Footnotes on Friday

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A source of trouble and expense

I’ve fallen down a most interesting research rabbit hole, reading records, reports, personal accounts and research about prisoners on both sides during the long war between France and Britain that began with the French Revolution and ended after Waterloo.

Prisoners of war formed part of war policy. Each nation had to balance the benefits of keeping the other nations men against the cost of caring for them. This led to the practice of each nation paying a food allowance for their own people, and appointing an agent to oversee fair treatment.

In earlier wars, European nations had also practiced prisoner exchanges (or paid ransom if they did not have an equal number of prisoners). In an article on Prisoners of War and British Port Communities, Patricia Crimins suggests several reasons for the rarity of prisoner exchanges between Britain and revolutionary and imperial France.

  • France was ideologically opposed to prisoner exchanges, seeing them as traditional
  • France had far fewer British prisoners than Britain had French prisoners, and could simply not afford to make the exchange—in 1796, Britain held 11,000 French prisoners, while France held fewer than 5,000 British prisoners. By 1799, the number of French prisoners of war in Britain had doubled, but the number of British in France had scarcely changed.
  • During the Napoleonic period, more than 100,000 French prisoners of war were held in Britain, and French policy was to “force Britain to bear the entire cost of the prisoners it held in the hope that this would weaken the economy”.

In Napoleon’s Lost Legions, Gavin Daly says the Napoleonic wars mark the end of the ancient practices of parole, return of non-combatants, and prisoner exchange, and the beginning of the modern practice of internment until the war is over.

For the French on parole in British towns, the war must have been long enough. For those of lower rank kept in prisons—or worse, on the terrible prison hulks that I’ll write about another time—it must have seemed forever.

 

 

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The detainees of Verdun

He says: “Madame, permittez me, to pay my profound esteem to your engaging person! & to seal on your divine Lips my everlasting attachment!!!” A cynical and sensual grin indicates the character of his advances. She smiles with coy complacency, saying, “Monsieur, you are truly a well-bred Gentleman! – & tho’ you make me blush, yet, you Kiss so delicately, that I cannot refuse you; tho’ I was sure you would Deceive me again!!!” Above their heads are oval bust portraits of Napoleon (left) and George III (right), the two men extending their arms as if to shake hands; the King scowls, Napoleon regards him with brooding suspicion. The frames are bordered by olive branches and palm-branches. 1 January 1803

Even before the Peace of Amiens was officially signed in March 1802, people from England came flooding back into France. The country had been closed to them for ten years. Many had property in France they wanted to check on, others came as tourists or on business or to visit family.

Most came and went during the eighteen months of the peace. Some were trapped when, on 23 May 1803, Napoleon signed an edict to detain every male Briton between the ages of 16 and 60. The orders were carried out quickly and efficiently. At first, women and children were allowed to go, but soon every Briton, of whatever age, male and female (even British spouses of French citizens), found themselves prisoners of France for the next 11 years.

At first, they could remain where they were, but soon Napoleon ordered them to various cities, notably Verdun.

It was a sizeable town a long way from the sea, and the influx of (usually) wealthy English was welcomed. John Goldsworth Alger, in his 1904 account of the detentions, says a French newspaper compared the detainees to sheep enclosed in a fold to manure the soil.

The English were able to hire lodgings (at extortionate prices) and live much as normal, though if they could not afford living costs, or if they misbehaved in any way, they were liable to be imprisoned.

Verdun was a walled town, and within its walls the detainees lived much as they would have lived in London, though paying double the normal price for food and everything else.

Some behaved badly. One was sent to prison for seducing a townsman’s wife. Another struck a gendarme who reprimanded him for behaving indecently with his French mistress at the theatre. Still more gambled, insulted the French, and fought with the townspeople and one another.

Others occupied themselves with hobbies or work, or social activities, or raising subscriptions with which the wealthier detainees sought to help the poor.

General Virion was in charge of the detainees and the prisoners of war who soon joined them. The detainees made many complaints about his extortionate practices. One man, a regular social contact of the General, reported he had leave to go out into the country on a day that all leave was recalled. He was heading back into the town when two gendarmes stopped him and told him the order didn’t apply to him. Later, when he did return, he was arrested and faced with a choice: pay a huge fine or be imprisoned.

