As we recently ran a post about a Household Calvary horse named Sefton, we thought it would be appropriate to look into the Duke of Wellington’s connection to the Household Calvary, a term used to describe the cavalry of the Household Division, the most elite senior military groupings or those military groupings that provide functions associated directly with the Royal Family. The British Household Cavalry is made up of two regiments of the British armed forces, the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons). These regiments are divided between the Armoured Regiment stationed at Combermere Barracks in Windsor and the Household Calvary stationed at Knightsbridge Barracks, London.
The first Regiment with whom the Duke of Wellington was connected was the Royal, or 1st, Dragoons, who served under Wellington, as Lord Wellesley, during the Peninsular War. They acted as rearguard during the retreat at the Torres Vedras lines in 1810 and their charge at Fuentes d’Onor in 1811 contributed greatly to that victory. By the end of 1814, the Royal Dragoons had advanced into southern France and were granted permission to march through France to Calais.
In 1815, their successful charge at Waterloo alongside the Union Brigade was responsible for maintaining the Allies’ weakest position until the Prussians arrived. The famous charge against the French Cuirassiers took place at the height of the battle and saved the British centre from being overrun. During this charge, the 105 Eagle, now part of the The Royals’ and The Blues dress, was captured from the French 105th Infantry Regiment of the Line by Captain Clarke and/or Corporal Stiles.
However, the Duke of Wellington is most closely connected to the Royal Horseguards, also called The Blues. He was appointed as Colonel of the Regiment on 1st January, 1813, which proved to be the first step towards raising The Blues to the distinction of belonging to the Household Calvary. Wellington was the first Colonel to take office as Gold Stick with the colonels of the 1st and 2nd Life Guards, regiments with whom The Blues fought at the battle of Vittoria.
The Blues formed the Heavy Cavalary Brigade at Waterloo, fighting alongside the 1st and 2nd Regiments of Life Guards. At the beginning of the Brigade charge, the Regiment was in support, but as the charge unfolded, they drew into the first line. After the battle, the following equine casualties were reported: 48 killed, 21 wounded and 25 missing.
In 1821, King George IV ordered the Regiment to be brigaded with the 1st and 2nd Life Guards and to share the duties of the King’s Life Guard.
Today, the Household Cavalry continue to guard the monarch, appearing daily at the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Fittingly, the Viewing Galleries within the Wellington Arch, in front of Apsley House, offer unique views of the Household Cavalry passing beneath the Arch on their way to and from the Changing of the Guard. The Arch opens daily at 10 a.m., with the Guards usually passing at around 10:30 a.m.
We’ve entered the realm of YouTube with our very first, introductory video. If you’ve been with our blog for any length of time, you probably know us all by now, but you may not know that much about our Tours. In this video, you’ll see what a typical Number One London tour is like and in upcoming videos, we’ll be featuring our past tours and travels and showcasing our upcoming 2022 tours. So, please take a look using the link below and let us know what you think. And, should you approve, please do “like” our video and subscribe to our channel – it’s another way for us to stay connected!
24 Hours in the Past is a BBC One living history TV series first broadcast in 2015. Six quasi-celebrities were immersed in a recreation of impoverished life in Victorian Britain. Each of the four episodes represented 24 hours living and working in four different occupations – dust yard (filmed at the Black Country Living Museum), coaching inn (the New Inn at Stowe), potteries (the Gladstone Pottery Museum) and the work house (Workhouse Museum in Southwell). You can watch the first episode at the link below – all four episodes are available on YouTube.
Consanguinity and Affinity – Brother, Sisters, and Cousins—One of These Things is Not Like the Others
by Janna MacGregor
In the first book of my Widow Rules series, A Duke in Time, a war hero duke falls in love with his stepbrother’s wife. Could he legally marry her? Under the Church of England’s rules of consanguinity and affinity, a brother couldn’t marry his brother’s widow. Nor could a sister marry her sister’s widower. Yet they could marry first cousins.
But what about step-brothers and step-sisters? Do these rules apply in the blended families of yesteryears?
Let’s take a look at a few brave couples who challenged the Church of England and the laws that stood in the way of their true love and happiness.
Way back in the day of merry ol’ England, the Church of England had pretty strict rules of who could marry whom, particularly as it related to family. Let’s get some definitions out of the way to make this a little easier to understand.
Consanguinity basically means two people are related by blood relation and that they share common ancestors. Affinity is a relationship by marriage.
When people married in violation of the Church of England’s prohibition of consanguinity or affinity, the marriages were either void or voidable. If a marriage is void, it’s invalid and illegal. End of story. Any children born of such union were illegitimate.
