#regencies

The Hand of the King "speaks with the king's voice". He has all the powers of the king and is subject only to him. He can sit the Iron Throne when the king is not available. He can make laws, pronounce judgements, and deal with anyone in the court (or kingdom!) in the same way the king can. Including the hiring/firing of Small Council members, Kingsguard, palace and city guards, etc. A Hand for a very lazy or uninterested king could do basically anything. (See for example Bloodraven as Hand to Aerys I.)

Whereas the queen has only as much power as the king lets her have. Which, for most queens, isn't much. There are exceptions - Rhaenys and Visenya also made laws and judged people while sitting the Iron Throne, but they were the first and last queens to do so. Even Alysanne, who Jaehaerys granted a lot of power and considered his #1 advisor (after his Hand, Septon Barth), never sat the Iron Throne. A queen might be given control of the female domain of running the household, of hiring and firing Red Keep maids and such (as lord's ladies usually do for their castles), or she might not be allowed to do anything at all. It completely depends on the king and his attitude towards his wife. Mind you, if the king happens to be dependent on the queen's father for some reason (monetarily or he's Hand), she may have a lot more power than otherwise, including over the household guards or other such appointments her family was in charge of. (e.g. Cersei with the red cloaks, Alicent with nearly everything)

A Queen Regent, however, is not a mere queen, but a regent. That is, she is serving as the ruler while the king, her son, is underage. She has all the powers of the king, including regarding hiring and firing the Hand. Although for some reason (*cough* misogyny *cough*), she does not sit the Iron Throne, but a small throne placed below it. And for practical reasons (misogyny!) she will likely let the Hand do most of the ruling. Again, it's a personality thing - Queen Regent Alyssa Velaryon initially co-ruled with her husband the Hand Rogar Baratheon, until they fought (and she won), though afterwards she was so traumatized by the conflict she sat back and let her brother, the new Hand Daemon Velaryon, do all the ruling until Jaehaerys turned 16. Queen Regent Cersei and acting Hand Tyrion had an ongoing power struggle, but when Tywin took his place as Hand he didn't allow Cersei to do any kind of ruling. (because he's her father. and because he's Tywin.) But after his death, that gave Cersei the freedom to appoint Hands and council members left and right.

So, whose voice would be obeyed, Queen Cersei or the Hand Jon Arryn or Ned Stark? It depends on when. When Robert was alive? Jon Arryn. Ned as well, although one of his fatal flaws was his inability to understand or use the power he actually had. (Though to be clear, it depends on who's being asked to obey - for example, Pycelle would follow Cersei, Sandor would, any Lannister man would.) After Robert died, however... well, that big showdown in the throne room was on the point of who was the actual regent, Ned per Robert's will, or Cersei Joffrey's mommy who said that will was nothing but trash paper. And of course, as always, was resolved by having the bigger army (and not trusting people who told you not to trust them).

Relevant quotes:

The Hand of the King was the second-most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms. He spoke with the king's voice, commanded the king's armies, drafted the king's laws. At times he even sat upon the Iron Throne to dispense king's justice, when the king was absent, or sick, or otherwise indisposed. Robert was offering him a responsibility as large as the realm itself. —AGOT, Eddard I

"I am the Queen Regent. Until my son shall come of age, all of you serve at my pleasure. Including the Hand of the King." —Alyssa Velaryon to the Small Council, Fire & Blood

"I am Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, not a brood mare! The Queen Regent!" "You are my daughter, and will do as I command." —ASOS, Tyrion III

new blog post: Bewitching Benedict for pre-order! / tl;dr https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07563WDTL?ref_=pe_2427780_160035660 :)

My charming little Regency romance, BEWITCHING BENEDICT, is now available for pre-order at Amazon!

I *may* have pre-order links for other sites by tomorrow, but if not, I should have most of them for Friday when it goes live. With luck I’ll also have print edition links, but it’s possible that will take another week, and the audio book, which is in the works, won’t be out for a couple months.…

Cover Reveal: BEWITCHING BENEDICT / cover by @coragraphics / #regency #romance #comedyofmanners

I am ALMOST DONE with revisions on BEWITCHING BENEDICT, my little Regency that’s the first of the Lovelorn Lads romance series. It’s a charming, funny little comedy of manners that I genuinely believe anybody who likes my stuff will really enjoy, even though it (*looks furitive, whispers*) hasn’t got any fantasy aspects to it.

The Lovelorn Lads are something of a cross between Seven Brides for…

Romancelandia Glossary: a list of 86 Romance Abbreviations and Terms because I can't do anything by halves.

It doesn’t take very long in Romancelandia to notice that there are an awful lot of romance abbreviations, slang words, and terms specific to the genre and discussions about it. Whether you’re an author, book blogger, or a reader checking out reviews, it’s worth your while to learn the difference between an alpha and a beta, or between a DIK and a DNF. Here’s the glossary I’ve put together after…

The American Regency romance writer Maggie Mackeever, for example, admits that Heyer’s Regency world never existed, but urges novice writers to “Immerse yourself in Georgette Heyer … Lots of people have written about Regency England since, but no one has done it as well. Read until you have the era fixed clearly in your head. Then sit down and start to write your own story.”

