A Brief History of Clarence House

©By Cheryl Bolen

 Upon the 2002 death of his grandmother, the Queen Mother Elizabeth, Prince Charles moved into a newly remodeled Clarence House on London's Mall near Buckingham Palace and adjacent to Britain's most senior royal palace, St. James Palace, which dates to the 1500s. His son William lived at Clarence House until his marriage in 2011, and Prince Harry until 2012.

 

London's Clarence House

Clarence House has been a British royal residence since it was commissioned by the Duke of Clarence in 1827, three years before he became King William IV upon the death of his brother, George IV. The gracious white stucco structure was built by John Nash, a favorite architect of the Duke of Clarence's Regent brother. William IV preferred the four-storey house to the official royal palace of St. James. Upon his death, he passed it to one of his sisters, who enjoyed it the last three years of her life.

Queen Victoria then offered the house to her mother and following that to a succession of her many children.

The building was bombed during World War II and after repairs, housed the present queen before her ascension in 1953. Her daughter, Princess Anne, was born there in 1950. Upon the death of the queen's father, George VI, she swapped residences with her mother. Her maiden sister Margaret also moved to Clarence House before taking apartments at Kensington Palace, another of the royal residences in London.

 

The late queen mother lived there for half a century, edging out for longevity two of Victoria's sons, each of whom lived there for more than 40 years, non consecutively. It will be a very long time before any royal can ever exceed the number of years that centenarian resided at Clarence House.--Cheryl Bolen's passionate Regency-set novel, One Golden Ring, re-released in December after being out of print for many years. It won the Holt Medallion for Best Historical of 2005. Eloisa James wrote of it, "Who can resist a marriage of convenience between a couple who have nothing in common—but passion!"

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Using Stately Homes for Book Settings

©By Cheryl Bolen

 My copyeditor recently questioned a reference in one of my books he was editing. "Can this be?" he asked. "Over 300 rooms in this house?"

Yes, many of the British stately homes run to more than 200 rooms and some to over 300 rooms. And because I write a lot of novels about the English aristocracy (both historical and contemporary), I have made it a point to tour as many of these aristocratic homes as possible on my frequent travels to England.

One of my favorite of these stately homes is Chatsworth House, family seat of the Dukes of Devonshire, nestled in the foothills of Derbyshire's Peak District. The "house" has 297 rooms! It's the one I use in the banner on my blog, Cheryl's Regency Ramblings, www.cherylsregencyramblings.wordpress.com.

 

Chatsworth House

 

Knole, in Kent, is home to the Sackvilles, cousins of the first Queen Elizabeth, and was once home tothe Dukes of Dorset. This rambling "house" has 356 rooms, 52 sets of stairs, and seven courtyards!

 

Knole

I have toured more than 30 of these homes, and I add new ones each trip my husband and I take to England. They make good fodder for the fictional homes in my 20-plus books. While none of these homes is exactly replicated in any of my novels, I do borrow from different houses I've had the pleasure of touring. 

Hever Castle

My book which can most be identified with a particular property is probably My Lord Wicked. The abbey in which my not-so-wicked lord lived was somewhat modeled on Hever Castle, the girlhood home of Anne Boleyn. Instead of the drawbridge at Hever, my fictional abbey has a clock tower which was supposedly built to disguise the abbey's former bell tower.

 

 

In my book Love in the Library (Brides of Bath#5) my heroine lives at Number 17 Royal Crescent in Bath. Here's a picture of me in front of one of the magnificent townhouses on Bath's Royal Cresent in June of 2013.

 

Cheryl Bolen in front of Bath's Royal Crescent

 

If you'd like to see what a Georgian townhouse (of the wealthy) looked like, you can tour Number 1 Royal Crescent in Bath. Or you can see the photos of Number 1 here: https://plus.google.com/115605333815650580996/photos?hl=en

 

 

The Cato Street Conspiracy, a Source of Inspiration

The Cato Street Conspiracy

by Donna Hatch

The murder plot in my newest Regency Romance, The Suspect’s Daughter was inspired by a true event in England known as the Cato Street Conspiracy.

The early 1800’s in England was a time of social and economic upheaval. Upon the ending of the long-term Napoleonic wars, unemployed career soldiers and sailors flooded the workforce. Industrial change was taking England from a largely agricultural country to one of large industry. Many of the working class were hungry and feeling oppressed. Riots erupted which the government crushed. Laws grew more and more restrictive.

