When Was the Regency?

from Castle Howard WHEN WAS THE REGENCY? he period of English history known as the Regency began in 1811 with the passing of a bill declaring the Prince of Wales to be Regent on account of the madness of his father George III. The prince would go on to become TGeorge IV in 1820. But the term Regency is more generally applied to the period 1790-1830, especially in terms of style, fashion, and the arts. It was a period of turbulent change witnessing the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and enormous change in England with the rise of industrialisation, much of which led to social unrest. For the aristocracy however this was a time of high living, glamour, and luxury, famously captured in Jane Austen’s novels, William Thackeray’sVanity Fair, and more recently in the Netflix production ofBridgerton . These years saw several generations of the Howard family living at Castle Howard, Frederick and Caroline, the 5th Earl and Countess of Carlisle; their son George and his wife Georgiana, Viscount and Viscountess Morpeth, and their large family of twelve children. MARY EVANS PICTURE EVANS MARY LIBRARY Fear swept across Europe after the execution of Louis XVI in 1793. James Gillray, A Voluptuary under the horrors of digestion. In this caricature of 1792 George, Prince of Wales (1762-1830), is already depicted as a bloated glutton; at one point he weighed 20 stone (130 kg). PHOTO NETFLIXPHOTO A scene from Netflix’s successful Regency drama Bridgerton, based on the novels by Julia Quinn. Here Lord Hastings, played by Regé-Jean Page, brings his new bride, played by Phoebe Dynevor, to his seat, Clyvedon, where they are greeted on the steps by housekeeper Mrs Colson, played by Philippa Haywood. These sequences were filmed at Castle Howard in the summer of 2019. from Castle Howard DAMN THE WHIGS THEY ARE ALL COUSINS igh Society in Regency England was dominated by about 400 elite families who looked to maintain their wealth and power by inter-marrying. Not all of these Hwere arranged unions, they were often love matches, but for parents the social, financial, and political advantages would always be 1 a consideration. During these years the Howards built up an extraordinary network of connections across Britain, and many of these families shared their Whig 2 politics. For members of this privileged clan much of their time was occupied moving from one great house to another in a series of social, sporting, or political gatherings, as well as spending time in London. It is little wonder that Tory prime minister Sir Robert Peel is said to have exclaimed ‘Damn the Whigs, they are all cousins’. 3 Houses and estates in the British Isles that became connected to Castle Howard by way of marriage in the 18th and 19th centuries. Each generation of children and grand-children extended this network of relationships. 1 Dunrobin Castle, Sutherland 4 2 Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire 3 Inverary Castle, Argyll 4 Howick Hall, Northumberland 5 Holker Hall, Cumbria 6 Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire 5 7 Goldsborough Hall, Yorkshire 6 7 8 Worsley Hall, Lancashire 8 9 9 Harewood House, Yorkshire 10 Eaton Hall, Cheshire 26 11 Chatsworth, Derbyshire 11 12 Stone Park, Staffordshire 10 14 13 12 13 Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire 15 18 14 Haddon Hall, Derbyshire 27 16 17 15 Trentham, Staffordshire 16 Lilleshall, Shropshire 28 17 Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire 18 Holkham, Norfolk 19 20 19 Stackpole Court, Pembrokeshire 21 20 Ampthill Park, Bedfordshire 21 Cliveden, Buckinghamshire 22 22 Longleat, Wiltshire 23 24 25 23 Quantock Lodge, Somerset, 24 Woolbeding, Sussex, 25 Compton Place, Sussex, 26 Carton House, Co Kildare 27 Gowran Castle, Co. Kilkenny 28 Lismore Castle, Co. Wexford from Castle Howard DAMN THE WHIGS THEY ARE ALL COUSINS etween 1802 and 1823 the 6th Countess of Carlisle gave birth to twelve children, six girls and six boys. For the best part of two decades she was, on average, pregnant every Beighteen months. Harriet Georgiana Caroline Under their mother’s guidance each girl made an advantageous match. Harriet married George Granville, 2nd Duke of Sutherland, one of the wealthiest men in England; Georgiana married MP George Agar-Ellis who was created Lord Dover in 1831; Caroline married William Lascelles, third son of the 2nd Earl of Harewood. Blanche Elizabeth Mary Georgiana’s three younger daughters followed likewise. Blanche revived the union between Castle Howard and Chatsworth when she married Georgiana’s nephew William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire; Elizabeth married into the Grey family of Howick Hall in Northumberland; Mary, the youngest, married MP and widower Henry Labouchere, who was created Lord Taunton. All Georgiana’s children reached adulthood, but two died in their