Ancient Greek Philosopher Aristotle said ‘The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law’
The early nineteenth century in England, Europe and America was a period of extraordinary political change, of revolution, scientific discovery, dazzling artistry, literary excellence, military milestones, political and social scandal. From the dandyism of Beau Brummell to the romantic exploits of Don Juan from the abolition of the slave trade to Catholic emancipation, from revolution to the romantics, this was an age that had an engaging cast of characters. The disappearance of the powdered wig in the early 1790’s marked a revolution in polite society and in London wild hairstyles exploded onto the Regency scene. They included the central curl, crimped or cropped locks of long, lanky and languishing dukes and dandies.
This is a period dominated by men so it seems most appropriate to start by viewing the dashing portrait of Spencer, 2nd Marquess of Northampton painted by Scottish portrait painter Sir Henry Raeburn and exhibited at the Royal Academy at London in 1821. Born in 1790 by the time he was 30 Lord Northampton was a respected connoisseur of the arts and literature, particularly poetry. As President of the Royal Society in 1838 he worked tirelessly, with British politician William Wilberforce, to ensure the abolition of the slave trade as well as campaigning for law reform. His portrait by Henry Raeburn, one of the era’s distinguished painters is a fine example of the new style of portrait ‘realism’. Its bold, simple approach reveals an enduring structure of both character and experience.
The subject himself is a man history may not have celebrated very much. However in his own quiet way he contributed to its growth, intellectually, socially and practically. There is an intensity that leads us to believe the Marquess is a vividly romantic personality, a quiet brooding style of hero. His pose is very contained. His hands folded. The tightly wrapped cape creates an enclosed silhouette, one that lends dramatic effect to the white of his collar and cravat as well as the brilliant red of his cloak lining. If we had to choose a colour that epitomizes the period of historical events that encompasses the time span of our romantics and revolutionaries from 1760 – 1830 it would have to be ‘red’, the colour of passion, which not only symbolises romantic love but also revolutionary blood.
Red was London’s most favoured colour. It was the colour of Roman tiles that paved the houses of first century Londinium, and the colour of the original wall surrounding London, which was built from red sandstone. It was used to make crosses on the doors of houses in the Middle Ages when plague invaded households. It was worn by Henry VI and his nobles when they made a triumphant entry into London in 1432 and the warring factions of York and Lancaster were united when Henry Tudor married Elizabeth of York. This union was symbolized in the Tudor rose, which flaunted both red and white petals.
The pensioners at Chelsea Hospital all wore red, and still do. It was the colour of the royal mail box that allowed fast and easy communication between friends and foes and, eighteenth century maps of London marked street improvements and indicated the areas of the ‘well to do’ or wealthy, in red. Most of all for Londoners red was the metaphor for the great fire, the formative event in London’s life, which set in concrete London’s identification with the colour red.
From the buckets you filled with water to quell the flames, to the engines the firemen used and the coats they wore, everything was red. Paradoxically, the greatest effect the great fire of London had was to promote the advancement of science. The Royal Society established in London in 1660 prompted members to find ‘scientific’ or ‘objective’ causes for such violent events so that such pestilences and conflagrations might be averted in the future.
The era of romantics and revolutionaries is also all about the continuing themes from ancient Greece and Rome for that of liberty, religion and justice. Liberty was the freedom to think or act without being constrained by necessity or force; freedom from captivity or slavery; and of the political, social and economic rights that belong to citizens of any state, or to all people.
It was then, and is now, the most potent of all western ideas and ideals and its theory should be constantly challenged. It was also about elevating creativity as a means of critical authority. Many wanted to free art from those who wanted to put rules in place to restrict its production. It sought to validate strong emotion as an authentic source for an aesthetic experience, providing new ways for people to perceive the nature, beauty and creativity of the world they lived in.
It was about the poets and their poetry, the philosophers and their thoughts, the playwrights, the authors and their words as well as the fashions, passions and perceptions of London and its people. Authors like Jane Austen and her family, who lived during this time, more than likely fell into a category of middling people, a term coined by literary wit, social commentator, and son of England’s first Prime Minister Horace Walpole. On his return from the continent in 1741 he said “I have before discovered that there was nowhere but in England the distinction of being middling people. I perceive now that there is peculiar to us middling houses; how snug they are”
During the eighteenth century in England a new class of people emerged, the country gentry. They actively supported the ruling and upper classes by cultivating an ambience of politeness, a keen, though delicate sensibility, which was always balanced by displaying a great deal of practical common sense.
