Pleasure for Pleasure
Griselda and Darlington end up talking about an actual murder that took place in 1779, when James Hackman, a respected Anglican minister, shot his former lover Martha Ray—who happened to be the longtime live-in mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, a minister to King George III. There’s a great book on the murder, if you’re interested: Martin Levy’s Love & Madness (William Morrow, 2004).
Of course I instantly decided to search out the contemporary books that Griselda read in secret (and Darlington was writing, also in secret).
Nocturnal Revels
(actual title: Nocturnal Revels: or The History of King’s-Place, and Other Modern Nunneries)
Somewhat to my surprise, it turned out that Nocturnal Revels was indeed a real book, subtitled The History of King’s-Place, and Other Modern Nunneries. Nunneries? What kind of revel or merriment could possibly take place in a nunnery? As an American living in the Midwest, I don’t know anything about King’s Place, but I think of a nun as a woman bound by vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Well, guess what? In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the word “nunnery” was used to refer to a bordello or, as they called them, a bawdy house. The madam was referred to as an abbess, another religious title. Franzeca Drouin, Eloisa’s researcher, told me she thinks part of the joke sprang from the fact that there were very few Roman Catholics in England at the time. Between 1536 and 1541, King Henry VIII “dissolved” all the monastic foundations in England, disbanding monasteries, nunneries, and friaries. He took their lands and income, and kicked them out of doors. The monasteries themselves, and their surrounding lands, were then sold or given to friends of the king. Some of the lands attached to former monasteries—especially a few in London itself—turned into racy red-light districts (to use modern terminology). I guess that’s where the “revels” come in!
Eloisa actually explains the word “nun” in The Taming of the Duke, linking it to a dubious area of London called the Whitefriars—which had been a monastery occupied by white-gowned friars before Henry VIII got involved.
In the novel Gabe (Rafe) and Imogen go to a pantomime in costume. Imogen’s gown is so low that it garners some disapproving glances from the other audience members.
“I am dressed as a sailor on leave,” Gabe explains. And then he uses a euphemism for prostitute to explain what people are thinking of Imogen:
“I do believe that I shall readily be taken as a sailor with his—shall we say—Whitefriars nun?”
“Whitefriars nun?”
“A popular pun. Whitefriars is a less than salubrious area of London, which used to house a monastery. Nuns are, of course, sworn to a life of chastity—”
“And the current occupants of that district do not adhere to ancient standards,” Imogen said, giggling. “I feel positively wicked.”
The Taming of the Duke
The frontispiece of Darlington’s volume would have had a quite long and descriptive title: Nocturnal Revels or the History of King’s-Place, and Other Modern Nunneries. Containing their mysteries, devotions, and sacrifices, comprising also, the present state of promiscuous gallantry: with the portraits of the most celebrated demireps and courtezans of this period: as well as sketches of their professional and occasional admirers.
Franzeca Drouin told me that all the wording here is ironic, since it is couched in the same words and phrases as a somber religious observation (“devotions,” for example). Remember, Henry VIII had changed England’s religion from Catholic to Anglican almost three hundred years earlier. So this sort of sardonic, sarcastic reference was common.
It turns out that the entire book is basically about brothels. It explains how they operate, and includes sketches of famous prostitutes and their “professional and occasional admirers.” This suggests that if people were willing to be linked to a book of this nature, prostitution must not have had the terrible reputation that it has now. Obviously there was some stigma attached, since the book rationalizes prostitution by explaining it as a service provided for the safety of society. The following quote is from the second volume of Nocturnal Revels (1779; pp.4–5).
Even in the state of matrimony itself, it often happens, that a man who holds his wife in the highest estimation, may be debarred the felicity of hymeneal raptures, from sickness, absence, and a variety of other temporary causes, which may with facility be imagined. If, in any of those situations, a man could not find temporary relief in the arms of prostitution, the peace of Society would be far more disturbed than it is: The brutal Ravisher would stalk at large, and would plead, as in the case of hunger, that the violence of his passion would break down even stone walls: No man’s wife, sister, or daughter would be in a state of security: The rape of the Sabines would be daily rehearsed, and anarchy and confusion ensue. In this point of view then, at least, female prostitution should be winked at, if not protected; and though it may be pronounced a moral evil, it certainly is a political good.
The argument is absurd, but overall Nocturnal Revels is an entertaining book that provides a window into a very different attitude toward sex work and brothels. The entire book can be found in the Digital Library of Free Books, at http://archive.org.
Malefactors’ Bloody Register
(also known as The Newgate Calendar)
The second book Griselda looks at is the Malefactors’ Bloody Register, which is the subtitle of a series of publications called the New and Complete Newgate Calendar. I was not familiar with the word “malefactor”; it turns out to mean an evildoer, a lawbreaker, a criminal or felon. This makes sense because Newgate was the most famous and dreadful prison in London during the time.
