Georgian era research

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Guerilla warfare in the Peninsular War

My heroine in An Unpitied Sacrifice was part of the Spanish resistance to Napoleon’s invasion. This resistance was not only in the hands of regular forces. Ordinary Spanish people also fought against the invaders. These guerilleros, as they called themselves (from which we get the name guerrilla), constantly harassed the French army. One Prussian officer fighting for the French said: “Wherever we arrived, they disappeared, whenever we left, they arrived — they were everywhere and nowhere, they had no tangible center which could be attacked.”

For the most part, until the last stages of the war, the French were undefeated on the open battlefield, but their tactics and plans were less successful against irregular troops who could disappear into the population with ease and who knew the country like the back of their hand.

They were given official authorisation and support by the Spanish command, who in 1808 decreed the formation of guerrilla troops, and in 1809 gave them the right to keep any money, supplies and equipment they were able to take from the French.

In one notable case in 1811, a force of between 3000, and 4,500 men ambushed a French convoy, defeating 1,600 troops and taking 150 wagons of supplies and 1,050 Spanish and Portugese prisoners. The convoy was valued at 4 million reales.

In 1812, the reported number of guerilleros was 38, 520, divided into 22 bands. Counter measures proved largely ineffective, as they have against guerrilla warfare ever since.

It might have taken the allied armies to finally push the French out of Spain in 1813, but many historians argue that the Spanish irregular forces made it possible.

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Easter in Regency England and the Easter Egg hop

How important was Easter to those who lived in England during the Regency? It mattered. The Easter Triduum – which begins with evening services on the Thursday and ends with evening services on Easter Sunday – is the highlight of the Christian year even today, and in the Regency era, Easter was primarily a religious festival, though with quite a few traditions involving food.

In Georgian and Regency England being a member of the Church of England was a prerequisite for having a government job, being a member of Parliament, or even (for much of the eighteenth century) being an officer in the army. Being seen at church, at least occasionally, was important. Officially, a person could be fined if they didn’t attend every Sunday, though the law was largely ignored. By the Regency era, the parish church was still the centre of community life, at least in rural England. In urban areas, church attendance was low among the working classes, in part at least because of insufficient room in the churches. “For example in 1821 the population of Sheffield was 60,000 but the number of church seats 4000, of which only 300 were unrented i.e. open for use by the poor.” (https://anglicanism.org/nineteenth-century-urbanisation-and-the-church-of-england-an-assessment)

So, apart from church, how would our Regency upper and middle class characters have celebrated Easter?

Let’s start with Lent. This is the period of preparation starting with Ash Wednesday, forty plus days before Easter. Lent was and is a period of abstinence, almsgiving, and prayer, and while the Lenten discipline was not as rigid in the Regency era as in earlier centuries, many of our characters would have simpler meals, hold and attend fewer or simpler entertainments, or mark the period in some other ways. The strict fast from meat, butter, and other luxuries was no longer kept, but devout people still kept Lent, and many still do today.

Lent ended with Good Friday, which marks the crucifixion and death of Jesus. One notable tradition for Good Friday is hot cross buns. Buns made with spices and butter had been made for many centuries, giving people a treat after the long fast from such things during Lent. According to a popular account, a twelfth century monk added a cross and handed them out after church for people to break their fast. Hot cross buns were eaten for breakfast on Good Friday, and that was still a tradition in my family when I was growing up.

In some parts of England, households baked a loaf on Good Friday and hung it somewhere in the kitchen until Good Friday the following year. In many cases, the year-old bread was ground into powder and used as medicine.

Easter Sunday was and is a day when practising Anglicans are expected to receive communion. Church service were well attended, and both the church and the parishioners dressed for the occasion. The church was decorated, and people wore new or refreshed clothing as a symbol of renewal and rebirth. For women, it might be as simple as a newly trimmed bonnet.

After services, it was time to go home for a good meal. Roast lamb was a popular choice for the central dish of the day, and sweet treats might include Simnel cake or Tansy pudding.

After that meal, the family might go out to a good egg rolling, if it was the custom in their area. Children would set a hard-boiled egg rolling down hill, and race it. In some places, they still do. Eggs were seen as a symbol of rebirth, but also, the strict fast of the medieval era excluded eggs from the diet, so being able to eat them again on Easter Sunday meant eggs had two reasons to be associated with Easter. The eggs were often dyed and decorated, which brings me to another tradition that still exists today – pace egging. Children in costume would perform traditional songs and plays, and be rewarded with eggs and small gifts.

Easter Egg Hunt

Easter egg hunts were a German tradition that became popular in England in imitation of Queen Victoria. Between April 1 – 5, this blog is part of the Annual Historical Easter Egg Hunt on line. My egg is shown above. Find out more at the Event page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/share/1Awen348CS/, or jump to the next stop on the hop https://tesswrites.com/.

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Tourism, Georgian style

I’m working on three different books at the moment, and all of my protagonists are travelling. As always, this means some work calculating differences and the speed of different types of conveyance. I thought I’d look for a video on that for you, but selected this one instead. It’s a bit of fun, and full of information. The visuals are gorgeous, too.

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Highwaymen, smugglers and other dangers

The next Bluestocking Belles’ collection, Love’s Perilous Road, serves up a heaping helping of romance, with a side order of highwaymen, garnished with a few smugglers, a ghost, a gang of Fennians and more than one spy.

Were there highwaymen in Sussex in this period? Sure were, and smugglers, too, though the popularity of Brighton meant that they’d moved along the coast. Don’t miss it!

And meanwhile, here’s a video on the ins and out of being a highwayman.

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Little tame creatures


“How did they allow them to keep rats as pets?” asked my editor at the end of my epilogue, when my nine-year-old boy cousins were racing indoors after a fortnight away, to check on their pet rats. “Were they even domesticated at this time?”

Well, yes. They were. And nine-year-old boys love rats as pets at least in part because it upsets the maids and bothers the adult female cousins. Not my boys’ mothers, of course, who are made of sterner stuff.

Rats as domestic pets might have been familiar in Europe as early as the seventeenth century, and this was certainly  the case in Japan. We have excellent documentation for domesticated rats in England in the early nineteenth century. In fact, the ancestor of many of today’s pets might have been raised by Jimmy Shaw or Jack Black. (This might not have been his legal name, but it is the name under which he was interviewed by Henry Mayhew. The interview the two men was published in a book titled London Labour and the London Poor.)

Jack and Jimmy were ratcatchers. He suppled live rats to the rat pits, a popular blood sport that didn’t end until 1912. Another lucrative income source for him was breeding from rats that had different coloured coats. He told Mayhew ‘I have ’em fawn and white, black and white, black white and red. People come from all parts of London to see them rats. They got very tame and you could do anythink with them.’  He sold them as pets or curiosities, mainly to young ladies. Jimmy Shaw was even more interested in the odd rats. If today’s pets are not descended from those kept by one of these two men, they no doubt originated in a similar way.

Laboratory rats appear to have been used in research from at least 1828, and probably were also saved from the rat pits or bred from such animals. The Albino rat often used in laboratories or as pets is also known to have been around for a while. There was apparently a wild colony of Albino rats in Bath in 1828.

 

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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/