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Posts Tagged ‘Prince Regent’

Brighton: A Popular Seaside Resort

Posted in jane austen, Regency Life, Regency World, Visited, tagged , , , on June 25, 2007| 1 Comment »

During Jane Austen’s time, Brighton, a town along the south Sussex Coast and seen above in a John Constable painting, was the popular resort destination. Bath’s desirability had plummeted among the Ton, as it had gained the reputation of being a stodgy tourist attraction for the elderly and infirm. By the time the Prince Regent’s fashionable set frequented Brighton, it had grown from a sleepy seaside village of 3,000 in 1769 to a booming tourist town of 18,000 by 1817-1818.

The lengthening of the formal season helped in establishing Brighton as a holiday destination. By 1804 the season started late July and lasted until after Christmas, and by 1818 it had been extended until March. Visitors of note were always mentioned in Brighton’s newspaper, and there were a host of them. (Illustration below is of Fashionables in Brighton, 1826)


The first notables were both members of the Royal Family, the Duke of Gloucester in 1765, and then the Duke of York in 1766. From 1771 the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland were regular visitors and the town’s popularity with his uncles might have been one reason why the Prince of Wales came in 1783 and why he stayed for eleven days.

The Prince of Wales, after he became Prince Regent, began to spend enormous sums of money refurbishing Brighton Pavillion to his own fanciful specifications, using John Nash’s designs. Click here for my post on this beautiful palace.

In the early 18th century visitors were left to their own devices to find entertainments, but by 1810 guide books pointed out sites of interests in surrounding villages, amusements to be had, and picturesque walks. The sea was also used for entertainments such as yacht races and water parties which were watched from the shelter of the Steine. Military manoevres on the Steine and the Downs were popular.


Read more about Brighton here:

Quotes: Georgian Brighton, 1740-1820, Sue Farrant, University of Sussex Occasional Paper No. 13

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Royal Palaces, Residences, and Art Collection

Posted in Royalty, tagged on May 15, 2007|

Curious to find out more about the tastes of George III (above), the father of the Prince Regent, and the Prince Regent himself? This site, The Royal Collection: Royal Palaces, Residences, and Art Collection allows you to find the works collected by George III and George IV, as well as artifacts about both men. The collection includes the acquisitions of the British monarchy, including an essay on architecture by George III (which you can zoom in on and read); collections of paintings, prints, manuscripts, and sculptures; and images of the family.


Also included are a wide variety of images of George III and George IV, and other royal collectors. This site brims with information about the royal palaces, and is well worth the visit.

Princess Augusta, 1802, Sir William Beechey

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Royalty at Close Quarters

Posted in Royalty, tagged on March 3, 2007|

King George IV in his coronation robes.

If one of the key pleasures of metropolitan public life was the witnessing of royalty, nobility and greater gentry at close quarters, then the ultimate spectacle was obviously the royal court. After Whitehall burned down in 1697 the focus of court display was St. James’s Palace. Great ‘public’ festivities were held at court on the monarch’s birthday, and on the anniversary of the accession and coronation, while smaller drawing room assemblies were held every week in the Season…The royal family was also to be seen at prayer in the Chapel Royal – a conventional stop on tourist itineraries for over a century. Indeed, for all that the vigour and prestige of court society was in relative decline, and the fact that the pageantry of royal ceremonial varied from monarch to monarch, the ‘splendid appearance’ of royalty and nobility, was still greedily beheld by the genteel at every opportunity.

The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England, Amanda Vickery, P 228

St. James’s Palace

Coronation Procession of King George IV, 1821

For more about the Coronation of George IV, Georgian Index click here.

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The Falling Out Between The Prince Regent and Beau Brummell

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on February 2, 2007| 1 Comment »

It is an historical fact that the Prince Regent and Beau Brummel had a falling out. The actual events are not known for sure, but here are two knowledgeable sources that speculate as to the nature of the rift.In The Most Polished Gentleman, Cynthia Campbell writes, “There had been frequent minor quarrels in the past; one was in the Pavilion, when, as Captain Gronow recounts, Brummell had thrown his snuffbox onto the fire after the Bishop of Winchester had unthinkingly helped himself from it. The Regent, who, Gronow said, had a great reverence for Bishops, considered this action an unforgivable insult. They were never close after this, although they continued to meet.” p.133