Apparently, Newgate Calendar started as a broadside, or crude sheet of paper, hawked at public executions. It provided the crowd that gathered to watch this dreadful entertainment an account of the condemned criminal’s career. Later, it became a monthly publication produced by the Keeper of the Prison, and thereafter the title was borrowed by publishers who created lurid “true crime” biographies of famous criminals.
By the time of Eloisa’s Pleasure for Pleasure, which is set in 1818, the simple broadside had evolved into a substantial publication. The title in 1818 was The New and Complete Newgate Calendar or Malefactor’s Universal Register, Comprising Interesting Memoirs of the Most Notorious Characters Who Have Been Convicted of Outrages on the Laws of England, with Speeches, Confessions, and Last Exclamations of Sufferers.
Due to its vast popularity, the Newgate Calendar evolved into a “true crime” publication written by experienced writers who often had legal training. It offered descriptions of the most notorious criminals incarcerated at Newgate, including lists of their associates and details about the circumstances that brought them to their execution or punishment.
As you can see from the frontispiece below, the text stresses “horrid” murders. Entries generally tried to find an explanation for the criminal’s uncivilized behavior, much as a public defender might do today. Here these “unhappy men” become murderers due to “an inattention to their education.”
As a former library worker, Franzeca said she can attest that the “true crime” section of a public library collection is very large and extremely popular. Library workers often just refer to the entire section by the main Dewey number, 364.1523, meaning, basically, true crime, or even “364.” So things haven’t changed much. Horrid murders are still fun to read about—and those books still try to explain murderers’ actions by exploring what went wrong in their childhoods.
It’s easy to find different versions of the Newgate Calendar online, and frankly, they are utterly fascinating. I was surprised by how many hours I spent reading different stories. If I had been a bluestocking living in a nineteenth-century country home without Internet service, I’m sure I would have easily become addicted to reading details about the “most horrid of crimes,” although I likely would have had to hide my reading material from my mother. Not only are the crimes bluntly d
escribed, but some of the engravings can be shocking, even to a modern sensibility like my own.
One Last Thought on Publications . . .
I have briefly discussed six publications that are mentioned in the Essex Sisters series. Numerous resources are listed in the back of the book. If you find a fascinating story—whether it’s about an outrageous wager or a horrid murder—please do share it with us on Eloisa’s Facebook page!
PART FOUR
Attending the Theatre by Jody Gayle
A Must for a Successful Season
We all know that Eloisa is a Shakespeare professor, but what you might not know is that she also edited some plays for scholarly publications. These included George Etherege’s The Man of Mode, first published in 1676. Her knowledge of literature and theatre is evident when characters quote from plays and sonnets. But when it comes to the Essex Sisters series, especially The Taming of the Duke, she drew more heavily on theatrical history than usual, particularly from Etherege’s Restoration-era play, which her characters perform. Eloisa told me that she feels Etheridge’s rake Dorimant is a model for all the Regency rakes we read about nowadays.
In The Taming of the Duke, the assorted company (along with professional actors) performed George Etherege’s The Man of Mode at the Holbrook Court Theatre. I thought it might be interesting to share the title page of the play, and an advertisement for purchasing a copy.
Gillian Pythian-Adams had been seated in the library for two hours, painstakingly copying out actors’ parts from The Man of Mode.
The Taming of the Duke
Advertisement for The Man of Mode from A Collection of Choice, Old and Rare Books.
The theatrical subplot in The Taming of the Duke really sparked my interest, and I decided to find out a bit more about the world of Regency theatre.
In nineteenth-century London, there was substantial demand for theatrical entertainment. Attending the theatre was a way to be seen at your “best,” because evening dress was obligatory. In Much Ado About You and Kiss Me, Annabel, the settings of the stories did not lend themselves to trips to the theatre. However, in Pleasure for Pleasure, theatres were mentioned numerous times, and in The Taming of the Duke, actors and theatres played a central role in the plot of the story. These are the seven theatres mentioned in the series: Adelphi Theatre, Drury Lane Theatre, Regency Theatre, Fortune Theatre, the Theatre Royal at Covent Garden, Olympic Theatre, and the Hyde Park Theatre.
To quote Shakespeare, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” I have come to the conclusion from my research on London theatres that there was as much drama off the stage as on. It seems that theatres were prone to fires, riots, wildly misbehaving actors, irascible owners, management squabbles, political intrigue, and financial difficulties.
The amount of information on the history of theatres in London is massive. I will provide a little bit of background, an amusing story or two, and most importantly, images. The goal of this pictorial is to provide you with a general idea of how theatres may have looked in the Regency era.
As a side note, in writing this section of the pictorial I had a couple of pesky little problems. One was how to spell “theatre”: “theater” (as in the United States), or “theatre” (as in Britain)? To correctly spell the theatre names I had to use the British spelling, so for the sake of uniformity I used that spelling throughout. Another little problem also involved the theatre names. Each of the theatres I researched had “Theatre Royal” in its name, which became very confusing. I carefully kept each theatre’s history separate, but be aware you may see “Theatre Royal” attached to more than one theatre description.