Their gentrification was reflected in how they dressed, dined, performed and were entertained, in a fine selection of social settings. They rotated from the socially competitive atmosphere of London’s elegant drawing rooms to the cheerful gaiety of Bath’s assembly’s room and onto the more robust attractions of popular coastal resorts like Brighton, which were after 1792 also frequented by the Prince Regent and his entourage. They strove for aesthetic perfection urged on by their awareness of the ‘antique’, while striving to emulate the ideal – classical perfection. The classical ideal flowed over into the landscape and small temples, originally designed as refuges from the hot Mediterranean sun, became focal points of beauty set as they were in a natural setting ordered from the centuries famous gardener, Capability Brown.
For centuries in Europe Continental monarchs ruled absolutely, whereas in England, for both good, and not so good reasons, the King’s council had over the centuries gradually circumscribed monarchical power by parliamentary institution.
In response to a ‘glorious revolution’ that deposed his wife Mary’s father, King James II, who threatened to restore Catholicism in England, William of Orange negotiated with Parliament to succeed to the throne of England and rule jointly with his wife. They acknowledged that their power came from legislature rather than from any divine right. They confirmed and guaranteed freedom of speech and religious toleration in England and the 1689 Bill of Rights they signed exercised a great deal of influence in America during its fight for independence.
By the last forty years of the eighteenth century the English system of government with a controlled monarchical head, two houses of parliament and a voting system had gained the admiration of most, liberal minded European philosophers and considered great thinkers. However, if you read accounts of the parliament of the day it seems a wonder democracy managed to flourish at all.
A Swiss Pastor, who bribed his way into the House of Commons with a bottle of, undoubtedly red wine, reported ‘that Members of Parliament wore no special dress and…came in boots and greatcoats and kept their hats on.’ Scandalous behaviour.
Many an MP ‘lay prone upon a bench eating oranges or cracking nuts during a debate’. Bad speakers were laughed out of the chamber while good ones were heard in ‘perfect silence’ and approved of by calls of ‘hear him’. Real democracy in action for the pastor was a frightening thing. He was completely horrified by much ‘open abuse ‘ and the rude remarks that its members indulged in. He did testify later however ‘that the lowest and meanest members of society take an interest in everything of a public nature, whether high or low, rich or poor. It was to be admired that a carter, commoner, ‘nay an Englishman has his rights and privileges defined and knows exactly what is going on as well as his King or the King’s ministers’.
Noted French author of Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694 – 1778), after a short spell in the Bastille for daring to challenge a French nobleman, lived in England from 1726 to 1729 where he was totally astonished by its people’s many freedoms. He found it completely amazing that Englishmen were able to virtually say and publish what they liked without fear of prison or exile; he was further astounded there was no torture or arbitrary imprisonment; and that noblemen and priests were not exempt from certain taxes.
In England he discovered it was the poor who enjoyed exemption from taxation, whereas at the same time in France it was the rich. On top of all of that he discovered that different religious sects were allowed to flourish. Protestant non conformists were allowed to gather in their own places for worship and become teachers etc.
They were subject to swearing certain oaths and declarations that they would not act against the crown or Parliament but they took that in their stride. Any further restrictions in place for Roman Catholics were finally removed in England by 1829. The wider expertise and experience Voltaire gained while in England meant his works and ideas became the embodiment of the European ‘enlightenment’. Although he died some time before it, he irrevocably laid the foundations for a French revolution in the minds of his peers.
The so-called Enlightenment is one of those rare historical movements that managed to name itself. Certain thinkers and writers, primarily in London and Paris, believed they were far more enlightened than their compatriots. So armed with only their own self confidence they set out to enlighten everyone else.
They believed human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and build a better world. Their principal targets were religion (embodied in France in the Catholic Church) and the domination of society by a hereditary aristocracy (Europe and England).
Up until the eighteenth century on the Continent, as well as in England, the Court had been the main centre for high culture. It was less a set of discrete works of art than a unique phenomenon shaped by circles of conversation and criticism that were conducted by its creators, distributors and consumers.
The superiority of any court was clearly visible in the architecture of its magnificent buildings, the woven designs of its precious tapestries and the exquisite collections of its paintings. They provided a backdrop for the high drama surrounding monarchs and their reign. However without a proper stage it was difficult to perform the traditional rituals of power and eventually the court could only serve as a cultural focus for arts and literature as long as it was large, visible and fashionable filled with courtiers, hangers on and admirers.