In The Wits and Beaux of Society, Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton write,”A quarrel did take place between George the Prince and George the Less, but of its causes no living mortal is cognizant: we can only give the received versions. It appears, then, that dining with H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, Master Brummell asked him to ring the bell. Considering the intimacy between them, and that the Regent often sacrificed his dignity to his amusement, there was nothing extraordinary in this. But it is added that the Prince did ring the bell in question—unhappy bell to jar so between two such illustrious friends!—and when the servant came, ordered ‘Mr. Brummell’s carriage!’ Another version palms off the impertinence on a drunken midshipman, who, being related to the Comptroller of the Household, had been invited to dinner by the Regent. Another yet states that Brummell, being asked to ring the said bell, replied, ‘Your Royal Highness is close to it.’ No one knows the truth of the legend, any more than whether Homer was a man or a myth. It surely does not matter. The friends quarrelled, and perhaps it was time they should do so, for they had never improved one another’s morals; but it is only fair to the Beau to add that he always denied the whole affair, and that he himself gave as the cause of the quarrel his own sarcasms on the Prince’s increasing corpulency…”

Carlton House

 

Cynthia Campbell goes on the say, “There was a final encounter. While waiting for their carriages after the opera, in a great crush, they came close. An eyewitness reported that Brummell was about to bump into the Regent. “In order to stop Brummel, therefore, and prevent an actual collision, one of the Prince’s suite tapped him on the back, when he immediately turned sharply round, and saw there was not more than a foot between his nose and the Prince of Wales’. I watched with intense curiosity, and observed that his countenance did not change in the slightest degree nor did his head move; they looked straight into each other’s eyes, the Prince evidently amazed and annoyed. Brummell, however, did not quail or show the least embarrassment. He receded quite quietly, and backed slowly step by step till the crowd closed between them, never once taking his eyes off those of the Prince….

By 1816 Brummell had such heavy gambling losses that he had to leave England to escape arrest for debt. He lived for many years in Calais, and later in Caen. With sad irony, the old age of the prince of dandies, the paragon of cleanliness, was one of imbecility, decrepitude, and disease. “His habits were so loathsome that an attendant could hardly be found for him.” He died in a Caen asylum in 1840.

For a humorous doggerel recounting the rift, click on the link below:

Prince Regent According to Albert Igginbottom

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The Regency Dandy

Posted in Dandy, jane austen, Regency Life, Regency style, tagged , , on December 29, 2006| 4 Comments »

One of my favorite descriptions of the Regency dandy, and one that I contributed to Wikipedia, is the following in which author Venetia Murray quotes an excerpt from An Exquisite’s Dairy, from The Hermit in London, 1819:

Took four hours to dress; and then it rained; ordered the tilbury and my umbrella, and drove to the fives’ court; next to my tailors; put him off after two years tick; no bad fellow that Weston…broke three stay-laces and a buckle, tore the quarter of a pair of shoes, made so thin by O’Shaughnessy, in St. James’s Street, that they were light as brown paper; what a pity they were lined with pink satin, and were quite the go; put on a pair of Hoby’s; over-did it in perfuming my handkerchief, and had to recommence de novo; could not please myself in tying my cravat; lost three quarters of an hour by that, tore two pairs of kid gloves in putting them hastily on; was obliged to go gently to work with the third; lost another quarter of an hour by this; drove off furiously in my chariot but had to return for my splendid snuff-box, as I knew that I should eclipse the circle by it.

Beau Brummell, image from the British Library

Beau Brummell was the quintessential dandy of the era. Dandies are described in Prinny’s Set on the Georgian Index.

Find a short history of Brummell’s most famous sartorial contribution on the The White Satin Cravat.

Here is another quote about Brummell: “George Bryan “Beau” Brummell, then, must qualify as the most committed dandy of them all. Not only was he an enthusiastic, lifelong slave to his mirrors, he also polished them with champagne. His outrageously flamboyant, nascent rock’n’roll lifestyle, decadent splurging, shameless narcissism and meticulous attention to vanity and wardrobe has set the gold standard for dandies ever since.” (From All Mouths and Trousers)

Click on the following links to learn more about Mr. Brummell:

Beau Brummell: The Dandy

George Brian Brummell: Biography

The Sartorial Dandy

Lesson Two: The Gentleman’s Wardrobe

Upon My Word! Regency Fact and Figures

The Emergence of the Dandy

Dandyism: Andrew Solomon


Also on this blog: Male Bastions: The Clubs of St. James’s

Dandy Clubs for Research

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