The general was summoned to Paris in 1810 to explain himself to a commission appointed by Napoleon, but shot himself before the investigation could begin. His successor was likewise asked to explain himself, but blamed all extortion on a subordinate. This man also shot himself, leaving a note that said he was innocent, but — having been blamed by the boss — he could not face dishonour.

I’m finding some wonderful stories and hints of stories about people caught up in the detentions; not just in Verdun but in other towns. As I continue to research for Concealed in Shadow, I’ll share some here.

 

 

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Who wears the pants?

I went on a search to find out when fall fastenings on men’s trousers gave way to fly fastenings and fell down a lovely research rabbit hole. How did it come about that men wore trousers and women didn’t?

That turned out to be a Euro-centric question, but since my interest is the Regency period, where breeches were giving way to trousers, let it stand.

Riding horses on a cold winter’s day

Some researchers attach the whole dichotomy to horse riding, claiming that trousers provide better protection for vulnerable portions of the anatomy during the riding process. They suggest trouser wearing began with the hordes of the Eurasian steppes, who successfully invaded more southern, robe-wearing, civilisations, until their victims adopted trousers in order to ride more effectively and win.

Seems to me that the freedom of movement trousers give, as any Western woman can attest, may have factored into that. A fighter in a voluminous robe might be at a disadvantage when matched by one with both legs separately covered.

Other think that cold was a huge factor, and point to the fact that men and women in the far north both wore trousers and tunics of fur, and Pacific Islanders to this day wrap themselves in a length of cloth, with the way the garment is tied often the only difference between the clothing of men and women.

Probably both cold and ease of movement factor in to why, in colder climates, trousers have always been common working wear for both men and women, often under a robe or long tunic.

Once a knight is enough

But as I noted above, the strong line between trousers for women and dresses for men was a European thing, and the reason for that might go back to the knights.

The Celts and other tribes of Northern Europe wore leggings and tunics. Once the Romans, with their prejudice against such barbarous clothing, retreated to Rome and then to Constantinople, leggings and tunics became the favoured wear for everyone.

At that time, trousers were literally a pair — two tubes, usually made from woollen material. They were worn over an undergarment with a belt, and the tubes were attached to the belt. Men wore them, and women too when it was cold or when they were travelling.

Then came armour, first chain mail and then plate. If you’re strapping hunks of metal on and riding around in them for hours, you don’t want hunks of cloth creasing underneath it, so clothing for wealthy and powerful men adapted. Close-fitting one-piece lower garments answered the need for a measure of comfort when fully armoured. And, since one hardly wishes to hide the evidence of one’s social status under a long robe, tunics for the knightly class crept up to waist height and became doublets.

The parting of the ways

From that point on, the clothes of upper class men and women parted ways for centuries. The men’s hose and the breeches they developed to wear over them evolved into some fairly wonderful forms, and women went on wearing gowns.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that women could wear trousers to a business meeting or a classy social event without attracting comment and censure.

Culottes, sans-culottes, and men’s fashion

Breeches, by then reasonably form fitting and fastened just below the knee, continued as the wear for gentlemen until the French Revolution. The French called them culottes, and the sans-culottes, the men in working men’s trousers (called pantaloons in England) rather than breeches, became the heroes of the revolution.

In England, the fashionable adopted French pantaloons, if not French politics, as the 18th Century became the 19th. By the Regency, breeches were consigned to soft leather breeches for riding and silk for evening wear. And, of course, the unfashionable, the conservative, and the elderly.

Pantaloons slowly took over, or trousers as they came to be called. That term was first used in the military, and probably became common usage as the soldiers and sailors of England came home from the Napoleonic wars.

By the 1820s, the term was common, but ‘pants’ is an Americanism from the 1830s.

Keep it buttoned, darling

So there you have it. A brief history of men’s lower wear. Skipping shorts and knickerbockers, not to mention overalls and jeans. But then, why wouldn’t you?