Artist and designer Charles Le Brun had depicted Louis XIV on the ceiling of the Hall of Mirrors as a person, rather than a deity, but any good intentions Louis had in his youth and middle age, from time to time, were swept away in the sadness of old age and his revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.
This document, formerly put in place by Henry IV the Great in 1598, had granted religious toleration to the people a policy that had proved beneficial to France’s economic growth during the early part of Louis’ reign as the majority of artisans, who worked to produce the trappings of his reign, were Protestant. (Huguenot).
The court of Louis the self-styled Sun King at Versailles, during the most fruitful time of his reign, had fulfilled everyone’s expectations mainly because Louis himself uniquely and cleverly managed its private and its public face concealing many of its faults and its sexual license behind a heroic façade.
This was in direct contrast to England, where in the second half of the seventeenth century, the Whig junto, a self-appointed committee with political aims whose members constantly surrounded and supported the King, gradually assumed positions of power distributing the resources of the crown in the form of places, pensions and perquisites and further circumscribing the power of the monarch.
This would mean that by the second half of the eighteenth century the King at London was being treated as a human being. Once that had happened something quite unique began to take place. High culture, an integral aspect of the court began to move out of its narrow confines and into other diverse spaces within London becoming an attribute of the people.
From palaces to coffee houses, to reading societies, debating clubs, assembly rooms, galleries and concert halls over the next 60 years high culture became a partner of commerce. Art, literature, music and theatre was transformed into thriving and popular endeavours and enterprises.
That the first two Hanoverian Kings George 1 and George II disliked England and its people was really neither here nor there. Before leaving to take up residence in England the first George calmed his Hanoverian subjects fears of the English chopping off his head by saying ‘I have nothing to fear – for the king killers are all my friends’.
By the time of the succession of the George II to the English throne in 1727 when asked to describe the character, habits and customs of the English a visiting Swiss Protestant, César de Saussure tackled the subject bravely in letter seven of his collection now entitled A Foreign View of England when he said…
…‘I do not think there is a people more prejudiced in their own favour…they look on foreigners in general with contempt and think nothing is as well done elsewhere as in their own country’ and he continued endeavouring to justify their self satisfied and smug attitude, ‘certainly many more things contribute to keep up this good opinion of themselves, their love for their nation, its wealth, its plenty and its liberty’.
The Georgian era in England began on horseback and ended in a railway carriage. As to the countryside, where its majority nearly 6 million people lived it was still, according to a contemporary description, a country of ‘champion fields, sprawling common, waste and woodland‘.
In reality the marshland, bogs and moors were all very treacherous places and much of the land under cultivation was still tilled as in medieval times. In the north the country was mostly barren due to the poverty of the soil, impassability of the mountains and scarcity of population and the roads, well they were truly vile. It is understandable that a man might spend his whole life and never go further than the village market.
The gurus of taste and style considered the fine arts, painting and sculpture, addressed the so called Pleasures of the Imagination individually, collectively and corporately. Everyone wanted to experience great emotions of taste and become a voyeur of the interiors of city and country houses. Remarkably, with the right introductions, these could began to be arranged to suit your purpose.
Archibald Alison, a Scottish retired cleric of the Church of England, first coined the phrase the pleasures of the imagination. Like many others of his generation he indulged himself by writing elegant fragments and well turned sermons. He seemingly enjoyed a pleasant country life in Shropshire and Hampshire, prior to moving back to Edinburgh in 1800 to benefit his son’s education. Alison was just a one person who was part of a large movement of people, a groundswell inspired by the works of enlightened writers such as Voltaire. They were all busily expressing their own views through writing essays, hoping they would influence the leading figures of the so-called European enlightenment.
To understand why this movement became so influential during the eighteenth century, it is important to revisit sixteenth century French Humanist Michel de Montaigne who asked a single question over and over again in his essays: “What do I know?” By this he meant that we have no right to impose on others dogmas, which rest on cultural habit rather than on the understanding of an absolute truth. Powerfully influenced by the discovery of thriving non-Christian cultures in places as far off as Brazil, he argued morals may be to some degree relative. ‘
Who were Europeans to insist Brazilian cannibals, who merely consume dead human flesh instead of wasting it, are morally inferior to Europeans who persecute and oppress those of whom they disapprove? This shift toward cultural relativism, though based on only a scant understanding of newly discovered races of people would continue to have a profound effect on European thought right through to the present day.
