by Eloisa James
Lucius Felton was, like most men, enamored of habit. When he journeyed to the Duke of Holbrook’s house, as he did every June and September to attend the races at Ascot and Silchester, he expected to find the duke sprawled in a chair with a decanter at his elbow and a copy of Sporting News in the near vicinity.
Much Ado About You
Surely Eloisa must have meant that Rafe was reading Sporting Magazine, not News, because to the best of my ability, all I can discover with that title is an American magazine that began in 1886 and was known as the “Bible of Baseball”!
The Sporting Magazine introduced different sports or entertainments with an explanation of how and when the sport was invented, and how the sport had changed over the years. They also speculated on its potential fate. The scope of the articles in the magazine is amazing!
It contained instructions on the care of horses and dogs, lists of the regulations of various games and sports, the deliberations and proceedings of Jockey Club meetings, racing calendars, as well as miscellaneous engravings/illustrations, religious essays, theatre reviews, and poems.
Both of the quotes above from Much Ado About You tell the reader that sports and publications about sports are important—especially the fact that Tess’s father had practically chosen his daughters’ guardian from the magazine. By bringing in an actual publication, The Sporting Magazine, Eloisa drops readers into the world of Regency England, but at the same time makes her heroes seem rather like men who sprawl in a chair with a beer and the Sunday football game on the television. Rafe is a duke, but showing his interest in sports makes him more relatable.
To conclude this section on The Sporting Magazine, I want to share a story from an 1811 copy of the magazine that I found particularly entertaining. I could see it happening in one of Eloisa’s books!
Whip, or Four-in-Hand Club
We collect from the Newspapers, (the only source of information open to us on this subject) that the Whip, or Four-in-Hand Club, intended a grand set-out Monday, the 17th instant, to the Castle, at Richmond; but the rooms being engaged on that day for the Prince Regent and Officers, after a Review on Hounslow Heath, the arrangements could not then take place; on the Friday following, however, the Club mustered in Mortimer-street, to process to the same Inn, where besides refreshments, a ball and supper were to be given. About one o’clock, six of them pulled up before the door of Mr. Buxton, in Mortimer-street, and started in the following order:
Mr. Buxton, Mr. Webster,
Capt. Agar, Mr. Rogers,
Mr. Spicer, Mr. Onslow.
The set-out was complete, and each barouche took up ladies at Mr. Buxton’s door. Having dashed round Cavendish-square, they proceeded down Wigmore street on the way to rendezvous.
A great number of genteel folks attended the start, and the windows were crowded by elegant women. Lord Portarlington, and several other members, drove from different parts, and fell into rank on the road.
Some vulgar attempts at wit have made their appearance in the public papers relative to the meeting; their grossness is altogether founded on invention, and no ways suitable to the characters named, or for recital in the Sporting Magazine.
Sporting Magazine, June 1811, pp. 109–110.
General Stud Book
(also known as Weatherbys Stud Book)
Eloisa directly refers to Weatherbys only once in the Essex series, in Kiss Me, Annabel.
When Josie found him, Mayne was sprawled in a chair in Ardmore’s library. He was holding a copy of Weatherbys General Stud Book, but it looked to Josie as if he were just staring into the distance.
Kiss Me, Annabel
I found this reference fascinating, so I decided to look up the book. The title General Stud Book suggests it is a book listing virile single British noblemen for the marriageable ladies in the ton . . . but instead, it is an alphabetical listing of thoroughbred broodmares and their returns, i.e., foals or breeding results to stallions. Like Debrett’s Peerage, the General Stud Book is still published today. The book was first published in 1791, and was the first of its kind to track and publish the pedigree of racehorses, a kind of Debrett’s Peerage for thoroughbred horses.
A gentleman who bred horses—one of the few acceptable “occupations”—would have been extremely dependent on the General Stud Book. It detailed a horse’s breeding and its success in a very tangible way, and it also documented a gentleman’s wealth. Through study of the book, an owner would find information so he could breed in desirable traits with the goal of raising a successful racehorse. Owning a winner was, of course, a matter of pride, prestige, and wealth.
When you read the example from the book below, it becomes obvious that breeders or owners are just as important as the horses themselves. The entry for Alladina lists four different breeders, including the Duke of York. A sophisticated gentleman could breed a horse that would be registered in the General Stud Book in the same entry as the Duke of York!
Example Listing from the General Stud Book (1832).
The example entry from the General Stud Book makes a nice visual, but frankly I had no idea what it meant. Since Weatherbys is still publishing the stud book, I decided to contact them and ask. They explained that for the purposes of the General Stud Book, a breeder of a foal is the person who owned the mare at the time she foaled or gave birth.
The attached entry image in the General Stud Book, if translated into normal English, would be read like this.
Alladina is the broodmare whose progeny between 1828 and 1832 are recorded in this volume of the General Stud Book. HRH the Duke of York was the breeder of the mare (so he owned Alladina when she was foaled) in 1820. Alladina’s sire (father) was Aladdin, and her dam (mother) was sired (fathered) by Young Whiskey out of the mare Duchess, an Arabian mare belonging to Sir C. Cockerell.
