Best Historical Fiction – Five London Based Family Sagas

Best Historical Fiction – Five London Based Family Sagas

Tales of Tooley Street

Sinclair_Cover Julia Herdman

This London based historical fiction is set in the London Borough of Southward, the Yorkshire town of Beverley and in Paris and Edinburgh in the late 1780s. Sinclair is the eponymous hero but there are strong female leads including the widow Charlotte Leadam and the farmer’s daughter Lucy Leadam. Sinclair is a story of love, loss and redemption. Prodigal son James Sinclair is transformed by his experience of being shipwrecked on the way to India to make his fortune. Obstacles to love and happiness include ambition, conflict with a God, temptation and betrayal. Remorse brings restitution and recovery. Sinclair is an extraordinary book. It will immerse you in the world of 18th century London where the rich and the poor are treated with kindness and compassion by this passionate Scottish doctor and his widowed landlady, the owner of the apothecary shop in Tooley Street.  Sinclair is filled with twists and tragedies, but it will leave you feeling good.

 

Circles of Time: A Novel (Greville Family Saga) by Phillip Rock

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A generation has been lost on the Western Front when this London based historical romance gets started. The dead have been buried. A harsh peace forged, and the howl of shells replaced by the wail of saxophones as the Jazz Age begins in London. Ghosts of the summer of 1914 linger tugging at the memory of Martin Rilke and his British cousins, the Grevilles.

Everyone at Abingdon Pryory wants to forget the past.  The old values, social codes, and sexual mores have been swept away. Martin Rilke throws himself into journalism. Fenton Wood-Lacy is exiled in faraway army outposts. Back at Abingdon, Charles Greville recovers from shell shock. Alexandra is caught up in an unlikely romance.

Circles of Time captures the age in the midst of one of England’s most gracious manor houses, in the steamy nightclubs of London’s Soho, and the despair of Germany caught in the nightmare of anarchy and inflation. Lives are renewed, new loves found, and a future of peace and happiness is glimpsed—but only for a moment.

 

The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy

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The Forsyte Saga is John Galsworthy’s monumental chronicle of the lives of the moneyed Forsytes. As London based historical fiction goes you really could do no better.

The Forsytes are a family at war with each other. The story of Soames Forsyte’s marriage to the beautiful and rebellious Irene and its effects upon the whole Forsyte clan run through the series.

The Forsyte Saga is a brilliant social satire of the acquisitive sensibilities of a comfort-bound class in its final glory. Galsworthy spares none of his characters, revealing their weaknesses and shortcomings as clearly as he does the tenacity and perseverance that define the most influential members of the Forsyte family.

 

 

The Palliser Novels: Anthony Trollope

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In his autobiography, Anthony Trollope called the Palliser Novels “the best work of my life,” adding “I think Plantagenet Palliser stands more firmly on the ground than any other personage I have created.”

These London based historical novels centre around the stately politician Plantagenet Palliser, but the interest is less in politics than in the lively social scene Trollope creates against a Parliamentary backdrop.

Trollops’ keen eye for the subtleties of character and “great apprehension of the real” impressed contemporary writers from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Henry James, and in the Palliser Novels we find him at his very best.

This is a masterful portrait of Victorian society and politics with a profoundly human touch.,

 

 

 

Belgravia by Julian Fellowes

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Julian Fellowes’s Belgravia is the story of a secret. A secret that unravels behind the porticoed doors of London’s grandest postcode.

Set in the 1840s, this London based historical romance starts when the upper echelons of society began to rub shoulders with the emerging industrial nouveau riche, Belgravia is peopled by a rich cast of characters and begins on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 at the Duchess of Richmond’s new legendary ball, one family’s life will change forever, but you’ll have to read the book to find out whose it is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard

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The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, Casting Off and All Change

Howard offers a classic English country-house saga, in this impressive London based historical saga covering the late 30s to late 50s. As the various members of the upper-middle-class Cazalet family circle are hatched, matched and dispatched against a background of the changing times Howard keeps the family and the story together. Her characters are forensically interrogated to reveal their strengths and their weaknesses. This historical fiction is based on her own experience, giving Howard’s characters a ring of authenticity that is rare. The war looms large and alters lives. It is the social history of this class of people who would disappear with the modernity and taxes of the 1960s.