In 1820, a group of ten Londoners decided the government needed to be overhauled, and came up with a radical and brutal idea. They planned to storm a house where the prime minister and his cabinet would be having dinner, shoot and behead the leaders, and then parade around the slums with the heads.

Thankfully, this mass murder was averted largely in part due to an undercover government agent whom some believe was a Bow Street Runner. I never learned his name. Government agents stormed the meeting, which was held in a flat on Cato Street, and arrested the conspirators. But the radicals didn’t go peacefully. They fought back, killing one of the officers.

Newgate Prison

The conspirators were tried for high treason. Five were transported, and the rest were hanged at Newgate Prison (pictured) and then beheaded. I guess they authorities wanted to be thorough.

Though the events are different in my story, and the characters are fictitious, the case inspired the conspiracy plot (with my own spin, of course) in my newest Regency Romance, The Suspect’sDaughter, book 4 of the award-winning Rogue Hearts Series, with Grant Amesbury as the hero.

The Suspect’sDaughter, book 4 of the Rogue Hearts Series

Determined to help her father with his political career, Jocelyn sets aside dreams of love. When she meets the handsome and mysterious Grant Amesbury, her dreams of true love reawaken. But his secrets put her family in peril.

Grant goes undercover to capture conspirators avowed to murder the prime minister, but his only suspect is the father of a courageous lady who is growing increasingly hard to ignore. He can’t allow Jocelyn to distract him from the case, nor will he taint her with his war-darkened soul. She seems to see past the barriers surrounding his heart, which makes her all the more dangerous to his vow of remaining forever alone.

Jocelyn will do anything to clear her father’s name, even if that means working with Grant. Time is running out. The future of England hangs in the balance...and so does their love.

The Suspect’sDaughter, is available from Amazon

Kissing Under the Mistletoe

Mistletoe

by Donna Hatch

www.donnahatch.com

The fun holiday tradition of kissing under the mistletoe evolved over time, and like most holiday customs, has pagan origins. Ancient Celtic druids saw the mistletoe blooming even in the middle of winter and thought it contained magical properties of vitality. Some sources claim they thought the mistletoe was the spirit of the tree showing signs of life while the rest of the tree remained dormant and dead-looking. They completely missed that it is a parasite living off of trees. Since they thought it had such amazing powers, they used it as a place to conduct fertility rituals, and later as a gathering place to negotiate peace between hostile parties. Husbands and wives made up under the mistletoe as a way of sealing their renewed love and commitment to peace within the marriage.

Eventually, people moved sprigs of the plant inside. In some locales of Europe and Great Britain, guests kissed the hand of their host under a sprig of mistletoe as they arrived. Later, the working classes and poor classes developed a custom of a maiden standing under the mistletoe, waiting for a kiss from a young man. They were expected to marry her within a year. English maidservants willing to accept a kiss from a gentleman in exchange for money stood underneath the mistletoe indicating her willingness. The practice of kissing under the mistletoe worked its way up to the upper classes, becoming more of a parlor game or an excuse for behavior not normally condoned among unmarried ladies and gentleman.

Today the custom of kissing under the mistletoe exists in most of  Europe, Canada and America. 

Holly

Mistletoe is sometimes mistaken with holly but they are very different. Mistletoe (pictured above) has soft, pale green smooth leaves and white berries; holly (pictured to the right) has bright green ragged-edged leaves and red berries.

In my newest Regency Romance, The Suspect's Daughter, my bold and determined heroine does not need the help of mistletoe to kiss the elusive man of her dreams.

The Suspect's Daughter, book 4 of the award-winning Rogue Hearts Series:

Determined to help her father with his political career, Jocelyn sets aside dreams of love. When she meets the handsome and mysterious Grant Amesbury, her dreams of true love reawaken. But his secrets put her family in peril.

Grant goes undercover to capture conspirators avowed to murder the prime minister, but his only suspect is the father of a courageous lady who is growing increasingly hard to ignore. He can’t allow Jocelyn to distract him from the case, nor will he taint her with his war-darkened soul. She seems to see past the barriers surrounding his heart, which makes her all the more dangerous to his vow of remaining forever alone.

Jocelyn will do anything to clear her father’s name, even if that means working with Grant. Time is running out. The future of England hangs in the balance...and so does their love.

The Suspect's Daughter is available  now on Amazon

Sources for Mistletoe post:

http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/why-do-we-kiss-under-the-mistletoe

http://mentalfloss.com/article/31977/why-do-we-kiss-under-mistletoe

http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-do-people-kiss-under-mistletoe/