Oh, and fly buttoning versus fall buttoning? The single row of buttons up the front first appeared some time in the 1830s and became common around the middle of the century, though it co-existed with fall buttoning for quite some time. (The fall became wider, requiring a row of at least four buttons along the waist line.) In case you wondered, Zippers didn’t get into our pants until the 1930s.

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Folklore ways to find the man of your dreams

Folklore has so many different ways to divine a future spouse, or at least, most commonly, a future husband. It makes sense that girls were more the target for such foretelling methods than men. For much of history and in most cultures, marriage put a girl into the hands of her husband or her husband’s family. When husbands could do almost anything they liked, short of murder, a girl might be wise to be wary, and anxious to know what was ahead of her.

Divination on certain nights

In my current work-in-progress, it is Easter, and coming up to St Mark’s Eve (24 April, which in that year was a week after Easter), when good Lincolnshire maidens wait in the church porch to see who passes them at midnight. In other parts of England, they might expect to see the shades of those who will die during the year. A Lincolnshire girl could see those visions, too, but she might also see her future spouse, if she is going to marry during the year.

Another night for such divination is this Saturday, St Agnes Eve, 21 January. In Scotland, girls would go out to throw grain, saying:

“ Agnes sweet, and Agnes fair,
Hither, hither, now repair;
Bonny Agnes, let me see
The lad who is to marry me. ”

The shadow of their destined groom would be seen in their mirror later that night.

In other parts of the country, girls would fast. If they kept St Agnes Fast, their future husband would appear in a dream.

Midsummer Eve, 23 June, was the time to lay out a clean cloth with bread, cheese, and ale, and sit down with the street door open. The girl’s future husband would then, according to folklore, enter the room and drink the ale, bow, refill the glass,  bow again, and leave. That’s a pretty detailed vision.

Halloween came at the time of apple harvest, and in some parts of the country girls would bob for apples, then put their apple under their pillow to fetch a dream of the man they would marry. Others would walk upstairs looking in a mirror to see a vision of their future spouse walking behind them.

And on New Year’s Eve, some maidens would sweep the room backwards while looking into a mirror.

Finally, girls had an opportunity every new moon to try this rhyme:

New moon, true moon,
Dressed in blue,
If I should marry a man,
Or he should marry me,
What in the name of love,
Will his name be?

Or any other time of the year

But if you couldn’t wait for one of those special evenings, you could try one of these:

  • When you go to bed, place your shoes at right angles to one another, saying “Hoping this night my true love to see, I place my shoes in the form of a T”
  • Pass a piece of wedding cake three times through the bride’s wedding ring, then put it under your pillow (or, in some places, a piece of cheese)
  • Knit your left garter around your right stocking and keep knotting, at each line of the following rhyme tying another knot:

This knot I knit,
To know the thing I know not yet,
That I may see The man that shall my husband be;
How he goes, and what he wears,
And what he does all days and years.

  • If you’re a Shropshire lass, fetch a half-brick from the nearest churchyard, and put that under your pillow
  • Lay a four leaf clover under each corner of your sheet
  • Eat a salt herring before you go to sleep
  • Count thirteen stars for thirteen nights
  • Clip your fingernails and drop the clippings into the flame of your lamp. Then hang your shift (petticoat) over the lamp, and while the fingernails are burning, the shadow of your future husband will appear on the shift.
  • Peel an apple and throw the peel over your shoulder. The letter it falls into will be the initials of your future spouse.
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Messier than fiction

I’ve been reading — or more accurately dipping in and out of — the trial transcripts of the Annesley case.

It was the sensation of 1743. A sailor returned from many years in the American colonies with the claim that he had been kidnapped at the age of twelve and sold into indentured servitude by his uncle after the death of his father, the Earl of Anglesea.

Said uncle had inherited his brother’s title, and strenuously denied that the sailor was his nephew, that he had anything to do with the disappearance of his nephew, and that his nephew was the legitimate son (and therefore heir) to his brother.

We’re all familiar with the story of the wicked uncle who arranges for the rightful heir to be sold away overseas in order to embezzle his heritage. Robert Louis Stephenson made it part of our literary heritage in Kidnapped (possibly prompted by the Annesley case), but even before that we see it in folk tales. It pops up again and again in all kinds of genres. I’ve used a variant myself in Magnus’ Christmas Angel.

