Welcome to my blog REDOUBTABLE EDWARDIANS featuring articles about the colorful eccentrics who populated the era of my books. I hope you will find them as fascinating as I do!
In 1901 when Clementine, Lady Montfort was a young mother with three young children in the nursery it snowed that Christmas Eve as the Talbot family and their servants walked down St. Bartholomew’s church in the village for the evening carol service. I remember from my own childhood that nothing captured the spirit of… Read the full article >>
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” ~ Winston S. Churchill Winston Spencer Churchill was the son of Lord Randolph Churchill, the third son of John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough and Lady Randolph Churchill (née Jennie Jerome) daughter of an American millionaire. As a third grandson of a… Read the full article >>
April 29, 1879 – March 8, 1961 There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between. —Sir Thomas Beecham Beecham’s grandfather, also Thomas Beecham, was the rich industrialist who owned Beecham’s Powders, a laxative and cure-all for headache and… Read the full article >>
‘Let me introduce you to the man who killed Rasputin,’ Maud Cunard said to guests attending her large dinner party for the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. Pavlovich and his friend Prince Felix Yasupov were indeed the men who had taken hours to kill the Mad Monk, Rasputin, the favorite of the Tsarina who resisting poison, bludgeoning… Read the full article >>
Today the great houses of Britain’s landed aristocracy with their vast, exquisite interiors and views of sweeping parkland attest to the power of rank and wealth of a bygone age. They also provide a stunning backdrop for elegantly clothed men and women with gracious manners who star in numerous costume dramas acquired for Masterpiece Theatre… Read the full article >>
Daisy Brook, who later became Daisy Greville, the Countess of Warwick, was one of the early Edwardian era’s great beauties and the center of it’s many scandals. She featured in DEATH OF A DISHONORABLE GENTLEMAN as an example of imprudence and reckless behavior. “I will not be used as an example of indiscretion for generations… Read the full article >>
Fox-hunting – the great pastime of the English countryman, conjures up vivid images. But women riders – sitting beautifully upright on their great glossy horses, flowing habits cascading, top hats fixed firmly over neatly coiled and netted hair, veils secured across haughty faces, all galloping along at great speed and daringly taking all obstacles have all my admiration. The… Read the full article >>
The hedonistic age of Edwardian Britain for the idle rich and leisured classes abounded with every possible pastime, as it was out of the question to be of society and to work for a living. For men these interests varied from traditional roles in politics, government and the stewardship of their bountiful and productive acres, to archeology, architecture, breeding… Read the full article >>
Yes, of course Edwardians married for love, but the upper-classes usually fell in love among their own kind, shoring up their country estates from time to time with alliances to an American fortune or with the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Until they were of age, Britain’s aristocratic girlhood was kept under wraps on the… Read the full article >>
Elinor Glyn was a best-selling romance novelist whose fame peaked in the early 1900s. She wrote what were heavily criticized as novels of ‘questionable quality and taste’ at a time when Victoria’s rigid rules for fidelity were still strongly upheld by the middle classes, even though they had have been mislaid by certain members of the… Read the full article >>