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Welcome to the Author page of Joana Starnes

A Derbyshire Road Trip

14/7/2016

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(Posted at Austen Authors http://austenauthors.net/a-derbyshire-roadtrip/ )
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I go to Derbyshire as often as I can. I drag the family up there too. They don’t complain much, luckily Derbyshire has some of the best walks and cycling tracks in the country. And while they’re cycling I’m chasing after the Darcys and Pemberley. But what I could never do and always wanted to was to just drive aimlessly down tiny country lanes, barely wide enough to open the car door without hitting the stone walls on either side, and just turn into whatever road takes my fancy and sneak up the hills overlooking Bakewell and Haddon. Also, I wanted to see and take hundreds of photos of Derbyshire in the summer. The other times I went it was either early spring when all the trees were bare (and there was ice on the tent!!) or it was pouring with rain, the only other time I went in the summer.

This time I was lucky. Very lucky. I had great company (I think it’s safe to say that the only time Mira and I didn’t giggle was when we were asleep). The weather was kind, the trees were not leafless, the country lanes were as delightful as I always hoped they would be and I came home with 647 photos on my camera and about as many on my Kindle. I thought I might share some with you, but don’t worry, not all 1200 of them.
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The first stop was far from Derbyshire. In fact, we barely got on the motorway when we got off again at the next junction because it was impossible to resist the temptation of a sneak peek at Netherfield.
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We didn’t ‘rest the horses at the ‘Dog and Partridge’ in Tutbury, tempting as it was.
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In fact, we didn’t rest the horses anywhere because Sudbury was calling and we were on a tight schedule and a mission. We found all we could hope for and more. There was a cackling witch in the gallery and the photo shoot was a dream-come-true.
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Day 2 was ‘Find the right Roach’ day. No, I’m not talking about creepy-crawlies, but the ‘How should I face your father if you trip and fall?’ rock. All we knew was that it’s part of The Roaches, a wind-carved outcrop of gritstone stretching for miles between Leek and Buxton. Despite its unpleasant associations, the name comes not from scurrying critters, but from Les Roches (French for ‘The Rocks’).

​We also knew that it had to be very accessible. No one would have taken filming equipment all the way up to some distant mountaintop, not without a helicopter. Even so, we couldn’t resist climbing to an outcrop that couldn’t have possibly been the right one, because it was up a crazy incline, not accessible at all (the road & my car were roughly there).
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​Still, later on, when I caught my breath and I could drive again, we found the rock a few miles up the road, more through luck than judgement 
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Mr Darcy’s pond was another lucky find. There used to be signs to it but now all we had for guides were very vocal sheep.
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The only reason why I went traipsing over the hills was that the house was closed. But we went back on the following day, as you do, to spend every daylight hour there, take gorgeous photos, absorb, admire, giggle, be rained on and then take some more very lucky shots.
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On the following day I had my wish and got lost on purpose down tiny lanes.
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We found well dressing displays in Youlgreave.
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We discovered a village called Elton and also the delightfully unspoilt village of Middleton, which might as well have been Lambton.
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We stopped at the majestic Kedleston with its opulent drawing room that might as well have been at Rosings.
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And speaking of Rosings, I was over the moon to have made it to Belton House at last. I’ve never been there before and always wanted to, and what a gem it was! It might have been used as Rosings in the 1995 adaptation and was supposed to exude Lady Catherine’s forbidding grandeur, but in real life it’s a delightfully welcoming place, with a warm and friendly aura. I didn’t want to leave. I loved it there. Just as I could stare for ages at the famed façade of Lyme Park, I could have absorbed the beauty of Belton House for hours on end. Not only the blue bedroom and the ‘Make my excuses to Lady Catherine’ staircase, but also the delightful library and the drawing room with a ceiling so vibrant and fresh that it seemed to have been painted yesterday.
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And the last stop on the road trip? In the small village of Teigh (that took some time in finding) at the Old Rectory, now a B&B. We came across the owner in the garden, and I tentatively approached her with ‘Sorry about the imposition, you must get this a lot…’She would not let me finish. She just smiled and said ‘Not so much these days’, then took us into a rather famous drawing room and showed us photos taken at the time, while we were trying to imagine what it must be like to have Miss Bennet and Mr Darcy in your house and garden. I should have taken this road trip 20 years ago, but hey, better later than never.
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'The Next Best Thing' and 'Life in the Georgian Court' by Catherine Curzon

11/7/2016

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It's my greatest pleasure to welcome Catherine Curzon here today to tell us more about her latest release, 'Life in the Georgian Court', an extensively researched and delightfully presented selection of glimpses at the 'Long Eighteenth Century' in Britain and elsewhere.

I found her guest post particularly fascinating and deeply moving because Catherine talks about one of my favourite personages in Georgian history: young Princess Charlotte who, if fates had been kinder, might have followed her father to the throne and history as we know it might have been profoundly altered.

You can find Catherine's other delightful glimpses into the Long Eighteenth Century at 
A Covent Garden Gilflurt's Guide to Life.

But now let's gather round, pour the tea and listen to Catherine telling us the story:

​“The Next Best Thing”

Once upon a time there lived an unhappy princess; an only child, she was witty, bright and longed for a little excitement, perhaps even a little love. She was not quite kept prisoner in a tower on the edge of the forest but she was isolated from society and family alike at Cranbourne Lodge, where her resentment of her notorious father festered and grew. This fairytale, which I tell in Life in the Georgian Court, does not have a happy ending, but the unhappy princess and her Prince Charming gave it a very good shot!
 
