Shoelaces

by Marie-Louise Jensen

One of the things that always struck me as especially unfamiliar in historical fiction, that is to say Georgian and Regency historical fiction, was reading of a gentleman's 'freshly ironed shoelaces'. It also struck me as rather odd. In modern days, I've never seen a shoelace that would benefit from ironing.
I've always assumed that the laces must have been wider than now, and must therefore have become creased. I still haven't found a definitive answer to this and have no mental image. But the topic occurred me again when I was watching episode two of The Crown a couple of days ago. (Yes, I realise that I am late to this - no doubt all you history buffs saw it ages ago!)  There is a scene where the young, newly-bereaved Queen Elizabeth is dressed in mourning on the plane and just for a moment, the camera pans down to her shoes, which are laced with black ribbons.

Well, ribbons make sense. They would probably need ironing to stay looking nice. And in fact, a quick google shows that ribbons are still occasionally used for lacing shoes today. Something I (as someone entirely lacking in fashion sense) had no idea of.

However the shoelaces were made, it would have been the valet's job, poor soul, to iron them, along with his master's neckcloths and shirts. I seem to remember it was the dandies who required their shoelaces to be ironed in Georgian times, but I may be wrong.

Another fascinating fact that came up when I started to search ironing shoelaces on the internet is that apparently Prince Charles still requires his shoelaces to be ironed every time he has worn them. Very strange indeed, as I doubt he wears ribbon-laces. As he is probably one of the last men in England to have a valet (he has three) he can still demand such customs are observed. For those of us who have to do our own laundry and ironing, this is probably not something anyone today choses to spend their own time on. Hands up, anyone?

One final fun fact on the topic of ironing shoelaces - apparently in the 1920s, it was a euphemism for going to the bathroom in American English. A bit like going to see a man about a dog in the UK.

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History versus Modern Development: The City of Bath

by Marie-Louise Jensen

I live in an historic city which makes every trip into town a visit to a byegone era. It is a privilege and a pleasure for me and for many of the thousands who live here and the numerous visitors who pass through.

By MichaelMaggs (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

The difficulty of balancing the every day, modern needs of a vibrant, thriving city with this historic beauty is an ongoing issue, of course. Traffic, roads, schools, housing, office space; all are constant concerns and conflict with preserving the valuable heritage we have been entrusted with. 

Bath is one of the few cities in the world to have Unesco World Heritage status. And it has been proven that cities can lose this. Dresden, which went ahead with a modern motorway bridge development too close to the city centre, did so. 

The new shopping centre that was opened in Southgate, Bath, in 2009 was aruguably an improvement on the hideous 1960s monstrosity it replaced. But it fails to do one thing that the old shopping centre maintained - the buildings are too tall and visitors can no longer see out over the hills around the city from the centre of the development - something that has always been a feature of the city. 

Now the new Riverside development of thousands of flats (many bought by overseas investors and standing empty, but that's a whole other issue) are threatening the status all over again. Tall, brash and modern, and very close to the Georgian city centre, they can be seen from every vantage point, a raw eyessore. There has been little space planned in to plant cover which would soften the appearance over time. 

Now the city council want to build a Park and Ride to the east of the city, concreting over beautiful green belt, another site that will be very visible from many vantage points; a gleaming sea of cars by day and empty tarmac by night.

Bathampton Meadows

I know a balance needs to be struck, and proponents of development say we can't live in a museum. But my inclination is to say, why not? There are other modern cities you can choose to live in if you want that. I think we are risking our beautiful city and its outstanding reminders of its past. The city in which I set my novel The Girl in the Mask, was built over and adapted by the Georgians. Perhaps people felt even then it was being damaged. But what was built was high quality, was outstandingly beautiful and has endured. Somehow, I don't think the Park and Ride and the Riverside are going to be drawing tourists in 200 years time. 

Changing Language

by Marie-Louise Jensen

When I'm researching and reading old books, I love to find and note all the ways language has altered over the centuries. Writing my first Georgian book, The Girl in the Mask, I had to write down a note for myself:

1) You keep your clothes in a closet.
2) Your wardrobe is your collection of clothing
3) Skirts are the part of a man's coat below the waist
4) Ladies skirts were referred to as petticoats or 'coats
5) A dress was a gown.