 

Julia Herdman writes historical fiction.

Her novel Sinclair is available of Amazon. Click here to get your copy.

Her latest book Sinclair, Tales of Tooley Street Vol. 1. is  Available on Amazon – Paperback £10.99 Kindle  Also available on:

Amazon Australia

Amazon Canada

Amazon New Zealand

Amazon South Africa

Amazon USA

 

See Also:

Writers of influence – Hilary Mantel

 

 

 

Getting the Pharaoh to the Afterlife

Getting the Pharaoh to the Afterlife

How did the royal priests convince the king he had the golden ticket that would take him to the afterlife?

Ancient Egypt
Getting The Pharaoh to the Afterlife

Every ancient Egyptian king required a ticket to the afterlife. To understand how these tickets were made we need to understand the king’s sacred monuments, their design, materials, and decoration, but more importantly, we need to understand the religious ideas that inspired them.

The Old Way of Understanding Heka

The Pyramid Texts tell us that Heka was believed to have existed before the creation of the world and was, therefore, part of the divine energy of the creator. However, the first studies of Egyptian magic were influenced by the idea that magic was split into good magic and bad magic. Good magic was beneficent and bad magic negative or hostile. Good magic was practised by the pious and bad by the evil and blasphemous. Magic and knowledge were separated into that knowledge that could be acquired from nature and observation and that which was part of heka or supernatural. Magic was defined as a private religion whose purpose was defensive.

Today, Egyptologists use the anthropological definition of magic and religion, which represents social practices with a set of accompanying beliefs regarding the nature of reality. According to anthropologists, magic lies beyond nature and is, therefore, a figment of the human imagination. Its practitioners employ rituals, charms, spells, prayers, and incantations to influence the world’s natural forces to prevent the loss of something deemed essential or to obtain something desired.

Anthropologically, magic is said to come in two forms: 1] sympathetic magic and 2] contagious magic.

Sympathetic or homoeopathic magic is defined as like being effective against like. Something astringent would be used to treat a sting or insect bite when using a sympathetic magical cure. Magically, a statue or image of a person or a god could be used similarly to using the classic voodoo doll. That is as a representation of the person or God the magic was intended to act upon. 

Contagious magic is the type that flows from one object or person to another by touch, typically in the form of an amulet of charm. The abundance of charms and amulets found in the archaeological record and the survival of texts containing a wide range of spells shows that this sort of magic was highly prevalent from top to bottom in ancient Egyptian society.

Although most religions treat magic and religion as diametrically opposite, religion and magic are treated the same in anthropology because all religions include magical or supernatural beliefs. Here the ancient Egyptians would agree with the anthropologists because magic was an integral part of their world. Magic, ritual and religion were inseparable and were fundamental to all aspects of daily life and necessary for the correct operating of the cosmos.

Sex and Magic

The traditional view of heka also includes sex. Sex was viewed as the second most potent creative force in the cosmos. Evidence of phallic cults and the reviving efficacy of sex is found across archaeological records and ancient Egypt’s myths. The most prominent example being the annual raising of the Djed Pillar, a festival similar to raising the Maypole at the beginning of the growing season in Europe. Erecting the Djet Pillar was designed to celebrate the resurrection of Osiris and to celebrate the power of life over death. To the ancient Egyptians, nature’s power of begetting contained the secret spring of life.

Towards a New Understanding of Heka

 

Ancient Egypt Magazine - Cleopatra

Vignette illustrating part of the spell 23 and the power of heka from the Book of the Dead, papyrus of Hunefer, 19th dynasty (c. 1310 BCE). BM 9901/5 (R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, London 1985, 54).

The ancient Egyptians believed heka operated in this world and the next; it was neither good nor bad; it was simply the invisible energy or force that powered everything in the world. The royal priests believed they knew how it worked, how to connect with it, and, how to control it. It was their special knowledge, and it helped to maintain their position at the top of ancient Egyptian society for over three thousand years, and it was this sacred knowledge, the knowledge of the god Thoth that convinced the king his priests could get him to the afterlife.

