The Regency era: everything you wanted to know

Which topics would you most like to see us cover here on the History Extra Podcast? Now's your chance to let us know. Have you say by visiting bit.ly/HEpodtopics? That's bit.ly/HEpodtopics. Hello and welcome to the History Extra Podcast from BBC History magazine. Britain's best-selling History magazine. I'm Ellie Corthorn. In today's episode, you'll be hearing from the historian and author Emily Brandt, who's speaking about the Regency Era for the latest episode in our Everything You Wanted to Know series. Putting your questions on the topic to Emily, along with some of the most popular online searches was our Deputy Digital Editor, Eleanor Evans. Thanks so much for joining us today, Emily. Thank you for having me back. It's great to be here. Fantastic. So as usual, today we'll cover the top questions put to Google, along with some really excellent listener questions that have come in over the past few weeks. And perhaps we could just start with the most obvious question really, the one most often put to Google on this topic. What and when was the Regency Era? Okay, so in our strict legal sense, we're talking about the period from 1811 to 1820, when George the Prince of Wales, who's the eldest son of George III, acts as the Prince Regent when his father is incapacitated, really, he's declared mentally unfit to rule due to so-called madness. So it's almost a decade there. And it's until King George III dies in 1820, and the Prince Regent finally becomes King as George IV. So that's where this name comes from, the Regency, more properly probably the Regency period. But culturally speaking, this label encompasses a lot more than that. It's got much wider cultural reach and meaning. And here the dates are a bit hazier. They're often stretches back to 1789. Obviously we've got the French Revolution kicking off all sorts of social and ideological change. But incidentally, this is also when George III suffers his first major mental breakdown, really. And there's this subsequent political crisis. So that ties in neatly with where the era begins. And then that tends to run through either to the death of George IV in 1830 or right through to the reign of Queen Victoria. So it's a subsection of the Georgian era really. But as well as this political exchange of power that underpins it, it's got a really distinct visual aesthetic, I suppose. So it's associated with all sorts of different types of styles, fashions, literature and magical ideas as well. So it's just there's a huge amount going on. I think it's a really vibrant part of our history really. Fantastic. Well, that's a lot of things that I hope we're going to touch on in this episode. But taking it back to the very start of that answer, you mentioned George III and this so-called madness. What's known about the what's known about what incapacitated the King and when this question of the Regency was first mooted? Yeah, so George III, I mean just a bit of background, he becomes King in 1760 in his early 20s. He's this hugely interesting figure in his own right. And he's best remembered for this mental illness, I think probably. We see him cropping up in Hamilton and he's sort of all decked in gold and singing very sweetly about killing everyone. So he's sort of presented in that way as the tyrant of the of America. And so he is known for mostly losing, as we might say, the American colonies and then subsequently going mad. So that's that sort of narrative there that remains quite popular. But as regards his mental illness, some historians think that he had his first attack in 1765. So right at the beginning, early years of his reign really and that he suffered with this intermittently throughout his life. But it was this prolonged and severe episode in 1788 that really crippled the government. And he's confined to Coupalice, he's raving just nonsense really, he's babbling for nine hours straight. He's getting very aggressive, very sexually violent towards women of the royal court as well. And the doctors at the time, I mean one great source for this is the online resources of Georgian papers program and they've been doing a lot of work on this. And they you can read here some of the private diaries as well as the reports of the physicians who were attending him. And one one of those doctors just does just say, our king is a lunatic, I think our king is mad. But this is obviously something that you want to keep under wraps. So the public wasn't necessarily aware, it was just they were sort of made aware of the king's long illness. So obviously in 1788 he's got all these sort of delusional ideas, very hugely odds with his character as well as sort of a sober popular almost king of the people in relative terms anyway. But then in 1810 he gets this loss of his mental faculties and the violence again. But then he starts as the year's draw, he starts to go blind and definitely develops dementia as well. So is this really dreadful suffering, I think for both himself and also all of those around him. And as for the cause, personally, I don't think that will ever definitively know exactly what it was. I'm quite skeptical of medical diagnosis at the distance of 200 years. You know, we really risk applying modern ideas and modern language to historic sources that might not quite tally up. So I think it is important to keep an open mind. The conclusion that has sort of taken root in the popular imagination is this idea from the 1960s that he was suffering from a blood disorder, sort of genetic blood disorder called paufferia. But more recent scholarship is leaning back again towards psychiatric illness. So new research on his letter writing and doctors notes and treatments are going back towards some sort of mania or really severe, severe version of what we'd now call bipolar