James Munson
Author of The Penguin Companion to Trollope
Works by James Munson
Echoes of the Great War : the diary of the Reverend Andrew Clark 1914-1919 (1985) — Editor — 12 copies
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
Members
Reviews
Witty,amusing and interesting selection of travellers views of travelling on the Continetn. It would be very hard not to find things of interest on every page.
Given it incidentally covers history, geography, the social landscape and the living conditions of Europe, plus the ingrained views of the British traveller in 19th century, it is a great read.
The authors have chosen a great range of sources so that what might be leadenly educational is actually a pleasure to read.
Given it incidentally covers history, geography, the social landscape and the living conditions of Europe, plus the ingrained views of the British traveller in 19th century, it is a great read.
The authors have chosen a great range of sources so that what might be leadenly educational is actually a pleasure to read.
1 
dieseltaylor | Jul 31, 2011 |
dieseltaylor | Jul 31, 2011 | 
Absolutely essential for wending my way through Trollope, or for insight on the occasional bit of trivia about the mid-Victorian period. The book is clearly and concisely written, chock-a-block with useful and pertinent information, and the authors don't stint on alerting the unwary reader to those works of Trollope that are, shall we say, "sub-par," unlike some starry-eyed literary docents I've encountered.
1 uvula_fr_b4 | Jun 4, 2006 |
uvula_fr_b4 | Jun 4, 2006 | Lists
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 7
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 229
- Popularity
- #98,340
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 3
- ISBNs
- 20
- Languages
- 1
Mrs. Fitzherbet, nee Miss Smythe, then Mrs. Weld, then widowed and Mrs. Fitzherbert, then widowed again, was 27 years old when the Prince of Wales first took an interest in her (he was 21). He had already had a number of mistresses by the time he picked out Mrs. Fitzherbert, including the actress Mary Robinson, “Perdita” to his “Florizel”. As a youth, the Prince always was attracted to older women, especially older women generously endowed, which was generally agreed to be the case for Mrs. Fitzherbert. Society would not have remarked much if Mrs. Fitzherbert had simply agreed to be the Prince’s mistress; however, she wasn’t interested in that position, and fled to the Continent to avoid the Prince’s attentions. Absence seemed to make the Prince’s heart grow fonder and he deluged Mrs. Fitzherbert with love letters (one was 43 pages long) and personal messengers. Eventually Mrs. Fitzherbert gave in, and an Anglican clergyman in debt to the Prince performed a wedding before witnesses and with a marriage certificate.
Therein lay the problem. It was illegal for the heir to the throne to marry without his father’s permission, and not only did the Prince not have George III’s permission; he hadn’t even tried to get it. Anyone participating in such a marriage – the clergyman performing, witnesses, the couple – was subject to imprisonment “at His Majesty’s Pleasure”. What’s more, another law eliminated anyone from the royal succession if they married a Catholic – and Mrs. Fitzherbet happened to be one.
Although supposedly “secret”, it was a pretty open secret. Mrs. Fitzherbert added a third wedding ring and expected to be treated as a princess; the Prince generally obliged. The newspapers had a field day (at the time, all major papers were controlled by either the Government or the Opposition. At least one paper financed itself by blackmail – an incriminating story one day was suppressed or retracted on the next, assuming the interested parties showed up in the editor’s office with cash. The debate over Mrs. Fitzherbert and the Prince hinged on civil versus canon law and on interpretation of civil law. One line of argument was if the marriage was legal under canon law, then it was illegal under civil law, but if illegal under canon law then it was not a crime under civil law (since it wasn’t a marriage at all). A further sophisticated argument was that in civil court a marriage could only be proved by witnesses; but being a witness at such a marriage was illegal and since no one could be forced to incriminate themselves no witness could be compelled to testify. As far as the religious side went, both the Church of England and the Catholic Church held that a marriage was valid if the parties were competent to marry (i.e., of legal age and mentally capable), “free” to marry (not under coercion and not previously married), and contracted to marry (exchanged vows). There was some argument that the Prince was not, in fact “free” to marry because of civil law prohibiting it but neither Church ever offered an opinion (or, in fact, ever got involved at all). To make things even more interesting, various Catholic decisions on marriage (such as the Council of Trent requiring a priest and two witnesses) were officially “unknown” in England, since it was illegal to publish a bull or encyclical there. English Catholics were by now allowed to travel to the Continent, and Catholic countries had embassies in London with chapels (frequently used by London Catholics, since it was still officially illegal to build a Catholic church); therefore they were “unofficially” aware of many Church decisions they were “officially” ignorant of.
