It has been raining this afternoon
Dear Word Clouders.
What are your feelings about class and England? I would be interested in the viewpoint of someone not born in England - an Australian for, example. How would an Australian react to being called “a person of the middling sort?” It is a put-down. Also, would someone born in England be offended by this? The term was in common use during the Regency period. In effect, the term referred to anyone who did not belong to the aristocracy; the aristocracy being the Whig oligarchy of the time. Darcy would have had no truck with the Bennetts. He would have married someone as rich and disagreeable as himself. (The truth behind ‘Pride and Prejudice’)
Now, I got stuck with a ghost story. It is dusk. The hero is seated at a pub in a historic village. He has viewed a gravestone in a cemetery opposite the pub. The gravestone commemorates someone who was born in the age of George 111. But, in the shadows of the church, he has found two other gravestones. These are of the parents of the gravestone he has first seen. The comment is made that gravestones do not give up their secrets. The hero opens up his laptop and ‘googles’ the names. The ghosts of the machine appear - 'facts’ which illuminate the buried father and indicate his role in the village. But do these facts do this for many people?
One fact about the father is that he was among those challenged as a member of the jury for the trial of an Irish Catholic priest, James Coigly who had become embroiled in the French Revolution and, returning to England, faced death for High Treason in 1798. A book of observations on the trial comments on the members of the jury: “Of this list twelve are farmers, and six are gentlemen, that is men of middling condition,’
The second fact is that the father was on the voter’s list for the area in 1805, This is before the reform act of 1832. ( I checked, Only 10 people were allowed to vote. The population of the area at the time was about 1,000. Some democracy! And not much improved by the Reform Act!)
The third fact is a will. The will is made out by the draper of the village.
The fourth fact. The will indicates that the draper owned three farms in the valley and one farm is indicated as being a ‘freehold’ property. (It was on this farm that the events leading up to the ‘breach of promise’ case occurred - previous blog)
Now, what do these four facts indicate to you? Do they indicate anything? Would everyones’ view of the facts be the same? For me, they do illuminate the buried father, and conform to the dictionary definition of a ghost. Do I have to add a lot more research - background to these facts? The language in which the facts are expressed , does give a period feel but would many people know who ‘knights of the shire’ were?
I am a bit isolated and don’t socialize much, but I asked a historian at work and she said a friend of hers was doing a doctorate on the subject - the serendipity nature of internet research!
The hero who ‘googles’ feels that he has been ‘snubbed’ by the people in the inn - especially by the locals. It is a National Trust’ inn. They are ‘snotneuses.’ (Sounds better in Dutch than English) The ghosts from the machine, make him feel accepted- ie, he belongs there.
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6 Comments
As for your ghost story - sounds good! I wouldn't worry about defining Knights of the Shire - people are bright - they work things out, or at least accept them approximately enough until it becomes clearer with progressing action.
You might like Reg's take on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg6CTFwOalc
Britain has one of the lowest levels of social mobility in Europe. But then, America compares unfavourably with Europe as well. How much this has to do with a capitalist ethos (which supposedly allows such mobility but increasingly seems to ensure money keeps trickling into the same few pockets) or the English Class system is anybody's guess.
Dear Barb, I was thinking of a drama in which the central characters - a married couple -are Australian. Let us By chance, let us call them Mr and Mrs Bennett and, purely by chance they happen to have five daughters.
(I think I have gone too far here.) Mrs Bennett is obsessed with genealogy and visiting graveyards, much to the annoyance of her husband. It occurred to me that, if genealogical research is used as the narrative drive,
a modern counterpoint can be made to a classic novel - or novels. This would not the same as adapting aa classic. This is really playing around with the genres. It depends on which book you read, but was the English class system exported to Australia too? One book suggested some Australian landed estates are English in origin. I recently watched Crocodile Dundee 11 in which the hero goes to America and blends with 'commoners' rather than the Upper East side! He could be a model for the husband. Would the wife be 'lured' by the English upper classes? What about a republican daughter -the heroine?
