when the brontes were children, they wrote and play-acted reams of history and goings-on in two islands of their imaginings, called gondal (all the capitals of the kingdoms of this island were called glasstown, and so sometimes they referred to it as “the glasstown confederacy) and gaaldine. they also made up little pocketbooks and magazines, based on the popular publications of the day. at the time, charlotte’s hero was arthur wellesley, the duke of wellington (defeater of napoleon and great military hero; tory statesman and prime minister). on several of the surviving magazines, she has attributed authorship to a “lord charles wellesley”.