English Catholics (except for Maria’s immediate family) were generally hostile to the “marriage”. The penalties against Catholicism were gradually being relaxed, but the process was tortuous; in 1780 there had been massive riots (the “Gordon Riots”) protesting Catholic emancipation; 285 people were shot to death by the military, another 200 wounded, and 20 or 30 rioters executed. The feeling was that a royal marriage with a Catholic would make things worse, not better, for other Catholics.
As is often the case, it was the chase rather than the catch that seemed to interest the Prince and his relationship with Mrs. Fitzherbert gradually cooled. The situation was complicated by the Regency Crisis; George III went nuts and there was no legal provision for the Prince to act as Regent. The King recovered before the issue could be settled. Now the issue became the Prince’s debts; his extravagant lifestyle had run up them up to what would now be millions of dollars. The only way the King would pay them would be if the Prince agreed to marry (because, as far as George III was concerned, the Prince was a bachelor) and he gave up and did so in 1795, to Princess Caroline of Brunswick. They were probably the most ill-suited couple in royal history. She was not physically attractive, especially in the areas the Prince was most interested in; on meeting her he had to excuse himself and get drunk. He was so drunk at the wedding his mother had to hold him up through the ceremony. He reported later that the only time he slept with her was on the wedding night; conversely she reported later that he hadn’t slept with her then, which leaves some question as to where their daughter came from. He now returned to Mrs. Fitzherbert for consolation; oddly, Princess Caroline seems to have liked Mrs. Fitzherbert, possibly because when the Prince was with Mrs. Fitzherbert he was away from her.
The relationship cooled again, because Maria didn’t receive the deference she thought was her due and because of the Prince’s wandering eye; the final split apparently came when Maria wasn’t allowed to sit at the head table at a reception for the deposed King of France. The Prince, by then, was Regent and eventually became King George IV. He continued to have an increasingly embarrassing eye for the ladies, despite being so fat he was barely able to walk, an alcoholic, and addicted to laudanum.
Maria Fitzherbert had always been on good terms with the Prince’s siblings and this continued after his enthronement and death. When his brother became William IV, he told Mrs. Fitzherbet to wear mourning, to put her servants in Royal livery, treated her like a widowed Queen, and saw that she received a pension George IV had promised her but never delivered. Her final years were placid; people commented that she kept her beauty into old age. All her old enemies – and, unfortunately, all her old friends – predeceased her. Unlike many other royal mistresses, she was quite wealthy; although never reputed as being particularly bright she apparently had a talent for real estate and stock market investment.
Almost all of her correspondence with the Prince was burned after George’s death; up to now a lot of her biographers have depended on secondary sources and, essentially, gossip. Mrs. Fitzherbert author James Munson has the advantage of the recent discovery of a diary belonging to Maria’s close friend Lady Anne Barnard and a number of letters between them. The new material suggests that Mrs. Fitzherbert was neither the scheming harpy portrayed by some of her previous critics or the innocent romantic victim portrayed by some of her previous supporters; she seems to have genuinely loved the Prince but was also determined to get what she thought she was owed and to be treated as she thought she deserved.
Munson, alas, doesn’t make this an easy read; he makes heavy use of direct quotation from his sources to the extent that it often obscures what’s going on. He also doesn’t change the spelling or grammar in any of his quotations, leading to a lot of cryptic abbreviations (paper and postage was expensive). The Prince was especially fond of underlining for emphasis, on one occasion Munson gives up on duplicating this literally and simply says that every word in a long quote was underlined in the original. I realize Munson is trying to overcome the romantic conception created by some earlier biographers, but I happen to think this is a case where a more romantic and less scholarly approach would have actually been more true to the subject; I wonder what (for example) Allison Weir or Antonia Fraser would have done with the same material.
Fairly well illustrated; Maria Fitzherbert was the subject of a number of famous painters of the time, including Joshua Reynolds and George Romney. The bibliography is extensive and is mostly primary sources; there’s no doubt of Munson’s scholarly credentials. I would have appreciated a chronology and a list of characters – the later especially as the cast changes names through marriage or inheritance of a title (especially in the case of one of Munson’s most important sources, Lady Anne Barnard, who starts out as Lady Anne Lindsay). There perhaps could have been a little more background; Munson assumes his readers are quite familiar with British history; but maybe not, it’s already a long book.… (more)