Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors

by English Historical Fiction Authors

  The military fame of her husband gave her unbounded éclat. No Englishwoman ever had such an exalted social position; she reigned in salons as well as in the closet of the Queen. And she succeeded in marrying her daughters to the proudest peers. Her eldest daughter, Henrietta, was the wife of an earl and prime minister. Her second daughter, Anne, married Lord Charles Spencer, the only son of the Earl of Sunderland, one of the leaders of the Whig party and secretary of state. Her third daughter became the wife of the Earl, afterwards Duke, of Bridgewater; and the fourth and youngest daughter had for her husband the celebrated Duke of Montague, grand-master of the Order of the Bath.

  Thus did Sarah Jennings rise. Her daughters were married to great nobles and statesmen, her husband was the most famous general of his age, and she herself was the favorite and confidential friend and adviser of the Queen. Upon her were showered riches and honor. She had both influence and power—influence from her talents, and power from her position. And when she became duchess—after the great victory of Blenheim—and a princess of the German Empire, she had nothing more to aspire to in the way of fortune or favor or rank. She was the first woman of the land, next to the Queen, whom she ruled while nominally serving her. The Queen even ordered that the great house, Blenheim Palace, be built for Marlborough, paid for by the state.

  Lady Marlborough was both proud by nature and the force of circumstances. She became an incarnation of arrogance, which she could not conceal, and which she never sought to control. When she became the central figure in the Court and in the State, flattered and sought after wherever she went, before whom the greatest nobles burned their incense, and whom the people almost worshipped in a country which has ever idolized rank and power, she assumed airs and gave vent to expressions that wounded her friend the Queen.

  Anne bore her friend’s intolerable pride, blended with disdain, for a long time after her accession. But her own character also began to change. Sovereigns do not like taking dictation from subjects, however powerful. And when securely seated on her throne, Anne began to avow opinions which she had once found it politic to conceal. Thus, the political opinions of the Queen came gradually to be at variance with those advanced by her favorite. Still, Anne long suppressed her feelings of alienation, produced by the politics and haughty demeanor of her favorite. Her treatment of the Countess continued the same as ever, full of affection and confidence. She could not break with a friend who had so long been indispensable to her; nor had she strength of character to reveal her true feelings.

  However, the breach between the Queen and the Duchess gradually widened. In such a state of affairs, with the growing alienation of the Queen, it became necessary for the proud Duchess to resign her offices; but before doing this she made one final effort to regain what she had lost. She besought the Queen for a private interview, which was refused. Again importuned, her Majesty sullenly granted the interview, but refused to explain anything, and even abruptly left the room, and was so rude that the Duchess burst into a flood of tears which she could not restrain—not tears of grief, but tears of wrath and shame.

  Thus was finally ended the memorable friendship between Anne and Sarah, which had continued for twenty-seven years. The Queen and Duchess never met again. On the dismissal of the great Duke from all his offices, and the “disgrace” of his wife at court, they led a comparatively quiet life abroad.

  Meanwhile the last days of Queen Anne’s weary existence were drawing to a close. She was assailed with innumerable annoyances. Her body was racked with the gout, and she was distracted by the contradictory counsels of her advisers. Any allusion to her successor was a knell of agony to her disturbed soul. She became suspicious and alienated. She died August 1, 1714 without signing her will, by which omission Sarah was deprived of her promised legacy. She died childless, and the Elector George of Hanover ascended her throne.

  In 1722, Sarah’s husband died leaving a fortune of a million and a half pounds sterling, besides his vast estates. The Duchess of Marlborough was now the richest woman in England. The Duchess was sixty-two, with unbroken health and inextinguishable ambition. She died, in 1744, unlamented and unloved, in the eighty-fourth year of her age, and was interred by the side of her husband, in the tomb in the chapel of Blenheim. She left a fortune to a few favored heirs, plus a costly collection of jewels—one of the most valuable in Europe—at a time when few noblemen at that time had over £30,000 a year.