There were others, but those were the frequently used ones I was concerned about getting right (I did make one mistake in Smuggler's Kiss which slipped through).


When I ask school children today what ladies in the 1700s called their dresses, they struggle to get the right answer, instead guessing robe, frock, tunic etc. The word gown has been pretty much lost.

Incidentally, I remember my grandmother always talking about 'frocks'. With the arrogance of youth, we'd roll our eyes and sigh, but in fact the word has come back into fashion now in the phrase 'posh frock'. I secretly always rather liked it.

I had fun in Runaway with a few Georgian phrases. For example, I used the expression 'sick as a cushion'. I'd come across it in Georgette Heyer novels and always found it amusing, so I put it into some dialogue. But the copy-editor queried it. When I hunted for it in the OED, I couldn't find it, but I did find 'sick as a parrot', which I thought was equally amusing, if not more so - given that parrots can be green. In the end, lovely assistant editor tracked down 'sick as a cushion', so although I kept parrot, I've notched it up as a phrase to use in future. I have quite a store of them and I always love coming across them when I'm reading too.

Inspiration and Sadness

by Marie-Louise Jensen

The History Girls' visit to Aphra Behn's tomb the week before last was a deeply moving experience. I hadn't quite anticipated how emotional I would find it. But to stand there and see her epitaph in the great Abbey itself brought it home to me just how revered she was in her own lifetime to merit such a prestigious resting place.

We were there to celebrate the launch of Daughters of Time, but I'm writing about that separately on the 19th March on Serendipity Reviews. What I wanted to muse upon today is why and how Aphra Behn has come to be so largely forgotten in the literary canon?

At school I was taught that the first 'real' novels in the English language were Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders and we duly read and discussed them. Our (female) English teacher didn't mention Mrs Behn's Oroonoko to us nor any of the other earlier candidates to this title. We certainly didn't read Oroonoko.

Neither did we read anything by her on our A-level exam syllabus. Not by her nor any other works by a woman.
Is there any reason why Mrs Behn's works have been excluded from the works that are studied or that do the rounds on those dreadful lists of '100 books you should have read'?
Her plays were of the Restoration era and it's fair to say that few of her contemporaries have made it onto such lists either - be they male or female. But then many were so trivial, that they scarcely merit inclusion. Not so Aphra Behn's plays. The Rover, for example, which I refer to in The Girl in the Mask, deals with complex issues of love, marriage, prostitution. That is to say the position of women in society. Surely an enduringly important theme? Oh...maybe not when white, middle-class men are selecting exam texts.
And Oroonoko? Why was that less worthy of our attention as a class of eager 17 year old students (mainly girls) than Moll Flanders? That decision cannot possibly have been based on a lack of important themes. Oroonoko examines the issue of slavery while Moll Flanders is largely an entertaining romp, and a male view of a woman if I ever saw one.

I can only assume that Behn's work had been so thoroughly forgotten and buried under the groaning weight of male scholarship by then that my English teacher didn't even know about her. Or that with her too, she was sticking firmly to the notion that 'the boys wouldn't like her'. That was her reasoning behind choosing ten out of ten books by men and she told me so quite openly when I begged to study Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte as a lightening of the load of Milton, Lawrence, Auden, Muir, Dickens, Chaucer etc. (It was exactly the same at university where I was honestly told there were no books worth reading by women in German).

How much good it would have done our self-esteem to have read Aphra Behn at school - and other books by women too - and to be able to look up to women pioneering in and excelling at writing centuries before we were born. And how I would like to think things had changed since my far-off school days, but I'm certain that they haven't changed one bit.
How do I know? Because when I offer author visits to schools with my 'girl' books, I'm almost invariably told thank you, but no, the boys in the school wouldn't be interested.
We have a long, long way still to go.
I feel deeply concerned for the girls out there. I really hope lots of them find Daughters of Time and discover that there have been women writers, women warriors, powerful queens, leaders, devotees, campaigners and thinkers throughout history, no matter what anyone tells them. And I hope many more women visit Aphra Behn's tomb in future and understand the trail that she blazed for us.