A lot has been written about heka or hike; it was the tool of the gods; the Heliopolitian creator god Atum used it with Sai (perception) and Hu (speech) to make the world. Today we might call heka something like gestalt because it was the thing that provided the structure that made the world manifest in all its beauty and all its horror. Heka was also how the deceased passed from this transitory world to the life eternal beyond the grave. Beliefs surrounding heka were the fountainhead and the origin of every sacred building constructed in ancient Egypt. Egyptologists believe words contained the power of heka but not numbers, although they never speak of this omission.

Thoth and Isis were the two great magicians of the cosmos and were said to be great in heka. Like Sai and Hu, Heka was depicted as a god in his own right from the Old Kingdom and sometimes appeared in illustrations of the funeral boat on tomb walls. The gods Sai, Hu and Heka, were the physical manifestations of the invisible powers that created the universe, understanding heka was the key to comprehending the world.

The priests could invoke the gods’ power through speech, by saying the right spells or prayers but understanding heka was problematic; where was it and how could it be manipulated? We believe it was by using sacred materials, sacred images and by using both words and numbers. The priest’s special knowledge of all of the things to ensure the king’s transformation from man to god.

How Heka was Used to Re-birth the King in the Afterlife

A succession of high-ranking priests were inolved in getting the Pharaoh to the afterlife. They listened to and understood each ruler’s requirements; then facilitated projects that provided the monarch with their personal edifices of glory and their individual road-maps to the afterlife. 

The ancient Egyptian priesthood were the architects of each pharaoh’s greatest projects; their temples and their tombs using sacred materials, sacred images and by using sacred words and sacred numbers. They supplied the spiritual structure, the technically outstanding design work, and the organisational framework that underpinned and made possible all the monumental creations ever built in ancient Egypt.

 

A scene from the Book of Caverns in the tomb of Ramses V./VI. (KV9, chamber E, right wall) Wikipedia

Using a common language of shared intellectual and spiritual beliefs the priests and their kings created some of the greatest religious monuments on earth. These were pyramids and tombs with special sarcophaguses, decorated coffins, books of spells and sacred amulets. This special combination of design, decoration, furniture, spells and rituals created the pharaoh’s pathway to the afterlife.

The Royal cult sat at the centre of all religious and cultural innovation for 3000 years. Its ideas and practices were taken up by the wealthy and privileged in ancient Egyptian society after they had first been employed by the king. This is how royal practices trickled down to those at the bottom of the social pile. What the king did first was sure to be followed by others.

The two short videos below show some of these practices and motifs.

 

Top Fascinating Facts About the Great Sphinx of Giza

Top Fascinating Facts About the Great Sphinx of Giza

Top Fascinating Facts About the Great Sphinx of Giza

Introduction:

Nestled in the heart of Egypt lies an ancient enigma – the Great Sphinx of Giza. Unravel its mysteries with us.

  • Standing tall: The Great Sphinx of Giza, a colossal limestone statue, graces the Egyptian landscape near the pyramids.
  • Iconic features: This remarkable sculpture boasts a lion’s body and a pharaoh’s head, believed to represent Pharaoh Khafre.
  • Impressive dimensions: It stretches over 240 feet long and rises nearly 66 feet high.
  • Intriguing history: Carved around 4,500 years ago, the Great Sphinx endures as a symbol of ancient Egypt’s majesty.
  • Mysterious allure: Its purpose remains a subject of debate, shrouded in the enigmatic ambience of the Giza plateau.

1. The Enigmatic Name:

To begin our journey, it’s intriguing to note that the Great Sphinx lacks an original name, and its true age remains shrouded in obscurity. Even more perplexing, the moniker “Sphinx” is of Greek origin rather than Egyptian. Adding a layer of complexity, this Greek term initially referred to a creature featuring the head of a human atop a lion’s body—a far cry from the familiar Great Sphinx of Egypt.

2. The Silent Tombstones:

While the Giza plateau boasts hundreds of tombs adorned with hieroglyphic inscriptions dating back 4,500 years, an astonishing fact emerges—the Great Sphinx remains conspicuously absent from these ancient records. This scarcity results from the Egyptians’ unique approach to history, one that disregarded precise dates and detailed explanations.

3. Part of a Sacred Landscape:

Delving deeper, we find that although we don’t fully grasp the Great Sphinx’s role, it undeniably played a pivotal part in Egypt’s sacred landscape of death and resurrection.

