GEORGIAN OUTRAGE!

BRITISH HISTORIAN EMILY BRAND has a keen sense of humor—make that “humour”—in BBC History, September 2023. She shares “The scandals of the gossip-hungry Georgian era” in a modern Brit format. What fun!

Here are juicy tidbits of several. 

King’s Randy Brother Weds Widowed Commoner! “In November 1771,” Emily Brand reports, “Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn, handed his brother, George III, a note. In it he confessed his marriage to a young widow, Anne Horton (née Luttrell), in a secret ceremony.” 

And you think Queen Elizabeth’s year 1992 was an Annus Horribilis.

Brand continues, “Wedding prints were published in The Ladies Magazine, and letters alleged details of Anne’s disreputable father and ‘eye-lashes a yard long.’ ”

Anne Horton (of the yard-long eye lashes) and Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn.

Zounds!

Cock Lane Ghost Sparks Holy Bust-Up! “In January 1762,” Brand recounts, “word spread around London that a man had been accused of murder—with the finger being pointed at him from beyond the grave.” 

The tale continues: “Investigating a series of seemingly supernatural knocks only made in the presence of Richard Parson’s young daughter, Elizabeth, an excited Methodist preacher established communication. He ascertained that the ‘ghost’ was Fanny, the recently deceased mistress of Parson’s former lodger, William Kent—who was accused by the phantom of her murder by arsenic poisoning.”

“Some of society’s highest fliers”, BBC History reports, “including Samuel Johnson and the Duke of York, fell for the Cock Lane hoax. This c1762 print, English Credulity or the Invisible Ghost, lampoons their naivety.”

The key, of course, to the hoax was the requirement of Elizabeth’s presence in the matter: “… Elizabeth was discovered to have made the noises by scratching at bits of wood hidden in her bedsheets—on the order of her father, who had sought revenge on Kent over a disputed debt.” 

Gad, the tale continues: The hoax delivered a blow to the reputation of the “more superstitious Methodism against ‘rational’ Anglican thought.” Other impostures included a kid who “faked demonic possession to avoid school, and the 1720’s woman who appeared to give birth to rabbits.” 

Now that would be an attention-grabbing headline. I recall the time I bought one of those supermarket-checkout tabloids. Its headline read “Machine Lets You Talk to the Dead! Build Your Own. Instructions Inside.” 

Was I hoaxed?

Royal Ruckus!! Hypocrite King George IV Brands Queen a Cheat. “Witnesses spilled damning details,” Brand recounts, “of Caroline Bathing with her Italian lover.” 

An Italian yet!

“In August 1820,” Brand continues, “the sensational trial of Queen Caroline, estranged wife of newly minted George IV, dominated the news. After 25 years of unhappy marriage—15 of which had been blighted by very public mud-slinging about promiscuity and infidelities on both sides—she stood formally accused of adultery.” 

“For some,” Brand notes, “the case was entwined with women’s rights. ‘Poor woman,’ Jane Austin had observed as early as 1813, ‘I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a woman, and because I hate her husband.” 

SimanaitisSays has always liked Caroline, sorta. Certainly her Villa d’Este digs on Lago di Como. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2023