The Annesley case bears out the truism that truth is stranger, and certainly less neat, than fiction.

James Annesley claimed to be, and in fact was proved to be, the son of Arthur Annesley, Baron Altham, and his wife Mary Sheffield.

Altham was, even by the standards of the time, a loose living sort of a person. Did his wife take exception? Perhaps. He threw her out of the home, keeping her two-year old son. Four years later, one of his mistresses persuaded him to throw the boy out too, and James was apparently left to more or less raise himself from the age of six.

He must have had some support somewhere, because later several of his school-friends recognised him, and gave evidence about his identity to the courts.

Altham died when James was twelve, and shortly after that, Richard Annesley (Uncle Dick) found the boy and sent him to Delaware to work as an indentured servant.

Later claims that the boy was not legitimate foundered at least in part on the question of why Uncle Dick would have bothered to get rid of someone who could not threaten his claim to the Altham title, and later to the title of Earl of Anglesea, inherited from his cousin.

James returned in 1740, but his claims didn’t become public until 1742. The case notes mention a number of attempts on his life, which James blamed on Uncle Dick, whose comfy state was clearly threatened by his nuisance of a nephew, who had not had the good manners to die in Delaware.

After hearing many witnesses (and an incredible barrage of lies), the Irish court found in favour of James, but that wasn’t the end of it. His estates were returned to him, but Uncle Dick took an appeal and continued to hold the title while it was working its way slowly through the courts. (But note the comment below from a correspondent.)

As an interesting side note, the Annesley vs Anglesea case is the basis for the principle of lawyer-client privilege. The court ruled that a solicitor could not be called on to testify about whether or not his former client took a mistress, and laid out three of the reasons still used today to support the principle.

James died in 1760, and Uncle Dick in 1761. Uncle Dick’s son did not inherit the Anglesea title, which became extinct with the death of the wicked uncle.

Truth is considerably messier than fiction.

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Lawlessness and bounty hunting in the late-Georgian

The Bow Street Magistrates Court

(This is a repeat of an article I wrote for Caroline Warfield’s blog in June.)

Crime was a personal affair

Before 1829, our modern idea of a police force, and of one law for all, simply didn’t exist. In the pre 19th Century world, crime was a private matter, an offence against the victim. Doing something about it was up to the victim, though if the crime was a felony, the victim could expect help from constables and magistrates.

The offence might be settled between the disputants, or it might go to court to be judged by a magistrate or a jury. If the offence was against the Crown, the King was the offended party, and therefore one of the disputants, a convention we remember in the way we talk about a case as being Jones v Rex (King) or Brown v Regina (Queen). It was still a private affair, a personal interaction.

In our modern world, crime is seen as something that disturbs the public peace and disrupts the smooth running of society. Our police and the courts are charged with restoring social harmony. It is a very different model.

No one wanted a standing police force

The system worked very well in rural England in times of peace, provided you had a fair and reasonable local magistrate. People didn’t move around much. The local magistrate probably knew everyone, and could tell who needed a swift kick to the rear, who should be shipped off to the army and the navy, and who was unregenerate and nothing but trouble. And if he was in doubt, he had plenty of local people to talk to.

The idea of a central police force did not appeal to very many people. The middle and working classes saw such a force as a potential instrument of oppression. Royalty strongly disliked the idea of a standing army. And the gentry felt central control of policing would threaten their individual liberties and their place in local government.

Enter the bounty hunter

Eventually, as we know, the collapse of the traditional village social structure and the increasing mobility of the population made a police force inevitable, and three influential people made it palatable. Henry Fielding founded the Bow Street Runners. Patrick Colquhoun created a philosophy of policing that quieted people’s fears, and Sir Robert Peel established the first modern police force.

But before all of that, thief takers hunted across county lines to capture villains and bring them back to face justice.

Thief takers worked for a reward. Later, and on the other side of the Atlantic, they would be known as bounty hunters. The government, or perhaps a private individual, would post a reward, and off they’d go.