4. The Dream Stele:

Now, let’s turn our attention to an intriguing artefact—the Dream Stele—a massive rectangular piece of red granite that stood as the back wall of a small chapel constructed by Pharaoh Thutmose IV. Remarkably, this Stele rests between the paws of the Great Sphinx.

Thutmose’s Dream Bargain:

Thutmose IV’s tale, recorded on the Dream Stele, tells a captivating story. This young Pharaoh slumbered beneath the protective gaze of the Great Sphinx and dreamt of striking a deal. In exchange for restoring the monument, the Sphinx pledged to bestow upon him the crown.

The Name “Harmachis-Chepre-Re-Atum”:

This dream encounter led to the Great Sphinx being christened “Harmachis-Chepre-Re-Atum,” marking the god of the Sphinx’s communication with Thutmose IV in his sleep.

The Quest for Knowledge:

Our understanding of the Great Sphinx took a significant leap forward in the modern era. In 1979, Mark Lehner and James Allen embarked on a monumental mission—to meticulously document every facet of this iconic monument. Their mission aimed to decipher the mysteries surrounding the Great Sphinx, including its construction timeline and its current state of preservation. Their four-decade-long dedication has culminated in making this invaluable data accessible today.

Explore the Mysteries:

Curiosity piqued? You, too, can embark on a journey of discovery. Explore over 5,500 photographs and 364 maps and drawings, all revealing the secrets of the Great Sphinx.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, the Great Sphinx of Giza continues to captivate our imagination and intrigue, symbolising ancient Egypt’s enigmatic past. Its legacy endures as a testament to human achievement and the enduring mysteries of our world.

 

See Also:

Questions in Egyptology 6: Did Anubis Have a Magic Eye?

Questions in Egyptology 5: What was the punishment for Ancient Egyptians if caught tomb-robbing?

Questions in Egyptology No. 4: Did the Ancient Egyptians Have a Religion?

Questions in Egyptology No 3. Did the Egyptians Influence the Greeks?

Questions in Egyptology No. 2: How Long Did it Take to Mummify a Pharaoh?

Questions in Egyptology No. 1 – The Cartouche – what did it protect?

 

 

Ancient Egypt – Cheapskate Coffin Makers

Ancient Egypt – Cheapskate Coffin Makers

About 3,000 years ago, a man named Nespawershefyt, a priest at the temple of Amun at Karnak (in modern Luxor), commissioned a set of coffins for himself.

He wanted an outer coffin and an inner coffin – the smaller of the two to be placed in the larger, much like Russian dolls – and a mummy board that would be placed on top of his embalmed and wrapped body.

Unbeknown to Nespawershefyt, the artisans he had chosen to make his coffins were cheapskates.

  • The wood they chose for the inner coffin was poor and needed lots of patching.
  • They were good at painting though. All the patches were expertly covered with bright yellow paint and text.
  • The coffins were delivered but not needed for years.

Sometime before his death Nespawershefyt decided to update his funerary inscriptions: he had received a promotion at the temple and wanted to mention his new higher-level position on his coffins.

You cannot leave your CV out-of-date for eternity, so the artisans set to work once again.

The coffins can be seen at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

Dimension(s):
depth, 49, cm, width, 60, cm, length, 206, cm, length, 190, cm, length, mummy board, 179, cm

Acquisition:
given; 1822; Hanbury, Barnard, Waddington, George
Accession: Object Number: E.1.1822

A Labour in Vain – The Tragic Death of Princess Charlotte Augusta

A Labour in Vain – The Tragic Death of Princess Charlotte Augusta

Princess Charlotte Augusta

Princess Charlotte August was in labour for more than two days before she died on 6th November 1817.

Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales (1796 – 1817) was the only child of George, Prince of Wales (later King George IV) and Caroline of Brunswick. If she had lived Charlotte would have become Queen of the United Kingdom.

Before her marriage, Charlotte was what we might call a ‘wild child’. She was a good horsewoman and a bit of a ‘tomboy.’

