Getting Married With the Fashionable Set

Welcome to Annie Burrows, author of The Viscount and the Virgin, the fifth in the Regency Silk & Scandal continuity, out this month.

Annie has set a wedding scene that is romantic and yet laugh-out-loud funny in that most fashionable of churches for Regency weddings, St George's Hanover Square. Over to you, Annie -

St George’s church in George Street, just south of Hanover Square has long been a coveted venue for society weddings, both in fact and in fiction. Since I gave the hero of my latest book, “The Viscount and the Virgin” a house in Hanover Square, it was the obvious place for him to get married, too!

In order to be able to give an accurate description of the interior of the church, for the wedding scene, and to be able to stage the action outside convincingly, I needed to find out quite a bit about the appearance of the church, as it would have been in early spring of 1815. Since the church still stands today, and is still in use as place of worship, I was lucky enough to be able to visit their website.

St George’s became such a sought after venue for marriage, because of where it is located, right in the heart of the most fashionable part of London. London had grown rapidly during the eighteenth century, engulfing the surrounding villages and farmlands. Though the merchants and tradesmen tended to live and work as close to the centre as possible, the nobility and gentry moved westwards. Hanover Square was the first of the West End squares to be built, between 1716 and 1720. In 1711, Parliament had passed an act for the building of fifty new churches “in the Cities of London and Westminster or the Suburbs thereof”, to provide for the spiritual needs of those who dwelt in the new districts. Money to pay for the churches was to be raised by a tax levied on coal. The new inhabitants of Hanover Square successfully petitioned the Commissioners for Building New Churches for a convenient place of worship. General the Hon. William Stuart, Queen Anne’s Commander-in-chief in Ireland, offered a plot of land at the nearby junction of Maddox Street and George Street, and the contract for its design was awarded to John James, on the condition that it should cost no more than £10,000.

Compared with other churches of this period, St George’s is rather plain. James may have been influenced by his early contact with Sir Christopher Wren, under whom he served an apprenticeship. Wren thought visibility and audibility were of paramount importance when designing Anglican churches. James is certainly quoted as saying, “the Beautys of Architecture may consist with the greatest plainness of the Structure.”

St George’s is bounded on three sides by busy streets, and on the fourth by a narrow passage. There is no large churchyard to enable people to admire the building from any great distance, but James managed to make the west frontage look sufficiently imposing by having a portico jutting into the street. The pediment is supported by six great Corinthian columns, which I found extremely useful as a place of concealment for Stephano, the villain who turns up to try and wreck my heroine’s wedding.

In the 1870’s changes were made to the interior, but I did manage to find a sketch made of a wedding which took place in 1840, which shows the original box pews, the upper galleries on three sides, the canopy over the pulpit, and the huge, “double decker” reading desk to the left of the altar, which helped me describe the action which took place in the interior.

Only thirty wedding ceremonies took place in St. George’s first year, but numbers steadily increased until by 1816, which was a record year, there were one thousand and sixty three, nine of which were carried out on Christmas Day.

Joseph Grimaldi, the famous actor and clown married there in 1798. And again, in 1802! (After his first wife died.) The poet Shelley married Harriet Westbrook there on March 24th 1814, the novelist George Eliot (real name Mary Anne Evans Lewes) married John Walter Cross there in 1880, and on December 2nd, 1886, the politician Theodore Roosevelt, the future president of the United States, married Edith Carow.

Since the church was in the heart of fashionable London, many famous people must have attended services there as a matter of course. But the parishioner I was most fascinated to read about, was George Frederick Handel. He came to live in Brook Street in 1724, just before the church was consecrated, and was consulted about the suitability of the organ. He provided a piece of music to test the powers of the candidates for the post of organist, had a pew in the church, and was, apparently, a regular worshipper there. Handel became a British citizen in 1726, and it was in his house in Brook Street that he composed the “Messiah”.

I think any organist must have been extremely nervous about performing with such an outstanding musician in the congregation!

Russian Marriage

Last week, I was guest blogging on Risky Regencies about the research I’d done for the Aikenhead Honours trilogy, and especially for the first book, inspired by the real-life adventures of Nadezdha Durova, the cavalry maiden. Here she is:
If you’ve read His Cavalry Lady, you’ll know that it contains a Russian wedding. Sadly, it just wasn’t possible to describe it in detail, but here’s a description from the journals of the Wilmot sisters, dating from 1803-1808.