disorder. So it's gone full circle really. You know, back in the day they were just proclaiming it as a madness and we've sort of come back around to that idea of some sort of psychiatric problem. So clearly a very sad decline for King George III. And these bouts, as you say, led to political political movements, questions of a regency. What were the political powers that play here and how did that lead to this regency period for Prince of Wales? Yeah, so it's a very different answer, really, depending on whether we look at that first episode of the regency crisis in 1788 to 1889 or the act that's actually passed in 1811, but they are really intertwined. So we'll have to, I'll have to talk about both of them. But in 1788, it's the first severe episode of this. And we've got very clear political party lines developing around how to deal with it. So the Prince of Wales at this point is in his 20s, but he's already continuing this grand tradition of the Georgians of not getting on with your dad. So he's pushing for an unlimited regency and he's backed up by all of his friends in the Wig party, most notably Charles James Fox. But then on the other side, we've got the Tory government who are in power. They're headed up by Pit the Younger and they know that they'll be ousted if the Prince rises to power. So obviously they don't want this to happen. So they are arguing for a restricted regency that won't allow him to change government and kick them out as soon as he gets in. So what we see is weeks of, or months, really of, really heated debate in the House of Commons and it's hugely reported on and the press is sort of hanging on every word because there's this great rivalry between Fox and Pit. Obviously the King recovers just in the nick of time at that point and it's sort of all moot point really. Then in 1810 and 11, revives again, but this time that urgency is really lost and it feels much less like an attempt on the part of the Prince to sort of usurp his father's power. So the legalities have already been laid as well. So there's sort of less to argue about and it's looking increasingly likely that the King's not going to recover anyway. I think one surprising thing about when this does finally happen is that the Tories are still in power at this point and they have been for pretty much the whole time and most expected that on receiving his powers as regents, the Prince would go back to all of his old wig friends. and install them into power, so they're all sort of gleefully rubbing their hands waiting for this. But when he comes into his power, he doesn't do that. So he alienates all of his old wig friends, but he doesn't really cooperate too much with the Tories either. So he doesn't do himself or his reputation. Any favours there, I think, when it finally comes about? And when it does finally come about, we've got a question here from Twitter, from Philip Richards. How much power did he actually have as Regent? So during that final episode, what passes in February, 1811 is the Care of the King Act. And it establishes this regency, but it's based on the, as I say, the legal groundwork that had been discussed and laid down many years earlier. So there was no real crisis of government. And I think part of the difference is that at this point, the prince is nearly 50. He is the actual heir to the throne. So it sort of seems like a more of a natural progression anyway. No council is assembled to support or control him because of this, but there were some conditions and limits to his power. So he had to swear allegiance to the king. He has to promise basically that he will step down if the king recovers. He has to give over care of the king and of the household to his mother queen Charlotte. So there's sort of no room I suppose for any shenanigans going on there. And importantly, his legal powers he agrees that they'll be restricted for one year. So until that years out, he can't really, not much has really changed for him, I'd say. You know, he can't give out peerages, he can't change the government. He doesn't really have much say in this sort of what's decreed. But obviously that condition expires in 1812. And so from that point, he's pretty much king in all but name. Although he just seemed to devote himself to more sort of artistic and pursuit of pleasures than politics anyway, I would say. Right, well, it would be great to talk a little bit more about that. What can you tell us about the prince Regent himself? Yeah, so I mean, from a very young age, I think by the time he was 20, he'd already shown that he was the antithesis of his father really. So he loves a drink. He's got a huge reputation for womanising and promising women all this money. He can't control his debts at all. He illegally marries a wildly unsuitable woman in 1785 and he's just generally quite vain and greedy. So by the time he becomes a Regent in his 50s, you know, people when he's young, they're hoping he's going to grow out of all of this behaviour, but it really just gets fixed at the heart of who he is. So all the caricatures of him by the time he comes to power, he's very bloated, he's sort of sneering and picking food out of his teeth. He's branded the prince of whales within age because he's, you know, huge. So he's a very unpopular ruler and he's basically credited with setting an awful example to everyone. And on a personal level as well, he's a very, he's an appalling husband and father and I think the public latches onto this and that does nothing for his reputation either. He treats his wife terribly, he's desperate to get rid of her, he's very controlling of his daughter. But then as I've mentioned probably if there's one saving grace of his leadership, I suppose, is his dedication to the arts and how I think this may have encouraged the sort of flourishing of the arts that we see