Bath in 1713

by Marie-Louise Jensen

During the Bath Literature festival a couple of months ago, I bought a ticket for a guided walk with the theme 'Bath in 1713'. As this is just two years before my book 'The Girl in the Mask' is set, I was really curious to see how much the walk would add to my knowledge of Bath at that time and how much I would already know - and would I discover any errors?
What did I already know? Lots! That the season ran April to September, that sedan chairs were used instead of horses and carriages in the narrow streets and the locations of many of the old buildings such as the original assembly rooms, city walls and Guildhall.
What did I learn? Amazingly I learned that one of the four city gates still survives! The East gate opened onto the river Avon and had a wharf for loading and unloading goods and passengers. It is still there down below the old Empire Hotel (now an appartment and restaurant complex) beside the Abbey. I had no idea it was there (locked behind iron gates) even though I've been to the other end of it when canoeing on the river.
I learned to distinguish the gabled fronts of the pre-Georgian houses from the parapet, flat fronted Georgian buildings - and even to spot where the old style had been converted to the new to keep up with the fashions. I learned there is one surviving Tudor house front hidden away in Shire's Yard. It was fascinating.
And yes, I discovered I had made one mistake. Trim Theatre was not in Trim Street, as I had understood. It was around the corner in Upper Borough Walls. Bother!

Men's Clothing in the Early 1700s

by Marie-Louise Jensen

Has there ever been a time when dress for men was more colourful, extravagant and downright splendid than the first half of the eighteenth century? I'm speaking of the wealthy, of course, who were always the privileged few who could enjoy the extravagances of fashion.
I've always found the ruffs and hose of the Tudor and Elizabethan era faintly ridiculous. And I'm not alone in that, it seems, as the series The Tudors opted for historically incorrect trousers, fearing the modern viewer might just not find the clinging hose sexy enough.
And however worthy it might have been, the severity and plainness of the Puritan era wasn't precisely eye-catching. But as we moved into the Restoration and the early Georgian era, men tricked themselves out, for a while, as gorgeous as butterflies.

Breeches generally buttoned just below the knee and were buttoned by various designs at the waist, sometimes with a large flap that pulled between the legs. For formal wear they could be made of satin. The effect was very elegant. Beneath the breeches, silk stockings would be tied with a garter above the knee. These cost quite a few shillings - extravagant indeed - and were often clocked (embroidered with a pattern). Shoes often sported a heel and a buckle. Shirts were of linen, open at the neck and with a stand up collar. Varying amounts of lace could be added on in the form of a necktie and in ruffs at the wrists. Waistcoats were often elaborately hand embroidered at stupendous cost and generally much longer than today's waistcoats. A coat would be worn too, also fabulously embellished with trim and buttons, quite possibly made of brocade silk of a quality that is (I am assured) simply no longer available today because it would cost too much. And then the wig - ah that exquisitely expensive creation! There were a number of different types at different times and for different pursuits. My favourite is the formal long-bottomed wig, popular early in the 1700s. Long loose curls were thickly powdered with hair powder and tumbled down over the shoulders. I wonder if they got powder on the coat? Powder later went out of fashion when the government was unwise enough to tax it.
A gentlemen could not be considered completely dressed without his small-sword at his side, of course, and vents were especially included in the pleats of the coat's skirts to accommodate one. Scarcely a wise addition to the costume in those days of heavy drinking and gaming. Lives were frequently lost.

(This picture a little later than the era I'm describing. I had trouble finding an image without copyright.) When describing my characters dressed thus, I often sigh for a glimpse into a ball or gathering in the past. A few aspects of the dress may strike us as less attractive however. Under the wig (were they horribly sweaty to wear, I wonder?) the head was close shaven. Men's shoes often had heels as high as the ladies, which might seem odd to us. And I wonder how they got on washing all that brocade silk and satin? Not all that often, I shouldn't think. But don't worry. They were pretty lavish with the scent.

Ralph Allen by Marie-Louise Jensen

I think everyone who lives in Bath has heard of Ralph Allen, though he is not nationally known. A Bath state secondary school is named after him, the grand house he built on the southern slopes of the city is now a private school, and the steep road that leads to and past it is called Ralph Allen Drive.

