Uther Pendragon: Blog

In my last Regency story, a reader commented that the idea of an entailed estate was new to him.

The beginning of understanding of the idea is to understand the inheritance of a title. It goes to the oldest son of the oldest son of the . . . oldest son of the man who earned the title.

As long as there is somebody in direct male descent of the person who earned the title, it goes on.

The title holder may have no living sons but a favorite nephew or grandson. The title, however, can go to some fourth cousin once removed whom the title-holder does not know or even dislikes.

If the original holder of the title has a lot of property, and seldom is a title given to someone who doesn't, then he can leave that property as an entailed estate so that it goes to the title-holder even if the title goes to the grandson of a second son.

Other entails were set up, however, for men who didn't have a title to leave with them.

The heroine's father in Pride and Prejudice had an entailed estate. Since he had only daughters, his heir was nearly a stranger.

Since the estate could not be removed from the line, it could not be sold. The current holder was only entitled to the income from this property. (And it could not be mortgaged, obviously.)

So far, this is what I know. I have some guesses, though.

I think this encouraged two very different sorts of property which are peculiarly English.

The one is farms. A great deal of English agriculture is (and more was in Regency days) on land which is owned by a major aristocrat, who rents it out to a farmer who hires a bunch of laborers to do the actual work. This has peculiar advantages to owners who can rent out property but not sell it.

Another is the peculiarly British government debt which is called a consol. This is a bond which is never redeemed but pays interest in perpetuity.

Now, consols were bought and sold by individuals back then; they even had a market price. Still, you can see the advantage to putting an entail into consols over putting it into a bond which came due in so many years. (Consols were invented from an entirely-different government need, I merely attribute the market for them until the British public took them for granted to the entails which found them attractive.)

I'm not participating in this year's Halloween contest.

I have written several stories that fit the holiday, though. The first 2 occur on Halloween, and the last 3 involve the sort of magic that seems appropriate for the day.

Occur on Halloween:

His Favorite Day

Hold That Thought

Involve Magic

Bottle

Virgin Rock

The Price and the Cost

Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain briefly, barely escaped from some British troops. They did capture his carriage and loot -- including his gold chamber pot.

The regiment kept the chamber pot, and they became known as "The Emperor's Chambermaids." After all, who would be holding the chamber pot but a chambermaid?

As a matter of fact, chambermaids had 2 major tasks in Regency days. They emptied the chamber pots, and they built the fires. (They also made the beds, but that was a minor task performed while the lords and ladies were out of their rooms.)

A log fire in the fireplace was set up and then lit an hour or more before the occupant was expected to go to bed. There was no central heat, and a fire took some time t get the room warm. Early in the morning, the fire had to be built and lit again, long before the occupant would awake, so that the room was warm enough to get out of bed.

Neither a gentleman nor a gentlewoman could dress himself/herself for a formal occasion.

A woman's corset was tied in the back, and sometimes her dress needed to be closed in the back, as well. A gentlewoman could not dress without a lady's maid. Few upper-level gentlewomen ever tried.

If a man's boots fit, then they needed another to take them off and -- probably -- to put them on. Anyone could remove a cravat, but a starched cravat would need to be starched again before it was worn again. It required a trained servant to put it on.

There were also parlor maids who took care of the public rooms and footmen who took care of any duties their masters assigned them. While there was an actual governmental post by the Regency, generally a noble in London would send any message to another in London via his footman.

The butler was officially the man who took care of the wine cellar. He came to be the officer of the house servants, which did not put him ahead of the personal servants.

The kitchen was another domain. The Butler was senior to the housekeeper, who was senior to the cook, but these were much less lines of command than parallels to their masters' lines of precedence. The kitchen staff was large, partly because they cooked for the rest of the staff as well as the family, partly because the food came into the house much less prepared than modern food does.

And then there was the stable. While a bachelor could get by with draft animals to pull his largest carriage -- say 2 for his coach -- a family might need those and another to pull another carriage if both were in use simultaneously. Each of the adult gentry would require a riding horse, and any children would need ponies or horses of their own -- depending on age.

And the coachman could hardly be expected to shovel out the stable; he drove horses, not cared for them. That was work for the grooms, if not assistant grooms.

In cases of dire financial need, a gentleman could get by with much less than the normal complement of servants. He could not, however, get by without any.

Okay, that hiatus wasn't as long as I expected.

I have a new Regency starting tomorrow. ("Probably after 8 p. m.)

The hero is a baronet widower. It may be the first baronet to star in a Regency romance.

It runs 4 chapters, Tues. and Fri. for 2 weeks. (Unless a truck hits me before I post the rest of the chapters. Don't blame me; the site software prohibits posting chapters for later publication until the first chapter is up.)

The way I write stories is (usually) this:

I get an idea; I write out various parts; I let it rest while I work on a different story; I finish it up and let it rest a day more; I go over it and send it through the spelling and grammar check; I send it to an editor/proofreader.

When the proofreader sends it back, I make the corrections. Sometimes, when the editing is more than proofreading, I send it back again or send the (sections I have really changed) back to see whether that satisfies the editor's complaint.

When I put it in my queue. It gets posted at 2 chapters (or something else) a week. Sometimes, the first chapter rolls onto the site the day after I post it; sometimes, it comes on weeks after I post it.

(When there is a long delay, I'm sometimes deep into another story when I get responses to the story which is now up. That can be confusing.)

Right now, I'm not doing any more reposting. All the stuff you'll see before January will be first published here.

Okay, so I have some fragments still in the files, but,

I got 1 story what I thought was finished. I sent it to the editor, and he said there were major problems.

I got another story, a really long one, finished. I sent it to another editor. He's working on it.

I finished a third story. I sent it to the editor I mentioned first/ He's now working on a story for another author. I'll get that story back, but not soon.

So, I'm going to keep posting Karen one (short) chapter a week. Everything else depends on other people.

(BTW, the next, and subsequent, Karen chapters will be never-before-published. Karen started out as an occasional series of stories on ASSTR, and I turned them into a serial because of the distaste for short-shorts on SOL. The series was not finished, but I think I can finish them.)