OTHER OPTIONS
There were limited roles for the well-bred single woman over the age of twenty-two or -three when she was considered past her prime. If she were wealthy in her own right or possessed of a comfortable ‘independence’, she might set up house with a suitable female companion although, as Venetia Lanyon recognised in Venetia, this would probably see her stigmatised as an ‘eccentric’ and result in her being ostracised by elite circles. If independent living was not an available option—more often the case owing to the extremely limited means by which a woman could obtain an income during the Regency—then she would probably become a dependant in the household of a family member. Maiden aunts, distant cousins, nieces and unmarried older daughters often took on the role of companion, governess or nurse to a more prosperous family member in return for lodging, board and a socially accepted position. It could be an unenviable position, however, for spinsters were generally considered inferior beings and the maiden aunt, sister or daughter denied marriage often found herself an object of pity to be shunted between relatives and treated little better than a domestic servant.
For those gently born women without family upon whom they could depend, one of the few paid occupations available to them was that of companion or governess. For women forced into this position there was usually little to look forward to beyond a lifetime of drudgery, submission and what Kitty Charing in Cotillion perceived as ‘the slights and snubs which were a governess’s portion’. A few women, such as Ancilla Trent in The Nonesuch, deliberately chose to support themselves through teaching rather than burden their families, but for those women of good birth such a decision generally placed them outside their accustomed social circle. Ancilla knew only too well that by becoming a governess a woman automatically reduced her social standing. Apart from teaching, the only other genteel occupations available to an upper-class female were that of dressmaker or milliner, neither of which would allow her to retain her place within society. Although there were a few exceptions, the many constraints placed upon women during this period and social expectations in general made it very difficult to aspire to any status other than that of wife and mother regardless of intellect or scholarly interests. For those women unable to marry the prospects could be bleak.
5
On the Town
THE SEASON AND THE LITTLE SEASON
Running from late January to early July, for the upper class the Season was the social high period of the year. Parliament began sitting in January—the signal for the move to town to commence—but many families delayed their return to the metropolis as the Season did not get into full swing until March or April. Centred in London, it took place during the (ideally) pleasant spring months and consisted of an endless round of balls, assemblies, theatre parties, military reviews, masquerades, dances, routs, alfresco breakfasts and any other gay or dashing entertainment that an ambitious host or hostess could conceive of within the bounds of propriety. For those upper-class families with a country seat and children to marry off, the Season was the time to return to London and take up residence in an owned or rented town house somewhere in Mayfair in order to play the ‘marriage market’. Arabella, growing up in the very restricted society of Heythram in Yorkshire, longed to visit London where she might enjoy the balls, assemblies, theatre parties and other pleasures of the Season. For those on the social fringe, the hangers-on, the genteel and the well-bred but impoverished, the Season was also an opportunity to catch a rich husband or wife.
Parliament rose in June and families would retire to their country estate or to a seaside resort such as Brighton. London could be unbearable in the summer months and was thought by many to be fetid and unhealthy. In The Spanish Bride, Harry Smith’s young wife Juana watched the city grow thin of company in late June and endured many hot, dull days in the capital while waiting for news of her husband. A return to town in September was considered acceptable, however, and many among the upper class came back to London for the Little Season, which lasted until early November when the fox-hunting began and there was a general retreat to the country. The Little Season also provided an opportunity for some girls to be brought out in advance of the Season proper and to try their social wings a little before embarking on the intense round of engagements that made up the Season. If it hadn’t been for old Lady Bugle’s untimely death in Charity Girl which meant the family were in mourning, her granddaughter Oenone might have come out during the Little Season in the autumn rather than having to wait until the following year.
ALMACK’S
Of all the venues in Regency London, Almack’s was undoubtedly the most exclusive. Founded in 1763 by a Scotsman, William Macall, it derived its name from a simple reversal of the two syllables of Macall’s surname. Macall became known as William Almack and the original Almack’s was a gambling club in St James’s Street which eventually became the famous Brooks’s club. In 1764 Almack commissioned the building of a magnificent set of rooms on a site in King Street, behind St James’s Square, in the centre of fashionable London. Almack’s opened on 20 February 1765 with a subscription price of ten guineas which admitted the purchaser to the three rooms where a ball and a supper were held once a week for twelve weeks. In its early years, Almack’s also provided the venue for a ladies’ gambling club where those fashionable and aristocratic women who gained admission to the rooms could meet over cards and engage in deep play. In 1781 Almack’s niece inherited the rooms and her husband, the keen-eyed and knowing Mr Willis, oversaw the running of the club and became famous as its imperturbable and ever-courteous doorkeeper. Not every visitor to Almack’s was favoured with the attention of the great Mr Willis but Freddy Standen in Cotillion was an agreeable guest and a graceful dancer and was well-liked by the powerful doorkeeper.