And they had an extremely disreputable reputation:

…the more corrupt thief-takers went further: they blackmailed criminals with threats of prosecution if they failed to pay protection money. Some even became “thief-makers” by encouraging gullible men to commit crimes, and then apprehending and prosecuting them in order to collect the reward. Such practices illustrate the point that not all “crimes” prosecuted at the Old Bailey had actually taken place; some prosecutions were malicious. [Old Bailey Online]

In the early 18th Century, Jonathan Wild, who styled himself ‘Thief taker General of England and Ireland’ was tried and convicted for receiving stolen goods after a decade of dominating the London criminal underworld.

No wonder my hero of Revealed in Mist, David Wakefield, wanted to be called an enquiry agent!

Revealed in Mist

Prue’s job is to uncover secrets, but she hides a few of her own. When she is framed for murder and cast into Newgate, her one-time lover comes to her rescue. Will revealing what she knows help in their hunt for blackmailers, traitors, and murderers? Or threaten all she holds dear?

Enquiry agent David solves problems for the ton, but will never be one of them. When his latest case includes his legitimate half-brothers as well as the lover who left him months ago, he finds the past and the circumstances of his birth difficult to ignore. Danger to Prue makes it impossible.

See my book page for more about the book, buy links, and the first two chapters.

Meet David

From within the protective camouflage of the gaggle of companions, Prudence Virtue watched her sometime partner and one-night-only lover drift around the banquet hall. No-one else saw him. Like the shadow he named himself, he skirted the edges of the pools of candle light, but even when his self-appointed duties moved him close to a group of guests, they overlooked him. None of the privileged, not even the host and hostess, noticed one extra footman.

He was very good. He had the walk, the submissive bend of the head, the lowered eyes. Even Prue—herself hiding as just one more brown-clad, unimpressive companion among a dozen others, waiting patiently in an alcove for the commands of an employer—did not detect him for her first half hour in the room.

But Prue’s body was wiser than her mind, and left her restless in his presence until her eyes caught so many times on a single footman among dozens she began to take notice. And she saw Shadow, for the first time since that disastrous morning five months before.

On the slim chance Shadow was not here for the same meeting as her, Prue stayed out of sight in the back of the alcove as the time for her to make her move approached. He had left the room several times in the hour she had been watching. With luck… Yes. There he went again. Now, if several of the dowagers would call at once… Done. Moving to where any of three or four ladies might be giving her instructions, she hurried away as if running an errand.

The key, the man she knew as Tolliver had taught her, was to fit into people’s preconceived ideas of the universe; to appear to be someone doing something they had an explanation for. The key was to blend into the background of the story they were telling themselves. ‘Don’t notice me. I’m just a companion running an errand,’ her behaviour said. And five minutes after she left, not one of them would remember what she looked like or where she went.

Revealed in Mist was released on 13 December.

 

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Christmas presents in Georgian England

No presents, and no tree to put them under. Not on a Regency Christmas Day

Authors of Regency stories face an interesting challenge when writing a Christmas novel. Our modern readers are so accustomed to the association between gifts and Christmas Day that historical accuracy can be jarring for them.

Not that people didn’t give presents during the long Christmas season before the Victorians picked up a few German customs and marketed them through newspaper columns on the habits of royalty, Dickens stories, and popular magazines. People in the northern hemisphere have always given presents at some point during that season when winter seems as if it is going to last forever, but at last the night of the winter solstice passes and the days slowly begin to grow longer.

The day varied. Solstice night itself, the first day (or week) of the new year. People gave their children food treats hoarded against the feast, and gifts of dolls and carved animals, often home made. Wealthier people very likely gave richer gifts, as happens today. And kings and other leaders undoubtedly gave gifts to their followers, who would judge their personal standing with the boss by the size of the present.

Christian missionaries didn’t invent gift giving and feasting in the darkest part of the year. But they did Christianise it, ascribing the feast to the birth of Christ. And boy, was it a feast. In medieval times, people partied for 12 days (after fasting all December).

