Georgette Heyer's Regency World by Jennifer Kloester Read Free Book Online Page A

that of the estate, unless they took an active interest and physically involved themselves in the farming or household work (as a few of them did), they mainly spent their time in recreational pursuits. With a large contingent of servants to ensure there was always plenty of good food, cosy fires, pleasant rooms and personal service, the country house was ideal for playing host to large numbers of guests. For several months of the year the family and their guests spent their days enjoying (or enduring) the rituals of country living. In False Colours a house party at the Denville family’s country seat of Ravenhurst was enjoyable for those among the guests who appreciated the quiet entertainments of country living. For women this usually meant taking pleasure in the garden or going for a walk, ride or drive in the countryside or parkland belonging to the estate. If they preferred being indoors, or if the weather was inclement, they could read, write, embroider, paint or indulge their musical tastes on the pianoforte or harp. Men had a wider range of activities available to them and could spend entire days out of doors with their dogs tracking game, shooting or fishing, with fox-hunting in the winter. Visits between local landowners were also an important part of rural life and evenings were often spent conversing over the dinner table with friends and neighbours and their families, followed by cards, music, or an impromptu dance. In The Nonesuch Sir Waldo Hawkridge’s extended stay at Broom Hall was the signal for the local gentry and other well-to-do families to embark on a series of increasingly lavish dinner parties, dances and balls with Sir Waldo and his cousin as the honoured guests.
    Regency society was largely a land- and property-based entity and the upper class drew its base income mainly from the rent paid by urban and rural tenants. Land was a precious and jealously guarded commodity and a son and heir who exploited his estate for his sole benefit (instead of maximising its productivity for the benefit of his family, his tenantry and the wider community), or who lost any part of his holdings through waste, mismanagement or profligate behaviour, was often looked down upon or even despised by the ton . Even for those landowners, such as Stacy Calverleigh in Black Sheep , who took no direct interest in their estates—leaving their management to an agent or bailiff—the idea of having to sell part of their land to fund debt was abhorrent. Some members of the aristocracy took an active interest in the management of their estates, ensuring that the land was worked effectively, tenants cared for and improvements made. In A Civil Contract , Adam Deveril was keenly interested in agriculture and making the most of his acres. He travelled from Lincolnshire to Norfolk to attend the famous Holkham Clippings at Thomas Coke’s pioneering estate and there meet with other farmers and learn as much as he could about new crops and methods of farming. Most landowners’ primary interest, however, was not in how their land was farmed but how much it paid them. To some it did not matter whether the income from their land came from the rents paid by tenant farmers, mining leases and the royalties paid on the coal, iron, tin or other metals dug from their land, from building leases or from the money paid to cut a canal through their estate. While the Regency lasted, land still equated to wealth, to power and to status and as such it remained an essential part of upper-class Regency life.

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    A Man’s World
    Upper-class Regency Men
    In Regency England men determined the legal, social and political order of things, and for many men in the moneyed upper ten thousand it was a hedonistic time devoted to entertainment, merriment and debauchery. Etiquette and protocols were often a mass of contradictions both within and between the classes. A man could marry for love or convenience or money or power, but he was not bound to be faithful.