Mike Rendell

In researching for my next book “In bed with the Georgians – Sex, Scandal and Satire” I came across a book by Richard King  which came out in 1771,  entitled ‘The New London Spy: or, A Twenty-Four Hours Ramble through the Bills of Mortality’. Its full title offered readers:

…a true picture of modern high and low life; from the splendid mansions in St. James’s to the subterraneous habitations of St. Giles’s, wherein are displayed the various scenes of Covent-Garden, and its environs, the theatres, Jelly-houses, Gaming-houses, Night-houses, Cottages, Masquerades, Mock-Masquerades, Public-gardens, and other places of entertainments.

I love the idea of a “Jelly house” and recalled the image of a Jelly-house macaroni on the Lewis Walpole site.

The print, by Carington Bowles, came out in 1772 and shows a young rake making amorous advances to a lady of the town. The jelly house was not so much a brothel as a meeting place – somewhere a young blade would go to in order to pick up a prostitute. In order to ‘heighten the coming pleasure in the amorous contest’ the couple might build up their appetites, and strength, by feasting on jellies and other delicacies, before retiring to a nearby room for a spot of how’s-your-father.

It seems that  the idea of jellies having aphrodisiac qualities has never entirely gone out of fashion – I see that there is a website called The Spicy Wench which offers to purvey Aphrodisiac Jelly containing Sugar, Orange Juice, Pineapple Juice, Mojito Mint,and Pectin. Others nowadays may swear by Royal Jelly, but my guess is that the amorous couple in the Jelly house were more likely to slurp a wobbling plate of ribbon jelly (contrasting layers of different coloured jellies  served in a tall glass). It may have worked – though rumour has it that  Casanova swore by the combination of red wine and stilton. Mind you, other reports say that he knocked back fifty oysters before each and every assignation, so I don’t suppose he would have been seen dead in a jelly-house. Nor would Madame du Barry, mistress of Louis XV of France, who swore by cauliflower soup, made to her own recipe. As an alternative she would offer her royal paramour a cup of hot chocolate …

Of course there has long been a belief that  food can have “potency potential”  if it combines the qualities of being smooth, rich, creamy, exotic and spicy. So at first I thought that my 18th century rake would have chosen a flummery  (like a blancmange) flavoured with either cinnamon or ginger. It would have come out of a mould shaped like a beehive, no doubt made by Wedgwood, and it would have wobbled suggestively as each of the participants endeavoured to take a spoonful. Or maybe they would have opted for a quince jelly or quiddany (similar to the membrillo you get in Spain). Quinces had long been used for their aphrodisiac qualities, made into a sort of marmalade. It is not a fruit we often encounter today, but old recipe books were full of them – so much so that in the 17th Century prostitutes were apparently termed ‘marmalade madams’  because they would entice customers with a spoonful or two of quince marmalade. (The Historic Food site here has some splendid recipes and images of quince moulds and jellies). However, the more I looked for recipes for jellies which were believed to have the right properties to encourage a night of hanky-panky, the more I was drawn back to the idea of it being a (savoury) jellified broth. Many of the recipes were none too subtle (“Take four cocks…”). So perhaps the young lovers had a plateful of those delicious gelatinous juices you get on the bottom of the roasting tray when you roast a chicken – no doubt flavoured with red wine and herbs….

Mind you, looking again at the picture it appears as if he has already got his hands on her jellies, so perhaps they would have dispensed with the preliminaries and just gone upstairs!

In researching  interesting characters for my forthcoming book: ‘ Sex Scandal and Satire – In bed with the Georgians’ I came across Augustus FitzRoy, third Duke of Grafton. He was mad about horses, in particular the races on Newmarket Heath, and was also very keen on hunting. Unfortunately for him, these passions were not shared with his wife Anne. She just liked playing cards. And gambling, which she did with a singular lack of success over quite a few years.

Once she had done the obligatory ‘ heir  and a spare’  bit – plus giving him a daughter Georgiana – she realized that she had nothing in common with the Duke, who by then was a Privy Councillor. He in turn took to bringing various hookers home for supper, including the notorious courtesan Nancy Parsons. Indeed he went further, and used Nancy as a piece of arm-candy when he went to the opera. Society may have been shocked, but not half as much as his wife. She told him that she hated him, so he chucked her out and installed Nancy in her place, holding dinner parties and conducting his social life in public without a care in the world. And this from a man who, in 1768, was to become Prime Minister – an office he filled with a total lack of talent. Poor man, he was utterly out of his depth, grappling with problems such as those Revolting Americans, or the even more repellent John Wilkes.

The Press had a field day, and he was shown in the “Histories of the tête-à-tête annexed” in the Town and Country magazine, with Nancy Parsons described as ‘The Female Pilot’. It appears courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library.

The denizens of Grub Street heaped scorn upon the Duke – not least  ‘Junius’ who immortalized the Duke in his poem entitled  ‘Harry and Nan’. The poor chap never recovered from the onslaught, and stood down from the premiership in under two years, gave up politics altogether and became a devout Unitarian.

His wife meanwhile, embarked on a somewhat public affair with the Duke of Portland, who subsequently rather let her down by announcing that he was getting engaged to another lady, but apparently had forgotten to mention it to Anne. She then flounced off with the Earl of Upper Ossary, and immediately got pregnant by him. The Duke of Grafton was not amused, and divorced her via a Private Act of Parliament. To his credit the Earl of Ossary stood by her, and three days after the divorce came through he whisked her off to get a special licence. Having married, she appears to have found a measure of happiness in rural retirement from public life. She had more children, and then entered into a long and fascinating correspondence with Horace Walpole. Some 455 letters from him have survived – although, oddly, only one or two of her replies. They give a wonderful picture of how Walpole viewed the world around him.

Returning to the Duke of Grafton: he decided that he wouldn’t make an honest woman of Nancy Parsons – so she went off in a huff and became the wife of Viscount Maynard. Instead the Duke married Elizabeth Wrottesley – a woman much more to his liking. She too was into horses in a Big Way, and was parodied as the ‘Female Turf  Macaroni’ in a 1771 caricature by M Darly (also shown courtesy of the lovely Lewis Walpole Library). She had a dozen children by the Duke, of whom eight reached adulthood.

I rather like the portrait of her done by Thomas Gainsborough. It is apparently in a private collection and, as indicated, cannot be used for commercial purposes – so it won’t be appearing in my book! I like the luminous quality and the details of the lace – and it certainly makes her appear rather more attractive than the Darly caricature suggests!

Besides, from what I can see Elizabeth Wrottesley behaved herself admirably, albeit rather boringly, so she shall have no place in my story of sex and scandal in the 18th Century. Now Nancy, she will probably have a chapter all to herself, she really was a bit of a go-er….