Guest Post: Queering the Regency by Natania Barron
Today I have a guest post from Natania Barron, author of Netherford Hall, which she summarizes as “Pride and Prejudice and Witches,” but which also is a sapphic Regency-era tale! So I asked Natania to talk a little about queer folks (particularly women) during the Regency for her guest post today!
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Queering the Regency
As scholars have gone back and forth considerably about women’s spaces, how close “close friends” really were, and the line between romantic love and sexual love regarding women, it seems rather bizarre to me that—especially considering extant diaries like Anne Lister’s—that we continue to question the fact that some women were able to love other women throughout history.
Even in the place of satire, for example, there are hints as to this circumstance appearing in the early 19th century. Take “The Spinster’s Numeration Table” in an edition of the 1837 publication, The New Monthly Magazine—it is a satirical chronicle of a spinster’s life. It is mostly mean-spirited throughout, but in the imagined spinster’s chronicle, this part stood out to me:
49 Years: Gratified to be told how well she wears. Makes her will. Leaves all to her beloved Arabella, except an annuity to the cat and canary birds.
50 Years: Startled by a proposal from dear Dr. Humgoose.—Consults Arabella, and determines to remain single.
51 Years: Alters her will on learning that her beloved Arabella has become Mrs. Humgoose.
First, one cannot help but notice the cat jokes. Apparently, those were still a la mode in the 19th century. But we also see, through the lens of comedy, that this spinster woman had enough feelings for this “beloved” Arabella that she, at least for a time, granted her an inheritance. But, reading between the lines, this Arabella apparently used the spinster for her affections and proximity to Dr. Humgoose (who had been pursuing our spinster for years).
To add more vinegar to the wounds, the author has this to say about the spinster once she reaches the age of 55: “Assumes brevet rank. Becomes an esprit fort, and is thenceforward classed in our minds with beings of an epicine gender.”
The word “epicene” here means essentially “of indeterminate gender.” She has lost all womanly connotations, and well, and as she is no longer desirable, the author simply ends her existence.
Jane Austen herself was famously a spinster, for all her writing about marriage. She died at 41 years old, leaving a trove of letters and details about her life, but aside from an early passionate flirtation with a young Irish man and a near-marriage in her late 20s, no nuptials occurred. She even counseled her niece to only marry if she had true affections. Her closest friend, her sister Cassandra, also did not marry. Despite their family’s continued financial struggles, marriage simply was not the best course of action for her. She focused, instead, on writing novels to support herself and her family, a rebellious act at the time which required she publish without her name. Indeed, Austen never saw her own name attached to her novels in her lifetime. Such visibility would not have been acceptable for a woman.
Austen’s sexuality is not the point of the discussion, but she was very much rooted in a world learning to wrestle with concepts of gender and power. She would have been aware of these challenges, especially in terms of spinsterhood and women’s circles of power. So, what were they?
Belinda, written by Mary Edgeworth in 1801, is often cited one of the first lesbian novels. The eponymous heroine has intense, charged relationships with two women—but it’s the second one, Mrs. Freke, who dresses like a man, and referred to as a “man-woman” who inhabits the role of morally bankrupt warning to Belinda. As a fashion historian, this is a theme I have seen time and again: a certain level of female closeness and power is accepted so long as it does not cross certain societal lines. And dressing in men’s clothing is very often one of them: punishable by death, in some cases, or grounds for witchcraft.
In “Something More Tender Still Than Friendship”: Romantic Friendship in Early-Nineteenth-Century England,” Lisa Moore argues that Mrs. Freke presents a moral warning—but not without complication:
By ridiculing Harriot Freke, Edgeworth vividly satirizes a whole cluster of proto-Romantic Jacobin ideas-feminism, domestic and political revolution, opposition to slavery, sexual freedom. Harriot Freke’s male-parodic behavior, however, links these ideas to the possibility of a female erotic agency directed, not at men but at other women. Harriot Freke is the “wrong” suitor for Belinda, true; but that she could be represented as a suitor at all raises fundamental problems in the novel’s attempt to construct the sexuality of the domestic woman.