Charlotte’s parents loathed the sight of each other and separated soon after she was born. Her father debauched himself with every form of excess except fatherly love and attention. Her mother lived the lonely life of an abandoned woman. As an only child, Charlotte’s welfare was left in the hands of palace staff and her estranged mother whom she visited regularly at her house in Blackheath.

As Charlotte entered her teenage years, members of the Court considered her behaviour undignified. Lady de Clifford complained about her ankle-length underdrawers that showed. Lady Charlotte Bury, a lady-in-waiting to her mother Caroline described the Princess as a “fine piece of flesh and blood” who had a candid manner and rarely chose to “put on dignity”. Her father, however, was proud of her horsemanship and her tolerably good piano playing.

By the time she was age 15, the curvey Charlotte looked and dressed like a woman; she developed a liking for opera and men and soon became infatuated with her first cousin, George FitzClarence, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Clarence.

To put an end to the budding romance FitzClarence was called to Brighton to join his regiment, and Charlotte’s gaze fell on Lieutenant Charles Hesse of the Light Dragoons, reputedly the illegitimate son of Charlotte’s uncle, Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany.

Her mother colluded with Charlotte as far as Hesse was concerned not because she approved of the romance but to peeve her husband who did not. Caroline allowed the pair to meet in her apartments but the liaison was shortlived. Britain was at war with France and Hesse was called to duty in Spain.

Her father’s plan was to marry Charlotte to William Prince of Orange, the Dutch king. Neither her mother nor the British public wanted Charlotte to leave the country to pursue such a match.  Charlotte, therefore, informed the Prince of Orange that if they wed, her mother would have to live with them at their home in the Netherlands. This was a condition sure to be unacceptable to the Prince of Orange and their engagement was broken before it was started.

Charlotte finally settled on the dashing young Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Leopold had a commission in the Imperial Russian Army and fought against Napoleon after French troops overran Saxe-Coburg until Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.

The Marriage

The marriage ceremony was set for 2 May 1816. The war with France was over and the people of London were in the mood to celebrate. On the wedding day, huge crowds filled the streets and at nine o’clock in the evening in the Crimson Drawing Room at Carlton House, with Leopold dressing for the first time as a British General (the Prince Regent wore the uniform of a Field Marshal), the couple were married. Charlotte’s wedding dress cost over ₤10,000, an enormous sum of money – the average doctor earned less than £300 per year. The only mishap was during the ceremony happened when Charlotte was heard to giggle when the impoverished Leopold promised to endow her with all his worldly goods.

At the end of April 1817, Leopold informed the Prince Regent that Charlotte was pregnant and that there was every prospect of the Princess carrying the baby to term.

Charlotte’s pregnancy was the subject of the most intense public interest. Betting shops quickly set up a book on what sex the child would be. Economists calculated that the birth of a princess would raise the stock market by 2.5%; the birth of a prince would raise it 6%.

The mum to be Charlotte spent her time quietly, however, spending much time sitting for a portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence. She ate heavily and got little exercise; when her medical team began prenatal care in August 1817, they put her on a strict diet, hoping to reduce the size of the child she was carrying. The diet and occasional bleeding they subjected her to seemed to weaken Charlotte and did little to reduce her weight.

The Pregnancy

Much of Charlotte’s day to daycare was undertaken by Sir Richard Croft. Croft was not a physician, but an accoucheur, or male midwife. Male midwives were much in fashion among the well-to-do. In, ‘The Princess Charlotte of Wales: A triple obstetric tragedy’ Sir Edward Holland (J Obst & Gynaec Brit Emp 58:905-919, 1951) describes Sir Richard Croft as a diffident, sensitive man without much self-confidence despite his skill and experience. “He was not the sort of man to deviate from the rules of practice by doing something unconventional or risky. He played it by the book, but his library was small.”

Charlotte was believed to be due to deliver on 19 October, but as October ended, she had shown no signs of giving birth and drove out as usual with Leopold on Sunday 2 November. On the evening of 3 November, her contractions began. Sir Richard encouraged her to exercise, but would not let her eat: late that evening, he sent for the officials who were to witness the birth of the third in line to the throne.