But they didn’t give presents on Christmas Day (or Christmas Eve, either). Instead, Christmas was a time for church going and feasting. The 24 day fast might have disappeared with the dissolution of the monasteries and the foundation of the Church of England, but the food blowout on Christmas Day remained, with all but the very poorest of the poor managing a special meal to mark the day.

The Puritans during the Commonwealth knocked off even that. No Christmas at all. But the Restoration meant all those Christmas customs crept back out of the shadows for people to rejoice in once again.

St Stephen’s Feast Day was the traditional day for giving to servants and tradespeople, and the needy (as good King Wenceslas did). The Feast of Stephen is 26th December. Family members didn’t get presents then, though. They had to wait.

In Scotland, 31st December, or New Year’s Eve, was gift day. English children had a few more days to go; family and friends were given presents on Twelfth Night, the day before the Feast of the Epiphany (6th January).

Different places, different customs. Children in various parts of Northern Europe received their presents from St Nicholas of Myrna on 5th December, the eve of his feast day or on the day itself. St Nicholas was born in France and buried in Italy, and quite why he favoured Dutch and German children with a visit is a mystery lost in history. He visited Central Europe, too, but not until 19th December, his feast day there.

In modern times, all these visits have been moved to 24th December, which makes the poor bishop’s task much harder. However, he has inherited Odin’s magic reindeer to pull his sleigh, so that must help.

Greek children had St Basil, whose feast day is 1st January. He arrived in the night on New Year’s Eve, leaving presents, and the families would exchange the gifts they’d bought or made at or after the New Year’s Day feast.

To make things even more complicated, different countries moved their calendars from Julian to Gregorian at different times.

All of which presents a minefield for a conscientious author.

My Christmas novellas include Candle’s Christmas Chair, Gingerbread Bride, and two novellas in Holly and Hopeful Hearts: A Suitable Husband and The Bluestocking and the Barbarian. Holly and Hopeful Hearts is on special at 99c, but the sale ends soon.

See my books page for more information.

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The Virgin Wife

I’ve read a couple of stories recently that bought into the myth that non-consummation was grounds for an annulment. Even today, the law is not quite that simple, although many jurisdictions allow non-consummation as grounds for divorce. But back in Georgian and Regency England, the fact that the marriage had not been consummated, if it could be proven, was not grounds for either divorce nor annulment.

First, a definition of terms. Annulment is a legal declaration that a marriage never existed. Divorce is a legal declaration that a marriage is at an end, and the husband and wife no longer have marital obligations one to the other.

Annulments were not quick, they were not painless, and they required one or more of three circumstances. These circumstances were fraud; inability to contract a marriage; and impotence. Even taking the case could make both the husband and the wife social outcasts. If the annulment went through, the woman was reduced to the status of a concubine, and her children became illegitimate. The man had no further obligations to support her or the children.

Fraud could include using a false name with the intention of fooling your intended spouse or their family, or making promises in the marriage settlement you had no ability to carry out. For example, if you settled a non-existent estate on your daughter’s new husband, he could claim this as grounds for annulment. He would not necessarily win — it would be up to the church court to decide the extent to which any of these fraudulent behaviours were intentional, and how much they influenced the decision to marry.

Inability to contract a marriage meant that at the time of the marriage you already had a living spouse, you were related by blood to your intended spouse (closely enough for marriage to be forbidden — there was a list), you were sufficiently insane not to know what you were doing, or you did not have the consent of your guardian if you were under 21.

Proving that the man was impotent or the woman was incapable of sexual intercourse was even more difficult. Even if the man was prepared to admit to such a thing, the judges would not take his word. First came a medical examination. Was there a visible physical abnormality? Did the man show the ability to become aroused? Had the man shared his bed with his wife exclusively for years without the woman losing her virginity? (So no lovers on the side for either of them.)

If he could have an erection with anyone, he was clearly not impotent, and in earlier periods two accomplished courtesans might be hired by the court to test the impotency.  By the 19th century, doctors were used, and one does not wish to enquire too closely into their methodologies.

Rats. There go some useful plot lines. But on the other hand, what fun to work your way around them.

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Give us our 11 days

I’m writing a story where one of the major plot pivots is the shift from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, an event that (possibly) caused riots in Britain in the 18th century.

