Well, he didn't do it all by himself, he had help. From the Carlton House set, from his princely brothers, even, ironically, from his father, George III. All of the various influences in his life contrived to turn a very strictly brought-up young prince into one of the most reviled monarchs of his age. In fact, his extravagant and debauched lifestyle revolted his own niece and so many of his younger subjects that eventually a backlash in attitudes led to the almost puritanical sensibilities of the Victorian age.

What were the factors that led to this unequivocal volte-face from the accepted standards of behavior current during the Regency?

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Recently I came upon a book at my local library which quite piqued my interest. It was a history of the development and evolution of the concept of the English gentleman over the course of several centuries. Until I started reading the dust jacket of this book, I thought a gentleman was a gentleman was a gentlemen. I would certainly never have thought there was any point in writing a book on the subject.

Before I read this book, I must admit, I had a rather amorphous idea of what a gentleman really was. From my regular reading of Regency romance novels, I perceived a gentleman as a man of "good breeding," but just what did that mean? After reading this book, I have a much clearer view of just what it entailed to be an English gentleman. I also discovered that the years of the Regency were a period of transition for what it meant to be a gentleman in England.

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The theatres of the Regency did not only glitter with the talents of the great actors who trod their boards. They also glittered with the presence of the many members of the beau monde who flocked to the nightly performances during the season. But more germane to the subject of this article, they glittered with light, all the time. The house lights were never dimmed during a performance in any theatre auditorium in Regency England.

Despite the many instances in scores of Regency romance novels I have read over the years in which the theatre house lights dim and some form of seduction ensues in the darkness, it could not have happened. It was physically and technically impossible to dim the house lights of any theatre auditorium during the years of the Regency. And theatre-goers would have been appalled at the very notion. They came to the theatre to see and be seen. The play itself was secondary to the performances going on in the stalls and private boxes.

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During my career as a museum curator, I came across some rather unique English glass forms. The manufacture of some of these glass types pre-dates the Regency, but a large number of these vessels would still have been in circulation during those years, and any one of them would make an interesting prop for a scene in a Regency romance. As I have mentioned in other articles here, objects made before the Regency could easily appear in an historically accurate novel set during that decade. But objects made after that time would appear in a novel with a Regency setting only if the author had failed to do their research.

If one day you come across mention of a toddy lifter, a coaching glass, a celery vase or a yard of ale when you are reading an historical novel, you will now have some idea of how these curiosities of glass looked, and the purposes to which they might be put.

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