Determined from the outset to make the club sought-after and exclusive, Almack set up a management committee of high-born ladies responsible for administering the vouchers which were the only means of gaining the tickets required for entry to the rooms. Thus were the patronesses established, and their autocratic rule quickly gained a hold over upper-class society, to the extent that one aspirant likened the pursuit of tickets of admission to Almack’s to the Quest for the Holy Grail. Undoubtedly, part of the attraction was the difficulty in acquiring the necessary voucher. With the number on the list never exceeding two thousand, only those ladies and gentlemen who met with the approval of one or more of the lady patronesses would be so honoured. The challenge lay in determining what might win their approbation. As Eugenia Wraxton warned Miss Stanton-Lacy in The Grand Sophy, neither birth nor fortune could guarantee a voucher, although beauty, wit and careful dressing could open the doors, and a graceful dancer or person of taste might win approval and thereby gain admittance to the hallowed rooms.
The allocation of vouchers was decided in a weekly meeting during which the committee determined who, in addition to those already in the visiting books, would receive the coveted honour. Self-elected to their roles as arbiters of taste and fashion, the patronesses were frequently despotic in their rule and arbitrary in the selection of attendees. Offending any one of them could mean permanent exclusion from the club. Even the most nobly born persons were subject to their whims and idiosyncratic rules and many among the aristocracy sought their approval in vain. Even with the most eligible connections Gussie Yarford, Lady Appleby, in Friday’s Child, could not get a voucher to Almack’s. For those fortunate enough to gain admittance a set of strict rules was laid down and even the most notable in society were required to abide by them. The Duke of Wellington was turned away from the doors on two occasions: once, for arriving after eleven o’clock, at which time the rooms were closed to all newcomers, and again for attending in pantaloons instead of the requisite formal evening wear of knee-breeches. Peregrine Taverner in Regency Buck was another who discovered to his chagrin just how inflexible were the rules and how despotic the patronesses.
It was the very exclusiveness of Almack’s and the extraordinary powe
r and influence of the lady patronesses that made it so desirable. For many in the upper class it was the place to find a marriage partner, for, although the dancing was carefully regulated and the supper unremarkable, the company to be found there was guaranteed to be of the highest order. To receive a voucher was the ultimate in social cachet. As Frederica Merriville so clearly recognised in Frederica, to attend a ball at Almack’s was to announce to the polite world that a person had arrived, that they too belonged, by right of birth or fortune or personality. Acceptance by the ton was for many the ultimate goal and the ultimate achievement.
THE PATRONESSES
The lady patronesses who ruled Almack’s during the Regency differed as much in looks and temperament as they did in their roles in high society. No more than six or seven women formed the committee at any one time and in 1814 five were well-born English ladies and two were foreigners. Lady Jersey, Lady Sefton, Lady Cowper, Lady Castlereagh, and Mrs Drummond-Burrell were all born into aristocratic English families while Countess Lieven was Russian and Princess Esterhazy was of German birth. Between them these women formed a cabal that wielded an extraordinary influence in London society for years.
Lady Jersey.
Lady Jersey was born Lady Sarah Sophia Fane, the daughter of the tenth Earl of Westmorland. She married George, Viscount Villiers, and became Lady Jersey when her husband inherited the title and became the fifth Earl of Jersey. Her mother-in-law was the notorious Frances, Lady Jersey, mistress of George, Prince of Wales, later Prince Regent. Though not considered to be a great beauty, Sarah was intelligent and energetic, with a sense of humour appreciated by many but which evaded the notice of some in society. In certain circles she was ironically referred to as ‘Silence’ because of her propensity to talk non-stop, and also as ‘Queen Sarah’, although she was neither arrogant nor vain, despite being heiress to her grandfather’s substantial fortune. Considered by some to be affable and kind, and by others to be ill-bred, rude and something of a tragedienne, Lady Jersey was, above all, strict in maintaining the exclusivity of Almack’s. In Frederica, her powerful position as ‘Queen of London’s most exclusive club’ was a source of anger and humiliation to Lady Buxted, who needed a voucher for her plain daughter Jane from the woman to whom she had in earlier years been rude and condescending. A high-stickler, Lady Jersey would admit only those known to dance well and was rigorous in upholding the club’s unbending rules, although it was she who was credited with bringing from France a new dance, the quadrille, to Almack’s in 1815.
Lady Cowper.
Lady Sefton was considered the kindest of the patronesses, with an amiable disposition which made her rather more approachable than the rest. She married the well-known dandy William Philip Molyneux, 2nd Earl of Sefton, and she and her husband became notable society hosts with a wide circle of friends among members of the aristocracy. The Seftons were very fond of house parties, balls, the theatre and the opera where they had a box which they kindly lent to friends and acquaintances (including Sherry and Hero of Friday’s Child).
Lady Castlereagh.
Mary Lamb became Lady Cowper when she married the fifth Earl Cowper in 1805. She was the daughter of the first Lord Melbourne and of Lady Melbourne, the great Whig hostess. Neither as powerful as Lady Jersey nor as exclusive, Lady Cowper was the most popular of the patronesses. She was admired for her wit, her tact and her affability. It was Lady Cowper who was most likely to smooth over quarrels among the patronesses or smile approval on a new bride or debutante; in Frederica, though, the Marquis of Alverstoke was advised not to apply to Lady Cowper for vouchers for his wards on account of her deep distress over the death of her mother.