in this era. So he's a great collector. He is a great patron for architects and artists. So he really contributes to this gorgeous aesthetic of the era, even though he himself is of this sort of flabby old man by this point. But I don't think that does undoes all of his bad work in the areas, I would say. Mentioning this debauchery or lavish spending on the part of the prince regent, did this influence the era as it might do in popular perceptions of it or is that an unfair link? I think there was a lot of, there were a lot of factors going on at this point sort of promoting the arts and all of this. But I think he must be credited with some sort of contribution there. As a saying from being a young man, he's hugely into lavish palaces and pageantry and all of this stuff. So when he becomes prince regent, he's suddenly got all of these new resources at his disposal and he sets off on this one man campaign to try and outshine Napoleon actually with all this sort of pomp and magnificent, magnificent. I don't think he was anywhere near doing that, but he certainly thought that he was. But he's consistently in debt because of this to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds. And the problem is here, I suppose, that he's contributing to this industry of the arts, but also it's at the same time destroying and he has his final shreds of a good reputation. So he becomes, by the time he becomes king, he's just notorious for not just extravagance, but senseless extravagance as it's seen. So he's throwing these lavish fates, celebrating essentially his father's madness. You know, when he comes to power, it's not very, there's not much decorum there, but he's immediately being compared unfavorably then to what's going on with the starving workers in the north and all of this. So by the time he dies, certainly he's condemned in the obiturus just about by everyone, I think very roundly, a selfish and uncontrolled and that what he contributed to most was actually the demoralisation of society by setting a bad example. So I don't think he got too much credit in his own time for that, for the arts. Fascinating stuff. Okay, so perhaps one more question then before we move on from the royals. You mentioned George, sorry Prince Regent as a father, and LK Whitehead on Instagram has asked, well, they'd like to know more about Princess Charlotte, the heir and her death. Okay, yeah, hugely interesting. Actually, the two women that are sort of involved in this question are really fascinating characters in different ways. And that's first the wife of the Prince of Wales later, the Prince Regent, and that's his cousin Caroline, and they are brought together forcibly, I suppose, and the Prince of Wales, George, only agrees to marry her to get his debts paid off. So they marry in 1795, their child is born, their only child, Princess Charlotte is born the following year, and then in 1797 they separate. So this is sort of Princess Charlotte's beginning in life is her parents essentially hugely disliking each other. And I think she had a very lonely childhood, especially after her parents split, you know, she's kept away from her mother on purpose. I think the Prince has been very spiteful there, but then he's not really getting too involved by this, so he's not making any effort to be an involved father. So she's brought up by her governess and servants essentially. And because of this, visitors to see her when she's a child describe her as strangely wild and unruly, considering she's going to be the future queen, I think this endures her to me quite a lot, especially as this then continues into childhood. So as she's growing up, her dad starts parading suitors that he wants, his alliances he wants to make in front of her and she's refusing to go and consider them, and then she publicly rails against his political choices as well. So she becomes into adulthood much more than a royal princess in the popular imagination. She's this sort of beacon of hope for the future and representing a new door and for the sort of more tolerant politics that her dad is starting to ignore. She's obviously got youth on her side as well and she becomes a real rallying point and focus of public sympathy, especially after her final marriage, her eventual marriage, which was a love match to the German Prince Leopold and they're just clearly devoted to each other and so it injects this much-needed positivity, I suppose, into a public that's really increasingly disenchanted with the royals. But obviously we don't have a queen Charlotte the first, so she marries in 1816. She suffers a miscarriage, she gets pregnant very quickly again, but then she dies after giving birth to a stillborn son in November 1817. So that's the regent's royal line extinguished and it's followed by this huge outpouring of public grief. There's talk of mismanagement by the physician who is attending her at the birth and this doctor then just a few months later goes and shoots himself while he's attending another woman in childbirth, which I just think is the most horrific situation to be in. But that's her story, it's a terrible story really, but if she hadn't died there would have been no scramble for for the thrones subsequently or scrambled to produce an air, I suppose, and her cousin, who was Queen Victoria, wouldn't have existed. So that's just an example of one woman's tragic story and how it shifts the whole of British history really onto a totally different path. Still to come on the History Extra podcast? I think Austin is such a huge, if not the only jumping off point for the modern audience's vision of the Regency era. And I think it's important to remember it's hard to sort of look beyond ourselves, but that's not always been the case. So taking us beyond the royals then, one person we've had a lot of questions about