Here in Bath, we know him mainly as a great entrepreneur who transformed the city: he had a vision of how the city could look if it were to be rebuilt. To this end, he opened a quarry on the downs on the southern side of the city and built a sort of tram/railway to bring the stone down. He built a show home (now Prior Park College) to advertise the wonderful mellow Bath stone and sure enough, the city was rebuilt. The honey-coloured Georgian buildings are one of the features that make Bath so popular as a city to live in and as a tourist attraction.
But all this was of local importance. Ralph Allen had very limited success marketing his stone further afield and so his influence did not extend beyond his own city.
But in fact he had been involved in events of national importance earlier in his life, when he was postmaster in Bath. He could even have been said to have helped shape British history.

In 1715, when the Jacobite forces planned to rise up against the newly-crowned Protestant King, George I, Britain stood at a crossroads. Parliament had chosen a distant heir to the throne who wasn't even British, to avoid what they saw as the calamity of another Catholic monarch on the English throne. They even made a law to support their decision. But many Tories and High Church supporters saw the betrayal and rejection of the true Stuart heir as an outrage. And so rebellion was planned, plots were laid; forces and weapons were concealed strategically.
Fashionable Bath was to be the centre of rebellion in the south. But somehow, the plans were foiled. The government forces knew where the weapons were concealed and which men were ringleaders. General Wade marched into the city and arrested them; the gunpowder and other weaponry was seized and the status quo was preserved.
The man who was the key to this defeat was none other than Ralph Allen himself. He used his position as postmaster to open and read mail; in effect he was a spy for King George. His reward was to be granted great influence in reforming the post office, where he then made his first fortune. His second fortune came from the quarries - he used the money he had made in the post office to fund his venture.
Whether you view Allen as a hero of the people who saved Britain from civil war, or the sneaking and treacherous letter-thief who prevented the accession of the true King to the throne will depend on your sympathies; Tory or Whig, Catholic or Protestant. Either way there was no doubt of his significance. It is a strange fact, though, that locally he is known only as postmaster and quarry owner. His role as spy is not general knowledge. But I have, of course, cast him in my latest book in this secret role.

Our February competition winners

And the winners are:

The Girl in the Mask
Kit Berry
Astrid Holm
Chloe S

Please contact Jennie Younger (jennie.younger@oup.com) and give your land address



Sword of Light
Chloe S.
Orli
Astrid Holm
Kit Berry
Madwippit


Please contact Nic Wilkinson (nic.wilkinson@gmail.com) and give your land address


Congratulations!

February Competition

February competition


In case you missed this yesterday at the end of Anne Rooney's post about vampires, we are re-posting our latest competition today.

Two History Girls have new books out now and we have some to offer as prizes.

To win one of three copies of Marie-Louise Jensen's The Girl in the Mask, answer this question:


"If you were a notorious 18th Century highwayman (or woman in disguise), what alias would you give yourself?"



To win one one five hardbacks of Katherine Roberts' Sword of Light, try this one:


"If Lord Avallach gave you one of his fairy horses, what would you name it?"


Leave your answers in Comments below, mixed in with comments on Anne Rooney's blogpost.


Closing date 7th March.As usual, only UK entrants.

A Forgotten Pioneer by Marie-Louise Jensen

One might think that the first woman in English literature to make her living as a professional writer would be an icon for us all. She blazed the trail for every one of us, after all. But does any one know her name?
Aphra Behn was the courageous and talented woman in question. I'm glad to say, her works ARE still in print - though she's not precisely a household name. Her plays, once so popular, are rarely performed now, though they did stay in the theatre repetoire for over a hundred years.


Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn, born Aphra Johnson in 1640, is a shady and fascinating character.  Little is known about her except that it's thought she lived for a spell in Surinam and was widowed after only a short marriage. In 1667 Behn served as a spy for King Charles II in Antwerp. This seems a daring and unusual thing for a woman to have done at that time. Unfortunately, it seems she discovered little of much use for the King. In the way of kings, he therefore considered it beneath him to actually pay her for her loyalty to the crown. This led to her being imprisoned in 1668 for the debts she'd incurred in his service.

In Aphra Behn's day, women had very few choices for earning money. Marriage or becoming some man's mistress were the two main choices for a woman of birth and education. Behn chose neither, opting instead to write her way out of debt. She wrote plays, stories and poems and became both highly regarded and successful. She was not the only woman playwright of the time, but she was the first and the most successful.

The era being the Restoration, the Comedy of Manners was the vogue. In the hands of Congreve, Wycherly and the like, these were bawdy, rather heartless romps of intrigues and betrayals. Aphra Behn turned the genre into something different. She was subversive and addressed the dire situation of women; both nobly born and courtesans.