1828 is the year of foaling of Alladina’s bay filly sired by the stallion Whalebone. The breeder of the foal was Lord Egremont.
1829 is the year of foaling of Alladina’s gray colt, named Bacchus, who was sired by Whalebone. The breeder of this foal was Captain G. Bulkeley.
1830 is the year Alladina lost a foal fathered by Whalebone.
1831 is the year of foaling of another bay filly fathered by Whalebone and bred by Lord Egremont.
1832 is the year of foaling for what appears to be another bay filly (suggested, as the description is left blank), but this time by the stallion Gaberlunzie.
Mayne, as a gentleman of the time, would have closely studied Weatherbys General Stud Book, considering a horse’s pedigree, ownership, and championship wins when trying to decide whether to mate one of his mares with a champion stallion listed in the book (note that General Stud Book lists broodmares and their progeny—not stallions. The covering stallion is named against each of the mare’s progeny). The whole procedure doesn’t feel very different from mothers of debutantes studying Debrett’s Peerage in order to identify the best prospects for their daughters!
Now I want to read a book listing virile single British noblemen. Oh, well . . .
Challenges and Gambling
Not all Regency pastimes were as wholesome as those depicted in Sporting Magazine and the General Stud Book. After all, Regency gentlemen didn’t merely breed horses; they also bet on them. In fact, they seem to have spent a significant amount of time gambling, whether over cards, dice, or horse races.
In this 1821 illustration from the journal Life in London, you can see a cluster of elegantly dressed gentlemen watching a race below them. Some of those men would be cheering on their own horses, but quite a few would be cheering for the horse they were hoping would win.
Eloisa incorporates wagering and gambling in Much Ado About You and Pleasure for Pleasure. Here’s a general description from Much Ado.
Horse races are noisy affairs. The Cup itself wouldn’t be run for two hours, but already the men crowding the railing were shouting and jostling amongst themselves, watching a group of two-year-olds tear around the backstretch, heading for
the starting gate. Eager bettors were howling at the jockeys, and then howling at each other.
Much Ado About You
The Essex girls’ father was a champion horse breeder, obsessed by his stables to the point of neglecting his children. When Tess realizes that her father had forgotten to inform the duke of his daughters’ ages, she thinks ruefully, “Papa had likely informed him of Starling’s age, and Wanton’s stride, and what Lady of Pleasure liked to eat before a race, but not the ages of his daughters.” Although very few of his horses ever won a race, their father was completely horse-mad, which establishes a theme that runs throughout the series.
Each of the girls reacts to her father’s recklessness in a different way: Tess becomes cautious and tries to plan everything, whereas Annabel becomes intent on marrying a rich man. Imogen, on the other hand, falls in love with a man very similar to her father—which is, of course, something that many women do, for good or ill.
Draven, Lord Maitland, introduced in Much Ado About You, appears to have had many similarities to the girls’ father, such as a serious gambling problem. I asked Eloisa if she deliberately recreated the sisters’ beloved, feckless father in Draven Maitland, and she confirmed that she did intend a direct link.
[Maitland] was not only horse-mad, he was gambling-mad. Everyone said that he couldn’t turn down a bet, not if it were for his last farthing. Maitland would eat in a ditch, were there the chance of a race afterward.
Much Ado About You
If you’ve read Much Ado About You, you know that Draven Maitland’s addiction to gambling, and his inability to turn down any challenge, will (literally) be the death of him. Eloisa builds that point slowly over the novel as various people discuss his problem. Here’s Miss Pythian-Adams pointing out an unpleasant truth to Maitland.
“[Your mother] seems to have a particularly unambiguous doubt in your ability to keep two guineas in the same pocket without putting one out on a bet.”
Much Ado About You
But Imogen is in love with the young lord, and she remains the only person unable to see that he has a destructive streak. In fact, she stoutly defends his “system.”
“He is utterly different from Papa because Draven actually knows what he’s doing when he bets. He has a system, you see, and he understands horses in a way that Papa never did.”
Much Ado About You
The hope that a person could discover a “system” that would allow him to beat the odds persists to this day. From my research, a reckless addiction to gambling was experienced by many men and women during the period. For example, the Countess of Lovelace (one of Lord Byron’s daughters) found herself deeply in debt because she was certain her mathematical ability would make her a winner.
Unfortunately, it was all too easy for a gentleman of the time to lose significant sums on wagers. Gentlemen often involved themselves in what we would consider outrageous bets over carriage races, boxing matches, and games of chance. There’s even a record of a big wager based on a fly crawling across a window!
These bets were a matter of pride and printed in the newspapers, recorded at gentlemen’s clubs, and in general widely publicized.
“Oh, I did win,” Maitland said genially. “Essex thought that roosters always crowed atop a fence post. That wager was easy enough to win.”
Much Ado About You
The fact that publications of the time reported some of these wagers suggests they were not only accepted, but considered noteworthy and entertaining. Some bets were clearly ridiculous—like that between Maitland and Essex above, which had to do with a rooster’s crowing—and others were just standard bets on races, either held at the racetrack or privately, involving individual horses.