as well, it is Jane Austin. And be great to talk a bit about here and you know, here, here, here, role in representing this era. Sam Williams on Instagram has asked how true is Jane Austin in representing Regency Society? Yeah, there's an interesting question. And so obviously Austin's, she's never been out of print, I don't think. She's not fallen from favour, but the history sort of seems to go in these, well, they seem to be these explosions of Austin, Mania, every now and again. So there was one in the 1870s and then another one from the 1990s, I would say, with all those adaptations. So we're still living on the back end of one of those. And I think that's important to remember. But for her novels, I think they are a brilliant glimpse, certainly at a certain type of life in the Regency era. So she catches obviously the etiquette of the time amongst a certain class, the snobbery, the way that finances just pervade everything and shape a person's life. Often she is making very cutting social commentary through the way she's representing this. And she's also known for not writing about what she didn't know. So famously, she doesn't have any scenes where there are just men in the room because she would never know what how men would talk to each other when there's no women present. So there's a real legitimacy there, but it makes it a very limited view. So it's confined to the upper classes and the sort of upper middle classes. It's too domestic concerns to the female experience. And then we can see these glimpses of darker corners of the Regency world. She doesn't really delve into that reality of poverty and infant mortality and disease and war and all of this. And that's a conscious decision on her part. She doesn't want to make things up and she doesn't want to dwell on misery. She says this in a letter, I think. So I think that, you know, it's a great starting point, but it's important to remember that they are fiction. And her stories are the product of a woman's imagination. And they're also designed to appeal to people and to sell books, essentially, among a particular type of audience. And I think that can get lost in the fandom that surrounds her. And one thing I would say is that I would recommend anyway is to, if you're interested in us, to really read her letters as well as her fiction, because you actually get a better sense of the reality of her life and what it was to be a woman of her class in that time. She's got a really wicked sense of humour. So she's making jokes about going into London and being seduced into a life of sex work by a brothelkeeper. And she jokes about a woman having a miscarriage because her husband is so ugly. And it's just this side, this wicked, really side of Austin that is completely sanitised and polished and never made it into the novels. So it's best to see that side of her that's probably not deemed fit for public consumption. Great stuff. Yeah, I'm definitely going to go check out those letters now. That sounds brilliant. So taking it back into the realms of perhaps those darker sides you mentioned that she doesn't touch on. I realise this is a very, very big question. But perhaps we can use it as a jumping off point for other things. One of the top questions put to Google is what was life like for women in the Regency era. So I guess it's up to you how we approach the answer to this. Okay. Yeah, I'll try to cover all bases. Obviously, yeah, the experience of life during the Regency as a woman would hugely vary depending on, you know, across the classes. So towards the top, this more Austin realm, you know, it is really dictated by this etiquette, women's lives and behaviours supposedly, you know, held together by these social codes. But actually, I think some of the most memorable women from this era are those who acted outside, you know, beyond those bounds. So for example, the Cortezan Harriet Wilson, who's had a string of lovers throughout the Regency era, as she gets older, though, obviously her beauty's fading, her charms of believing her. So she decides to publish a tell-all biography, autobiography, and she blackmails all of her former lovers, obviously trying to raise funds for herself, but, you know, promising a better review of their behaviour in her book. She's brilliant character. We've also got Lady Caroline Lamb, who's obviously most notorious for her affair with Lord Byron and her hugely wildly eccentric behaviour, jarring their affair and also afterwards. And she's sort of refusing to believe, to accept that the relationship's over. Even figures like Mary Shelley, who loaps with a married man and then does the very own ladylike thing of writing a novel about reanimated corpses. You know, these are the sort of names, these anti-traditional names that live on for us because we find them so fascinating. Lower down the pecking order, women are obviously not so dictated by etiquette. They don't have anything like the privilege of these upper-class women. So I think the difference between the sexes is less marked in terms of coded behaviour and less enforced. And here in the middleing classes, we can find women in trades, especially if they've been in business with their husband, who's died or been trained up by their father or brother, or something like this. So we do find them getting involved in business, which I think is really interesting and not often touched upon. But then we can also find women appearing in court being brilliantly defiant pickpockets and murderers and all of this. So there's loads of sources for the lower classes, lower class women and middle class women. But I think what unites them all, regardless of their class, is their legal status and their lack of power in the eyes of the law. So once a woman's married, she ceases to be a legal entity on her own terms. All her property goes to her husband and this includes her children. So she's got no rights over her children. She can't divorce without proving extreme physical cruelty where a man would just have to prove adultery. So that endlessly, at the mercy of men, in endless ways really during this era. So although in the 18th century we've seen these female voices starting to speak about the need for women's rights and trying to give evidence for women's intellectual capabilities being on a par with men if only they could get the right education. We've got these books coming out but they still haven't quite got those rights yet. They haven't they're not seen the concrete results of that. So this double standard of gender relations I suppose between men and women is very much still life defining at this point. We've obviously talked about a very broad question now with lots of variety. This question a bit more niche. Ella West on on Instagram has asked and I'm not sure where this staff comes from but they've asked, was the amount of women who made a living through sex work really as high as one in five? Yes, I think this one has been made quite public knowledge by Harlett recently. The I think it's BBC show and it is a very neat statistic but I don't think we can take it at face value. I think it comes from a report of 1795 and it's drawn up by a magistrate called Patrick Kahun and he basically sets about London to survey the extent of the sex industry in London in the 1790s and he comes up with this estimate of there are 50,000 women in London who are selling sex. 20,000 of those are working full time that's their profession and 30,000 working on a more casual basis so it might be during unemployment or something like that. And then from the total estimated population of the city he extrapolates that this means one women in five. So it's very neatly done. First of all I think it's only London focused so I always like to try and extend the range of history beyond the history of London. Secondly it's very reliant on this one man's hugely. I think they must be hugely generalized estimates or guesses. I really don't know how he went about his research on this one actually. So, sex work was a very visible part of Regency Life in the lower classes and in the upper classes, but I don't think we'll ever be able to measure it accurately, so I would take that with a liberal pinch of salt. So, if people want to find out more, you've written on the George and Body House and there's plenty more out there, what would you point people towards to find out more about that? Yes, I have my little introductory pamphlet I suppose, which is quite a nod thing to have about. The work of Halle Rubenhold is excellent and I think there's a new addition of her Carvin Garden ladies coming out soon, so I would recommend that for really, I mean, that's a bit earlier, that's the 18th century really, but it really sets the scene really well for what life was like for these women and the men who was getting involved in this trade as well, both as workers and as sort of clients, I think, so that was a really good starting off point. I think in the 18th century and in the Regency, there is this class divide again in this industry, but it's very prevalent, it's everywhere, you know, the sex industry, it's a very sort of rollicking time, certainly they like to think of themselves that way, very sort of sexually open, I suppose, but women who were working in sex work, they were there to cater for any taste and for any price because obviously all men would consider this quite a normal thing to do. So in terms of sort of dedicated brothels, you could get anything from a dirty garret lodging where you just go back there for an hour and then zip off again and paying them a pint of wine to these luxurious palatial premises where women were speaking French and playing the harp and having, you know, conversations about political or current affairs and all of this. So yeah, it was a hugely, a hugely visible part of the Regency world, I think, the reality though was very grim for a lot of these women themselves. Okay, and another question which deals with the reality of women's lives in this period, a little bit of Sarah on Instagram has asked about menstruation products, they've asked what did women use, how available was it and what was it made of? This is a very specific question, it's a great question. I've actually, I've come across that she know evidence for this, I think it's a bit of a mystery. I think perhaps partly because it was such an everyday issue, it's not something that you would necessarily commit to paper. Also, the sort of standards of politeness and, you know, defy delicacy, this wasn't necessarily something you'd want to be discussing openly and it wasn't biological enough to discuss in the medical textbooks which are obviously all written by men as well. So they don't want to concern themselves too much with how women actually deal with it. I think one big difficulty that immediately leaps to mind is that women at this time generally didn't really wear knickers. So there must have been some completely dedicated garment or contraption or something to deal with this. So there are some mentions of what are called women's napkins being sent out for laundry. So that could refer to some sort of nappy-like garment, I suppose. Later on there are speculations later in the century. I think that there's sort of suggest this piece of cloth that's held in place with tape and then taped tied around the waist as well. So that's sort of a rag essentially some sort of textile rag held in place. None of it sounds very comfortable and some meats and there's nothing definitive by this though. I would be very interested to hear if any listeners have found some diary somewhere that just describes exactly what they would have been using. Yeah, I wonder. Well, maybe someone will get in touch after listening, who knows. So taking it a bit away from the knickers and more outward into other fashion, you've already mentioned in quite a few of your answers now is a big part of this period. A lot of people have asked about it as well. What can you say about men's and women's fashion in the region's period? Yeah, this is another thing, another place where we see a huge change really. So from the 1780s through to the 1820s there's this huge change in male and female fashion. And I think this is often reflecting or responding to wider events, which you wouldn't at first think might have anything to do with how you dress, but we've got this neoclassical aesthetic sort of inspired by the ancient world, which sweeps across Europe. We've got the French Revolution happening again, which just has such huge cultural read. We've got military trappings of war, and then we've got peace allowing us to sort of like France again and sort of what's going on over there. So often as well, it's just people, it's simply a reaction against the previous generation and people not wanting to see old fashion. So in terms of menswear, we have this effeminate almost extravagance of the 18th century macaroni as they were called. So this is those towering wigs. They've got little red heels on, pastel coloured silksuits and all these gems and all of this. And that makes way for this 19th century dandy, which is I suppose more akin to what we would see if we're in Pride and Prejudice where it's more sober colours. The wigs have gone tailoring, good tailoring is replacing frilly cuffs. And we've got the arrival of the top hat as well, which supposedly set women fainting in the streets when they saw this monstrous garment on gentle and said. And then trousers and pantaloons come in. So it's all more practical wear I think. And it's all more fashionably democratic looking as well after all of this change that's going on in France and Revolution. In women's wear, again from the 1790s we see this rising empire waistline. It's a much more fitted silhouette and it's more focused on white and pale colours. So it's quite starchy to do with this neoclassical ideal. These women are looking almost like a Greek statue with the Revolution as well that sort of undercuts this form of taste for glitz and ostentatious displays of wealth, which obviously you don't want to be doing in these new political circumstances. So it becomes all much more natural. And then in the 1820s obviously the reaction goes back the other way and things start widening out again. So there's this real mix of reasons for why these these new fashions are coming in. And I think they're also fueled by the rise of print and a fashion plate. So it's almost like the catwalk or fashion magazines today where among the upper classes what you wear says a lot about your good taste or your bad taste, your modern values and also of your wealth. So even though the looks themselves changed I think that the impulse for the upper classes at the heart of it is probably quite similar. Right and a question perhaps linked to how the trends change there. Theresa are 88 on Instagram, has asked about Bob Brummel and asked was he really that influential in Regency Men's fashion? So Patrick could say who Brummel was and what he influential. Yeah so Bob Brummel, his name is is synonymous now almost with Regency Fashion but I don't think he really did much else to be honest. I think he had a military background and somehow comes to the attention of the Prince Regent or the Prince of Wales I think as he is at that point and sort of his sent to the heart of fashionable society but he's associated with that dandyism of the early 19th century in sort of way where you spend absolutely hours and a complete fortune on just looking perfectly understated. I think that was his sort of aesthetic. He's a very sociable man as I say he's a great friend for a time of the Prince Regent so his lifelong obsession with appearance gradually is adopted by those higher above him in rank who are wanting to you know how dare this upstart look better than I do sort of impulse I reckon but I do think he's sometimes credited with too much so this wing towards sober colours tighter silhouettes is already in force I think when he comes to prominence so he's not inventing this look but I do think he perfects it and that's where his influence really comes in and his example I think it allowed the upper classes to you know obviously they're used to being extravagant and the fashions are changing around them and his example allows them to set themselves apart even though they don't have all this normal glitz that they've had in previous generations so this is a man who recommended polishing your boots with champagne for example which is obviously going to make them feel much better about themselves but certainly he's got a huge influence on the Prince who apparently would just sit in Bromall's dressing room and watch him be dressed for hours so I think if he's got that fascination then that will inevitably trickle down as well to the rest of society okay great and there's a really great question here and I think it might might link to what you were saying before about the period before things got simpler but Sarah Park in his last Instagram how often did they wash and were they were their hair pieces really full of bugs Okay, yeah, well I think this is a hugely personal thing really. I would find it difficult to generalise on this. Obviously Bromall himself He was very keen on being clean Without all this perfumery that was normally relied upon so he supposedly bathed every day And as you mentioned earlier, I've been working on the Byron family of the 18th century and Isabella who's Formerly a Byron. She's a cantist of Carlisle. She releases a Handbook for young ladies in 1789 and she says on No occasion relax in the article of cleanliness regarding your own person and that it's as much to do with health as it is to do with Looking nice and decorum. So I think there is that knowledge that you should be washing yourself but There are suggestions in other guides and from physicians of the regency era that most English women are ignorant of baths That are larger than a hand basin. So even though they should be Having frequent baths. They don't have one so they're not doing it And that men and women of London would wash their hands every day their faces every day But the rest of their body would be neglected from year to year which sounds dreadful But this was sort of the Conclusion of one physician of the time. So Who really knows and there was There was no deodorant soap was a luxury. I think whatever the case it certainly would have smelled very bad As for Lice I think that's probably inevitable across all classes So in the 18th century you've got those towering wigs highly susceptible. I suppose to to Lice They might be perfumed or powdered rather than even being washed But this this might have improved I suppose when things get more natural in the regency But they're washing their hair with lard based products sort of pomades and then rinksing it with rum So I don't really know what would survive at that point, but then again, it's very personal and we don't know how often they were doing it so But as it would take hours to get your hair dressed. I can't imagine it would be happening too often Yeah, wow polishing boots with champagne and washing hair with rum as a lot lots going on there So so taking away perhaps from from the more more personal broadening out a little bit again The Alga boy, I think that's how you pronounce it has asked an Instagram Why did the arts appear to flourish during this era? You've already talked about the King's spending on it the King's patronage of that Well, can we talk a bit about art in this this period? Yeah, so I think the arts really did flourish in Britain in this time And I think in part because there were such new and distinctive styles emerging and competing with each other almost in the visual and decorative arts but also in sort of shifting cultural Ideologies that are providing inspiration as well for writers and so there's all this inspiration being provoked by dramatic Traumatic events like the French Revolution again and the subsequent wars so throughout the 18th century we've had this very ornate Gilded heavy Baroque and Rocco style so it's all sort of palace of Versailles It's very theatrical it's designed to show off your wealth and your status But this loses favor towards the latter half of the 18th century and we get this enthusiasm as I've mentioned earlier for the Neoclassicals so that's an architecture in design in fashion It's sort of all just a wave of enthusiasm basically for the aesthetic of the classical world So everything becomes very symmetrical. It's very clean. It's a lot less fussy essentially And this I think in part is linked to archaeological discoveries in the 18th century of Pompeii for one and also by this growing popularity of young gents Jettying off around Europe on their grand tours and then coming back with souvenirs of the ancient world And then alongside this and almost competing with it I think in many ways we've got the development of romanticism and it's this rejection of the industrial for the natural and the emotional So it's again a reaction against what's been going on throughout the 18th century and this filters into literature art music So all these Ideas are blossoming really and it's just a perfect moment. I think for creativity in general And I guess we should mention Byron as well and his house. Do you want to say a little bit about them? So I know this is close to your heart Yeah, well, I guess I mean this is linked in with the this trend towards romanticism. So as I say this Develops towards the end of the 18th century it's this movement and it really leans towards this affinity with nature and the elevation of emotions after these generations as they would see it of sort of the March of cold reason and an industrial character of the 18th century where they're not really seeing any raw beauty in that sort of sterile world. So it's a reaction against that so in in Britain in the 1780s and 90s the big names we've got there are Wordsworth and Corridged and Blake and these there are evoking a really emotionally charged new Vision essentially I would say of the world and humanity And then into the Redency era we've got this new younger generation of romantics and the big names there would be Byron and Shelley and Keats And they're basically marching about certainly Byron and Shelley setting hearts of flutter with these appealing ideas about nature and beauty and being in love But also with these exciting Radical ideas or that's it at least Very anti-traditional ways of life. So they're really capturing the public's attention with that And I think it probably helps that they are quite scandalous Thinking of Byron and Shelley, you know, they really captured the public imagination as I say they made a name for themselves with their personalities and their beliefs as well as their poetry and I think the popularity of that is a In a wider sense. It's part of this reaction against industrialization and and Leading into this sort of revolutionary spirit, you know, they weren't just writing for the upper classes. They weren't stuffy and boring The themes they're dealing with a nature and the fall of kings and the fall of governments and the power of the people and all of this So they're much more relevant for And inspiring to a wider audience I think So you've mentioned architecture as well In this period