George Bryan Brummell,(6/7/1778-3/30/1840) better known as Beau Brummell, reigned long enough over the Fashionable elite of Regency England to be remembered forever as the one man responsible for bringing the modern man's dark suit into being.
He has claims to our sympathy, but the last words he probably ever spoke in the Prince Regent's hearing were, Alvanley, who's your fat friend? It was a dig at the corpulent Prince and hit its markthey never spoke again. Once good friends, the Prince had given the Beau the cut direct--ignoring him after addressing Alvanley. Brummell, humiliated and angry, made the famous remark which has survived long after his demise. I believe it is a fitting epigraph: Beau Brummell was entirely too sure of himself for his own good.
I love the famous engraving of the Beau (unfortunately not reproducible here) for the way it shows the cocky attitude that was eventually his undoing. Not only did Brummell succeed in permanently alienating himself from the Prince, one of the most powerful personas of the daybut he ended up, not too many years afterwards, living in squalor as an exile in France.
Sad. Despite his arrogance, Brummell was largely harmless--except to himself. He was fastidious to the point of dandyism, self-centered and absorbed; but he did much to tone down the clothing of the ton [upper classes from the flamboyance of the previous century. He reigned supreme in the art of tying the cravat, and was said to spend up to five hours in dressing.
Even the Prince (before the falling out) attended one of the Beau's dressings while the latter went through piles of textile in pursuit of the perfectly tied neck cloth. His valet referred to the heap of discarded cloths as our failures. (It's hard to imagine such painst aking precision over one item of clothing in our world of tee-shirts and jeans, today. But even then, of course, the Beau was unique.)
Why did he flee London for Paris? To escape debtor's prison. Brummell claimed many friends among the upper classes but even these allies could not continually keep him out of the duns. After all, they frequented the same men's clubs and spent time at the same gaming tables. They, too, lost money and lots of them were often strapped for cash themselves. Nearly all men of the upper classes gambled and a good portion of them were ruined as a result.
The Prince himself was in debt for nearly all of his life, not primarily from gaming, but because of his enormous expenditures and tastes for luxuries. Part of the Beau's problem was that, like so many others of his day, he was an avid gambler. Neither sense or stark financial facts kept him from participating at the tables, and pride probably often necessitated it.
In addition, it simply cost a great deal to live in the style that was considered Fashionable. Unlike his blue-blooded friends, he had no landed family estate providing income, so he was actually doomed quite early on. The town home which he took great pains to appoint in the first order of elegance, was abandoned to the creditors and he fled like a hunted fox to France. So much for sartorial elegance.
Still, there's something undeniably appealing about the Beau, making him a staple in most Regency Romances. Perhaps it is the idea of his rise to stardom in an age that has rarely been paralleled for its snobbery and closed doors. When he entered society, Brummell had a modest fortune of 30,000 pounds. It was his entire inheritance, and he set about positioning himself in the upper crust. He was accepted into the Carlton House set (the Prince's closest circle of friends) and rose widely to fame on the tails of his faultless sense of style. As noted earlier, however, his star became meteoric, spiraling downwards and landing with an unearthly thud in poverty in Paris.
It makes one shudder to think of the meticulous Beau in such surroundings. Small irony for an age, however, that boasted enormous splendor in the upper classes and the filthiest of living conditions for its lowest, including unbelievable numbers of street children.
Ah, the Regency. The time of elegant madness, Jane Austen, Napoleon, pleasure gardens and servants in livery; King George gone mad (did he? I'll explore that question in the next issue of Upon My Word!), and Almack's. The Regency is all of this and much, much more...You've got to love it!
Copyright Linore Rose Burkard 2006
Linore Rose Burkard is a Regency Romance Writer and the author of Before the Season Ends, the very first Inspiratio nal Regency on the market. To read more of her Articles on Regency England subscribe to her EZine, Upon My Word! Facts, Fashion and Figures of the Regency at her website: http://www.Linoreroseburkard.com/RegencyeZine.html She also writes Christian Fiction and has written many Articles on home-schooling. She lives in Ohio with her husband and five children and ninety-one year old grandmother.
Author:: Linore Rose Burkard
Keywords:: Regency, History, England, Prince, Romance, Articles, eZine, Fiction, Writing, Writer, Fashion,
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