Heiress to the second Earl of Buckinghamshire, Lady Castlereagh was one of the most formidable of the Almack’s patronesses. Born Lady Emily Anne Hobart she married Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, and quickly became known for her elegance and hauteur. She was not as powerful a patroness as Lady Jersey or Lady Cowper but to win her approval, as Jenny Chawleigh did in A Civil Contract, could ensure acceptance by the ton.
Countess Lieven.
When Clementina Drummond married one of the minor dandies, Peter Robert Burrell, he appended his wife’s surname to his own and she became Mrs Drummond-Burrell. As heiress to the great Drummond banking fortune, Clementina Drummond-Burrell was renowned for her haughtiness and for keeping her distance from all but the most socially acceptable. She was the most difficult of all the patronesses to please, with an icy demeanour that tended to thaw only in the company of other strait-laced women (such as Eugenia Wraxton of The Grand Sophy).
Countess Lieven was born Dorothea Christorovna Benckendorff in Riga and, at fifteen, married Lieutenant-General Count Christopher Andreievitch Lieven who became Russian Ambassador to the Court of St James. Countess Lieven was a determined woman, clever, haughty and arrogant, and she counted among her friends some of the great political leaders of the day including the Duke of Wellington, George Canning and Earl Grey. Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy in The Grand Sophy was a friend of the Countess, calling her the ‘great intriguante’ and flirting with her whenever he was in London. A strong sense of her own importance gave her a decided air of superiority and she was ruthless in excluding from the hallowed halls of Almack’s any who did not meet her approval. It was Countess Lieven who introduced the waltz to Almack’s, most probably in 1813.
Although she was a great-niece of George III’s wife, Queen Charlotte, Princess Esterhazy’s standing in London society came more from her husband’s role as Austrian Ambassador to the Court of St James and her own powerful position as a patroness of Almack’s than it did from her royal connections. A pretty woman, she was short and plump but with an animated personality, an occasional propensity for spite, a penchant for etiquette and a disdain of social climbers. It was Princess Esterhazy who angered Judith Taverner in Regency Buck with her mocking look and untimely laughter, and it was to the Princess that Mr Beaumaris applied for permission to ask Arabella to dance the waltz with him in Arabella.
THE BEST CIRCLES
Often referred to as the Upper Ten Thousand, the ton, the Beau Monde, or Polite Society, those in the best circles lived a privileged and indulgent life. Birth and family were vital for social acceptance, although close connections and approval by those already in the upper echelons could pave the way for a few in society who were neither well-born nor well-heeled but whose wit or elegance set them apart. Most people in society came from the ranks of the landed aristocrats. Those of royal blood, members of the great houses, those of ancient lineage—with or without a title—and members of well-born families, could all take their place in the elite inner circle.
Society could be a ruthless arbiter of who was in and who was out, and its rules varied enormously depending on an erring individual’s status, wealth and family connections. A double standard was usually applied wherever royalty or the upper echelons of the aristocracy were concerned. To have an illegitimate child or an adulterous relationship in the ranks of the gentry or the middle and lower classes was considered scandalous behaviour and usually resulted in the ostracism of the offender by both friends and family, as poor Ruth Wimborne discovered in Friday’s Child. In the upper classes, however, such conduct, while giving rise to gossip and creating a degree of scandal, was frequently overlooked. The Prince Regent himself had numerous affairs, contracted an illegal marriage and treated his wife and daughter with rough disdain. His brother, the Duke of Clarence, was renowned for his ten illegitimate children but the FitzClarences, as they were known, were received everywhere, whereas illegitimacy below the rank of earl generally excluded an individual from the best circles. Lady Oxford, Lady Melbourne and the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, among others of the nobility, all had affairs, produced illegitimate offspring or ran up huge gambling debts without serious consequence in terms of their social standing.
Individuals could find themselves excluded from the polite world, however, if their social position was not high enough to g
rant them immunity or if their conduct was deemed so scandalous as to put them beyond the social pale. Even women of the ton could find themselves ostracised if they cuckolded their husband by running off with another man—particularly if their lover was of a lower social standing. In The Quiet Gentleman, the first wife of the sixth Earl of St Erth had her name obliterated from the family records after she ran away with a well-known libertine. A man could be excluded from society for dishonourable behaviour such as failure to pay his gaming debts or other debts of honour, cheating at cards, attacking an unarmed opponent, improper conduct in a duel, or for running off with a married woman. The irrepressible Wilfred Steane in Charity Girl was forced to flee England when it was discovered he had been cheating at cards, and Sir Montagu Revesby in Friday’s Child was threatened with public exposure after he stepped over the line. Bankruptcy, the loss of one’s estates, criminal activities, murder and treason were all guaranteed to see a person permanently excluded from the ton.
Georgette Heyer's Regency World Page 8