A Labour in Vain

The first stage of labour lasted 26 hours, which is not uncommon for a first child. With the cervix fully dilated, Croft sent for Dr. Sims, perhaps because the uterus was acting inertly and irregularly, and also because, should a forceps delivery be necessary, Sims had been chosen consultant on that point. Sims was the “odd man out” among the four doctors; his principal work was as a botanist and editor, but he was also physician to the Surrey Dispensary and Charity for Delivering Poor Women in their Homes.

Almost certainly the outcome would have been better had the second stage of labour not lasted as long as the first. The optimal time the second stage is around two hours. Dr. Sims arrived at 2:00 am on November 5 after the second stage had been in progress for about seven hours.

Thirty-three hours after Charlotte’s labour had began Dr. Sims was ready with the forceps, but his assistance was not called for. Croft continued to let nature take its course. After 15 hours of second-stage labour, about noon on November 5, meconium-stained amniotic fluid appeared. Three hours after that, the baby’s head appeared. At nine o’clock in the evening of 5 November, Charlotte finally gave birth to a stillborn boy weighing nine pounds. Efforts to resuscitate the child proved fruitless. Onlookers commented that the dead child was a handsome boy, resembling the Royal Family.

The third stage of labour was no less distressing. Croft informed Sims that he suspected an hourglass contraction of the uterus. This happens when the placenta gets trapped in the upper part of the womb as it contracts  Croft removed the placenta manually with some difficulty, and it seemed to do the trick. Soon after midnight, Charlotte began vomiting violently and complaining of pains in her stomach. Croft returned to Charlotte’s bedside to find her cold to the touch, breathing with difficulty, and bleeding profusely. He placed hot compresses on her, the accepted treatment at the time for postpartum bleeding, but the bleeding did not stop. Charlotte died an hour and a half later.

The Aftermath

Charlotte had been Britain’s hope: George III and Queen Charlotte, had had thirteen children but only Charlotte survived. She was the sole legitimate heir to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland. Her father, with his spendthrift behaviour and penchant for womanising, was already unpopular with the public and his brothers were viewed in much the same light. The Prince of Wales’s girth and reputation for gluttony prompted his critics to dub him the “Prince of Whales.” The people were devasted by Charlotte’s tragic death.

Post-mortems on Charlotte and her stillborn son exonerated the Croft from any wrong-doing. The postmortem results showed Charlotte died because she lost too much blood, her baby because of lack of oxygen. In 1817 there were no blood transfusions for Croft to call on when Charlotte began to lose blood but he could have done things differently and she may not have died. Croft decided not to use forceps, had he Charlotte and her baby might have been saved. Croft was following fashion and the dictum of Dr. Denman an authority of midwifery and childbirth at the time. Since the death of the hugely influential Scottish obstetrician William Smellie’s in 1760, the use of forceps had fallen into disfavour because of the injuries that could be caused by the instrument when used by unskilled accoucheurs. Hundreds of unskilled or partially trained doctors were operating in Britain’s unregulated medical market at the time. The late Dr. Denman had overreacted to these injuries and had advocated a policy of “Let nature do the work. …The use of forceps ought not to be allowed from any motives of eligibility (i.e. of choice, election, or expediency). Consider the possible mistakes and lack of skill in younger practitioners.”

Denman had however hedged his position with a qualification: “Care is also to be taken that we do not, through an aversion to the use of instruments, too long delay that assistance we have the power of affording. In the last edition of his book (1816, posthumously) he wrote: “But if we compare the general good done with instruments, however cautiously used, with the evils arising from the unnecessary and improper use, we might doubt whether it would not have been happier for the world if no instrument of any kind had ever been contrived for, or recommended in the practice of midwifery.”

Croft had relied on Denman’s ultraconservative precepts, his passive obstetrics was just as dangerous as meddlesome obstetrics. The adroit accoucheur steered a middle course, but Croft was not adroit. Three months later, Croft was involved in a similar case, and, when the patient died, he shot himself with a pistol he found in the house. What happened in the wake of Princess Charlotte’s death was too much for Croft to bear.

By today’s standards, the first and second stages of Charlotte’s labour were far too long. Modern obstetricians would use forceps to extract the baby and drugs would be given to speed-up and strengthen the contractions.The most recent CEMD report indicates that in 2009-12, 357 women died during or within 6 weeks of the end of their pregnancy. This represents a decrease in the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) from 11 (2006-8) to 10.12 per 100,000 live births (2010-12), mainly due to a decrease in deaths due to direct obstetric causes. However, there has been no change in the MMR for indirect maternal deaths in the last 10 years; the current ratio (6.87 per 100,000 live births) is almost twice that of direct deaths (3.25 per 100,000 live births).