If a marriage is voidable, then it’s valid. However, it could be annulled if an interested party successfully challenged the marriage while the husband and wife were still alive.
Let’s talk specifics. You could marry your cousin. In Pride and Prejudice, that was why Lady Catherine De Bourgh clearly circled the wagons around her nephew Fitzwilliam Darcy and encouraged him to marry her daughter, Darcy’s cousin, instead of Elizabeth Bennett. Darcy’s marriage to his cousin would have ensured that his lovely home and wealth would stay within the family. Heck, even King George IV, the former Prince Regent, married his first cousin, Queen Caroline. We all know how that turned out. They couldn’t stand one another.
The Marriage of George IV (1762-1830) when Prince of Wales, 1795. | RCIN 405845, Courtesy of the Royal Collection.
Do I hear any “ewws?” I can’t imagine marrying any of my cousins, but it happened all the time during the Regency. Marrying within the family was a way of keeping the hard-earned wealth intact. However, the laws were less lenient for other cases. For instance, a sister couldn’t marry a brother, and a brother couldn’t marry a sister because of incest.
By now, you’re curling your lip.
Incest is taboo and illegal in most countries. But what if a man wants to marry his brother’s widow or vice versa? That’s a problem for our Regency couple, but not an insurmountable one. Here’s a little background: in the Regency period when a woman married, she was considered to become “one flesh” with her husband. Legally, she lost practically all rights when she said, “I do.” Usually, her property belonged to her husband after the marriage (unless she and her family had been clever enough to put it in trust or had to some pretty airtight marriage settlements.) The “one flesh” language meant that her husband had the legal authority to decide all financial and moral decisions on her behalf. Under the law, she had to grin and bear it.
But I digress.
When a woman became “one with her husband” that meant she became sisters to her brother-in-law according to the church. If her spouse died, she could not marry her brother-in-law even though there was not a speck of blood or in some instances, common ancestry shared between them. These are the rules of affinity that the Church of England forbid. Here’s a detailed list.
A Table of Kindred and Affinity in The Book of Common Prayer (1662.)
A Table of Kindred and Affinity,
Wherein Whosoever Are Related Are Forbidden
by the Church of England to Marry Together.
father
son
adopted son
father’s father
mother’s father
son’s son
daughter’s son
brother
husband’s father
husband’s son
mother’s husband
daughter’s husband
father’s mother’s husband
mother’s mother’s husband
husband’s father’s father
husband’s mother’s father
husband’s son’s son
husband’s daughter’s son
son’s daughter’s husband
daughter’s daughter’s husband
father’s brother
mother’s brother
brother’s son
sister’s son
In this Table the term ‘brother’ includes a brother of the half-blood, and the term ‘sister’ includes a sister of the half-blood.
Remember that scene in Jane Austen’s Emma where Mr. Knightley says, “Brother and Sister! No, indeed.” This exclamation comes after Emma Woodhouse’s comment that they are not so much “brother and sister” as to make a recent dance that they’d shared unseemly.
Why did she say that? Remember that her sister had married Knightley’s brother. Emma mistakenly believed that any relationship outside of friendship would be verboten with her Mr. Knightley. If her sister died, Emma couldn’t marry her brother-in-law. Same was true for Mr. George Knightley. He couldn’t marry Emma’s sister if his brother died. But there was no such relationship between Emma and Knightley. So Emma and her dear Mr. Knightley didn’t run afoul of the Church of England’s strict rules when they pledged their troths to one another.
Emma 2020 courtesy of Focus Features.
Yet, it’s a telling tidbit about our dearly loved Jane Austen. Her own brother Charles John Austen married his deceased wife Fanny Palmer’s sister, Miss Harriett Palmer, making the marriage voidable. But his marriage survived. How, you ask?
Sir John Charles Austen
Because under the Ecclesiastical Court, a voidable marriage could only be struck if someone. . .really, anyone complained. This usually happened when a greedy relative sought to ensure they weren’t cut from inheriting the husband’s property. In Charles’ case above, no one complained because he and Harriett were as poor as church mice.
In A Duke in Time, the male protagonist, Christian, the Duke of Randford, falls in love with his deceased half-brother’s wife, Katherine Vareck. If they married, then their voidable marriage could be declared void if a nasty relative complained. For that very reason, I purposely made certain that Christian had no heir presumptive in the woodwork who would have cause to complain about the marriage. A voided marriage between the couple would have instantly made any children born of the marriage declared bastards and incapable of inheriting from their father. A definite stain on Christian and Katherine’s happily-ever-after.
