's company, she made her disastrous debut at Drury Lane. Her contract was not renewed and she did not return to the London stage until 1782, when she appeared in the title role of Garrick's Isabella, or, The Fatal Marriage. This time she was a hit. By the 1780s she was the undisputed queen of the stage. John Philip Kemble, Age 31 Tall, imposing, and attractive, Kemble was one of the great Shakespearean actors of the late Georgian era. He made is first appearance at Drury Lane in 1783, along with his more famous sister, Sarah Siddons. He was appointed manager at Drury Lane in 1788. Elizabeth Farren, Age 29 She was the daughter of an actor and made her London stage debut in 1777 as Miss Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer. She was one of the principals at Drury Lane for most of her career, and at this point in history, she is the beloved mistress of Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby.

WRITERS   Ann Radcliffe, Age 24 In 1788 Ann marries William Radcliffe, an editor for the English Chronicle. Her first novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, is published the next year. She is one of the main pioneers of the gothic novel. William Blake, Age 31 A poet and a painter, Blake was not a star during his own lifetime. In fact, he was considered too eccentric to create a popular work of fiction. He became a student at the Royal Academy in 1778. His first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches, was published in 1783. He and his brother Robert opened a print shop in 1784, and began working with radical publisher Joseph Johnson. Blake held radical views, and was a supporter of abolition and the American Revolution. He attacked conventional religion and its ideas about sin. He illustrated Mary Wollstonecraft's Original Stories from Real Life (1788), and in that same year had begun to experiment with relief etching. Robert Burns, Age 29 Burns was a poet and a lyricist. He collected folk songs from across Scotland. In 1783 he started composing poetry in a traditional style using the Ayrshire dialect of Lowland Scots, his first volume of poetry was published to great acclaim in 1786. He was a contributor to The Scots Musical Museum, the first volume of which (1787) included three songs by Burns. Frances Burney, Age 36 She published her first novel Evelina anonymously in 1778. It was a huge success, bringing her to the notice of influential friends ranging from Dr. Johnson to the Duchess of Devonshire. A second novel, Cecilia, followed in 1782. In 1786 she accepted a post as one of Queen Charlotte’s ladies in waiting. Though she had a warm relationship with the queen, she was not happy at court, as her duties deprived her of time to write (note that nothing was published during her years at court). COURTESANS & MISTRESSES Mrs. Armistead, Age 38 Elizabeth Armistead was a courtesan and, later, the wife of Charles James Fox. Her career started in an exclusive brothel in St James’s in London. Her legendary beauty and gentle nature made her sought after and ensured her the attentions of a string of rich notables including the Prince of Wales (the future George IV). She acquired considerable wealth during her career. After more than a decade of popularity with the ruling classes, she met the Whig politician Charles James Fox. Their turbulent liaison and ensuing marriage, was kept secret from society for seven years, and is regarded as one of the great romances of the 18th century (at least by me). Grace Elliott, Age 34 In 1771 Grace Dalrymple made her debut in Edinburgh. She was an acknowledged beauty and married a rich physician. She fled her marriage in 1774, eventually receiving a divorce and a settlement of £12,000 in damages. It was only then that her real adventures began! Her brother kidnapped her and had her confined to a French convent. She was rescued by Lord Cholmondeley, and spent several years thereafter as his mistress. It was during this period that she became known as “Dally the Tall”. The Prince of Wales introduced her to the French Duke of Orleans in 1784 and by 1786 she had settled in Paris . . . Top of page