In The Rover, arguably Behn's best known play, Hellena is a young girl ordered by her father and brother to marry an elderly man. She has plenty to say on the subject of young girls marrying old men; so much so that when the play was performed in the Georgian era, some of her best speeches were cut short, because they were considered too outspoken and shocking.

But Behn didn't restrict her concerns for women to the wealthy classes: the tragedy of the courtesan who gives her heart to a roving soldier only to be utterly betrayed is a moving part of the play. No wonder Behn is considered a feminist. Her life and her works shrug off the conventional, call for choice and openly criticize the restricted role of women.

I rediscovered Behn and her fabulous play whilst researching what kind of reading material my narrator might have had access to in 1715. Given that The Girl in the Mask contains both spies and girls who won't accept their place in society, it was simply too good to resist. Behn, her life and her play all have an important part to play in my own character's rebellion against social norms. She is quite simply an inspiration.

Richard 'Beau' Nash by Marie-Louise Jensen

My latest novel The Girl in the Mask (publishing 1st March 2012) is set in my home town Bath.

In the early Georgian era, Bath was second only to London as a destination for the rich and titled; many of the aristocracy spent the winter in London and the summer in Bath.

It may seem to have been an odd choice. Why spend the summer months walled up in a shabby, overcrowded medieval city in the bottom of a river valley? But royalty had been pleased to praise the benefits of the spa waters and that was enough, it seemed, to catapault steamy, smelly, dirty Bath (as it was then) to the height of fashionable desirability.

The Bath Corporation realised they needed to organise entertainment for this sudden annual influx of visitors. They firstly appointed a Captain Webster as 'King of Bath', or Master of the Ceremonies. But Captain Webster was most unfortunately killed in a duel the following year. And so in 1705, Richard Nash was offered the post.

Richard Nash, born son of a Swansea glass manufacturer in 1674, might not have seemed an obvious choice. He had no birth and no standing in the world; he had attended a grammar school, gone to study law at Jesus college Oxford, but spent his whole allowance on clothes and then dropped out because of one too many intrigues with the ladies. A brief career in the military was likewise unsuccessful.

But Nash had caught the King's notice in 1694 when he organised the pageant for William III and had been offered a knighthood, which he refused. The role in Bath was far more to his taste and he accepted.

Richard Nash, Or Beau Nash as he later became called, transformed fashionable life in the city. He was a tremendous facilitator. He persuaded a Mr Harrison to build Assembly Rooms by the river; he set up subscriptions to cover teas and musicians. He organised gambling of all kinds. Gambling was practically a national obsession at the time, and was so widespread and ruinous that it threatened to destabilise the economy. But cards were also how Nash made his living. His post was prestigious but most unfortunately unpaid, thus he needed some means to fund his lifestyle. It is said that he swore most terribly when he was losing, but he usually won.

He continued to organise balls and famously regulated the tone of the balls most strictly. They ended punctually at eleven, and from this he would not be moved. It is remarkable that a man of no birth could manage his social superiors so successfully, but Nash was most adroit. He banned boots and spurs from balls. One night a gentleman arrived in boots and Nash stopped him at the door with words to this effect. "Why sir!" he said. "You have forgot something. I see your whip and spurs, but where is your horse?" The gentleman concerned retired abashed. Nash also banned the fashion of aprons, and once stripped a costly lace apron from a duchess at a ball and cast it aside.

He was tolerated and - by the ladies - much admired. For many years, he reigned supreme. He raised huge sums of money for charity, ran the entertainment flawlessly and generally appeared at all times gorgeously and richly attired.

Nash is remembered as a local celebrity in Bath to this day. His name can be found in many museums and guidebooks. But the ending to his story is rather sad. Gambling was outlawed, removing almost his only means of subsistence. He grew portly and unwell as he got older and began to be crushed by debts. He took to spending his evenings in the Bath taverns, telling tales of his grand past in exchange for drinks. Gradually he became an object of ridicule. He eventually died in poverty in 1761, cared for by his mistress - reputedly one of many women who had supported him over the years.

Nash had reigned as uncrowned king for some 55 years and the city would scarcely have been what it was without him.


Marie-Louise Jensen's latest book, The Girl in the Mask, publishes on 1 March