The Official Essex Sisters Companion Guide (13 page)

                       
The blow descended, as bad news so often does, in the form of
Bell’s Weekly Messenger
, a gossip sheet delivered promptly at eight o’clock every Thursday morning.

Kiss Me, Annabel

The printed word, especially in the form of periodicals, offers a fascinating lens through which to view a moment in the past. From my experience working with newspapers and magazines, I know that life revolves around deadlines and print space. There’s always either too much or not enough space. Since a newspaper has to go to press daily or weekly, there isn’t much time to consider the historical significance of the printed word. Editors throw events onto the page—and in my experience that means periodicals offer the most honest and gritty look at their times.

As you can see from the quote above, Eloisa’s novels refer to all sorts of Regency publications, from newspapers to books. I thought it would be fun to survey some of the ones she mentions and see what they were like in real life.

In the first chapter of
Much Ado About You
, we run into our first publication. The Earl of Mayne inquires whether the Duke of Holbrook has met his four wards, who are
about to arrive from Scotland. In his answer, Holbrook refers to
Debrett’s Peerage
in a casual manner that doesn’t explain much.

                       
“Never. I haven’t been over the border in years, and Brydone only came down for the Ascot, the Silchester, and, sometimes, Newmarket. To be honest, I don’t think he really gave a damn for anything other than his stables. He didn’t even bother to list his children in
Debrett’s
. Of course, since he had four girls, there was no question of inheritance. The estate went to some distant cousin.”

Much Ado About You

Debrett’s Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland
is regarded as the authority on the British aristocracy and is still in print. Their annual publication lists members of all the titled British families, even if they’ve become extinct, or the title holders are deceased.

                       
Their
Debrett’s
may have been two years out of date, but it did list the duke’s brother, with a little note, “deceased,” beside it.

Much Ado About You

Debrett’s
includes all British royalty, as well as dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, barons, knights, archbishops, and bishops, along with information such as coats of arms, family mottos, and official protocols. It serves as the definitive guide to forms of address. In the Regency period (and probably today as well), it was particularly useful for unmarried young ladies seeking a husband!

A good deal of the plot of
Much Ado About You
focuses on the question of marrying well. Annabel is especially attached to the idea. Eloisa seems to use her as the character who can say what every polite young lady was thinking, but perhaps not saying aloud. Here she is, speaking to her youngest sister, Josie.

                       
“Perhaps you won’t marry as well as I, since there are only eight dukes in all England, not counting the royal dukes. But we shall find titled men for each of you.”

                            
“What a sacrifice,” Josie said acidly. “I suppose you read all of
Debrett’s
in order to discover the names of those eight dukes?”

Much Ado About You

Debrett’s
comes up several times in conversation as Annabel, in particular, is focused on marrying an aristocrat. Conversations like these certainly happened all over England, and
Debrett’s
actually seems to encourage daydreaming of this sort. During my research, I discovered that the 1820 edition had a section that listed the names of commoners who had married the daughters of dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons. Talk about marrying up—a shopkeeper one day and listed in the infamous
Debrett’s
the next.

In Tess’s bedroom, the place where they always talk about juicy stuff, Annabel admits to seeking a tired old rake for a husband—so, naturally, she needs to find the current
Debrett’s
.

                       
“[I]t is not yet entirely clear to me which of those rather aged gentlemen is unmarried. I keep meaning to ask Brinkley to point me to a current
Debrett’s
so that I can do the necessary research.”

Much Ado About You

Josie explains Annabel’s decision to marry an older man by reference to a different source of information: women’s conversation.

                       
“You never paid enough attention to gossip in the village, Tess. But from everything I learned, one would wish one’s husband to be experienced and yet not so energetic that he cannot be pleased at home. A tired rake is precisely the best sort of spouse.”

Much Ado About You

Whatever criteria the mothers or unmarried young ladies determined were important, much of it could be found in a current copy of
Debrett’s
. One could even presume experience, if a man was listed as a widower who’d lost three wives!

The first book of the Essex Sisters series is set in 1816. Below, I’ve included a title page and listing for the Duke of Beaufort taken from the
Debrett’s
of that year. As you can see, Henry Charles Somerset held lesser titles, along with his dukedom. He was the Duke of Beaufort, but he was also Marquess of Worcester, Earl of Glamorgan, Viscount Grosmont—and he held four separate baronies. These are called lesser titles. His wife was the daughter of a marquess and the granddaughter of the seventh Earl of
Galloway. Beaufort’s complete listing is three pages long. If you want to take a look at more listings of this sort, a full copy of the book is available online at Google Books.

