Monthly Archives: February 2011

She is a viscountess!

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The Viscountess Astor by John Singer Sargent, 1909

I declare my heart went out to Anne Elliott in BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion.  Her elder sister Elizabeth, a wretched creature, positively screams at poor Anne for failing to perceive the importance of their family connection to the Dowager Lady Dalrymple.  “She is a viscountess!” 

Elizabeth exclaims before her father, Mrs. Clay and all the servants.

You can view this marvelous scene at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knmXLb_gJeY&feature=related, 6:20.

What in the world is a viscountess?  In short, the female equivalent of a viscount. 

Historically, the word comes from the French vicomte, which means deputy/companion of a leader.  My favorite example of a vicomte would be Roger of Montgomery, to whom William, Duke of Normandy, entrusted his duchy during the Conquest of England.  Roger was an able administrator, and helped William’s duchess Matilda keep matters in order while the Conqueror was away. 

In England, the viscount is a hereditary title that normally is conferred upon the heir of an earl.  And his wife would be known as viscountess.  The title may refer to a place, or to a family name.  Dowager Lady Dalrymple is the widow of the Viscount Dalrymple and so she is known Viscountess Dalrymple.  In Persuasion, Miss Austen tells the reader her daughter’s name is Miss Carteret, this being the surname of her father, Lady Dalrymple’s husband, so we can surmise Dalrymple is a place name that is associated with the title.  The character analysis from Schmoop explains this rather well.  See http://www.shmoop.com/persuasion/dowager-viscountess-dalrymple.html.

In Notorious Vow, Lady Diana is the Viscountess Northam.  Her father, the Earl of Northam, was killed in a carriage accident, leaving Diana as his only child.  However, the earldom passed to Russell, her uncle and Marquess of Wimberley.  So how did Diana still manage to be known as the Viscountess Northam?

Diana explains to Vivien that it was her uncle who named her Viscountess Northam in a public vow that scandalized the ton for years: 

“You see, Miss Montgomery, Northam’s legacy rules us all.”

“Does your uncle, I beg your pardon, does Lord Northam know your feelings about this?”

“Perhaps.  But it would not matter.  He is obsessed with his vow that arranges all our affairs, including the succession to Northam and all that comes with it.  When my father died, Northam passed to Uncle, his brother, instead of to me.  I was too young and underage females cannot inherit the earldom.  A law or something, I believe.  Happened ages ago…..At any rate, Uncle thinks he can skirt the rules by never marrying.  So that when he dies, it will all come to me.”

“But that is monstrous,” Vivien was moved to say.  “Why should he conceive of such a thing?”

“Because he blames himself for my father’s death.”

Lord Byron

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“Shall I read some of that fellow Byron’s poetry to you, Miss Montgomery?” he asked, picking up a volume from a side table.

The look of distaste on his face at his own suggestion made Vivien chuckle and shake her head.

“Are you, like all the rest, pining at his loss?”  Northam asked.  “A shame he decided to leave the country.”

“You knew him?”

“We went to Harrow together.  Even then he wrote poetry which the literary critics panned.  So he published a satire merely to spite them.” 

Vivien marvelled at the familiarity with which he spoke of the celebrated poet.  But not so much that she could hide her usual candor.  “It sounds as if he could not bear to have his work criticized.  A dangerous proposition for any artist, I believe.”

“There speaks the sensible Miss Montgomery.  When any other woman would throw herself at Byron’s head.”

George Gordon, Sixth Baron Byron, was the hottie of the period.  Russell, in Notorious Vow, acknowledges this and is rewarded by Vivien’s candor.  She thinks the dramatic sweep of Romanticism that becomes full-blown in the Regency period can be dangerous for its addicts, much like Anne Elliott in Jane Austen’s Persuasion.  Vivien has good reason to believe Lord Northam, who nearly ruined his life when he made a certain notorious vow, resembles the greatly impassioned, and ultimately tragic, Lord Byron. 

This particular quote from Chapter Eleven of Austen’s last work sums up the Regency’s craze with romantic poetry rather well:

“he repeated, with such tremulous feeling, the various lines which imaged a broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness, and looked so entirely as if he meant to be understood, that she ventured to hope he did not always read only poetry, and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.”

People’s Magazine of the Regency

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Vivien felt a little gauche when she spied Diana thumbing through an issue of La Belle Assemblee’ in my debut Regency novel Notorious Vow.  This popular magazine from the Regency period contained a plate featuring the viscountess wearing a striking Turkish cape.  Diana had beautiful titian-colored hair, and so the deep red color of this cape merely accented her well-known feature.

You can find this reproduction in an excellent source on the following website that documents unusual (read—exclusive) Regency fashion:  http://yourwardrobeunlockd.com/freebies/357-unusual-regency-by-serena-dyer?start=2

I owe so much to Georgette Heyer’s unrivalled exposition on everything that encompassed Regency culture.  In particular, the following passage from her Cotillion does great justice to the wardrobe of someone like Diana who devotes considerable resources to assembling one of the ton’s most varied wardrobes:  Freddy Standen’s sister Meg, Lady Buckhaven.  Her dresser is quite determined that her ladyship’s young friend from the country take some of her mistress’ ill-chosen articles of clothing, which do not compliment her blond beauty:

“When Miss Charing shrank from accepting an opulent evening cloak of cherry-red velvet, ruched and braided, and lined with satin, she contrived to draw her a little aside, and to whisper in her ear:  ‘Take it, miss!  My lady—-Lady Legerwood, I mean!—will be so very much obliged to you!  Miss Margaret—Lady Buckhaven, I should say! — should never wear cherry!”

If Cotillion does not positively make you scream in delight, you have my leave to remonstrate with me in the comments below.  But I warn you!  I am devoted to Ms. Heyer and her work.

A Horse of a New Color

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Vivien’s horse in Notorious Vow has a remarkable history that only gradually comes to light in the course of the novel.  Not until near the end of the story does she finally understand how it was that Thor, the name she gives to the beautiful iron gray gelding, came to arrive on her doorstep in obscure Knightsbridge.  At that time, she couldn’t wait to ride him during the promenade of the ton in Hyde Park, but this happy occasion was marred by the jeers and insults hurled at her when she rides Thor up Rotten Row.  She is despised for pretending to be someone she is not—-one of them!

Thor was an English Thoroughbred, descended from the famous Godolphin Arabian, one of the three foundation sires of most racing Thoroughbred in the world today.  Have you read Marguerite Henry’s beloved King of the Wind?  Then you’ll be familiar with the touching story of this remarkable stud that permanently enriched the bloodlines of Thoroughbreds to this day.  I like the inclusion of Grimalkin, his lifelong companion, in the portrait.   Do you see him?

Thor, like his great-great-great grandsire, was a king of the wind, as Vivien found out when he was startled into a bolt that led her straight to the ha-ha barrier in Hyde Park.

What does color have to do with this?  Thor was a gray, but this was not always so.  To Russell’s dismay.