Georgette Heyer's Regency World (28 page)

Hunting, Horse Racing, Curricle Racing and Wagers

Hunting was a winter sport and many people considered it a boon to have the hunt meet in their neighbourhood. The hunt drew the rich and fashionable to the countryside and especially to the famous village of Melton Mowbray and the hunting country of the ‘Shires’ (Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland) as well as to the three greatest hunting packs of the Quorn, the Belvoir and the Cottesmore. The position of Master of Foxhounds (or MFH) was a prestigious one and it was often held by the local squire or a member of the aristocracy with his own pack of hounds. During the actual hunt the hounds were controlled by one or more whippers-in who worked to keep the hounds together in a single pack by ‘whipping-in’ any animal that broke loose or strayed from the group. Hounds were vital to the hunt as it was the job of the pack to pick up the fox’s scent, pursue it and eventually run the fox to ground while the men and women of the hunt rode in pursuit. For those addicted to the chase, like Phoebe Marlow’s father in
Sylvester
, hunting was an expensive sport. A bruising rider like Lord Marlow needed a minimum of six horses to hunt the Shires for several days a week and in lesser country he required at least three hunters to manage four days a week during the hunting season. But for intrepid riders, the thrill of a cross-country gallop with hedges, stone walls, ditches, gates and water courses to jump made hunting the only sport.

By the early nineteenth century Newmarket had become the effectual headquarters of the racing world and during the racing season men of leisure would organise their lives around the racing calendar. Racing was enormously popular with all classes and ‘betting on the turf’ a principal occupation for many gentlemen. Wagers could be laid on races at the course itself or at Tattersall’s which was open to all classes (though not to women). Fortunes were won and lost on horse races and many men would go to the races with the intention of recovering from debt only to find themselves much worse off at the end of the day—although Simon Carrington proved himself the exception to this rule in
Charity Girl
.

Curricle racing was never a formal sport, but rather an activity engaged in by men of fashion with a competitive nature, an interest in horses, and a desire for ever greater speed. Curricles were two-wheeled carriages generally pulled by a pair of horses, although expert drivers sometimes harnessed four, or even six, horses to the vehicle. A race could be between two drivers and their teams, or against the clock over a specified distance. The drive from London to Brighton was a popular racing route because the much-used road tended to be well maintained and there were several excellent posting-houses along the way. Reliable posting-houses were essential in a race because of the need for lightning-fast changes of the team. It generally took a stagecoach and four six hours to travel the fifty-two miles to Brighton; in 1784 the Prince Regent—then Prince of Wales—accomplished it in four and a half hours driving a phaeton and three unicorn style (one horse in front and two behind the leader). During the Regency, however, a driver tooling one of the new, lighter racing curricles designed for speed and drawn by a pair of well-matched carriage horses, with good new teams for the changes along the way, could complete the journey in well under four hours.

The betting book at White’s was started in the early years of the club by members who wanted a written record of bets made between them. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century bets were recorded by a club official but after that wagers were written in the leather-bound book by those making the bet. Many famous names were recorded in the betting book, with large sums wagered on a range of contests or questions ranging from racing to politics, matrimony to life expectancy. Some of those who bet were themselves the subject of wagers. Beau Brummell was a frequent entrant in the betting book, accepting wagers on issues as diverse as whether the Empress Maria Louisa would be in Paris by October 1815 (for 100 guineas), whether peace would be made between Napoleon and the Allies in 1814 (for 25 guineas) or whether Sir William Guise would beat Mr Dalton for the seat of Gloucester in February 1811 (30 to 25 guineas). Brummell was also the subject of a number of bets, such as the one in 1815 between Thomas Raikes and Charles Greville who each wagered 25 guineas that Brummell would beat a certain Mr Mosseux to the altar. Although, as Mr Liversedge pointed out to Captain Ware in
The Foundling
, some of the bets were improbable (and many were entirely frivolous), others were an interesting reflection of the club members’ reactions to some of the important events and issues of the period. In terms of the number of bets made and the size of the sums wagered, the Regency was the high period of the White’s betting book.