Eloisa uses
Debrett’s
in various ways in the Essex Sisters series. Sometimes she uses it to pinpoint a character’s social ambitions and nervousness. For example, in
Much Ado About You
, Tess brings up
Debrett’s
when she’s trying to figure out Lucius’s vexed relationship with his horrid mother.

                       
“Your mother has an extraordinary interest in titles and matters of consequence, does she not?”

                            
“Yes.”

                            
“I would guess that she owns a
Debrett’s Peerage
and reads it regularly?”

                            
“Of course.”

Much Ado About You

As we see here, even admitting a familiarity with
Debrett’s
says something about you—whether it brands a character as a husband-hunter, or just overly fearful of losing his or her place in society. In
Pleasure for Pleasure
, the Earl of Mayne’s French fiancée has heard of
Debrett’s
but isn’t quite certain what it’s called. And Griselda is far too sophisticated to consider looking someone up in the book.

                       
“What is Darlington’s age?” Sylvie asked, as if she could read her thoughts.

                            
“I have no idea,” Griselda managed, shrugging as if the question was of little interest.

                            
“We can look in that book of people,” Sylvie said.

                            
“You meant
Debrett’s
?” Griselda had thought of that, and discarded it as conventional and anxious. As if she were a young girl, pining for a duke’s son and looking up his birthday.

Pleasure for Pleasure

Of course, the flip side of Griselda’s recognition that young girls treat
Debrett’s
like a secret guide to eligible gentleman is that the gentlemen themselves know their status is open to all.

I love the quote below from
Pleasure for Pleasure
, because it shows that an eligible man definitely understood that a single woman would likely know his family history better than he would himself. Here is Darlington, flirting with Griselda. Obviously, he’s trying to figure out how interested Griselda is (and since he’s successfully seducing her, it seems she’s quite interested indeed!).

                       
“But you haven’t a sister Betsy! Your father has three sons.”

                            
He grinned at her. “Perhaps you looked me up in
Debrett’s
? Before sleeping with me, I mean. Surely every matron makes sure that bloodlines are in order before skipping off to a hotel.”

Pleasure for Pleasure

In the play
A Woman of No Importance
, Oscar Wilde uses
Debrett’s
to poke fun at his characters in the same way that Eloisa does: “You should study the Peerage, Gerald. It is the one book a young man about town should know thoroughly, and it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done.”
Debrett’s
was a cornerstone of society in those days: without knowing
who
is significant, a society can’t rank people. And
unless the persons making up that society read the book over and over, treating it like a bible, its ranking will have no effect.

Interestingly enough,
The Essential Guide to the Peerage
continues to be published, but the company has expanded its viewpoint. Their website boasts that two hundred and fifty years of expertise means anyone can be taught to live up to his titles—or better yet, to mimic a peer if he doesn’t happen to have a title. They offer private tutoring in etiquette as well as corporate training programs.

If Regency ladies spent their time memorizing
Debrett’s Peerage
, Regency gentlemen were engrossed in quite a different text:
The Sporting Magazine
. The following quote is from
Much Ado About You.

                       
On his deathbed, Papa had grasped her hand, and said, “Not to worry, Tess. I’ve an optimal man to look after you all. Asked him just after poor old Monkton up and died last year. I knew Holbrook years ago.”

                            
“Why has he never visited, Papa?”

                            
“Never met him again,” her father had said, looking so white against the pillow that Tess’s heart had clenched with fear. “Not to worry, lass. I’ve seen his name mentioned time and again in
Sporting Magazine
.”

Much Ado About You

When we think, learn, or read a particular word, the human brain unconsciously searches for word associations that help define it. I mention this because the words that pop into my head when I hear “sports” are “football” and “baseball.” So I was confused when Eloisa mentioned
Sporting Magazine
. “Sports” feels like a contemporary reference to me.

After a bit of research, I found that
The Sporting Magazine
, first published in October 1792, was the first publication dedicated to athletic pursuits. It was subtitled
Monthly Calendar of the Transactions of the Turf, the Chace and Every Other Diversion Interesting to the Man of Pleasure and Enterprize.
Obviously “sports” is not just a modern word but one that encompasses much more than the modern American pastimes of football and baseball.

Here is the title page of the first issue of
The Sporting Magazine
(1792).

The magazine opens with an “Address to the Public” outlining its mission and including this fabulously long sentence: “Fortunately we have it in our power, from our official as well as enterprising concerns with the Gentlemen of the Turf, the Chase and the Temples of the fickle Goddess, to furnish such information as we hope will be found satisfactory to our Readers, and entitle us to such credit for our future endeavors as cannot fail to create reputation, and extensive circulation to our Periodical Performance.” They were right!
The Sporting Magazine
was a big success. In no time gentlemen became addicted to “sporting” news, as Eloisa depicts in
Much Ado About You
.

                       
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.