First, the wedding of nobles:

“In the morning I went accompanied by Princess Anne Simonovna and the 2 Mlles Kotchetoffs to see General Loptoff’s wedding with the Princess Gallitzen, as I had never seen a noble’s wedding in Russia. We went to the church at 12 o’clock and soon after arrived the Bridegroom in full dress. The Bride followed half an hour later, dressed in Lace, satin, a bandeau of diamonds, and diamond earrings. Their rings were exchanged three times; they sipped three times the wine, emblematic of sharing equally the joys or sorrows of life, they wore the Nuptial Crowns, and were led three times round the altar. The Priest then read a sort of exhortation or sermon, and that’s all. The bride was not veiled as peasants are, nor is a noble’s wedding so interesting as a peasant’s. There was a good number of persons in church. After having congratulated the bridals we returned home. By the bye General Loptoff quitted the Church before his lady.”
[The picture shows the cathedral of St Nicholas]

Then the arranged wedding of peasants (though not, as you’ll see, poor peasants):

“The first interview between a young man and woman destined for each other by their parents … always takes place during the dead of the night that no creature except the two families immediately concerned may know anything of the matter, as if it happened that the man refused on seeing her to marry the woman chosen for him, no other would marry her during her life. This however rarely happens as the fathers are very arbitrary. As for the young women they are disposed of without a question on the subject and being kept close prisoners literally till they are married. 'Tis no great wonder if they accept anything that’s offered having nothing better to compare and give a preference to; besides their marriage releases them from a confinement which they grumble against most bitterly. This first interview fixes the fate of the young woman looked at, as they call it, but the supposed first interview in presence of all the relations on both sides takes place some days after, during which time the father of the bride-elect sends a list of what gowns, petticoats, pearls, diamonds, linen, plate etc he intends to give with his daughter to the bridegroom-elect, who frequently expostulates on the scantiness or bad taste of the goods, naming what pleases him better. When the assembly of relatives takes place and the matchmaker, the young man begs this most essential personage to ask for such a young woman by name in a profound whisper; she does so; he is then permitted to touch her hand. From that moment they are considered man and wife. The arrangements for the ceremony are public and all’s said. There is no difference in the religion of this class of persons from that of the noblesse.”

Jewels, especially diamonds, figure a lot in accounts of noble life and dress, and not only at weddings. This is the jewel I had in mind in His Cavalry Lady when I was describing Alex’s visit to the Hermitage in St Petersburg (shown at the top of this post).

Alex thinks it’s hideous. What do you think?

However, since it's April and the second book of the Aikenhead Honours trilogy is out in the USA and Canada, I should probably be blogging here about His Reluctant Mistress and Vienna, plus all the amazing celebrations that took place during the months of the Congress of Vienna.

Reading a diary of the event kept by a local bureaucrat was very interesting. In the first weeks, he recorded absolutely everything that happened down to the last detail. By Christmas, he appears to have become bored out of his mind. He recorded only unusual events, and not even all of those. He was more concerned about the huge inflation in Vienna and the fact that his pay wasn't enough to cover food and heating. In fact, the Austrian Emperor had to give all his staff a pay rise. No wonder he was nearly bankrupt!

In the Riskies blog last week, I commented on the special napkin folding which was used at the Austrian Imperial court, but only when the Imperial family was present. Nowadays, it's is used only when the President of Austria hosts a state dinner, apparently. What's more, the secret of the elaborate folding is known only to two people at any one time. It's a state secret that goes with the job.

You may think such a thing would be easy to fathom. I did, until I looked at it. Here it is so you can decide for yourself. Are there any origami specialists out there who think they can replicate this from a single damask napkin? Looks like a very daunting piece of reverse engineering to me, but you may know better?


Joanna

Late PS: I have just discovered that I've been giving you the wrong date for UK paperback publication of His Forbidden Liaison, book 3 of the Aikenhead Honours trilogy. It's not July. It's September 2009. (The hardback will be out in July.) Many, many apologies to UK readers who have been misled and who will have to wait even longer. Grovelling apologies to all.