Dear Readers, Every issue of the Regency Rambler Review contains a short story like the sample below. If you would like to receive my news and information about books and a story, please subscribe below.

Michele

The Inside Story

Historical novelists spend a great many hours researching and searching for interesting information for that something different to bring the historical world alive for their readers. but  the history serves as background for our characters, not as a history class. Oh, but what are we poor authors to do with all of that knowledge?  I thought I would pass some of it on, in this section of my newsletter - in the form of a story. Imagine you are traveling back in time and you get to peek into the lives of an early 19th Century family. Last time we saw Mary at the birth of the Prince of Wales - if you missed it, you can catch up on my website.

Regency Rambler Gossip

Dateline:  March  1773. since His Royal Majesty, King George, moved his family to Kew Palace the Princes are learning to be useful members of society by undertaking house hold tasks reports a member of the court.

Well that’s how it might have looked in the newspaper, but what would Michele Ann Young,  storyteller do with it. Let me see.........

 Farmer George's Littlest Gardener © Michele Ann Young

Scene:Mary is now fifteen and a great help to her Papa. The Prince of Wales is eleven.

    Mary huddled deeper into her cloak, grabbing it close to keep the wind from tugging it free as she perched beside her father on the box of his carters wagon.  Somehow the River Thames that they had left behind in the city had curled around to meet them. Father brought the horse to a halt and the toll for the bridge.

   “What bridge is this? She asked.

   “Kew Bridge,” the man collecting their money said. “That’ll be ninepence.”

   Pa handed over the money and received his ticket. The toll keeper  waved them across.

   “Kew Bridge?” Mary said. “Isn’t that where the King lives?”

   Father’s eyes twinkled. “Yes.”

   “Are we going to the palace?” her voice came out in a little girl squeak.

   “We are. I said you were in for a treat.  I have to take these here linens,” he jerked his head toward the box behind their seat, “from the haberdashers to the palace.”

    “Oh my,” Mary said. “Do you think we will see the King or the Princes?” Her heart gave a little flutter at the thought she might see her little Prince again.  He must be all of eleven years old by now. Eleven years since she had sat on her Pa’s shoulders waiting for his birth.

   “Not likely,” Pa said. “Still, with all your talk of the prince, I though you might like to see where he lives.”

   As usual Father pulled the wagon around to the courtyard back of the great house, a square red brick building with odd looking gables set in beautiful gardens. “Wait here, my girl. Keep an eye on the horse.”

   Mary nodded. She often accompanied her father on these trips, he said it was to take care of the horse, but old Joe never moved a muscle once he had his feedbag over his nose. Father just liked company.

   At the back of the house, two lads battled the weeds in a garden. One of them straightened from his hoeing, looked her up and down then beckoned.

   Mary climbed down and walked between the rows of peas to join him.

  “Hullo,” he said. A boy of about ten or eleven, he had one of those accents like the nobs. He had slightly protuberant blue eyes and a sweet expression on his handsome face.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, taking in his skeleton suit of velvet and the feather in his hat.

   He pouted. “Gardening duty. Father wants us to learn how things grow.” He glowered at the house. “It is part of our schooling. We have to make bread too. Why are you here?”

  “I’m helping, my pa with his deliveries.”

  “I say, George.” The other lad, a sturdy boy, dressed almost the same as the first, marched up from the other end of the row. “Who is this?”

  “What is your name?” George asked.

   “Mary," she said. "What's yours."

  He swept off his hat and bowed with a grand flourish. “Very pleased to meet you, Miss Mary. I am George Augustus Frederick. And this is my brother Frederick Augustus.”

  Those names certainly sounded familiar. Mary felt her eyes go round. “You’re the princes,” she managed to gasp.

  Frederick gave her a stiff little nod. “You shouldn’t be here. The guards might lock you up.”

  Prince George winked.

  Mary sank into a wobbly curtsey.

  “Hey, now, none of that.,” Prince George said. “Today I’m only the gardener, Miss Mary and a very pretty miss you are too.”

“Mary!” Father’s bellow echoed off the grand building.

 “That’s, Pa,” she said. “I must go. I am so happy to meet your majesties.” In a daze, she ducked her head and turned and ran. The Prince. She’d met the Prince. Gardening. She glanced over her shoulder as she clambered up onto the cart. Prince Frederick was already wielding his hoe, but her prince, Prince George, gave a cheery waive of his hat.

   She spent the whole journey home hugging the image to her heart.

  “Who were them young fellows,” Pa said as he turned into their yard.

  “Nobody, Pa,” she said. Only the next King of England. And he had called her pretty.

~~~~~~~~

Now,            It might have happened. It probably didn’t, but the boys really were required to work in the Gardens at Kew and carters must have delivered to the house from time to time, so I don’t see why Mary might not have met her prince in the garden. King George III was known as Farmer George to his subjects, sometimes as a term of endearment, and sometimes not. While George Prince of Wales became very unpopular as Regent and as King, he could be quite charming according to many of his contemporaries, Wellington included. In this scene I imagine him as yet to be spoiled by sycophants and his own self-importance.  And our Mary is such a royal worshiper. And why not? Do we not do something very similar these days with our stars of stage and screen.