Theatre Royal, Covent Garden
1732 Opened as Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.
1763 Riots over ticket prices.
1792 Major rebuilding work.
1808 Burned down.
1809 Second theatre built on same site.
1847 Reconstructed as the Royal Italian Opera.
1856 Burned down.
1858 Third theatre built.
Major remodels continue and still open to this day.
The above illustration of the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden shows how the theatre would have appeared during the time of the Essex Sisters series.
The theatre was first erected by John Rich in 1733. Some thirty years later in 1762, it was partially rebuilt, but a year later a riot over ticket prices took place, demolishing the interior, including benches and chandeliers. The damage was so extensive that it took nearly a week to restore the theatre.
Then, on the night of September 20, 1808, the theatre burned to the ground. During the course of the play Pizarro, a gun had to be fired. Speculation at the time suggested that smoldering wadding, a cloth, or the paper wrapping used in muzzleloaders became lodged in the decorations of the stage.
The fire started at 4 a.m. and, given the combustible nature of theatres, by 6 a.m. the interior was gutted and the roof had fallen in. Due to a combination of the falling roof and scalding steam, an estimated twenty-two firemen perished. As if that wasn’t tragedy enough, the theatre’s entire contents were lost: the valuable scenery and stage properties, stage jewelry and armor, the actors’ elaborate costumes. Handel’s organ and numerous original scores were destroyed. In addition, seven houses near the theatre burned down.
To much fanfare and a vast crowd of spectators, His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales laid the first stone of the new Covent Garden Theatre on December 31, 1808. Amazingly, the rebuilt theatre reopened one year later, when Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth was performed on September 18, 1809—eight years prior to 1817, the year in which Much Ado About You was set.
Desperate to recoup their losses, the proprietors reduced the general admission seating and added more private boxes, while raising the price of admission from six to seven shillings for a private box and from three shillings and sixpence to an even four shillings for the pit (general admission). Even though the price of seats had not been raised in seventeen years, the increased prices distressed the public, leading to the Old Prices riots, or what was more commonly known as the “OP” riots. These riots continued on and off for the next two months in spite of arrests of the ringleaders by the Bow Street runners, and had a severe effect on the box office take.
The riots took place inside and outside the theatre, and clearly disrupted performances. To illustrate this, here is a contemporary quotation taken from History and Illustration of the London Theatres about the OP riots: “no female, nor any person but those who went either to enjoy the riot, or to riot themselves, would go to the Theatre.” The book explains that any lady who appeared in the new lavish private boxes would be subjected to harsh insults from the pits and galleries, since the popular notion was these rooms had been designed for secret rendezvous.
At last the proprietors were forced to compromise, and they reduced the price of admission back to the original rates. A number of the private boxes were also removed. Peace was restored; however, the damage was already done. As History and Illustration of the London Theatres explains, the “confidence of female timidity in security was too much shaken to render the boxes of Covent Garden sufficiently refulgent with beauty and fashion, those magnets of attraction, early enough in the season to enable the proprietors to make up their loss.”
To return to Eloisa’s novels, Eliot Thurman in Pleasure for Pleasure goes to the Covent Garden Theatre in order to steal “clever remarks,” after his friend Darlington severs their friendship. Eloisa admits that one of the jokes he stole—the idea that a gentleman’s occupation should be smoking tobacco—wouldn’t be written by Oscar Wilde for some years (The Importance of Being Earnest was first performed at the St. James’s Theatre in 1895). But she wanted to use it because Wilde’s withering sarcasm is utterly lost on Thurman, who delivers the line straight. This theatrical thievery is both a sign of Thurman’s stupidity and a hint of his future attempt to steal Josie’s virtue. He is one of the few truly despicable
characters that Eloisa has created.
Darlington was yesterday’s news, and [Thurman] was bursting with the ambition to make himself into Darlington’s successor. He was already in a good way to doing it. Last night he’d gone to the Covent Garden Theatre and surreptitiously written down a number of clever remarks.
Pleasure for Pleasure
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
1663 Opened as Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
1672 Building burned down.
1674 Second theatre built
1794 Theatre had been demolished in 1791; new theatre opened.
1809 Building burned down.
1812 Fourth theatre building opened.
2012 Current building had its two hundredth birthday.
2013 Theatre celebrated its three hundred and fiftieth year of operation.
Stories of romance, triumph, and disaster crowd Drury Lane’s past, and the historical associations of the theatre are incredible. The Irish actor and dramatist Charles Macklin was notorious for the murder of another actor in the greenroom—after a brawl involving a wig. Sixteen years prior to the setting of Much Ado About You, King George III was nearly shot by a madman as the king entered the royal box; unmoved, he stayed on to watch the performance of She Would and She Wouldn’t.
To me, this incident has distinct similarities to the night President Lincoln attended the theatre, although his visit ended tragically.
The newspaper story of the attempted assassination of King George was included in a book published in 1861 called The Year 1800, or the Sayings and Doings of Our Fathers and Mothers, which is a collection of newspaper articles. A cartoon and newspaper clipping of the event are included below.