  Lloyd’s: Lifeblood of British Commerce and Starbucks of Its Day

  by Linda Collison

  Ships have always played a major role in the import and export of goods; even today, ninety percent of world trade travels by sea. Yet there are obvious risks to be assumed when deep water and Mother Nature, pirates and enemy ships are involved.

  The concept of maritime insurance is as old as civilization. Thousands of years ago Chinese river traders minimized their risk by deliberately spreading their cargo throughout several ships. The Babylonians practiced bottomry, an arrangement in which the ship master borrowed money upon the bottom of his vessel, and forfeited the ship itself to the creditor, if the money with interest was not paid upon the ship’s safe return.

  About 600 A.D., Danish merchants began forming guilds to insure their members against losses at sea, and merchant cities such as Venice and Florence started using a form of mutual insurance recorded in documents. The Lombards brought the concept of marine insurance to northern Europe and England in the 13th century where the Hanseatic League further developed the means to protect their joint economic interests.

  Permit me to fast-forward four hundred years to the 17th century—the rise of English merchants and the search for new markets abroad. Let’s pop in to visit London, now an important trade center, and walk along the waterfront….

  Lloyd’s of London began as a coffee shop on Tower Street, founded by Edward Lloyd in 1688. His establishment, located near the waterfront, soon became a popular meeting place where ship owners and merchants could meet with financiers to discuss ways to match the risks they faced at sea with the capital needed to insure them.

  Coffeehouses were then enjoying a great popularity in London and many other European cities. By 1675 there were more than 3,000 of them throughout England. Coffeehouses were social places where men with similar interests met to exchange news and do business, while enjoying the stimulating brew. Much like your corner Starbucks where friends surf for jobs on their laptops while sipping Frappuccinos and interviews are conducted over Venti Iced Skinny Mochas, 17th century Londoners did business while getting buzzed on the bean.

  Lloyd’s was never an insurance company, per se, but instead was a market—a regular gathering of people for the purchase and sale of provisions or other commodities. At Lloyd’s coffeehouse merchants and shipmasters caught up on the latest shipping news, bid on cargos of captured prizes, and obtained insurance for their ventures. The underwriters, wealthy men referred to as “Names,” were the individuals who pledged their own money to insure a particular voyage.

  In 1691, Edward Lloyd relocated his coffee house from Tower Street to Lombard Street, where a blue plaque hangs today. The business carried on in this location until 1774 when the participating individuals moved to the Royal Exchange on Cornhill and called themselves the Society of Lloyd’s. An Act of Parliament in 1871 gave the business a sound legal footing, incorporating it. Although Ed Lloyd died in 1713, his name remains and is eponymous with the insurance of one-of-a-kind treasures, including Betty Grable’s legs and Bob Dylan’s vocal cords.

  The present Lloyd’s building, designed by architect Richard Rogers, was completed in 1986 on the site of the old Roman forum on Lime Street. In the rostrum hangs the original Lutine Bell. Back in the days of the coffee shop, one of the waiters would strike the bell when the fate of an overdue ship became known. If the ship was safe, the bell would be rung twice and if it had gone down, the bell would be rung only once, to stop buying
, or selling of “overdue” reinsurance on that vessel. (To see an early Hollywood recreation of Lloyd’s, watch the 1936 movie Lloyd’s of London, with Tyrone Power in his first starring role.)

  In his book The Romance of Lloyd’s, Commander Frank Worsley (of the Shackleton Expedition) sings the praises of Lloyd’s, crediting the association with various philanthropic efforts, including the development of the lifeboat service in Britain. In 1802, Lloyd’s members voted a donation of one hundred guineas to Henry Greathead, the inventor of the first practical lifeboat and set aside two thousand pounds for the provision of lifeboats on English and Irish coasts.

  Lloyd’s was also instrumental in the creation of a Patriotic Fund in 1803, granting bounties or annuities to wounded men and the dependents of those killed in battle. Lloyd’s headed the fund with twenty thousand pounds, although the record shows that laborers, servants, schooled children, soldiers and sailors, sent their pence and more. Officers and men of the Army and Navy contributed sums ranging from one day’s pay to a whole month’s. A provisional committee was appointed to manage the Fund, which became a national institution.

