The+Year+1714



April, 1714

Dear Cousin Robert,

I cannot believe I am finally here! In London! Can you imagine it? Nothing I ever imagined even comes to close to things I have been reading, seeing, and experienci ng since arriving earlier this month. I have met so many new people and the kids at the school here are amazing! I am so excited to begin teaching them, I am so happy that I was invited here, simple me from the country, to teach students in London. Wouldn’t you know the day I moved into my flat, the London Gazette was dropped on my doorstep? I found myself thoroughly engrossed in reading it as I began unpacking. It comes a few days a week, and I look forward to seeing what is happening here, being completely unfamiliar with what is important and what is not in the city. The topics in the Gazette range so greatly I never know what I am going to encounter in each issue, from insolvency announcements to military dispatches, to the happenings of the Queen. Each day she seems to make a new appointment, the last few issues begin with news of court appointments. She also performed a touching to cure the Kings Evil last week that several people attended, but I do not believe many more will be performed, the custom is losing popularity. Thank you so much for sending the copy of the poem you wanted me to read with your letter. I can definitely include “The Congress” in our discussion on the War on Spanish Succession. The poem praises Robinson’s use of peace rather than force. I think it will make a wonderful conversation starter, and it will be fresh in their minds since it was just published a couple of months ago. Please do write soon, I cannot wait to hear what is going on back at home.

Marie, With Love

May, 1714

Cousin Robert,

You will not believe how eventful the last few weeks have been. I was dying to go to the theater, because I believe it may actually be a sin not to visit the theater while London if one can. I went to see a concert whenever there was one. There were concertos and solos performed by Mr. Glash, A Compleat Consort of Musick benefit Signor Claudio and later Signor Paudini. To top it all off, yesterday, on the 27th, there was something truly spectacular. Gli Signori Vegelini (two musicians) played the most unique music I had ever heard of before. They played on instruments that had never been heard in England before. I certainly I had no idea what they were, but the experience proved to be as amazing as it was advertised. What has been going on with Emily and Sarah, I miss them so much! Tell them I have so many stories to share with them when I return, and that I am sorry I miss In the news of the Queen, some members of the House members of the House of Hanover were not being allowed to settle anywhere in Britain as long as she lives. She apparently has also been very sick lately. Many of the decrees I read in the Gazette seem to be more personal than anything, but it may just be my ignorance of the happenings at court. The Gazette also mentioned what had happened to poor Edward Hurley. I did not know him well, but I know that you often encountered him when you lived in Burlescomb several years ago. It is terrible that this man, Henry Bray, turned a card-playing situation into a matter of life and death. Edward’s mother is offering a guinea for his capture, I surely hope he is found soon. I am sending you a copy of the concert program to share with the twins. Take care cousin! ed their birthdays. They are getting so big!

Marie, With Love

June 1714

Dearest Cousin,

Thank you so much for sending me pictures of the girls at their 11th birthday parties. They are too adorable! Well, should I say beautiful, slowly becoming little women! Earlier today I received the Gazette, and you would be delighted to know that 50 new churches are being built, and they are looking for bricklayers. Robert you should come to London! How wonderful it would be if you could work on the church being built on the Strand. I know it has been very hard since Eliza passe d, trying to rear up those little girls on your own. I think it would be a great opportunity for you, by I completely understand not wanting to just uproot yourself as I did. This month I plan on visiting the theatre with the kids. They are very interested in the several Shakespeare plays that are being put on this month in particular. He nry IV, The Tempest, and Macbeth are all being shown throughout June. I look forward to them as well. I am truly hoping to see Jane Shore before the summer is over, it has already been almost four months since its first showing. I hear Rowe casts her in a very domicile light, contrary to the woman I have heard stories about. Hopefully it will still be showing. Marie, With Love

July 1714

Dear Robert,

I understand you not wanting to move the girls to London completely, and I love you all the same from here until I return. London is busy as usual these days, I could spend all day writing about what has been happening. Firstly, I hope that you have not suffered as much as I have due to the additional duties placed on soaps, papers, and linens among other things as I have. The Queen has been busily adding takes to silks and the likes, I read about different additions every day. One a different note, the 15th of this month was the anniversary of the end of the plague in London. The day is always bittersweet. What England went through almost 200 hundred years ago still haunts me today. I am walking on the very streets w here people quite literally fell and died, it is quite scary to imagine. But to know London was delivered from it is worth remembering. In lighter news, there was still no showing of Jane Shore, I will have to wait to see if it is playing next month. I busied myself seeing something I never would have chosen for myself: The Lancashire Witches. Now I am definitely not a fan of the darker forms of entertainment, but I found this play to be genuinely interesting. The actual trials occurred almost exactly 100 years ago, and I did not know anything about the plot. It was horrible that those people were hung, and I could not imagine a situation like this happening today. Until next time!

Marie, With Love

August 1714

Dearest Robert,



I send this letter in t he most solemn manner. I know that you know, but remembering how I came across the news in that mornings Gazette on the first of the month made it all too real. I was all too accustomed to reading lines about her daily doings, who was being appointed, who was being removed, where she was going. Instead, the first li nes of the Gazette read that our Queen had died, at 730 that morning. Apparently she had complained of pain in her head last week, but it was known that she was not well. The whole city is in an unrecognizable state. The theater has completely shut, and there is no notice of when it will open back. The saying goes, you plan, and God laughs. I feel so silly for being upset at not being able to see Jane Shore yet again, but I had been looking forward to finding ou t if it would be played this month. In a more s  Marie, With Love erious matter, immediately after she died, the Lords of the Privy Council assembled and proclaimed the then Prince George to be King. Yes, surely, Great Britain must continue to run even though her Queen has, but the timing of politics is one subject I can never quite wrap my head around. The Lord Justices are keeping the throne warm, as King George has not yet arrived. I am not sure how much longer I will be here in London with the state of things. Expect to hear from me very soon.



September 1714

Dear Cousin,

I have decided to leave London. On the third of the month there was a proclamation that no one appear to be in mourning on the day the King is to arrive. I cannot be surrounded by the pretentiousness surrounding the death of our Queen any longer. I am too close to it here in the city, I am ready to come home. The theater did open back up on the 31st of August, and only eight plays, including Jane Shore, were listed to be shown. I will not be here long

enough to see the play at the end of the month, nor, most likely, the arrival of King George. London will have to go on without me. My teaching position is not over until next spring, but I have found a replacement. I am set to travel in about a week, I will definitely miss London as it was, but I miss you, the country, and the twins much more. I will be home soon!

Marie, With Love.

Works Cited "The congress. A poem. Inscribed to the Right Reverend John, Lord Bishop of London". Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Maryland College Park. London, 1714. Web. 11 Dec. 2013 "History." Gazette. N.p., n.d. Web. . London Gazette (London, England), April 17, 1714 - September 7, 1714 (Various issues) Poole, Robert. "The Lancashire Witches 1612-2012." The Public Domain Review. N.p., n.d. Web. . Schneider, Ben Ross. "1700-1729." Index to The London Stage, 1660-1800. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1979. 313-36. Print.

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