Gambling, Vowels and Debts of Honour

Betting and gaming were a major preoccupation during the Regency. Although both men and women gambled, upper-class women mostly confined their gaming to card games such as loo, silver-loo, faro, macao, whist and rouge-et-noir. Men also gambled at cards (particularly whist and faro) and often heavily, wagering vast sums on a hand in the clubs and hells of Pall Mall and St James’s, or risking their fortunes and estates on the roll of the dice when their luck at cards appeared to have deserted them. Almost any kind of bet was acceptable but once entered into was held to be binding: gambling debts were taken very seriously and, though legally unenforceable, were considered ‘debts of honour’. It was implicitly understood and accepted among the upper class that a debt created between individuals at the gaming table, over a hand of cards or as the result of any kind of wager between them, took precedence over, and must be paid before, any other kind of debt—even if the repayment cost a man his entire fortune and his estate. Because of the propensity for gambling and the very large sums involved, where a debt of honour was concerned there could be no thought of asking that payment be delayed or the debt forgiven—even of one’s closest friend. A man of honour would not dream of defaulting on a gambling debt, although he might easily make his tailor or other tradesmen wait months or even years before paying them. Money owed to tradespeople was perceived quite differently by the upper class and for those tradespeople who preferred not to wait the weeks, months or years it often took for many among the
ton
to pay their bills it sometimes became necessary to dun their aristocratic clients. This usually took the form, as Nell Cardross found to her great dismay in
April Lady
, of repeated invoices, courteous written reminders, forcibly expressed letters or a personal visit from the creditor to the debtor’s home to demand payment.

A man caught up in reckless gambling and finding himself short of ready money to pay what he owed could write an IOU or vowel (so-called because of the vowels, i.e. the
I
,
O
and
U
it represented) and pay his creditor the next day or over an agreed period. As Bertram tried to explain to his sister in
Arabella
, such was the degree of seriousness attached to a debt of honour that borrowing from a woman, going to the moneylenders, taking the King’s shilling (which meant enlisting in the army as an ordinary soldier instead of being commissioned as an officer—a dire fate for an upper-class man) or even death, were all more honourable outcomes than forfeiture of payment. Although women also gambled during the Regency—and some of them such as Lady Denville in
False Colours
to dangerous excess—few of them viewed gaming debts as men did, although they too were still obliged to pay. For those men and women with enormous gambling debts, often the only alternative left to them was to sell what they could, borrow from friends or the bank, or, as a very last resort, go to the moneylenders. It was not uncommon for a man to rise from the card table with losses of several thousand pounds and go straight to Clarges Street and the house of the moneylender and radical pamphleteer Jonathan ‘Jew’ King, there to mortgage his house or pledge the family silver in order to pay what he owed. Moneylenders were also known as ‘cent per cents’ because of the interest charged on the loans and, during the Regency, establishments such as Howard and Gibbs, King’s, Hamlet’s (the Cranbourn Alley jeweller) or less reputable practitioners, such as Mr Goldhanger in
The Grand Sophy
, enjoyed considerable patronage from among the desperate and debt-stricken social elite.

Duelling

There were a number of fencing academies in London during the Regency but probably the most famous of these was the school which had been established in the previous century by the famous master of the sword, Dominico Angelo. Angelo was an elegant, athletic man, who had cultivated every physical attribute and been esteemed by his friends and pupils alike for his extraordinary skill and dedication to his work. During the Regency his famous Bond Street school (next door to Jackson’s Boxing Saloon) was run by his son Henry who, like his father before him, was considered by the
ton
to be a master in the art of the fence. Well-bred gentlemen like Gervase Frant in
The Quiet Gentleman
became extremely skilled with a sword and sometimes attended the school to take lessons from the master, and Angelo’s subscription list included some of the noblest names in England.

Although a small number of duels were still fought with swords during the Regency, the growing popularity of guns and game shooting, coupled with improvements in firearm design and manufacture, increasingly saw pistols as the weapon of choice in settling an argument. There were three main reasons for challenging a man to a duel: taking liberties with a female relative; accusations of cheating, defamation or dishonourable behaviour; and attacking someone physically. A set of strict rules known as the Code of Honour governed the behaviour of any man involved in a duel and it was always the injured party’s prerogative to call out the offender and to choose the type of weapons to be used in an engagement. Once a challenge had been accepted the two parties—known as principals—would name their seconds, usually close and trusted friends, to act on their behalf. The Code of Honour decreed that a combatant place his honour in the hands of his seconds and it was their responsibility to see that protocols were adhered to and an equal contest was arranged. As both Ferdy Fakenham and Gil Ringwood in
Friday’s Child
knew only too well, the first duty of the seconds was to try and prevent the duel taking place while maintaining the honour of the principals. There was no dishonour in offering an apology or admitting error unless a blow had been struck (in which case no apology could be received) and the seconds would always try for an amicable settlement before arranging an engagement—a task which proved extremely challenging for Mr Warboys in
The Quiet Gentleman
.