  On a much darker note, Lloyd’s was heavily involved in insuring ships in the slave trade as Britain became the chief trading power in the Atlantic. Between 1688 and 1807, when slave-trading was abolished, British shipping carried more than 3.25 million people into slavery. It may be argued that the individual men who underwrote slave ships acted within the laws of the time and reflected the values of the society in which they lived, yet descendants of black American slaves have accused the Lloyd’s of London insurance market (and two United States companies) of profiting from the slave trade in a lawsuit seeking billions of pounds in damages. The past can indeed come back to haunt us.

  Lloyd’s has always worked closely with the Royal Navy to the benefit of both. Historian Steven Maffeo relates how the insurance market and the British Post Office were important to the Navy’s intelligence-gathering throughout the Napoleonic Wars, the news of the victory at Trafalgar being posted at Lloyd’s even before the London newspapers broke the story. During the 18th century Lloyd’s developed a unique system of maritime intelligence of arrivals and departures which was sent immediately to the Admiralty, who in turn forwarded convoy and other useful information to Lloyd’s.

  Convoy, the practice of escorting groups of merchant ships by a naval warship, was common practice during the war years of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, to reduce the loss of ships and cargo to the Enemy. At the beginning of my novel, Barbados Bound, the merchant ship Canopus is carrying gunpowder and traveling in convoy from England to Madeira during the Seven Years’ War. From Madeira, Canopus must strike out alone across the Atlantic to deliver the gunpowder on time—and of course Murphy’s Law intervenes. Shipmaster Blake says that his ship’s guns are his insurance, though of course they would be no real match against a French privateer, hungry for prize.

  Lloyd’s Register is filled with stories of profit—and disaster. The sinking of the “unsinkable” Titanic in 1912 represented one of Lloyd’s biggest losses, along with other major catastrophes such as the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, the attack on New York’s World Trade Center, Hurricane Katrina, Asbestos damage claims, and the 2011 Tohuku earthquake and tsunami. The history of Lloyd’s is a fascinating one, and still evolving. Wherever there is risk and money to be made, you’ll find the name Lloyd’s.

  The History of Gingerbread

  by Gillian Bagwell

  Here in America, we associate gingerbread with Christmas in the form of gingerbread men and decorated gingerbread houses. But gingerbread has a long history. The word “gingerbread” comes from the Old French word “gingebras”, which comes from the Latin word “zingiber”, meaning preserved ginger. Eventually gingerbread came to mean either biscuits or cake made with ginger and other spices.

  The first documented trade of gingerbread biscuits was in the sixteenth century, when they were sold in pharmacies, monasteries, and town square farmers’ markets. In Shakespeare’s play Love’s Labour’s Lost, Costard, the country fool, tells little Moth, “And I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread.” Some early recipes had more of a kick than we’re used to, calling for pepper or mustard. In Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part One, Hotspur mentions “pepper gingerbread.”

  The town of Market Drayton (then Drayton) in Shropshire, England became famous for its gingerbread biscuits, which were traditionally eaten dipped in port. Possibly gingerbread (and perhaps port!) were responsible for the Great Fire of Drayton in 1641. It started in a bakery and raged through the half-timbered buildings with thatched roofs and destroyed seventy percent of the town.

  The other type of gingerbread traditional in England is a dense, moist cake, usually baked in a square shape or loaf. It is traditionally eaten on Bonfire Night, the Fifth of November’s annual commemoration of the foiling of the plot by Guy Fawkes and his accomplices to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.

  Perkin or parkin (both diminutives of the name Peter) is a kind of gingerbread typically made with oatmeal and molasses, originally made in Northern England. It keeps well, and is traditionally not eaten fresh.

  Below are two quite different English gingerbread recipes. The first is from Sir Hugh Platt’s Delights for Ladies, published in 1608, for gingerbread biscuits. The original and updated recipes are from A Taste of History: 10,000 Years of Food in Britain. The second recipe, from October 1907, is the parkin variety of moist gingerbread cake. The Guardian newspaper printed it in 2007 and noted, “Back then parkin sold for eight old pence a pound.”