Just as their predecessors had used the tools of antiquity to gain unprecedented freedom of inquiry enlightened thinkers used examples of other cultures to reshape not only their philosophies, but their own societies. This line of thought paved the way for the justification of a French Revolution. If we cannot be certain our values were God-given, then we have no right to impose our ideas by force on others. Inquisitors, popes, and kings alike in this train of thought had no business enforcing adherence to particular religious or philosophical beliefs and it is one of the great paradoxes of history that radical doubt was necessary to arrive at a new sort of certainty, one that was labeled scientific.
In the second half of the eighteenth century a good scientist wasn’t just dabbling with test tubes or looking at the sky. He willingly and patiently tested all assumptions as he was challenging traditional opinions with an aim at coming closer to the truth.
The strength of science then maybe at its best when it is aware of its limitations, when it is aware that knowledge is always growing and always subject to change – never absolute. By our retired cleric’s way of thinking knowledge depended on evidence and reason. Archibald Alison’s Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste were published in Edinburgh in 1790 and were destined to impress many men of both refinement and cultivation.
When King George II died in October 1760 his 18 year old son George III came to the throne. He was the first Hanoverian monarch to be born in England and speak English at court as his first language, (not French as his father and grandfather).
As we can imagine patriotic fervour on his succession new no bounds. Huge crowds welcomed the young King’s bride Charlotte of Mecklenburg to England and cheered them both at their coronation to the resounding sounds of the German composer George Friderick Handel’s fabulous composition Zadok the Priest, originally composed for his father and traditionally performed since during the sovereign’s anointing.
And all the people rejoic’d, and said:
God save the King! Long live the King!
May the King live for ever,
Amen, Allelujah!
The times were briefly helped by a fine summer whose good harvests came from orchards whose trees were heavily laden with fruit and they became symbolic of a nation at ease. This was a moment that felt right for a new King, new projects and new adventures. And, at this point England’s high society considered itself the most civilised in Europe.
George III’s family, as it grew up in the public eye, setting an example for that of a life of domestic felicity, which was taken as a model of propriety by the population at large.
This was a great change from George I and George II’s horrendous examples. George 1 had divorced his wife on a trumped up charge in 1694, locking her up for life in the fortress castle of Dahlen in Hanover. Their only son, later George II loved his mother and hated his father and his father hated him…in fact the first two George’s both reputedly ‘hated their sons’. George II treated his wife Queen Caroline abominably; he was rude, snubbed her constantly, fell into vile rages and expected her to treat his mistresses with great civility, and to keep the peace she obliged him.
A great contrast to his role models George III was a thoroughly modern man. He lived very cosily in the snug bosom of his family. He was the first ‘middling people’s monarch who distinguished his private residence from his public office.
He and the Queen retired early, forbade their daughters to read romances and offered his equerries barley water as a refreshment. He openly condemned his aristocratic subjects for their lack of piety, as well as exceedingly lax morals. Poor George he was constantly lampooned by the press and the cartoonists at Punch for penny pinching sententiousness, which meant they were inclined to moralize more than was merited or appreciated.
George III was, by all accounts also stubborn and obstinate although described as a good man but a bad king. He attempted a style of personal rule, which did not really work. In his day political parties were thought of as ‘factions’ that needed reconciling rather than opposing ideologies. His father and grandfather set a precedent by favouring the Whigs. However for George III that would have been quite unthinkable as he believed the monarch had to remain apolitical to offer his best advice.
No monarch however since the Restoration of Charles II was greeted with such popular enthusiasm and affection by his people. The Duchess of Northumberland, one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte wrote in her diary about his first speech ‘Went to the House of Lords, much crowded to hear ye King’s speech. The Crown like to fall, sat down on his nose and misbecame him greatly. He faulter’d a little at first but afterwards spoke like an Angel’.
Early in his reign, George III like most of his subjects, enjoyed delightful diversions and amusements. He became a patron to musicians, painters, the theatre, the opera and less frequently, to men of letters. However the value of his royal patronage did not lie in the rewards it gave but on the social cachet which could be parlayed into rich commissions. In short the British monarch operated as a private patron now, not as a national one and this was a great change.