Running an empire on Bula time

Julius Caesar established the Julian calendar, in 46 BC. It was a reform of the Roman calendar, which was so complicated it had a committee to keep it in tune with the actual solar year. They would decide when to add or remove days, which made it hard to plan anything with precision.  Caesar wanted a system that didn’t change from year to year, and he employed an astronomer to create a calendar based entirely on the length of time the earth takes to go around the sun.

What makes the calculation tricky is that this revolution isn’t an exact number of days.  It takes, on average, 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds for the earth to go around the sun. So Caesar’s astronomer hit on the idea of a 365 day year, with an extra day in February every four years.

A Feast day in Spring

As it turned out, a day every four years is too many, and by the sixteenth century, one of the most important feast days of the church — Easter — was in danger of losing its (Northern hemisphere) connection to Spring. Pope Gregory XIII hired an Italian scientist to fix the problem. Aloysus Lilius devised the variation we use today. In the Gregorian calculation, we add a leap day if the year can be divided by four, but not if it can also be divided by 100. However, if the year can also be divided by 400, in goes the leap day.

It isn’t perfect. In another 2,000 years, we’ll be a day out again. But it’s a lot closer.

No Papists messing with our calendar!

Pope Gregory’s reform took effect as soon as his proclamation went out, not only establishing the new system but making a one-off change — a jump of more than a week — to realign the dates with the seasons.

Italy, Spain, Portugal, and other Catholic countries all adopted the new calendar. European Protestants, however, saw the change as some kind of a plot, and refused to have anything to do with it. But one by one in the eighteenth century, common sense, trade, and political links prevailed.

No messing with our tax year!

Many of the German states switched early in the century. England changed in September 1752. The Calendar Act (an Act for Regulating the Commencement of the Year and for Correcting the Calendar now in Use) was introduced in 1751, passed through Parliament, and was signed into law in May 1752. Not only did it provide for 2nd September 1752 to be followed by 14th September 1752, but it also moved New Year’s Day from 25th March to 1st January. The previous New Year’s Day was the Feast of the Annunciation, and so Lady’s Day, and traditionally the day for paying taxes and rents. Changing the date of the tax payment would have shorted that tax year, so while the calendar year now started on January 1st, the start of the financial year remained as 5th April, or 25th March under the Julian Calendar. It was changed to 6th April in 1800 (which would have been a leap year under the Julian, but wasn’t), and 6th April it remains in Britain to this day.

The rioting was probably a myth

People were upset about the change, fearing that the government was taking 11 days off their lives. But the story that there were riots is not borne out by newspapers and other contemporary accounts. Possibly it comes from the Hogarth painting of an election meeting, shown above. The calendar reform was an election campaign topic in 1754, and the painting shows a demonstration outside the window. You can just see a sign saying ‘Give us our 11 days’.

 

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The Repository of Oddities and Curiosities

My friend Mari Christie has just opened a new space on Facebook for historical fact and fiction. One by one, various people are creating ‘exhibits’ (year-long Facebook events) on which to post historical facts from their research and to play at interactive storytelling.

If you enjoy seeing stories created on the fly, or if you want to learn more about a specific period, come and join us.

I’m doing something different with mine; not the Regency, as you might expect, but the Antipodean gold rushes, which I research extensively a number of years back for a gold rush saga that never saw publication daylight. One day, maybe.

the-repository

You’ll find the group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/RepositoryOfOddities/, and at the top, you’ll see the following

REPOSITORY EXHIBITS
Wherein one will see items of interest from their respective periods, interspersed with the dramatic stories of the exhibit curators and staff. Readers and writers are invited to add a character and join in the storytelling.

Currently, the exhibits are:

American Civil War Era 1850-1870
https://www.facebook.com/events/164630367342417/

Britain During The Reigns Of George III and IV, 1760-1830
https://www.facebook.com/events/210041672779433/

Antipodean Gold Rushes 1850 to 1900
https://www.facebook.com/events/1275650492455822/

Victorian England, 1837 – 1901
https://www.facebook.com/events/345007395872307/

1790s English Radicals & Malcontents
https://www.facebook.com/events/1768343330097536/