I had queried this in a local Kent museum, which had an exhibition on the village, and it was one of the curators present, who pointed the gentleman farmer aspect, and even mentioned the character Bingley from 'Pride and Prejudice' - though he made money in trade and then hired a country estate.
i am reading Trollope at the moment and Frank Gresham, of Greshambury Hall, is referred to as 'the foremost commoner' Class seems to be more prevalent at that time than it was in the Regency.
'The Small House at Allington' is almost a symphony on breach of promise and was written in virtually the same year that the breach of promise case - the one I tried to research - had occurred. Trollope mentions breach of promise twice - in a legal sense - but the legal side is not considered in his book and the central theme is really 'jilting'. The reality is rather more Hardy than Trollope. My great-grandmother would have lost a freehold farm and the security of an extended farming family. She had been pregnant and would also have either been subject to the workhouse or the charity of her family. She won the case and, I think, the shame of public exposure might have led her to use her 'winnings' to emigrate to Australia for a new life. (This is not what happened. She married a widower and had more children by him.
Public shame and censure certainly features in Trollope's novel, In reality nothing is known of what happened to the defendant. There is a notice of bankruptcy and that is all. Presumably the farm was sold. He disappears from history, as he would in a Trollope novel, He was such a rat that he might well have been disowned by his family -the report in 'The Times' may well have reprinted the whole case - so it was extremely public!
I think the premise for your story is strong and it would certainly provide a way to link contemporary themes to historic ones. I thought your comment about Darcy belonging to a Whig oligarchy was very interesting; I suppose that would explain his extremely condescending first proposal to Elizabeth, where he makes it sound as if he's ashamed that his feelings have got the better of him. Lady Anne de Bourg would be the rich and disagreeable person he would ordinarily have married, but his love for Elizabeth obliges him to reevaluate the assumptions of his class and background, I guess, and make a better choice for himself. I should think it's precisely that inversion of "accepted" behaviour that made the book so popular in the first place. I have to confess to a strong sympathy for poor Mrs Bennett. Given the lack of opportunities for "gentlewomen" outside of matrimony, you can understand why she's so obsessed with getting her undowried daughters married off as well as possible. She's trying to do the best by them, while the rather useless Mr Bennett shuts himself into the library and buries his head in the sand.
Anyway, I also think it's interesting the comments people have made about class and social mobility. My suspicion is that there was rather more social mobility at the end of the 18th century than is sometimes thought. The class structure was supposed to keep us all in our appointed places, but didn't always. Lady Emma Hamilton is an interesting example. She was born dirt poor in Lancashire, came to London, became a prostitute, then married a Lord (making her socially acceptable despite her past). She then went on to become Nelson's mistress and the mother of an illegitimate child. She remained on the fringes of polite society, a source of scandal, gossip, newspaper columns and memorabilia rather like the Princess Diana of her day. She really must have been quite a gal! She was also incredibly beautiful, which always helps of course. At the same time, the industrial revolution was driving huge social change as we rapidly moved away from a largely agrarian society to an urban one, so she wasn't the only one on the make. But in any case, I don't think being called middling is any better or worse than being called middle-class, which I'm quite happy to own up to. In terms of what a "gentleman" was, I suppose originally it meant belonging to the landed "gentry" - so applied to anyone who owned their own land, or had an independent income without having to work.
In terms of your four facts, I didn't find it hard to deduce that the father came from this background and period of history. I wouldn't have a problem with Knights of the Shire. As Caducean Whisks said, it doesn't really matter if people don't know what it means in precise terms; it's enough that it suggests a certain time in history. I do think your story sounds interesting. I like the idea of a computer that can conjure up ghosts - is that what you intend? Or is it simply that the information your hero can glean helps him to build a picture of this man from the past? Would be interested to read more when you're ready.
All the best with it,
Vero
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