Obviously, what’s most fun from this vantage point are the absurd wagers, the ones that a reader can hardly believe took place. I found a number of them by reading a book entitled Year 1800, or the Sayings and Doings of Our Fathers and Mothers. Year 1800 is a compilation of interesting tidbits published in newspapers and other periodicals in that year. Here are a few of my favorite challenges. Just for fun, I’m splicing Eloisa’s references to foolish wagers in between real-life examples reported in Year 1800.
“Well, what did you expect? You haven’t pursued an affaire in months—almost a year, isn’t it? And now Imogen is alternately rebuffing you and leading you on. The bets are at five hundred to one that she’ll accept you before the end of next month.”
Kiss Me, Annabel
“Josie hasn’t created a scandal. But Darlington has swept up a storm of gossip on behalf of his despicable friend Crogan by putting a wager in the books at White’s that the man who marries Josie will have a liking for pork.”
Pleasure for Pleasure
Wisley and Thurman trotted up to them like eager little spaniels. “By Jove, you did get in, Darlington!” Thurman bellowed. “I bet Wisley here five guineas that you couldn’t get yourself invited to Holbrook’s wedding fete.”
Pleasure for Pleasure
“The life of a gentleman with nothing to do but enjoy himself,” Mayne translated. “I’ll tell you what such gentlemen do, Sylvie. They flirt with other men’s wives, and sometimes they bed them. They involve themselves in foolish bets over carriage rides and boxing matches.”
Pleasure for Pleasure
“I’m afraid that Draven lost a great deal of money at Lewes this week,” she whispered to Tess.
“How much?” Tess asked bluntly.
“Twenty thousand pounds.”
Much Ado About You
Depicting Life in London, with the Help of La Belle Assemblée
Eloisa wrote in a blog about writing that “one of the hardest parts of world-building, as you have to do with a historical novel, is coming up with the hundreds of little events that happen every day in a city like London.” One of Eloisa’s favorite resources is the journal La Belle Assemblée, especially the section “Remarkable Occurrence, Deaths and Marriages.”
In The Taming of the Duke, we learn that the Duke of Holbrook has an illegitimate brother named Gabe, who knocked down (and nearly killed) a young woman while driving his carriage. After which he . . . knocked her up! Eloisa was inspired by a story published in La Belle Assemblée. Oh, not the knocked-up part, but the accident with the carriage. Eloisa describes the story as having happened to a young actress.
The theater manager at Covent Garden had been most unsympathetic when she appeared, late for the performance, and limping. When Mr. Spenser’s consoling sympathy had led to a most enjoyable evening—if a most unpleasant outcome—the manager had terminated her employment with little more than a grunt and a wave of his head.
The Taming of the Duke
Here’s the original event, as described in the September 1810 issue of La Belle Assemblée.
A dreadful accident happened to one of the Lincoln coaches while stopping in the town of Biggleswade, the horses were alarmed by the passing of a load of sheep-skins, piled to some height on the back of an ass . . . [The horses fled and in consequence] Miss Phipps, a young lady of Peterborough, who was traveling in the coach at the time of the accident, died in twelve hours after, in consequence of the fright.
Eloisa notes that her modern hardheadedness made her a little wary of her character dying of “fright,” so she changed that detail to a minor injury.
While this anecdote is rather dark, Eloisa found a funny one that she also used in The Taming of the Duke, when Imogen and Cristobel fall into a keg of wine.
[Rafe] caught a glimpse of Imogen’s face, her mouth forming a perfect little O, like a child seeing a birthday pony for the first time.
Then a tide of red wine reared out of the barrel as the top cracked and flipped to the side and with simultaneous—and very loud—screams, Cristobel and Imogen plunged down in the wine barrel up to their waists.
The Taming of the Duke
The real event was described in the February 1810 issue of La Belle Assemblée. A young lady was unable to see a performance, so
climbed onto an empty hogshead in the tavern: “Here then she was, like a statue on its pedestal, enjoying the double gratification of seeing and being seen.” But then the lady invited her gentleman friend to join her. He nimbly sprang onto the cask, “but Oh fatal catastrophe! . . . our till then envied couple fell suddenly up to the middle of the leg in wine-lees left in the cask, and came to the ground, rolling in it and its offensive contents.”
Publications in Pleasure for Pleasure
The final book in Essex Sisters series, Pleasure for Pleasure, is particularly involved with the literature of the time, since the secondary plot hinges on the identity of the author of a widely proclaimed memoir, The Earl of Hellgate, or Night Scenes Amongst the Ton. Eloisa depicts all of high society eagerly reading this deliciously improper memoir.
But the salacious Hellgate is not the only inappropriate book that makes an appearance in the novel; Griselda discovers a few more in a friend’s library.
Griselda trailed a gloved finger over the spines of the books closest to her. They weren’t the sort of books she would have expected. Rafe had rows of classics in his study, all bound up in leather and dating back a few centuries, if the dust that fell from them was any indication.
Darlington had rows and rows of . . . how to put it? Books that the servants read. Books that she read with secret pleasure. Books from lending libraries. The kind that had titles like Nocturnal Revels and the Malefactors’ Bloody Register. Books about murder.
