People tend to associate steam-powered machinery and railroads with the Victorian era (hence the science-fiction subgenre Steampunk), but the it was the Regency that actually gave birth to the new steam engines. One of the first successful steamboat launchings happened in Glasgow, Scotland on 4 January 1803. The ship’s name was the Charlotte Dundas, and… Read more Full Steam Ahead!
When a the Jordan Lead Codices hit the news in March of 2011 there was a flurry of hyperbole, hysteria, and then dismissal. First it was claimed that the codices dated from the “1st century AD … and that they might predate the writings of St. Paul and that “leading academics” believed they might be… Read more The Jordan Lead Codices
New Year’s Day actually began at sundown on 31 December for people in Medieval times because days were counted as starting then rather than at midnight back in then. That’s also why we do our primary partying (at least when we are younger and stronger than my middle-aged butt is now) on New Year’s Eve… Read more Happy New Year’s!
On New Year’s Day of 1536 Maria de Salinas, Lady Willoughby, breached Kimbolton manor house to be with her dearest fried, Katherina of Aragon, as the former queen lay dying. Maria de Salinas is one of my favorite people of the Tudor era because few people of any time period have ever shown the unswerving… Read more Maria de Salinas, a True Friend
Elizabeth Stuart was the eldest daughter of James VI King of Scots (future King James I of England and Ireland as well after the death of Queen Elizabeth I ), and his wife, Anne of Denmark. She was the granddaughter of Mary, Queen of Scots, and like her grandmother she was famed for her beauty… Read more Elizabeth Stuart, The Winter Queen of Bohemia
Yesterday my husband and I took our children to Margam Country Park, which is near Port Talbot in south Wales. It is more than 800 acres of pretty landscape and and home of some remarkable historic buildings. To wit: the ruins of Margam Abbey, the Margam Orangery from the Regency period, and Margam Castle. Thus,… Read more Ruins and Regency
The holiday season in the Georgian era was as much like the Yuletide of the Tudor time period as it was like our modern Christmas. Regency holiday traditions sprang from the same combination of Roman and Pagan midwinter rituals as the Medieval ones. Even Oliver Cromwell couldn’t eradicate this festive ideology from the zeitgeist when he… Read more Merry Christmas!
Public popularity is a fickle, fickle thing. In fact, one of the things that will turn the public against you is becoming “too” popular. Worse, there was nothing so loathed in Regency England (and to some extent, today) as an underdog that seemed to be winning; support was on your side only as long as… Read more The Tide Turns Against Caroline of Brunswick
Mansfield Parsonage comes out this Friday, and I am both a nervous wreck and hella excited all at the same time. It being my first piece of fiction prose, I am as anxious for a good reception as I was for my first “baby”, Blood Will Tell. For some reason, the nonfiction books became easier… Read more December at Mansfield Parsonage
The second wife of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, Maria Ludovica Leopoldina Franziska Therese Josepha Lucia, was born 12 December 1791, the first child of Emperor Francis II of Austria by his second wife, Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily. Her name was revised to the more Francophone form, Maria Louise, when she wed Napoleon in… Read more Happy Birthday to Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma