Happy Birthday, Your Majesty!

May 29th is not only the 350th anniversary of the return of King Charles II (1630-1685) to London after his lengthy exile, but also his 380th birthday. I've written five historical novels in which Charles has featured prominently, and after those 600,000 or so words between us, I do feel I owe him the very best wishes for the day.

But I'll leave it to writer and diarist John Evelyn(1620-1707), who witnessed Charles's return to London, to describe the day and the jubilant welcome the king received:

"This day, His Majesty, Charles II, came to London, after a sad and long exile and calamitous suffering both of the King and the Church, being seventeen years. This was also his birthday, and with a triumph of above 20,000 horse and foot, brandishing their swords, and shouting with inexpressible joy; the ways strewn with flowers, the bells ringing, the streets hung with tapestry, fountains running with wine; the Mayor, Aldermen, and all the companies, in their liveries, chains of gold, and banners; Lords and Nobles, clad in cloth of silver, gold, and velvet; the windows and balconies, all set with ladies; trumpets, music, and myriads of people flocking, even so far as from Rochester, so as they were seven hours in passing the city, even from two in the afternoon till nine at night.

"I stood in the Strand and beheld it, and blessed God. And all this was done without one drop of blood shed, and by that very army which rebelled against him: but it was the Lord's doing, for such a restoration was never mentioned in any history, ancient or modern, since the return of the Jews from their Babylonish captivity; nor so joyful a day and so bright ever seen in this nation, this happening when to expect or effect it was past all human policy....The eagerness of men, women, and children, to see His Majesty, and kiss his hand, was so great, that he had scarce leisure to eat for some days, coming as they did from all parts of the nation; and the King being as willing to give them satisfaction, would have none kept out, but gave free access to all sorts of people."

From the Diary of John Evelyn, which has recently (finally!) become available for on-line reading here.

Nutmeg, My Lord?

Most of us self-diagnosed history nerds are familiar with snuff-boxes, and can easily imagine a 17th or 18th c. gentleman drawing such a box from his pocket to partake in his favorite sneezing vice. But from the late 17th c. to the early 19th c., a well-equipped male pocket might also include one of these little silver articles: a personal nutmeg grater.

While nutmeg is a common spice to 21st c. cooks (my local grocery sells a half-dozen whole nuts for about $8.00), in the past it was a considerable luxury, grown only on the remoteBanda Islands in the South Pacific. Nutmeg was known in medieval Venice, but it wasn't until the early 16th c. that Portuguese and Dutch traders made it more widely available throughout western Europe. Still, the rarity of the little nuts and the peril of securing them made nutmeg a costly status-spice into the 19th century.

Perhaps nutmeg's rarity was the reason it was imbued with almost magical qualities. Herbalist John Gerard wrote in 1597 that nutmeg "is good against freckles in the face, quickneth the sight, strengthens the belly and feeble liver, taketh away the swelling of the spleen...breaketh wind, and is good against all cold diseases of the body." It was also thought to protect against the plague.

But by the late 17th c., nutmeg was more often prized for its taste in cookery, and as an ingredient in the punches popular at the time. While punch today is usually a non-alcoholic kiddie-drink, 17th-18th c. punches could lay a grown man under the table in no time. Gentlemen prided themselves on having their own closely-guarded recipes. Customary ingredients included citrus fruits, sugar, and spices, mixed with prodigious amounts of alcohol: rum, brandy, cognac, canary, and just about any other liquor on hand. (Here's more about historical punch, plus several recipes if you're feeling brave.) The next groggy morning, a dusting of nutmeg could also enhance those other fashionable new drinks of chocolate and coffee.

It's no wonder, then, that every trendy fop and gentleman carried his own nutmeg in his pocket with him. Not only did this display his excellent palate, but it also showed that he was wealthy enough to buy both the nutmeg and one of these little sterling silver boxes, engraved with his initials, for stashing it. In a time of pretty gestures, taking out one's grater to spice one's meal or beverage would have been a charming nicety, and offering the same to one's neighbor (especially a lady) at the table would have been even nicer. Any flirtation that could combine the senses was considered particularly seductive, and a fragrant grating of red-brown nutmeg, redolent of the exotic, must have inflamed the ladies indeed.

The graters shown here are small, only an inch or two in length, just the size to hold a single nutmeg nut. The one top left is the earliest, from the late 17th c., while the other two are from the 18th c. Here's another early one that's cylindrical in design. As can be imagined, today nutmeg graters are popular with collectors of antique silver. The Georgian one, above, is currently for sale via the Internet, with an asking price of a little over a thousand dollars. Ah, true luxury never goes out of style....

The King with the Pearl Earring

Today pearls are among the most common of precious "jewels." But before the development of cultured pearls and farming in the early 20th c., all pearls were natural pearls. These rare treasures could be discovered only by accident and at considerable peril. Natural pearls had great mystique and luminous beauty as well as value, which made them favorites of queens – and kings.

One of the most famous pearls of the 17th c. belonged toKing Charles I of England (1600-1649) – the father of the King Charles who appears in my novels. While the origins of this single pearl earring are unknown, Charles is first shown wearing it in a miniature, left, as the fifteen-year-old Prince of Wales. The pearl soon became what fashion-folk today call a "statement piece", and one that he was seldom without.

Charles's large teardrop-shaped pearl – an especially rare and desired shape –was made into a single dangling earring with a tiny gold crown as the cap, topped with an orb and cross that was most fitting for a future king. Since Queen Elizabeth's reign, fashionable English gentlemen had worn single earrings as a sign of courtly swagger and bravado, qualitiesthat the young prince was woefully lacking: Charles was slight and short (only 5'3"), he limped from childhood rickets, he stammered, and he suffered from acute shyness. Perhaps the sizable jewel gave him the confidence that nature had not.

Whatever the reason, Charles wore the pearl for the rest of his life, and it appears in nearly every portrait of him, including one of him dressed casually for hunting, right. He developed into a style-conscious king who patronized the arts, and the single earring suited him in that capacity, too, as the romantic, cavalier king.

Unfortunately, while Charles was a very good patron to artists, architects, and composers, he proved to be a wretched king to his people, stubbornly unable to reconcile his subjects' desires and expectations with his own. After barely surviving two civil wars, he was captured by the Parliamentary forces led by General Oliver Cromwell and found guilty of high treason. He was executed on 30 January 1649, beheaded with a single stroke of the ax on a scaffold before Whitehall Palace. He was still wearing the pearl earring as he placed his neck on the executioner's block.

Later historians seem to have been determined to give the execution a lurid, gory hysteria that no contemporary witness reported, and describe a (fictitious) howling mob surging forward to tear the precious jewel from the bloody, severed royal head.

Well, no. Even with regicide, this was still Puritan England, not Jacobin France.

Instead Charles's earring was respectfully removed when his head was sewn back to his body in preparation for burial. The earring was then sent as a final memento to his oldest daughter,Mary, Princess Royal (1631-1660), as Charles had requested. After Mary's death, the earring eventually found its way to one of the late king's most loyal supporters, William Cavendish,1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1592-1672), who had also been entrusted with the education of Charles's son, the future King Charles II. Today the earring, bottom left, remains in the collection of the duke's home, Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, now owned by the Dukes of Portland.

Top left: Charles, Prince of Wales (later Charles I) by Issac Oliver; the Berger Collection,

Denver Art Museum.

Top right: detail, Charles I, King of England, at the Hunt by Anthony van Dyck; the Louvre

Lower left: detail, Charles I, King of England, from Three Angles, by Anthony van Dyck; Windsor Castle, Royal Collection

Bottom right: Earring of Charles I, Harley Gallery, Welbeck, Worksop, Nottinghamshire

Meet the Merrie Monarch

Tired of the Tudors? Had enough of Henry? Do I have another English king for you! Charles II (1630-1685)was a monarch so intriguing, so charming, and so historically hot that he doesn’t need Jonathan Rhys Meyers to boost his reputation.

Like all heirs to thrones, Charles II was welcomed into the world with fireworks and ringing church bells. He had an idyllic childhood, even for a royal prince: his father, Charles I, was an unusually devoted father, his mother adored him, and he’d six brothers and sisters to round out the close-knit family. There were trips to the menagerie at the Tower of London, portraits painted by Sir Anthony van Dyck (such as the one below), and junkets on the Thames on the gilded royal barge.

But while Charles I was an excellent father, he was a miserable king. Hopelessly out of touch with his people, he tried to force an absolute monarchy on an unwilling Parliament. A long and bitter Civil War began in 1642, ending eventually in the trial and beheading of Charles I in 1649. In his place, a conservative army general, Oliver Cromwell, was made Lord Protector to rule with Parliament.

The nineteen-year-old Charles barely escaped to the Continent. Though nominally now Charles II, he was a king without a throne or a country, and perhaps more importantly, without any money. His mother and his younger brothers and sisters were scattered about various royal courts, poor relations that wore out their welcome. Charles himself became a wandering pauper-king in exile, his circumstances so straitened that he wore darned stockings, gave away his beloved dogs, and could only afford to dine on meat once a week.

Back in England, life under the Puritans was equally grim. In an effort to “purify” the country of its excesses, almost everything that was fun was outlawed by Parliament. Maypoles were burned, music, dancing, and theater forbidden, bright-colored clothing became illegal, and holidays scratched from the calendar. Church-going was about all that was permitted, and the Puritans made sure there wasn’t a scrap of pleasure there, either, smashing centuries-old stained-glass windows and forbidding music.

But by the time of Cromwell’s death in 1659, the English had become thoroughly weary of their Puritan Parliament. In retrospect a king didn’t seem so bad at all, and Charles was invited back. His return to the English throne gave his reign its name –– the “Restoration” –– and he was greeted with wild rejoicing and celebrations.

Riding into London on a white horse on his thirtieth birthday in 1660, Charles dazzled his people like a modern Hollywood star. He was tall (6’2”), dark, and handsome, lean and athletic and full of boundless energy. He wasn’t fair-haired-English-handsome, but favored his Italian grandmother, Marie de’Medici, with heavy-lidded, dark eyes, a sensual mouth, and long, black, curling hair. He was intelligent and well-spoken with a dry wit, and his own sufferings made him peculiarly sympathetic to his people, with a genuine kindness rare in kings. He had an appealing air of melancholy; the king known to posterity as the “Merrie Monarch” was in fact not very merry by nature (who can blame him?), but he surrounded himself with outrageously amusing friends that ensured his court was THE place to be.

That wasn’t all. Unlike most vengeance-crazed monarchs, Charles generously pardoned everyone except the men who’d signed his father’s death warrant, resulting in a country-wide sigh of relief. He brought back music, dancing, flirting, Christmas, and Maypoles. He reopened the theatres, and for the first time in English history, permitted actresses on the stage. He loved pretty women, fast horses, and dogs of every description. After a decade of Puritan dreariness, once again everyone began to dress to impress, and big-time partying was back in fashion. Was it any wonder that Charles was instantly, wildly popular?

And why not? While his cousin across the Channel, Louis XIV of France, kept himself aloof and distant in his grand palace at Versailles, Charles was always in the thick of things. He appreciated London all the more for having been exiled from it, and with a freedom that would horrify Secret Service agents today, he enjoyed the city like any other Londoner, and was infinitely accessible, even to his most humble people.

Every morning he rose early and walked briskly through St. James’s Park with his dogs (the King Charles spaniels so popular now are named after him) and any one who could keep pace with his long legs. He attended the theater as often as he could, cheering and jeering and buying over-priced fruit from the orange girls along with everyone else. He fed the ducks and swans in the park. He regularly swam naked in the Thames, even in the winter, and didn’t care who watched.

As one of his friends and part-time poet John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (yes, the same Rochester played by Johnny Depp in the movie Libertine) noted with approval: “Nor are [the king’s] high desires above his strength/His scepter and his p**** are of a length.”

When London was devastated by the Great Fire in 1666, Charles didn’t simply do the 17th century version of a fly-over to survey the damage: he joined the bucket brigades, fighting the fires himself. His intellectual curiosity led him to keep a scientific “closet” in the palace for puttering about with chemicals and curiosities like two-headed snakes. An excellent horseman, he would ride in races with the professional jockeys at Newmarket, and often win from his skill and daring, not because he was the king. Afterwards he would drink with the jockeys and grooms, enjoying being a regular guy. Following a formal court reception, he’d shed the silk and ermine, change into plain clothes, and go carousing in low-rent rum shops and brothels with friends, often not coming home to the palace until nearly dawn.

Ah, the brothels. For while Charles didn’t swear, smoke, or drink or eat to excess (unlike Henry VIII, he remained flat-bellied and athletic until his death), he did have one enormous vice: he loved, loved, loved women, and women loved him. Though he often made fun of his own appearance, he was by all reports incredibly attractive to the opposite sex. From high-born ladies to lowly milkmaids, women of every rank found him pretty near irresistible. It wasn’t just that he was king, either, or a matter of royal conquest by that good-sized scepter. Charles genuinely liked women, particularly clever, amusing women who could entertain them with their wit as well as in his bed, and they clearly returned the favor many times over. Many, many, many times.

No one knows the exact number of women Charles had sex with in his lifetime. It was not uncommon for him to call upon one mistress in the afternoon, visit his queen’s bed in the evening, frolic with another mistress after that, and then wind up the night at a brothel. The man famously required almost no sleep. In addition to his wife and queen, Catherine of Braganza, he kept three main mistresses over the course of his reign: Barbara Villiers Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland (she's there to the right), a hot-tempered, passionate lady that he’d first met in exile; Nell Gwyn, a common-born actress who entertained him with her impertinent wit; and Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth (to the left), a luscious French-born virgin sent as a gift (and a spy) to Charles by his cousin Louis XIV. These were the women rewarded with titles, houses, estates, incomes, and jewels, and political power. There were far more who only received the pleasure of the royal person, and perhaps a coin or two besides.

Unlike Henry VIII, Charles never sent any of his lovers to the chopping-block. Instead he managed the rare trick of remaining friends with his mistresses even after they’d ceased their mistress-ly obligations, and all of them evidently stayed in love with him. (Both Nell Gwyn and Louise de Keroualle remained faithful to his memory, for neither took another lover after his death –– though Louise outlived him by 50 years.) Even his homely little queen loved Charles dearly despite his raging infidelities, and though he was repeatedly urged to set her aside when she proved barren (shades of Henry!) he refused to shame her with a royal divorce.

The greatest irony of Charles’s reign is that while he sired fourteen natural children (!) that he acknowledged with titles, his queen never bore him a legitimate son and heir. While most of the noble families of Britain today can count Charles as an ancestor (Diana, Princess of Wales, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and Sarah, Duchess of York are only a few of his descendents) at his death in 1684, Charles’s crown passed to his incompetent brother James, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 followed soon after.

Of course Charles wasn’t perfect. He was often at odds with his Parliaments. His relative poverty as a king led him accept secret subsidies from the French, and his attempts at wars on the Continent were costly and unproductive. His Roman Catholic leanings were worrisome for the nominal head of the Anglican Church. His constant need for activity and his wandering inattention to detail would today probably be diagnosed as some form of ADD; his contemporaries simply called him lazy. Later historians, particularly the Victorians, were so repulsed by his promiscuity that they overlook his other qualities, and wrote instead of him “lolling idle” on his throne.

But to the people he ruled, Charles was their much-loved and very human king, and at his death the country was plunged into grief-stricken despair. If there had been political approval ratings in the 17th century, Charles’s would have been off the charts. He unified a country torn by civil war, restored its economy, and placed England firmly on the world stage. What’s a mistress or two compared to that?

Louise & Amber: One Portrait, Two Covers

Any reader with a sharp eye has noticed how often the same paintings or portraits appear on the covers of historical fiction. Since many of the most popular pictures are also personal favorites of mine (the wide-eyed young Emma, Lady Hamilton, as painted by George Romney in the late 18th century, has appeared on as many covers as a modern-day supermodel), I don’t really object –– though with so much beautiful art in the world, duplicating does seem unnecessary, if not out-and-out lazy.

But sometimes these duplications seem almost fitting. The painting on the cover of my next historical novel, The French Mistress, features a portrait of the real-life heroine, Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth (1649-1734.) Painted around 1673 by King Charles II’s official court portraitist, Sir Peter Lely, the picture is captures Louise at her most lusciously seductive. Louise sat for her portrait many, many times during her long life, and for many different painters, but I like this one the best, and I’m grateful that the art director at NAL/Penguin Books chose it for my cover.

They, however, were not the first art directors to chose Louise’s portrait for a cover. When Kathleen Winsor’s scandalous 1944 novel of Restoration England Forever Amber was reissued in 2000 by the Chicago Review Press in a handsome new edition, this same portrait of Louise graced the cover as a stand-in for the fictional Amber St. Clare.

While the real Louise would most likely have been horrified to be connected in any way to the notorious Amber (for although Louise was a royal mistress, she was first a high-born lady of a noble French family), I wasn’t. My first introduction to Restoration England –– 1660-1682 –– came by way of Amber’s lusty adventures. One long-ago summer in my early teens, I discovered a well-thumbed copy of Forever Amber in my local library, and the rest, as they say, is history, albeit history filtered through Amber’s breathlessly thrilling adventures and amours. I was completely hooked. While I've since moved on to reading original sources like Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, I'll always be indebted to Kathleen Winsor for that first introduction to a fascinating era.

It’s been a long time since I devoured Forever Amber, but it remains one of those books I’ve always remembered, and one that still holds the original spell it cast on my adolescent imagination. I’m both delighted and honored now to share cover art with Ms. Winsor. I also invite all those readers who, over the years, have enjoyed Forever Amber to try my own interpretation of the bawdy royal court of King Charles II and his mistresses: Royal Harlot : A Novel of the Countess of Castlemaine & King Charles II; The King’s Favorite: A Novel of Nell Gwyn & King Charles II; and, to be released on July 7, The French Mistress: A Novel of the Duchess of Portsmouth & King Charles II.

Duchess Sighting

Just as mothers can instantly pick their own children out in a crowded schoolyard, writers, too, are always quick to spot their book covers on store and library shelves. But on CNN?

Well, not quite the cover, but the cover art. Earlier this year, President and Mrs. Obama visited Her Majesty the Queen of England. While most American news coverage seemed breathlessly to concentrate on whether or not the First Lady broke with traditional protocol by daring to touch the queen's shoulder, I'd spotted something far more interesting. From the emails I received, astute readers of my books did, too. There in Buckingham Palace, directly behind Mrs. Obama, was the portrait of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, that graces the cover of my first historial novel, Duchess.

Three cheers for strong, intelligent women of every era and nationality!

Happy Plough Monday!

To most Englishmen and women living before the twentieth century came creeping in, Christmas was more of a holiday “season” than the modern one-day extravaganza, with many smaller, specialized celebrations spread out over two weeks.

One of these celebrations that has been largely forgotten is Plough Monday. Traditionally the first Monday after the Twelve Days of Christmas, Plough Monday represented the end of the holiday season in rural communities, and signaled the return to labor.

Like many holidays, this one began with religious roots. On the Sunday before Plough Monday, ploughmen would carry their ploughs into church for a blessing for the new year, a prayer for good crops, health, and prosperity. It’s similar to christening a new boat or pinning a bit of greenery to the cross-post of a newly framed house: an entirely human wish for a fresh start and good luck, a happy mixture of ancient pagan superstition and Christian ritual.

The day that followed –– Plough Monday –– was a whole different affair. This was pure pagan revelry and excess, more kin to Halloween than Christmas, and the last real holiday before the long, grim winter months. On Plough Monday, the newly-blessed plows would be festively decorated with ribbons, and the Plough-Boy or Plough-Bullock (the name varies) would carry your plough throughout the neighborhood, demanding pennies. Anyone foolish enough to ignore these demands had their yard or garden cheerfully ploughed into a muddy mess, an earlier form of t.p.’ing the house that gives bum candy to trick-or-treaters.

The collected pennies were contributed to a village-wide “frolic” later in the day. The frolic involved all kinds of foolery with the decorated ploughs as the centerpiece, from Molly-dancing to mummer’s plays to mock sword-fights to kissing games, overseen by a cross-dressing “queen” –– usually the most burly and unattractive man to be found in the village, and likely the one with the best sense of humor, too –– who was known as Bessy for the duration of his/her reign.

And, of course, there was drinking. Lots and lots and LOTS of drinking.

For more about traditional Plough Mondays, check out this entry from Chamber’s Book of Days. Published in 1879, it already has a little of the golden haze of the quaint past, but you’ll still get the idea. The early 19th century engravings illustrating this blog capture the spirit, too.

Personally, I think Plough Monday is a holiday worth reviving. Imagine all of us writers hauling our computers off to be blessed (probably not a bad idea) for the new year, and then dragging them from door to door as we asked for pennies for a big ol’ celebration of double-mocha-lattés at the nearest Starbuck’s. Surely writers crave our caffeine as much as any ploughmen did their John Barleycorn.

And Happy Plow Monday to you all!

Picturing Nell Gwyn

Once upon a time, before every last second of every other person’s life wasdocumented by way of a digital camera or cell-phone (at least every other person beneath a Certain Age), images were special. Before photography and daguerreotypes became widespread in the early 19th century, the overwhelming majority of people lived their entire lives without any sort of visual documentation. No photo-smiles, retouching, good sides or bad. One’s image was based entirely on the here and now, or memory.

Portraits belonged to the rich, the famous, and the infamous. Portraits were expensive, and the formal ones could take months, even years, to complete. Portraits celebrated beauty, rank, wealth, achievement, nobility, or notoriety, and did so for all posterity. Portraits could be viewed and venerated as stand-ins for the actual person, whether the king in a distant colonial outpost or a deceased dowager duchess respectfully added to the other ancestors in the family gallery.

Portraits also grace the covers of my historical novels. I’ve been phenomenally fortunate in my covers, which have each featured an actual portrait of my heroine. In the past, I’ve blogged about the portraits on the covers of Duchess and Royal Harlot, so it seems only fair that I write as well about the portrait of Nell Gwyn on the cover of my current novel, The King’s Favorite.

Those two earlier heroines –– Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland –– were both seventeenth century Ladies with a capital L, and as such they had their choice of the very best and most fashionable artists. They were painted grandly, lushly, extravagantly, with the trappings of their titles and wealth around them. (That's Sarah with her family to the right, and even the younger son is looking flawlessly aristocratic.)

Nell Gwyn was different. Nell was Common. True, she was a celebrity in an era that was just beginning to realize the concept, an immensely popular actress before she became a royal mistress. With her curly auburn hair, she wasn’t considered classically beautiful so much as charmingly pretty (what we’d now call “cute”), and her diminutive size (best modern guesses peg her at about 4’10”) made her an unlikely model for a goddess. She was gleefully unapologetic of her humble beginnings, and only affected grand airs to twit her betters.

But like many people who rise from poverty, Nell was acutely aware of the symbols of success. Although she could scarcely write her name, she made sure that all the silverware (and even many of the window panes) in her townhouse carried her monogram. Nell understood the importance of portraits. She wanted her beauty and success to be honored and preserved for future generations, but more importantly she wanted the notoriously unfaithful Charles to remember her now.

Nell sat for her portrait numerous times during her short life. She didn’t always have the most skilled painters (see the awkward effort to the right by Simon Verelst), and because of her background, she was often shown with one or both breasts bared. Her tiny stature makes her near-nude pose as Venus for Sir Peter Lely seem a little odd to modern eyes (and that's not to mention that weird vertical-futon-thingee she's lounging against), but Charles loved the picture so well that Nell had a copy of it painted for him to hang in his private quarters in the palace. The artists loved painting her as well; because of her great popularity, they could count on selling prints engraved after the original portrait.

The portrait of Nell by Sir Peter Lely on the cover of The King’s Favorite was painted and copied several times, too, and it’s unlikely that this version was the original. My cover is even further removed. For design purposes, my publisher asked for permission from the owners to reverse the painting, and to change the color of the gown from yellow to a more eye-catching red.

There’s another reason for the color change, too, the kind of weird coincidence that delights art historians. If you look back at the cover of Royal Harlot, you’ll see that Barbara is wearing the same yellow gown/blue cloak combination. And I mean the SAME gown and cloak. Because 17th century artists kept “costumes” (long swaths of rich fabric that could be pinned and clasped into a variety of vaguely classical styles) for posing in their studios, it’s very likely that both women are wearing the exact same length of yellow cloth pulled from Sir Peter’s wardrobe –– and I also imagine that Nell might have done so intentionally to irritate Barbara.

But in this painting meant as a gift for Charles, only Nell would have chosen to be painted in such a rural setting. She was Charles’s country mistress, his favorite companion on escapes from the London Court to Windsor Castle. She taught him to fish, and he tried to teach her to ride, and together they swam in the river and strolled through the fields and forests, and it’s likely she wished to remind the king of these balmy, happy days in her company. Her throat and ears bare of jewels and her hair carelessly tousled, she drapes a wreath of wildflowers around the neck of an adoring lamb who may (or may not) represent a besotted, tamed Charles himself.

What did Charles think? Ahh, for that you’ll just have to read The King’s Favorite, and find out for yourself.

Bagnigge Wells, Explained

Last fall, I wrote a blog called "Whither Bagnigge?" I'd recently written a scene (included in the blog) for The King's Favorite, which was set in a rural town called Bagnigge Wells, located on a branch of the Thames. As is sadly often the case, the rural resort of 1670 where Charles II went swimming with Nell Gwyn was soon after absorbed by London's sprawling growth, with even the river covered over and forgotten. I'd found plenty of references to the place in the past, but it was so long gone that it no longer appeared on any modern (or even 19th century) maps. I asked readers two questions: if they knew exactly where Bagnigge Wells might have been, and also, exactly how it would have been pronounced.

And now, some months later, I've heard from an English gentleman named Robert Mitchell who answered both questions, plus added a family photograph as well. His reply: "If you search for "gwynne place" on wikimedia commons you will find a photograph (shown here) that I have posted that might interest you. Bagnigge is pronounced "Bagg-nidge". The girl on the steps is probably my mum, though we'll never know for sure." Mr. Mitchell's great-grandfather was the landlord of the Bagnigge Wells public house, from whose window the photograph was taken in the early 1920s.

Thank you so much for sharing, Mr. Mitchell! And ain't the great wide world of the internet grand? *G*

Whither Bagnigge Wells

Writing novels set in the past presents its own special challenges. One of the hardest parts is determining exactly how much history you want or need to support your story, and then how much of your “writing time” to invest in research to support that history. Of course this varies from writer to writer, and from book to book, with results that vary from the most mundane “wallpaper history”, set in the indeterminate past where everyone has big houses and wears silk, to more thoughtful books with enough factual background to please a good university press.

I’m a self-proclaimed history nerd. I love history, and I love research, and I’m perfectly happy to wallow in original sources all the day long. This is much of the reason that I’ve shifted my writing from historical romance to historical fiction, where the characters are almost entirely based on historical figures and the plot is driven by fact. For me, that’s more-better-funner writing, about as good as a job can get. But all that lovely research can also become as sticky as the LaBrea Tar Pits, and suck up my time like so many wallowing mastodons.

Which is exactly what happened to me with Bagnigge Wells.

I know this sounds like I’m writing a Nancy Drew mystery (The Secret of the Bagnigge Wells). Actually, my WIP is a historical novel based on the life and times of 17th century actress and royal mistress Nell Gwyn (The King’s Favorite: A Novel of Nell Gwyn & King Charles II). Most of the book takes place in London, and a well-documented 17th century London at that, thanks to the writings of diarists Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, and a surprisingly large number of other surviving letters and journals.

There are many writers fortunate enough to be able to travel to the places their books are set, and be able to walk literally in the characters’ footsteps. Alas, I’m not one of them; I have two college-age children, and that puts a damper on research junkets to England. And, as I’ve also realized, many of the places I’d want to see no longer exist. Not only did the Great Fire of 1666 destroy much of Nell’s London, but another fire, later in the 17th century, claimed most of Charles’s Whitehall Palace, too. What remained of Restoration London has since been absorbed, knocked down, remodeled, bombed, renewed, and rebuilt by successive generations. I've no choice but to rely on the descriptions of others to create my interpretation of the past.

But back to Bagnigge Wells. In book after book about Nell, there are references made to her “summer house” on the Fleet, a bucolic retreat where she and Charles often went to swim, fish, and generally make mischief away from the court. I liked this, and I worked it into the story as the book evolved. I wrote along with some of those big **** in the middle of the scene, astrisks that mean Notes to Self, and are my way of saying, “come back here and put in more when you’ve researched it.”

So with my scene more or less written, I went back to fill in the blanks regarding Bagnigge Wells. Hah. To begin with, I found no mention of the place in my standard 17th diaries, journals, or references books. I figured it had to be within a day’s journey by water of the palace, but I couldn’t find it anywhere on any map, old or new. In fact, to my chagrin, I realized that the earliest mention of the place in connection with Nell was in a book published in 1878 (Old and New London by Walter Thornbury), which had been repeated as gospel in every successive book about Nell. Here’s the passage, in all its high Victorian splendor:

“Bagnigge Wells House was originally the summer residence of Nell Gwyn. Here, upon the Fleet and amid green fields, she entertained Charles and his saturnine brother with concerts and merry breakfasts, in the careless Bohemian way in which that noble specimen of divine right delighted.”

I probably should have tossed the whole scene then and there. Relying on the word of a historian writing more than two centuries after the fact isn’t generally a good idea. But the summer house on the Fleet was certainly plausible, and entirely probable, and besides, I liked the scene, and I didn’t want to give it up. It worked. And I just liked the word "Bagnigge", however it may be pronounced (anyone know for certain?)

And so back I went a-hunting.

What did I learn? That the reason I couldn’t find Bagnigge Wells on any map is that it no longer exists. For that matter, neither does the Fleet. The River Fleet was once one of the major rivers of London, running from its origins on Hampstead Heath, through Kings Cross and Clerkenwell, until it finally emptied into the Thames near Blackfriars.

Bagnigge Wells was located on the Fleet near St. Pancras. The site of two wells known for their healing properties, it may also have been the location of an earlier, abandoned religious order. In Nell’s time, the area was still surrounded by open fields, with only a single public-house (The Pindar of Wakefield) as a landmark, and the river was clear and clean, yet easily traveled back into the heart of London. It was also considered a place with strong royalist tendencies, filled with Charles’s supporters. In other words, the perfect place to escape the 17th century version of the paparazzi.

But as for those “telling details” that writers so cherish: nothing. Not a peep. Everything dealt with Bagnigge Wells in the 18th century, when the healing wells were developed, and the spot became fashionable with the “middling sort”, who came to take the waters, flirt, and play skittles. (To the left is a genre print of "The Bread and Buttery at Bagnigge") But by the early 19th century, the Wells were described as a ruin, with urban sprawl relentlessly approaching. Only the old Pindar had managed to continue the connection with Nell, with a chimney piece that featured the royal arms and a portrait-bust labeled “Eleanor Gwynne, a favorite of Charles II.)

The once-sparkling Fleet had become little better than an open sewer, and by the end of the 18th century, was completely arched over and built upon. The springs, too, vanished, and all that remains today are two streets in the area: Gwynne Place and Wells Street. (For more information, check out The River of Wells.)

I figure I spent the better part of a morning to learn all of this cool stuff, none of which was really of any use to me. In other words, if I wanted to put Nell and Charles at Bagnigge, I’d have to do so without specifics, and to rely more on my imagination than any hard fact. So this, then, is the sum of how Bagnigge Wells is described:

“I vow you can’t catch me, sir,” I taunted, raising my head from the river’s surface only enough so my lips would clear it. “Hey, ho, can’t catch me!”
I gulped as big a breath as I could and plunged deep into the water, swimming low so Charles wouldn’t spy me. Finally my lungs were burning and I could keep under no longer, and I popped up with a splatter, gasping. Swiftly I looked about me for Charles, shoving aside my tangled hair that clung to my face and breasts like duckweed.
All around me was still: the green riverbed, the willows trailing their feathery branches into the water, the few ducks already nesting for the night in the tall grass, their heads tucked demurely beneath their wings. The days were shorter now, making the sky that velvety blue that comes before true dusk, with stars just beginning to spark. The evening mist floated low over the fields beyond the river, softening the horizon. I could hear the first nightingale’s song over the rush of the water, and louder still the racing of my own heart. Our clothes lay where we’d left them on the grass, untidy piles of pale linen, and on top of Charles’s lay two of his piebald spaniels, curled contentedly, I suppose, in his scent. Not far beyond lay the shadowy shape of the house I’d hired for our use for the summer. . . .

That’s it. Was a morning of research to prove I’d have no hard facts worth that paragraph? Was this time I could ever justify well spent to my editor (if I ever had to do so, which, fortunately, writers seldom are called to do)? Or was that morning among my research books more a general refilling of my writerly imagination, whether it generated anything immediately useful? Could it just be chalked up to…fun?

Whether this works (or whither the Wells) remains to be seen, at least until next summer, when The King’s Favorite will be released. But here’s a question for now: do you think you can tell when a writer has enjoyed writing a book? Can you sense if the book was a joy, or a trial? Have you ever read books that in some intangible way felt as if the writer had written under pressure (health, family, financial, or simply an idea that had ceased to be magical), or one that felt so right that the words must have flown from the keyboard?

This Noisy Old World

Writers and noise are not a good combination. While some of us write to carefully chosen music and others prefer as much peaceable silence as is possible, no writer enjoys the general racket of modern life. Nothing can wither a perfectly good visit from a Muse faster than a monstrous trash truck, working its thumping and crashing way up the street. Teenagers cranking up rap music, weed-whackers and power-washers, high-decibel fire sirens and low-flying aircraft, all play havoc with writerly concentration.

And there’s at least one Wench (who, me?) who has been known to charge outside in her bathrobe to confront mystified lawn-crews with leaf-blowers about their misguided commitment to blast every last blade of new-mown grass to ear-splitting oblivion.

Modern folk like to think of this general din as one of the banes of contemporary life, another of our special crosses to bear for being so technologically advanced. “Noise pollution”, we call it, a splendidly polysyllabic term for something our more peaceful great-grandparents wouldn’t recognize.

Ah, but we history-geeks know otherwise. The past –– especially the urban past –– was one noisy place. True, the noises were a very different sort, but the distraction was there just the same. A famous 18th century illustration by William Hogarth called “The Enraged Musician” shows an earlier creative-type, pitifully tormented by the sounds of the London street outside his open window.

I’ve always tried hard to incorporate sound into my writing, one more way to evoke the past. Yet it seems my imagination has fallen far short of reality. I’ve just discovered a splendid new non-history book (oh, be still my history-nerd heart!) called Hubbub : Filth, Noise, & Stench in England, 1600-1770 by Emily Cockayne (Yale University Press, 2007).

This is not history for the faint of heart, or the weak of stomach, either. (All the following examples and quotes come from Hubbub.) Stuart & Georgian Londoners would have had to contend with constant traffic noise: metal-bound wheels and shod horses against paving stones, squeaking, creaking wagons and carriages, trumpets to herald arrivals and departures of coaches, and the bellowed oaths of drivers and footmen. Traffic noise was so bad that by the late 18th century, city churches and court houses were being designed without windows on the street levels in an attempt to quiet the spaces within.

Each morning terrified livestock was herded through the streets to market and slaughter, but hundreds of other unneutered animals ran wild through the city: stray dogs, spit dogs, and family pets alike played and barked and fought. Squabbling cats were also everywhere. So were goats and squealing pigs, and even city-dwellers were awakened by roosters before dawn. Early morning was also the time when the dog-skinners (I cannot begin to fathom a market for dog-skins, but then our ancestors were far more unsentimentally resourceful than we) were chasing down yelping strays.

Peddlers and vendors of every kind shouted their wares, striving to outdo one another. Apparently the pleasing sing-song cries of legend often degenerated into wordless roars. Milk-sellers were particularly known for their shrillness, and the writer Joseph Addison noted one seller who became infamous for her “inarticulate scream.” There were also frequent noisy brawls between vendors over sales turf, fights that were encouraged as free sport by cheering spectators.

Scores of church bells in the city rang for services, deaths, fires, and celebrations, and to tell the time. Street musicians played fiddles, whistles, flutes, and hurdy-gurdys, or simply sang; a loud, piercing voice was highly prized. Puppet shows, jugglers, acrobats, and other street performers added another layer of sound. Trumpets and drums were used to “drum up” an audience, and were also employed by the recruitment officers for the navy and the army outside of taverns. Politicians, charlatans, and itinerant preachers alike made impromptu speeches on street-corners and from balconies and windows.

Land and real estate was valuable, and most houses for rich and poor alike shared common walls. Without the muffle of 21st century curtains, sound-proof tiles, or wall-to-wall carpeting, voices echoed freely in most rooms and into the next. Add to that the open windows (before modern houses became so hermetically sealed for “climate control”), and there wouldn’t have been many secrets left between neighbors.

London was a growing city, and the sounds of construction were everywhere: hammering and sawing carpenters and roofers may not have had high-pitched power-tools, but they still contributed their share of noise. Other trades that involved striking like blacksmiths, masons, tinsmiths, coopers and coppersmiths added the clanging sounds of hammers on metal, while the rumbling grinding of mill-wheels was literally so deafening that the stereotypical miller had lost his hearing entirely.

The “great guns” (cannons) near the Tower of London were fired to celebrate royal births, weddings, victories, and other holidays. Shooting off muskets was a more common “noisemaker” that needed little excuse, and grand displays of fireworks (from the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall and Ranleigh as well as for civic displays) routinely exploded into the night sky over the city. More ominously, the broadsides exchanged at sea between the Dutch and English ships during the Dutch wars of the late 17th century were so loud that they could clearly be heard like distant thunder in London.

Things weren’t much quieter after dark, either. Watchmen with rattles or bells cried the hour throughout the night. “I start every hour from my sleep,” complained one visitor, “at the horrid noise of the watchmen bawling the hour through every street, and thundering at every door; a set of useless fellows, who serve no other purpose but that of disturbing the repose of the inhabitants.” Curfews were often created, and seldom enforced.

And in a city full of ale-houses, rumshops, and taverns that were serving customers well past midnight, those celebrants stumbling home in the wee hours contributed to the noise, too. “Great hallowing and whooping in the Fields,” noted one sleep-deprived gentleman, “by such Persons who have spent the Day Abroad, and are now returning home Drunk.”

Relative peace doesn’t seem to have arrived until three or so in the morning, when the “Whores, Bullies, and Thieves have retir’d to their Apartments; noisy drunken Mechanicks are got to their Lodgings; Coachmen, Watermen, and Soldiers are mostly asleep.” But by then, it’s not long until dawn, when the markets and trades come back to exuberant life, and begin the whole day’s cycle all over again.

You know, maybe those leaf blowers aren’t so very bad after all . . . .

Beauty & the Barbara

Since I’ve begun writing historical fiction, I’ve crossed over into a writing-world where nearly ALL the characters are based on real people. I won’t go into every one of the challenges of that kind of research in this blog; I’ll save that for another day. But to my surprise, one of the unexpected ones was having the appearances –– the “beauty”, as it were –– of those characters already determined for you by their portraits. And that beauty doesn’t always agree with contemporary conventions.

Just as most modern-day professional beauties –– fashion models and Hollywood actresses –– would have found little favor in a past that favored the more lushly appointed, it can be hard to look at three-hundred-year-old portraits with modern eyes and see the same thing. My next book, ROYAL HARLOT, is a fictionalized biography of Barbara Villiers Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland. She was the most prominent mistress of King Charles II, and one of the baddest bad-girls in English history, which makes for a most entertaining heroine, if not perhaps the best girlfriend you’d call in a pinch. Barbara was universally regarded by her contemporaries as the most beautiful woman in 17th century England. Crowds would gather wherever she went, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Every head would turn when she entered her box at the theatre, and even happily-wed diarist Samuel Pepys made a point of walking by her house on laundry-day, just so he could see her lace-trimmed smocks hung out to dry and fantasize like mad.

Like most famous beauties of the past, Barbara was painted repeatedly, and her portraits by Sir Peter Lily are among the most enduring “images” of the Restoration. But her beauty hasn’t traveled well through the centuries. Sure, Alexander Pope wrote “Lely on animated Canvas stole/the sleepy Eye that spoke the melting soul”, but today those bedroom-eyes look, well, kind of burned-out and druggy, and the double-chins that were so celebrated among Restoration beauties seem matronly –– especially considering that most of these paintings were done before Barbara’s thirtieth birthday.

As a history-nerd, this didn’t bother me. I am up to the challenge. But the marketing folks at my publisher were scared to death, and as a result you won’t find Barbara’s face on the cover when the book hits stores on July 3. Instead we’ll be counting on readers to supply their own mental image of what the most beautiful woman in England looked like –– even if it’s not close to the 17th century truth.

Frost Fairs

Here in Pennsylvania, the temperature hasn’t risen above freezing for entire month of February and most of March as well, with a good sloppy six inches of freezing sleet last Friday. Is it any wonder, then, that my thoughts have gone back to the great Frost Fairs on the frozen Thames?

From roughly 1500 to 1850, northern Europe suffered through what modern historians call the “Little Ice Age”, with much cooler summers and frigid winters. Such dramatic shifts in climate led to everything from famines to wars, but also to less consequential events, like the Thames (the river that flows through the heart of London) freezing solid. Before the river was closed in by 19th century embankments and diverted by bridges, the depth was more shallow and the current less swift, letting the deep-freeze take hold.

There were numerous times from 1434 onward when the river froze solid enough to be crossed by horses and wagons, but the first organized Frost Fair wasn’t until the winter of 1564-65, featuring archery contests, feasts, and dancing. The Fair of 1607 is the one featured in the novel Orlando by Virginia Woolf. The two most famous Fairs are the one of 1684 (the longest-lasting, and the one that’s featured in DUCHESS) and 1814 (the largest and the last.)

London during Charles II’s reign was marked by greatness: the Great Plague, the Great Fire, and one kickin’ Frost Fair. From December 1683 until February 1684, the Thames was frozen so solid that not only could men walk safely across its surface, but carts, sleighs, and horses as well.

Like any such phenomenon, the frozen river could be viewed in several ways. Those of a stern Puritanical bent (Cromwell’s time was still less than a generation in the past.) worried that it must be some sign of God’s displeasure with hedonistic London and England in general. Others who were already embracing the interest in science and nature that came with the Age of Enlightenment saw the frozen river as an amazing wonder worthy of scholarly study.

A caption from a contemporary print mirrors the concern that also came with such a harsh winter, and sounds suspiciously like Al Gore filtered through the 17th century:
Though such unusual Frosts to us are strange,
Perhaps it may predict some greater Change:
And some do fear may a fore-runner be
Of an approaching sad Mortality.

But for most Londoners, the frozen river and the Frost Fair on it was mainly one more excuse to party, and to extend the amusements of the Christmas season a little longer.

There was much to entertain visitors all day and well into the night, from bear-baiting to wrestling matches to horse-races, with the horses shod with special spiked shoes. Musicians played, rope-dancers danced, and Punch and Judy walloped away at each other. Many tried the newly imported Dutch sport of sliding in skeets (ice skates), or bought everything from toys to snuff boxes at the two “streets” of shops. Of course King Charles, never one to miss out on a good time, attended with his courtiers.

Like every good popular event, refreshment sellers did a brisk business. An entire ox was roasted near the Hungerford Stairs, but other kinds of roast and stewed meats were offered as well: duck, goose, rabbit, capon, hen, and turkey were all listed as for sale. Visitors could buy coffee, tea, and chocolate, as well as beer, ale, brandy, and sack (one temporary tavern at the Fair went by the elegant name of The Flying Piss-pot), as well as pancakes, sweets, and cakes. After dark, things got wilder, as they usually do when so much imbibing is involved: “And some do say, a giddy senseless Ass/May on the frozen THAMES be furnish’d with a Lass.”

One enterprising printer set up his press on the ice and, for a small fee, would print visitor’s names. As diarist John Evelyn noted: “People and ladies took a fancy to have their names printed…this humor took so universally that it was estimated the printer gained £5 a day, for printing a line only, at sixpence a name.”

The river remained frozen for three months, but everyone knew the fun had to end. Still, when at last the ice began to break up one night in February, the cracking was so thunderously loud that Londoners leaped from their beds and ran into the streets in terror, convinced that the city was being attacked by invading French guns.

This is the Frost Fair I used as a setting in DUCHESS. Sarah Churchill and her friend Anne, then Princess of Denmark, leave the stuffiness of the palace to go riding in a sleigh along the frozen Thames –– one of the few rare places where they are able to speak freely without fear of being overheard. Even swaddled in furs and hooded cloaks, it would have made for an entertaining and exhilarating trip.

Lady Day & Other Lost Holidays

Holidays have taken it hard in the last decade or so. Used to be, a glimpse at the windows of any elementary school could tell you the season: construction paper ghosts and witches meant Halloween, angels and Santas heralded Christmas, red hearts promised Valentine’s Day, and the eggs and bunnies appeared for Easter.

But political correction has taken its toll. Witches and ghosts are banned as promoting satanic sympathies, Christmas angels and Easter bunnies are too Christian to be tolerated, and Valentine’s Day is banned for raising the ugly possibility that some people really are loved more than others. Nativity scenes are banned from public places, and in the spirit of equal (negative) time, so are the giant menorahs. According to my friends with children in New York City schools, the students are so culturally diverse these days that the school system’s given up trying to sort out Christmas, Hanukah, and Kwanza, and the only mandated celebration now is Winter Solstice.

Secular holidays haven’t fared much better. We used to celebrate the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; now they’re jumbled today in a single three-day weekend marked by ski trips and lots of sales at the mall. In many offices, Martin Luther King Day falls under the “day of personal observation”, an employee’s choice. Even the Fourth of July is under attack, with many lobbying for making it a permanent long weekend regardless of whether it’s the second, third, or fifth of July.

Writing books set in the past means that your characters celebrate holidays often now long forgotten. As we’ve mentioned here before, Twelfth Night was a more festive celebration in 17th and 18th century England than Christmas. Most holidays still remained close to their religious beginnings as holy days.

In my July book, Royal Harlot, King Charles II and his Court enjoy a grand masque celebrating the February holiday of Candlemas in 1665. Ostensibly a Christian holy day, Candlemas marks the purification of the Virgin Mary and the first presentation of the infant Jesus Christ to the elders in the Temple. But in the way that those in power today can never resist turning almost anything into a good photo op, so Charles had decreed that the allegorical theme of the Candlemas Day masque would show how the various enemies of England should be righteously vanquished –– thinly disguised propaganda to build support for Charles to wage war on the Dutch.

Just as the king used the Candlemas masque for propaganda, his mistress (and my heroine) Barbara, Countes of Castlemaine, saw it as an opportunity to flaunt her own position. Seventeenth century court masques were a mixture of lavish display, music, and amateur theatrics that permitted the courtier to show off their “talents” and wear nifty costumes. Playing the part of Venus urging Mars to war, Lady Castlemaine’s costume included scandalously short men’s breeches (the Restoration version of Daisy Dukes) to display her long legs, and nearly every jewel the king had given her. The king was enchanted, the queen was put out, war was declared on the Dutch soon after, and what any of this had to do with the infant Jesus and the elders in the Temple is pretty hard to fathom.

Which brings me, finally, to Lady Day. Lady Day is another Christian holiday turned secular. Originally the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, Lady Day was intended to honor the Virgin Mary –– the Lady. In Britain, it also became one of the Quarter Days (the other four are Midsummer Day, Michaelmas Day, and, of course, Christmas Day) when new servants were hired and rents and rates were paid.

Until 1752, when England shifted from the Julian Calendar to the Georgian, Lady Day also marked the start of the “official” year, rather like the modern American business year begins on July 1. According to the folks at Wikipedia, a vestige of the traditional rent-paying on Lady Day still lingers in the United Kingdom, where tax day is April 6 –– Lady Day adjusted for the days lost in the calendar change in 1752.
More on Lady Day

The Godolphin Barb

Upper-class England was really a very small world during the lifetime of John and Sarah Churchill. A reader recently asked me if the Godolphin family mentioned in DUCHESS is the same one for whom the famous thoroughbred was named.

In fact the horse is named after Francis, the second earl. (Researching this brought back all sorts of very distant memories of Marguerite Henry “horse books” that I read as a child, where the horses were always heroic and noble. ) The Godolphin Barb was first a diplomatic gift to Louis XV from an Arab prince. Scorned as too small, the stallion demoted to a cart-horse in Paris, rescued by a English Quaker horse-lover, and eventually sold to the country stud of Francis Godolphin. There he became one of the “big three” founding fathers of modern thoroughbred horses, his qualities still much prized in racing bloodlines three hundred years later. This is his portrait, elegantly painted by George Stubbs.

Every English gentleman (including John, as well as King Charles and King James) aspired to having a noteworthy stable of horses, but very few were so lucky in their stallions as Francis Godolphin!

Twelfth Night in the Manner of Samuel Pepys

Twelfth Night slips by virtually unnoticed here in modern-day America, but it was an important holiday in the past. No one in Restoration London enjoyed a good holiday quite as much as Samuel Pepys, so it seems most fitting to discuss Twelfth Night as he experienced it. He’s over there to the right, wearing the stylish Indian gown he hired especially for this portrait by John Hayls (now in the National Portrait Gallery, London), and trying very hard to look as haughtily genteel and handsome as he wished he truly could have been.

For those of you firmly ensconced in other eras, Samuel Pepys was a minor administrator in the Naval Office under Lord Sandwich in the 1660s, following Charles II’s return to the throne after Cromwell’s death. Pepys would be completely forgotten today if not for the fact that he kept a relentlessly detailed daily diary that has miraculously survived. Intended for his own eyes and no others (he wrote in a personal shorthand code), he describes not only momentous events in London like the Plague and the Great Fire, but also what he ate, what he wore, where he shopped, how he scolded his servants and loved his wife, and also how he celebrated Twelfth Night.

For example, in 1661, Samuel noted that Twelfth Night was celebrated on the seventh of January, not the traditional sixth. The sixth that year fell on a Sunday, an inconvenient Sabbath for drinking and carousing, and so the celebration was shifted a day, much like Americans today casually move the Fourth of July to the fifth to make a three-day weekend.

In the 17th century, Twelfth Night was the day for taking down the evergreen boughs that had been put up as decorations on Christmas Eve. Before this was done, silly songs were sung, dances danced, and games like Blind Man’s Bluff played by children, and by adults who’d drunk a sufficient amount of wine to make this entertaining. Samuel liked to make this a special night for his friends by hiring a fiddler for singing and dancing, and making sure there were “good fires and candles” in his house.

In 1663, he celebrated by taking his wife to the theatre: “after dinner went to the Duke’s house, and there saw Twelfth Night acted well, though it be but a silly play, and not related at all to the name or day.” Perhaps he can be forgiven for this; Cromwell’s Puritans had shuttered the theatres for twenty years, and even Shakespeare was still a novelty to be rediscovered by Samuel’s generation.

His celebration was more subdued in 1662, when he was a guest at the house of Admiral Sir William Penn (the father of the founder of Pennsylvania): “a merry fellow and pretty good natured, and sings loose songs.” Alas, there were no “loose songs” that night, “it being a solemn feast day with [Sir William], his wedding day, and we had a good chine of beef and other good cheer, besides eighteen mince pies. . . the number of the years he hath been married.”

Eighteen mince pies sounds formidable, but even that appears to have paled besides the traditional Twelfth Night cake. In 1668, Samuel spent twenty shillings for the ingredients alone for this cake (which in a time when common servants and laborers had annual incomes of four to six pounds, made for a costly cake indeed.) Twelfth Night cakes were large, dense fruitcakes, with a pea and a bean baked inside. Whichever guests found these in their pieces were named the King and Queen of the evening, and had the right to order everyone else around, apparently to high hilarity, until the party finally broke up at nearly dawn.

(For anyone who’d like to try to replicate such a grand cake, here’s the link to the recipe offered by 18th century cook Hannah Glasse on the Colonial Williamsburg website. If you're fortunate, your finished cake should look something like the one at left.)

But in addition to the usual heavy drinking of all Restoration celebrations, it was Twelfth Night, rather than New Year’s Day, that was the time for reflection and resolutions. Though Samuel made his nearly 350 years ago, they sound suspiciously similar to the resolutions I'll make for myself today (except, of course, no one in the Restoration worried too much about eating less and exercising more): “This night making an end wholly of Christmas, with a mind fully satisfied with the great pleasures we have had by being abroad from home. . . that it is high time to betake myself to my late vows, which I will tomorrow, God willing, perfect and bind myself to. . . that I may. . . increase my good name and esteem in the world, and get money, which sweetens all things, and whereof I have much need. So home to supper and to bed, blessing God for his mercy to bring me home after much pleasure, to my wife and house and business with health and resolution to fall hard to work again.”