To drive the transgression home, Mrs. Freke is ultimately injured, her legs mangled, so she may never wear men’s clothing again. Moore posits that this violent, sudden end, is necessary to re-focus the narrative on its moralizing:
Harriot Freke’s body is torn from the narrative when its compelling power as a freakish spectacle threatens to overwhelm its exemplary function. We see no more of Harriot when she can no longer wear men’s clothes.
The novel is, as Moore explains, about the dangers of too close of a friendship between women. It brings into question the entire fabric of society, the book seems to say. And indeed, that is a powerful business. Add to that, the fact that reading is also a red flag toward the slippery slope of moral disaster for women, it is no surprise novels were so scandalous.
Moore cites Anne Lister’s own struggle with this concept, avoiding the drama and arousing nature of novels for non-fiction. Lister was a Yorkshire woman whose diaries, once decoded, gave incredible detail into her life and love as a sapphic woman. Lister struggled to define herself, cross-dressed, and sought out company of other queer women, and ultimately writes in 1821: “I love, & only love, the fairer sex & thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any other love than theirs.”
In an interesting mirror to the satire from earlier, the last of Lister’s lovers—Ann Walker—was given the bulk of her properties. With one caveat: she would not marry. Lister and Walker also had a wedding ceremony, including the exchanging of rings and a service at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, as detailed in Lister’s own chronicles. It was not an official marriage, according to the University of York archives, but it was enough for the women, and important.
When sitting down to write a Regency sapphic tale, myself, I was aware of many of these concepts. But I am also a fantasy writer, and as my stories are alternate history, I could pull elements and inspirations from what actually happened and thread them through with my own re-imaginings. For queer people to exist visibly and publicly, I used the witches of the world as the engine of change. In the Netherford universe, gentlewitches are their own peerage, established during the Elizabeth I’s reign. This ushered in women, in general, in Parliament—written into the agreement between Crown and Coven, in fact. That then paved the way for a more progressive approach in many ways. Though far from perfect, the ripples of the Coven Council as part of the Lords Spiritual were significant.
For Edith Rookwood, the gentlewitch protagonist of the story, clothing is still a way that she asserts her power. I deliberately wanted her to be on the non-binary spectrum, being called Liege rather than Lady (she is not the only gentlewitch to do so) and dressing in more masculinely coded clothing. She speaks to male peers, like the Viscount St. Albans, as equals. She holds land, oversees Netherford Hall, and has her eyes on a seat in Parliament. But her clothing is also tailored to her: she does not go for the straight-forward Beau Brummel design but embellishes her waistcoat and cuffs with floral embroidery. Indeed, Edith and Poppy bond over embroidery not because it is “women’s work” but because it is beautiful.
Poppy Brightwell, on the other hand, is from a humbler family, like the Bennets. She does not have the means Edith does, and is somewhat of a crafter and maker herself, working together with the local modiste to mend and improve her own clothing, as well as develop new techniques. For Poppy, her clothing is an outward expression of her own creativity and self, comprised of vivid colors and patterns, textures and designs. She is sometime teased by others for her effusive sense of style, but it is a place she can claim her own autonomy.
All that aside, Edith must marry for money—and Poppy, as beautiful and beguiling as she is, does not have that. So, although their queerness is not a barrier to entry for their relationship, class still remains so. Ultimately, marriage is about power and money, regardless of who is pulling the strings.
What would Jane Austen think about my version of the story? Well, I’m certain she’d be scandalized. But a part of me hopes she would also recognize the power of fiction that imagines possible other lives for women in her time, outside their limitations of spinsterhood and marriage.
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References:
https://www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/holdings/research-guides/lgbt/anne-lister/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4289206
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3178079?read-now=1#page_scan_tab_contents
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Thank you so much, Natania! If you’re interested in Netherford Hall, it’s out TOMORROW wherever books are sold!
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