There was clearly a motif to this act and its aims were very simply laid out in a long dedication in 1762 by Lord Kames in his Elements of Criticism to George III. pardon me but shortened here so we don’t doze off.
The Fine Arts have ever been encouraged by wise Princes, not simply for private amusement, but for their beneficial influence in society…and it ends... the Fine Arts; riches employed, instead of encouraging vice, will excite both public and private virtues.
Lord Kames believed culture was important as a means of controlling and legitimating commercial society. A cynic might say that he saw the pursuit of art as a means of justifying an accumulation of wealth. However in defining the fine arts in relation to the world of commerce, not the realm of kingship, he was endeavouring to make his point.
By mid century London was the largest city in Western Europe with 750,000 inhabitants. (Edinburgh at the same time had 57,000 and Dublin 90,000). It offered a different quality of life. Nowhere else in Britain was so urban; no other city so exciting and so sensationally shocking!.
Variety, energy, noise, colour, enthusiasm – you could go for a walk and gape at the antics of the beau monde out for an evening’s fun at Vauxhall, Gardens, which occupied about 12 acres across the Thames from Westminster Abbey.
Class distinction did not apply at Vauxhall and fashionable ‘men of the ton’ thought that while it was slightly scary it also seemed very glamorous. Meanwhile rascals, ruffians, pimps and prostitutes saw it as a place where they could earn a lucrative living, and did so.
Those who were neither haute nor bas, but somewhere in the middle found that it was definitely a place of excitement, and to coin a real Georgian phrase, a great gaze. There were wonderful walks, through triumphal arches, erected in 1752 so you could enact your own Roman odyssey. There was something for everyone at Vauxhall.
Musical Bushes were a great lark. As you strolled by they emitted music, due to a band concealed in a nearby hole in the ground. Sadly when it rained the hole filled with water and this happend so often that finally it had to be abandoned.
At Vauxhall the orchestra after this experience preferred to play Handel’s popular Water Music on the dry stage of the Rotunda, where concerts of songs, sonate and concerti lasting four hours were frequently given.
You could also go up the river to Ranelagh Gardens where the Rotunda there was thought by contemporaries to compare favourably with the Pantheon at Rome. That much admired relic of antiquity had survived the centuries and was inspected by every Grand Tourist during the eighteenth century. Its London copy was a place where everyone promenaded about to see and be seen and the great English writer, critic and renowned conversationalist Dr. Samuel Johnson said Ranelagh produced ‘an expansion and gay sensation’ such as he had never experienced anywhere else before.
It certainly must have been wonderful to be in London when, on June 19th 1764, the remarkable child prodigy from Austria 8 year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gave a concert playing his own compositions on the harpsichord and organ. The young genius and his father and sister stayed in London for just over one year, not departing until 17 September 1765. While residing in Chelsea at London the young Mozart wrote a set of sonatas K10 – 15 dedicating them to Queen Charlotte for which she sent him fifty guineas.
An account of their first appearance on the 28 May 1764 relates how Wolfgang together with his father and sister spent 3 hours with the King and Queen, who treated them so warmly they could not believe they were in the ‘presence of the king and queen of England’. ‘What we have experienced here surpasses everything’ his father reported in a letter home. A week later Wolfgang, his father and sister were walking in St. James’s Park when the King and Queen drove by. Again they were astonished, that while differently dressed, the King and Queen actually recognized them. The King, from all accounts, threw open the carriage window and put his head out of the window laughing out loud while greeting them ‘ both with his head and hands’ wrote the elder Mozart, particularly Master Wolfgang. They were given 24 guineas for performing privately for George, Charlotte, the family and friends.
On the 19th May they spent a further four hours with their majesties performing for a small group that included two princes, the brother of the King and brother of the Queen, receiving another 2 guineas on going away. On the 5th of June the King gave a benefit. He placed before the young genius a selection of pieces of music by Bach, Carl F. Abel, a virtuoso viola da gamba player and composer who had arrived in London in 1757, as well as works by Handel. This concert was most fashionably patronised and very profitable and Mozart, it was reported, played all the selections on the King’s organ in such a manner that everyone was enchanted. Wolfgang also accompanied the Queen in a duet playing an air and then brilliantly improvised on one of Handel’s airs, playing a melody so beautiful that it astonished everybody.
Carolyn McDowall © The Culture Concept Circle 2010, 2011
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