and I wanted to talk a bit about what characterises a region's the era architecture and obviously at the moment we're in the middle of a pandemic that means people aren't traveling as much or at all But if they can or when they can where could people see Explore examples of this where could people look to that? Yeah, so I mean this is this started with this neoclassical in the 18th century and then through into Regency, I think it gets a bit more lavish And but there are there are a lot of towns in Britain that that's really showcase this style so bathcoms to mind And there's some I mean, I'm thinking of Brighton but Brighton Pavilion. I mean that's maybe not quite so representative That's more maybe indicative of the prince himself and his Tastes um Sort of all the spa town. You can see these sort of Regency townhouses and London obviously It's it's I think they're gorgeous and I think that you you know, I met many people would still see them as sort of the height of a sort of classiness I suppose and it is that as a say a very clean looking symmetrical Asthetic that I think it's just inevitably very pleasing but there's loads of places you can visit around the country When we're allowed out You say How do we bookend it? What how does it come to an end? Yeah, I mean I mean really by the end of the sort of what we'd call the Hanoverian Theor or the Georgian era I suppose finishes with George IV sometimes stretching out to poor old William the fourth who's his brother who inherits after him who tends to get forgotten Um, it's not very interesting. I'll probably get attacked by someone who's saying that And but then we see the rise of Victoria and Queen Victoria is the niece of um the prince regent and of William the fourth and when she comes Into power and you know it in a way it kicks off and in a way is just linked in with a very different sort of character um for the country That they're trying to promote so it really does we do see a huge change in public perceptions of the monarchy For example with the rise of Victoria. She's very popular whereas everyone seems to be very bored with these old extravagant Hanoverian men being in power, you know, they were really looking forward to prince the Charlotte um But you know they don't get her but they do get a young queen who then sets such a good example in relative terms in terms of um what she represents for family values and um, you know We also see it sort of rise in Christian values I suppose sort of Evangelical Christian ideas um which take more of a grip I think and she sets a great example there. So again, I think it's just this reaction of reaction against previous generations and it's morally speaking and wanting to see yourself as a bit of an improvement. And also, popular campaigns for reform are really gaining a bit of traction. They have been doing over the later Regency Era and campaigns for suffrage. And we also have the political stranglehold of the Tory party. They don't disappear, but it eases off a bit. So with with leadership coming in and out into that era, there's more opportunity for reform and change there as well. So I just think the spirit of the era is hugely different with the coming of Queen Victoria. Okay, fantastic. Well, it's clearly a period which still continues to fascinate and for many of the reasons that we've talked about. But if I can ask you perhaps personally and then maybe with feedback to your work on this period as well, why do you think it does continue to fascinate? I think in general terms, I do think we're in the grip of this Austin Mania since still. So I think that will persist. And I think that's great and fine and I think that maybe that's a starting point into learning more about it. That's all like, you know, that's what I hope and where that leads. I think this obviously it focuses on upper classes. As I specifically as I say, it's very pleasing. It's very familiar to us. But then at the same time, it's very racially and radical time. And that's sort of where I get hooked in by it, I think. And I think the very best representations of the era really capture some of that. You know, it's not stuffy. We've got the Romantics railing against the world really. We've got all these sexual free songs going on and adultery everywhere. I'm sure it's the case most of the time, but they were quite open about it being an age of adultery. Obviously with my background in Romantic history, you know, that will appeal to me. It's sort of gorgeous on the surface and then it's quite scandalous underneath. But then it's a world of contrast as well. So you've got this height of luxury against real depravity and crippling poverty rather of the lower classes. And that's underpinned by war and struggle as well, class struggle towards the end of the region. So it's just fascinating. I think it's a time, social changes really begin to drive forward. So there are loads of hooks if you like, into it, whether it's women's rights and women's history or scandal and seduction or, you know, great works of literature. It's endless really. So yes, I think there are many reasons why. That was Emily Brandt. Her latest book, The Fall of the House of Byron, is published by John Murray and is out now. Find another podcast with Emily discussing the Byron's along with a feature on their family scandals at historyextra.com/scandalous-byron. If you're interested in the Regency area, on the 12th of November we'll be hosting a virtual lecture from Ian Mortimer on his book, The Time Traveler's Guide to Regency Britain. You can find out more and register for the talk on our website at historyextra.com/events/virtual-byron. Thanks for listening. This episode was produced by Benuit and Jack Bateman. We'll be back tomorrow when Sean Evans will be speaking about women in the golden age of transatlantic travel.