Sources:

THE YALE JOURNAL OF BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 65 (1992), 201-210
Obstetrical Events That Shaped Western European History
WILLIAM B. OBER, M.D.
Bergen County Medical Examiners Office, Paramus, New Jersey
Received March 26, 1991

http://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/epidemiology/maternal-death-surveillance/case-studies/united-kingdom/en/

 

Dress to Impress Princess

Dress to Impress Princess

In 2013 novelist Hilary Mantel wrote in an article in the London Review of Books. The subject of the article was giving a book to someone. The book she chose was published in 2006 and was by the cultural historian Caroline Weber. The book was called Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution and she chose to give it to Catherine Duchess of Cambridge.

“It’s not that I think we’re heading for a revolution,” said Mantel. She was concerned that Kate was becoming a jointed doll on which certain rags were hung. “Marie Antoinette was a woman eaten alive by her frocks,” says Mantel. “She was transfixed by appearances and stigmatised by her fashion choices.

Politics were made personal in the tragic French Queen. Her greed for dresses and self-gratification, her half-educated dabbling in public affairs, were adduced as a reason the French were bankrupt and miserable. It was ridiculous, of course. She was one individual with limited power and influence, who focused the rays of misogyny.

Marie-Antoinette was a woman liked to dress to impress but she couldn’t win. If she wore fine fabrics she was said to be extravagant. If she wore simple fabrics, she was accused of plotting to ruin the Lyon silk trade. But in truth, she was all body and no soul: no sense, and no sensitivity.

The Queen was so wedded to her appearance. As the royal family tried to escape Paris she did not leave her wardrobe behind instead she had several trunk loads of new clothes sent on in advance and took her hairdresser along for the trip. Despite the weight of her mountainous hairdos, she didn’t feel her head wobbling on her shoulders. When she found herself back in prison it is said her hair went grey overnight.

Of course, the Duchess of Cambridge is no Marie-Antoinette. She is a modern, educated woman who has married for love but Mantel is right about royal women of the past and strangely prophetic in describing what has happened to Kate in the press recently. Duchess of Drab! wrote Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail on 8th April 2016, “It’s the mystery of the cosmos… How DOES a beautiful woman make designer outfits look so frumpy?”

Unlike her late mother-in-law, Diana Princess of Wales, Kate has not courted fashion or the press a crime she will pay heavily for I suspect but as a woman with a mind, she probably knows she’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t. If she courts fashion and sex appeal, she will be lambasted and lauded like tragic Diana, if she doesn’t she’ll remain a dowdy, uptight mouse.

In this respect, Kate is like so many royal women in the past who receive only a passing reference in mainstream history books. When Kate ventures out to visit some charity or other on her own she is lauded patronizingly by the newscasters as if they were talking about a child. Surely, it’s not hard for a woman in possession of one of the country’s most expensive educations and a good university degree to talk to children or politicians for a half an hour after a briefing by Palace aids!

The Duchess of Cambridge is just the most recent in a line of royal women living out their lives in gilded cages. The difference between Kate and her Georgian forbears is that she has chosen her life and consciously sacrificed her private life and career for love. This was not a luxury afforded to princesses in the past.

This summer Meghan Markle was criticised for a pale pink off the shoulder dress she wore to her first Trooping the Colour ceremony. The sleeveless dress caused a Twitter storm with Tweeters slamming the look as “inappropriate” for Queen Elizabeth’s annual birthday parade.

Disney may believe every girl wants to be a pastel packaged franchise of a slender-waisted fairy-tale princess but if they knew what most princesses went through in the past and even today they would not be so keen to join their ranks. It’s not all about the dress. The truth is many of these women were child brides, exchanged by their families to secure some dynastic advantage or to settle political deals; personal happiness and fulfilment were never part of the transaction.

 

Sources:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3530869/Duchess-Drab-s-mystery-cosmos-DOES-beautiful-woman-make-designer-outfits-look-frumpy.html