twenties, Frederick who was killed in a carriage accident, and Blanche who died in 1840. A pencil drawing of her three elder daughters, Harriet, Georgiana, and Caroline Howard, dated 1821. Three of her six sons remained bachelors including George the future 7th Earl. Within two years each girl had married. In time this meant that the title passed to his young nephew. from Castle Howard THE FAIR MAID OF DERBYSHIRE orn in 1783 Georgiana Cavendish (1783-1858) was the eldest daughter of the glamorous 5th Duchess of Devonshire of Chatsworth House. In May 1800, as Georgiana turned Bseventeen, she was presented to society, first at Court and then in a giddy succession of balls, masquerades, and fetes. Her mother was a consummate socialite and went to great lengths to ensure her daughter was seen as a desirable bride and heiress. When presented to the Queen, Georgiana was dressed in white crepe trimmed with silk lace, and was wearing the famous Devonshire diamonds, but her mother did not allow her to wear rouge on her face. Young Georgiana was praised for her unpretentious manner and dancing skills, and during the course of 1800 two potential husbands emerged. The Duke of Bedford, who was twice her age, had already fathered a number of illegitimate children, as well as keeping two mistresses. He was charming and wealthy, and his family were Whigs like the Cavendishes; he had also loaned the COLLECTIONS. DEVONSHIRE ©THE TRUSTEES. SETTLEMENT PERMISSION CHATSWORTH REPRODUCED OF BY Duchess £6,000 to clear her debts. His rival was the twenty-seven-year-old George Howard, known as Viscount Morpeth, eldest son of the 5th Earl of Carlisle. He too was set on a political career but the Duchess considered him a little pompous. He had also had a liaison with Georgiana’s aunt, Lady Bessborough: such were the fluid boundaries of love and marriage in Regency times. In December Morpeth proposed to Georgiana and the following March they were married at Devonshire House in London. Once more Georgiana was dressed simply in a cambric muslin robe but if her dress was understated her jewellery was not, she wore a diamond necklace and ear-rings said to have cost £1,000. A month earlier the Duchess had taken her daughter shopping in London to order her trousseau, and the haberdashers’ bills alone came Portrait of Georgiana when she was 6th Countess of Carlisle in 1815, painted by George Sanders. to more than £3,000. The 5th Earl settled £5,000 on his son, and Georgiana’s She is holding a miniature of her mother who had died dowry from her father was 20,000 guineas (this might equate to £1.5 million nine years earlier. in today’s money). The young couple divided their time between Castle Howard, George Howard (1773-1848), at the time of his engagement to Georgiana Cavendish, when he was London, and staying with friends and family across the country. Viscount Morpeth, miniature by Henry Edridge c.1800. A miniature version of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ famous double portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire and her baby daughter Georgiana in 1785. Georgiana brought this copy by the miniaturist William Grimaldi to Castle Howard after her marriage as a memento of her mother. An early 19th-century view of Chatsworth by Thomas Allom. from Castle Howard BURIED THREE TIMES he battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815 was one of the most momentous events during the Regency period. Many aristocratic families with officer sons in the army Twere affected, and as Byron wrote, ‘The havoc has not left a family out of its tender mercies’. One such casualty was Major Frederick Howard, son of the 5th Earl of Carlisle, who was an officer in the 10th Hussars. Late in the day he led a cavalry charge against retreating French forces at Waterloo but was hit by musket fire. Initially he was buried at Quatre Bras nearby, where there is a plaque commemorating him inside the church of St Joseph. But in August 1815 his remains were brought to England to be interred at Streatham. Byron remembered his cousin fondly: ‘Poor Frederick Howard, the best of his race, I never saw or heard but good of him’, he declared. After touring the site of Waterloo in 1816 he met an old school friend who had been at the battle and learned how Howard had been shot during a charge; half an hour afterwards he died in a house nearby. In his poemChilde Harold Byron bade farewell to ‘young, gallant Howard’: ‘There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee.’ In the same lines he also acknowledged ‘I did his sire some wrong’, alluding to his quarrel with Howard’s father. Howard left a widow and one young son; at the time of his death she was pregnant with their second child. More than sixty years later his body was moved for a third time and buried in the family mausoleum at Castle Howard.

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