English history is rife with these types of marriages. In 1835, the Seventh Duke of Beaufort’s marriage to his dead wife’s half sister was brought before Parliament to legitimize the marriage to ensure his heir inherited the dukedom. A parliamentary bill was hastily composed which resulted in the Marriage Act of 1835. It declared that any prior voidable marriages similar to the Duke of Beaufort’s would be declared legal if not already void. However, any English marriage that violated the rules of affinity after August 31, 1835 would be void.
When you come across various plots with these twists, just remember that there’s more to a Regency marriage than meets the eye in our cherished romances.
Released June 29, 2021
Available Everywhere!
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“If…looking for something new with Austen’s spirit, humor, and dashing heroes, they can’t do better than MacGregor.” – Entertainment Weekly
A Duke in Time is the first book in a three-story arc that will have you rooting for leading heroines, searching for lost dowries, and falling for swoon-worthy heroes.
Katherine Vareck is in for the shock of her life when she learns upon her husband Meri’s accidental death that he had married two other women. Her entire business, along with a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a royal supplier, is everything she’s been working for and now could be destroyed if word leaks about the three wives.
Meri’s far more upstanding brother, Christian, Duke of Randford has no earthly clue how to be of assistance. He spent the better part of his adult years avoiding Meri and the rest of his good-for-nothing family, so to be dragged back into the fold is…problematic. Even more so is the intrepid and beautiful Katherine, whom he cannot be falling for because she’s Meri’s widow. Or can he?
With a textile business to run and a strong friendship forming with Meri’s two other wives, Katherine doesn’t have time for much else. But there’s something about the warm, but compellingly taciturn Christian that draws her to him. When an opportunity to partner in a business venture brings them even closer, they’ll have to face their pasts if they want to share each other’s hearts and futures.
Janna MacGregor was born and raised in the bootheel of Missouri. She credits her darling mother for introducing her to the happily-ever-after world of romance novels. Janna writes stories where compelling and powerful heroines meet and fall in love with their equally matched heroes. She is the mother of triplets and lives in Kansas City with her very own dashing rogue, and a smug, but not surprisingly, perfect pug. She loves to hear from readers.
The first thing one might notice about The Cockpit is the odd shape of the building. It looks rather like the prow of a ship sailing up the alleyways at the juncture of Ireland Yard and St. Andrew’s Hill.
There has been an inn, tavern or pub on this site since as early as 1352 when the first mention of The Oakbourn Inn is recorded. This inn was actually situated on the eastern edge of Dominican friars, or Blackfriars, monastery.
Although Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1530, most of the buildings of the Blackfriars Monastery were left intact. Interestingly enough, in 1613 the gatehouse to the old monastery was purchased by a young actor and playwright and several of his acting friends for the sum of 140 pounds to be used as a theatre and makeshift lodging for members of the troupe. The actor’s name? William Shakespeare.
Whilst the Blackfriars Gatehouse was eventually torn down a number of establishments were built on the site. In 1787 a tavern called The Cockpit was recorded as opening there. The building was completely renovated in 1842, but the name remained.
As the name declares, the tavern was once one of the major venues for the “sport” of cockfighting in London. Two roosters, bred and cared for as athletes, were thrown into the ring together, sometimes with knives or spurs attached to their feet, and their natural aggression towards each other was allowed to play out while crowds of gentlemen bet and bayed for blood. The match was deemed over and a victor declared once one rooster was either dead or maimed to the point he could not carry on the fight.
19th century cockfighting
When one enters the pub today one is actually walking into the combat ring. Look up towards the eighteen foot ceilings and the original balustrades of the balcony denote where the spectators stood to observe the cockfights.
Interior The CockpitBalcony of The Cockpit
Fortunately, cockfighting was made illegal and banned in England and Wales in 1849. At some point the tavern was refurbished and renamed either The Three Kings of The Three Castles. Research sources diverge on this subject. It went through another refurbishment in 1865 and sometime between then and 1984 retained the name The Cockpit once more.
The decor of the present pub pays homage to the pub’s heritage with 19th century prints of fighting cocks and even a stuffed rooster to greet visitors at the door.
As with all tales of gambling and blood sports, it is rumored The Cockpit is visited from time to time by the ghost of a lady who is seen wringing her hands over her lack of money because of her husband’s gambling debts. The story is she made the mistake of following him to The Cockpit to prevent him from placing yet another bet. Unfortunately the man was in serious need of anger management. He supposedly beat her to death in the cellar of the pub or in the alley just outside the cellar doors and went back to the cockfight as if nothing had happened. On dark and quiet nights one is said to be able to hear their final confrontation and to catch the poor lady bemoaning her fate.
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Released June 29, 2021
love with their equally matched heroes. She is the mother of triplets and lives in Kansas City with her very own dashing rogue, and a smug, but not surprisingly, perfect pug. She loves to hear from readers.
