Georgian era research

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Trooping the colour

I saw a You-Tube clip recently in which a fellow sat and watched a clip of British soldiers Trooping of the Colour. He was merely reacting to it–asking questions, like had they been doing it for long, did they do it often, and what did it mean. Now as a New Zealander and therefore a member of the Commonwealth, I knew that the event takes place every Queen’s (for most of my life) or King’s (now) birthday, and is a ceremonial event put on by regiments of the monarch’s Household Division.

The Household Division of the army are the regiments whose primary responsibility is guarding the monarch and the royal palaces – five regiments of foot soldiers and two of horse guards.

But when did the event start, why did it start, and what is Trooping the Colour, anyway?

It goes back to battle in all parts of the world and in all ages before radio and field telephones. Battle plans are disrupted almost as soon as a battle starts, and if a regiment gets separated in the heat of battle, they need to know where their comrades and their commanders are. Some armies have carried flags (called standards). Some staffs with symbols on them, such as the Roman and later Napoleonic eagles. A soldier cut off from his own can make for the standard, which stands out above the smoke and dust of the battle, so that he is not fighting alone but is contributing to the overall goal.

Every regiment has its own flag – called its colours, and the practice was to march the colours through the troops while they were on parade so that they knew what to look for in the heat of battle. Hence trooping the colours.

When King Charles II was restored to the throne, the Horse Guard provided his personal guard, his Household Cavalry. They still hold this role today. Like other regiments, they trooped their colours, and their regimental commander, the monarch himself, attended the event. It became a major ceremonial spectacle, and since 1745, one regiment of the Household Cavalry has trooped their colours before the reigning monarch every year on the day of his birthday, as part of a wider ceremony of inspection and celebration.

Here’s how the British army describes the scene on their page about the event:

The Royal Procession in glittering gold and silver uniforms makes its way down the Mall to Horse Guards Parade. The Mall is filled with Union Flags and the uniquely red tarmacked road is deliberately designed to look like a VIP red carpet. Announcing the arrival of the procession, the sound of the priceless Georgian Silver kettle drums carried by the Welsh Shire drum horses at the head of the procession filters through to those waiting in the stands on Horse Guards.

Four Divisions of The Sovereign’s Escort of the Household Cavalry, descendants of those loyal gentlemen who protected His Majesty Charles II in exile and accompanied Him back to London to restore the Monarchy in 1660, are still ever present in determined force 365 years later, protecting King Charles III as He rides to Horse Guards to inspect His Troops. It’s an astonishing spectacle of razor steel, mirror groomed horses, tunics of scarlet, blue and gold, swans feathers and silk.

Once the King arrives at Horse Guards Parade:

His Majesty The King conducts his inspection of the Foot Guards who, along with the Household Cavalry, form the Household Division. Every Guardsman on parade is an operational soldier and standards they apply to ceremonial duties are reflected in the excellence with which they conduct operations. With more experience of this event than any other person present, His Majesty who has frequently ridden in parade in His prior role of Colonel Welsh Guards will notice any detail that is not correct and will inform the Major General afterwards.

Once His Majesty The King has returned to the saluting base, the command ‘Troop’ is given by the Field Officer in Brigade Waiting.

Then come the massed bands, and after that the actual trooping of the colour. See here for the detail: https://www.army.mod.uk/news/what-is-trooping-the-colour/

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Drugs, Sex, and Music

Once again, this time in Hold Me Fast, I’m writing about the use of drugs in the early 19th century. In this case, my heroine has fallen into the hands of a fast set who combine their love of music, poetry and painting with drug abuse and sex.

My heroine is a musician—she sings and she plays the harp. She is also, by the time my hero comes to find his childhood love, solidly addicted.

So what drugs?

Laudanum was legal and easily available. It was sold as the answer to all sorts of things, from sleeplessness and sorrow to toothache in babies. Laudanum is a mix of opium and alcohol. It mightn’t fix what ails you, but you won’t care any more. It is brutally addictive, as many users found to their cost.

The market also contained other “medicines” that contained opium. Dover powder was a mix of opium and ipecacuanha, to be taken in a sweet drink such as a white wine posset. Godfrey’s cordial combined opium with treacle and spices in water.

Opium itself was also readily available, to smoke, chew, or otherwise consume.

In all those forms, the benefit was a euphoric “rush” followed by relaxation. And in all these forms, people became addicted with regular use.

Ether was a new toy for the idle in search of a thrill, too. Sold as a medicine called Anodyne, liquid diethyl ether gave users dissociative effects and a sensation of happiness. Warming it and smelling the vapours worked faster, but ether is highly flammable, which could be problematic in the hands of those high on the effects. Burns were common.

Cannabis and its derivatives weren’t readily available from the neighbourhood apothecary, but its likely that my villain could have found majoun or charas—blocks of cannabis resin—in the docklands, where sailors might well have imported such products for their own use and for sale.

Nitrous oxide parties also fall within my time period, with gatherings to inhale the product held as early as 1799. The idea that laughing gas might have medical applications wasn’t picked up for another forty-give

Spanish fly, a preparation made from blister beetles, was used as an aphrodisiac. It caused a rush of blood to the sexual organs, and was highly toxic. As was Fowler’s preparation, a solution using arsenic for the same purpose.

Were psychotropic mushrooms in use in England at the time? We know that in 1799 a family picked mushrooms in Green Park, cooked them up, and ate them. The father and four sons experienced spontaneous laughter followed by delirium. This was in the news at the time. You can, if you wish, take the view that idle dilettantes like my heroine’s patrons would read about such an event and decide that mushrooms were a step too far. But I’d be willing to bet that some of them had a go. Certainly, my rotten lot did so.

And when all else fails, there’s always alcohol. I’ve written before about the huge quantities consumed as a matter of course at all levels of society. Yes, glasses were much smaller than they are today, and so were bottles. But still, the reported volumes downed in a night are astounding.

The folk tale that inspired Hold Me Fast is Tam Lin, in which a faithful sweetheart is determined to rescue her love from the fairy queen. She is told that she can get him back if she recognises him when the fairy horde parade by, pulls him from his horse, and turns into one horrible and dangerous creature after another.

As soon as I began to think about the mechanics of a fairy tale world with the underlying viciousness and cold-hearted hedonism of the fairies in the oldest tales, I knew I had a group of selfish entitled aristocratic men with too much money and too little conscience. And what is more likely than that a person recovering from drug addiction is going to be changeable, near mindless, and dangerous?