Princess Charlotte of Wales was the only child born to the Prince of Wales, later to be George IV, and his loathed and estranged wife, Caroline of Brunswick. At the age of eighteen this most eligible young lady remained unmarried, dissatisfied and at odds with her father, who had set his sights on a match between his daughter and William, Prince of Orange. George was nothing if not tenacious and in 1814 in 1814, Charlotte reluctantly signed the marriage contract that promised her to William.
 
Betrothed she might be, but the people of Britain didn’t want to lose their princess and Charlotte didn’t want to leave her homeland either, let alone marry the prince. The princess developed an attachment to a mysterious, anonymous Prussian gentleman yet, ever the realist, she declared that she would be happy to take “the next best thing, which was a good tempered man with good sense”[1], should the Prussian in question not return her affections. Whoever the mystery figure was, he was forgotten when Charlotte set her eyes on Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and decided that the future king of Belgium was certainly “the next best thing”.

[1] Aspinall, Arthur (1949). Letters of the Princess Charlotte 1811–1817. London: Home and Van Thal, p.165.
 
Determined that she would not marry the Prince of Orange, Charlotte made repeated arguments in favour of Leopold to the disinterested George. Charlotte had one last trump card to play and demanded of her husband-to-be that her mother be allowed to visit the marital home, sure that he would abide by her father’s express wishes and refuse the condition. The gamble paid off and when William followed George’s example and refused to give permission for Caroline to visit following the marriage, he played right into Charlotte’s hands. She could not, Charlotte declared, be happy with a man who would not allow her to see her beloved mother and if he cared so little for her happiness, then how could they possibly be husband and wife?

​All appeals to her to reconsider were to no avail and Charlotte decided that the engagement must be broken.
 
Faced with such entreaties, George caved in and ended the engagement.

Free once more, Charlotte upped her representations on behalf of Leopold, who was fighting on the continent. Although the Prince Regent was far from convinced, when he and Leopold finally met, they got on like the proverbial house on fire.
 The announcement of the engagement was made in the House of Commons in March 1816 and the people of England met the news with great cheer. Never one to miss the opportunity to splash out, the Prince Regent purchased Claremont House and Parliament agreed a salary of £50,000 for Leopold, neatly solving his money worries in one generous swoop.
 
The party atmosphere continued through spring and on the appointed wedding day of 2nd May 1816, the streets of London were thronged with thousands of people who had turned out to mark the happy occasion. When the party filed into the Crimson Drawing Room at Carlton House that evening, there could be no doubt that Charlotte and Leopold had longed for this moment. Charlotte's gown, bought at a cost of more than £10,000, was utterly magnificent and her groom cut a dashing figure in the perfectly turned out uniform of a British General, mindful of the importance of making just the right impression.
​​As the couple set off for their honeymoon they no doubt looked forward to many happy years together yet fate had other, tragic plans and just a year later, Charlotte would die as she delivered a stillborn child. For now let us leave them happy ever after, starting out on the adventure of the married life they had petitioned so hard to achieve.
Bibliography
 
Aspinall, Arthur. Letters of the Princess Charlotte 1811–1817. London: Home and Van Thal, 1949.
Baker, Kenneth. George IV: A Life in Caricature. London: Thames & Hudson, 2005.
Black, Jeremy. The Hanoverians: The History of a Dynasty. London: Hambledon and London, 2007. 
Hadlow, Janice. The Strangest Family: The Private Lives of George III, Queen Charlotte and the Hanoverians. London: William Collins, 2014.
Hetherington Fitzgerald, Percy. The Life of George the Fourth. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1881.
Huish, Robert. Memoirs of George the Fourth: Vol I. London: Thomas Kelly, 1830.
Smith, EA. George IV. Bury St Edmunds: St Edmundsbury Press, 1999.
 
 
About the Author
 
Catherine Curzon is a royal historian and blogs on all matters 18th century at A Covent Garden Gilflurt's Guide to Life.
 
Her work has featured by publications including BBC History Extra, All About History, History of Royals, Explore History and Jane Austen’s Regency World. She has also provided additional material for the sell-out theatrical show, An Evening with Jane Austen, will she will introduce at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, in September (tickets are available here).
 
Catherine holds a Master’s degree in Film and when not dodging the furies of the guillotine, she lives in Yorkshire atop a ludicrously steep hill.
 
Her book, Life in the Georgian Court, is available now from Amazon UK, Amazon US, Book Depository and all good bookshops!
 
 
About Life in the Georgian Court
 
As the glittering Hanoverian court gives birth to the British Georgian era, a golden age of royalty dawns in Europe. Houses rise and fall, births, marriages and scandals change the course of history and in France, Revolution stalks the land.
 
Peep behind the shutters of the opulent court of the doomed Bourbons, the absolutist powerhouse of Romanov Russia and the epoch-defining family whose kings gave their name to the era, the House of Hanover.
 
Behind the pomp and ceremony were men and women born into worlds of immense privilege, yet beneath the powdered wigs and robes of state were real people living lives of romance, tragedy, intrigue and eccentricity. Take a journey into the private lives of very public figures and learn of arranged marriages that turned to love or hate and scandals that rocked polite society.
 
Here the former wife of a king spends three decades in lonely captivity, Prinny makes scandalous eyes at the toast of the London stage and Marie Antoinette begins her last, terrible journey through Paris as her son sits alone in a forgotten prison cell.
 
Life in the Georgian Court is a privileged peek into the glamorous, tragic and iconic courts of the Georgian world, where even a king could take nothing for granted.

​An absolutely fascinating book and a must-have for anyone interested in the life and times of the Four Georges! Many thanks for visiting, Catherine, and for sharing your love of the Georgians with us!
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