  1608 Gingerbread

  To make gingerbread: Take three stale Manchets and grate them, drie them, and sift them through a fine sieve, then adde unto them one ounce of ginger beeing beaten, and as much Cinamon, one ounce of liquorice and aniseedes being beaten together and searced, halfe a pound of sugar, then boile all these together in a posnet, with a quart of claret wine till them come to a stiff paste with often stirring of it; and when it is stiffe, mold it on a table and so drive it thin, and print it in your moldes; dust your moldes with Cinamon, Ginger, and liquorice, beeing mixed together in fine powder. This is your gingerbread used at the Court, and in all gentlemens houses at festival times. It is otherwise called drie Leach.

  Translation:

  2 cups (225 g.) fresh white breadcrumbs

  1 tsp. (5 ml.) ground ginger

  1 tsp. (5 ml.) cinnamon

  1 tsp. (5 ml.) aniseed

  1 tsp. (5 ml.) ground liquorice (if available)

  ¼ cup (2.5 g.) sugar

  ½ cup (150 ml.) claret

  Dry the breadcrumbs under the grill or in the oven (but without browning), and add to the remaining ingredients in a saucepan. Work the mixture over a gentle heat with a wooden spoon, until it forms a stiff dough. Turn the dough out onto a wooden board dusted with ground ginger and cinnamon and roll it out to about ¼ inch (5 mm.) in thickness. It may then be impressed with a small stamp, a 1 inch (2.5 cm.) diameter butter press being ideal for this purpose, and cut into small circles, using a pastry cutter. If antique gingerbread molds are available, then they should be dusted with the ground spices before the slab of dough is firmly impressed into their designs. Then, after the surplus has been trimmed off with the knife, the gingerbread can be removed by inverting the molds, and gently knocking their edges down onto the table. Like most early gingerbreads, this version released its flavors gradually, the gentle aniseed being slowly overwhelmed by the fiery ginger.

  Neither of the recipes mentions baking, but I think this might be a mistake. Based on modern recipes, I would bake the gingerbread at 375F/190C for about 8-10 minutes.

  1907 Gingerbread

  2 cups (225g) plain flour

  3½ tsp (17.5 ml.) ground ginger

  ¾ tsp (3.75ml.) ground nutmeg

  ½ tsp
(2.5 ml.) bicarbonate of soda

  A pinch of salt

  1½ cups (125g) medium oatmeal

  ½ cup (100g) unsalted butter, softened

  2/3 c. cup (125g) light soft brown sugar

  Zest of ½ lemon

  ¼ cup (100g) treacle or molasses

  3 tablespoons (75g) golden syrup or corn syrup (or you could use all molasses)

  3 ½ tablespoons (50ml) milk

  ¼ cup (50g) mixed peel, finely chopped

  Butter a deep 8-inch (20cm) square cake tin and line the base with nonstick baking parchment. Heat the oven to 350F/180C (160C fan-assisted/gas mark 4). Sift the flour, spices, soda, and salt into a bowl, then stir in the oatmeal. In another bowl beat the butter, sugar, and zest until light and fluffy. Add the treacle and syrup, beat again until creamy and smooth, then add the milk and the dry ingredients, and beat quickly until smooth once more. Fold in the mixed peel, then spoon the mixture into the tin. Cover the top with foil, bake for 40 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for a further 20 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.

  Sources

  Brears, Peter C. D. et al. A Taste of History: 10,000 Years of Food in Britain. London: English Heritage in association with British Museum Press, 1993.

  Schmidt, Alexander. Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary: A Complete Dictionary of All the English Words, Phrases, and Constructions in the Works of the Poet. USA: Dover Publications, Inc., 1971.

  17th Century Recipes

  by Katherine Pym

  From the book Samuel Pepys’ Penny Merriments, Being a Collection of Chapbooks, full of Histories, Jests, Magic, Amorous Tales of Courtship, Marriage and Infidelity, Accounts of Rogues and Fools, together with Comments on the Times, selected and edited by Roger Thompson of the University of East Anglia at Norwich, 1977.