Heyer’s Regency population consists of the aristocracy and gentry, their devoted retainers, some vulgar, socially aspiring merchants, a handful of comic rogues, and a backdrop of contented peasants. That is hardly representative of the United Kingdom in that era. Heyer’s readers are encouraged to imagine themselves to be one of the 1.5 percent of the population comprising the gentry; or even as a member of one of the families of the approximately 300 titled men out of a population of maybe 9,000,000.

Of course, historically aware readers distinguish between “Heyer’s Regency England” and historical reality. However, many others do appear to believe that they can learn about history through the Regency romances. This article is typical. The poster discusses Heyer’s description of the Battle of Waterloo in the least “fluffy” of her “Regencies,” An Infamous Army, oblivious to the fact that Heyer’s emphasis is almost entirely on the officer class.

This obsessive focus on this tiny upper class goes arm in arm, unsurprisingly, with a strong status quo bias. Heyer’s untamed heroines and wild heroes are all rebellious and wild within a very narrow range, before they are reincorporated into society.

One example of this ‘conservative resolution’ is her 1959 novel The Unknown Ajax. Lord Darracott’s heirs have died suddenly and accidentally. His relatives are appalled to learn that as a result, his grandson through a misalliance with “a weaver’s daughter” is next in line to the title.

This grandson is Major Hugo Darracott, veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, a seemingly uncultured giant with a broad Yorkshire accent. He has no valet and dresses unfashionably. Lord Darracott wishes to civilize him and marry him to the heroine Anthea, who is appalled.

Hugo horrifies the family by reminiscing about being “transported” and living in a hovel with a mud floor—only to reveal that he is referring to his army experiences. Later, he admits that his mother was in fact the heiress to a wealthy mill owner, while he attended the prestigious Harrow School. He confesses to Anthea that he adopted that Yorkshire dialect to tease. He promises to show Anthea’s younger brother Richmond all of the manufacturing processes. In this era, mills employed children as young as five in appalling conditions, but the humane Hugo seems unperturbed by this detail.

Heyer here does a clever sleight of hand: Hugo appears to threaten the status quo, but his true attraction is that he does not trouble class hierarchy at all. When a blacksmith from a family with “subversive” ideas—depicted as wholly contemptible—forces his way into the mansion, in what is presumably meant to be a parody of revolutionary uprising, it is Hugo who throws out his “filthy carcase.” Anthea and all the family are finally won over when Hugo saves Richmond from the law when he is shot in a smuggling venture. Here, he is shown to have a greater respect for the law than his grandfather, who has turned a blind eye to local smuggling.

Heyer’s aristocratic bias, and that of many of the Regency romances written in emulation of her style, is thrown into sharp relief by Jo Baker’s novel Longbourn. A 2013 revisiting of Pride and Prejudice—from the point of view of the servants—Longbourn depicts the hard facts of their lives, the bedrock on which the gracious living of Austen’s characters depends.

Baker’s heroine, Sarah, like Hugo in The Unknown Ajax, comes from a “family of weavers.” That family’s fate is tellingly different from that of Hugo’s relatives. Beggared when their village is destroyed through enforced enclosure of the land, they have to put Sarah in the workhouse, later to be sent to work as a housemaid.

The life of unrelenting toil of the servants is brilliantly depicted. Much of it is sordid drudgery. Unlike Heyer’s heroines—whom Heyer herself commented “Lived only from the waist up” —the females in Baker’s novel menstruate, entailing unsavory washing. The family’s chamber pots have to be emptied. In the daily round of unceasing labour, a few moments of stolen happiness are a delight.

In Heyer’s novels, the ugly aspects of life in the Regency UK—poverty, disease, filth and feces in the streets; public torture and death, massively high infant mortality and the low status of women—are ignored. With the exception of some ridiculous subversives, everyone is content with his or her lot. Injustice and misery are rarely portrayed, and when they are, they can be put right by some charitable works.

Romance Genre Tropes in Pride and Prejudice

In our second syllabus reading, let’s do a quick rundown on Austen’s classic novel then look for romance genre tropes in Pride and Prejudice. Book details: Title: Pride and Prejudice Author: Jane Austen Original publication date: 1813 Setting time & place: Early 19th century England, country estates in Hertfordshire, Kent & Derbyshire as well as London He is… a rich man of good breeding,…

new blog post: Bewitching Benedict teaser chapter!

Bewitching Benedict is currently available for pre-order on: iTunes || Kindle || Kobo || Nook

Chapter One The Season had, in Miss Claire Dalton’s estimation, come early, and come directly to her. It had arrived—or was soon to arrive—in the form of her cousin Charles, whom she had not seen since childhood. More interestingly, it was to arrive in the form of two of Charles’s friends, young men he had…