Read an Excerpt
Introduction
Reality and Expectation:
Jane Austen’s Christmas Experience
Courtesy of the TV series and films Bridgerton, Pride and
Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility, we are transported to a
time, some 200 years ago, where lavishness, delicacy and
romance seem to be commonplace against a background of
candles, jewels and feathers.
But where are the Christmas trees? We know that Queen
Charlotte and her immediate entourage had brought the
custom over from Germany.
The truth is that Jane and her family were quite a bit
lower down the pecking order in a highly stratified society.
Even the fabled Mr Darcy of Pride and Prejudice would not
have seen Queen Charlotte’s Christmas tree, as recorded by
her biographer Dr John Watkin:
Sixty poor families had a substantial dinner given them
and in the evening the children of the principal families
in the neighbourhood were invited to an entertainment
at the Lodge. Here, among other amusing objects for the
gratification of the juvenile visitors, in the middle of the
room stood an immense tub with a yew tree placed in
it, from the branches of which hung bunches of sweet-
meats, almonds and raisins in papers, fruits and toys most
tastefully arranged and the whole illuminated by small
wax candles. After the company had walked round and
admired the tree, each child obtained a portion of the
sweets which it bore together with a toy, and then all
returned home quite delighted.
Likewise, Jane would only have been exposed to the dis-
tinctly plain Georgian Christmas Day services, with none
of the midnight pomp, incense or lavish nativity scenes
common throughout southern Europe at that time. The
Napoleonic Wars, if anything, encouraged a sense of invio-
lable English superiority; the more Anglo Catholic and
High Church ‘bells and smells’ of the Oxford Movement
still lay a few decades in the future.
As we see, particularly in Pride and Prejudice, Mr Collins
feels he has gained a degree of entitlement, courtesy of the
living from his patron Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Any
proper young lady of modest expectations would have been
glad to bag a clergyman with a living backed by a wealthy
landowner, and Jane gives full rein to that expectation,
yet holds back on any genuine enthusiasm on the part of
Elizabeth Bennet. Becoming a clergyman was a comfort-
able option for those with no wealth or property behind
them. Jane, as a consequence, glosses over any detail of the
Christmas liturgy.
It was not uncommon from mid Georgian times for the
wealthy family to go to a parish church and be seen by the
local gentry, while the servants and tenants went to a local
evangelist chapel, if one were available. Methodism, with
its stripped-down ceremonies, had really taken root by
Austen’s time.
Repairing back to the house for a family Christmas dinner
would have been the main event, and some of the recipes
from her friend Martha Lloyd would certainly have been
employed, including a family favourite, White Soup (see
page 48).
A note: recipes found at various junctures in this volume
have been adapted, as to follow the originals slavishly would
(in all probability) be very unpalatable to modern tastes
and sensitivities. So please bear this in mind and forgive
the occasional adaptations of the many extant examples of
Georgian cuisine. Much of what was passed down, even in
recipe books such as The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy
by Hannah Glasse (published in 1747 and reprinted many
times throughout Jane Austen’s life), relied a great deal on
the cook having served something of an apprenticeship in
the kitchen.
Even these modern adaptations will give an authentic feel
to the flavours enjoyed by the Austen family. Perhaps you,
too, will be tempted to sit back, then attempt the hilarious
consequences of Bullet Pudding!
Messy games aside, propriety and manners were every-
thing for any Christmas party, which could have taken place
at any time from 6 December through to Twelfth Night.
The parties were times of get together and gossip. Any con-
troversies were to be avoided, propriety was everything, as
demonstrated by a letter from Queen Charlotte to her son,
the Prince of Wales, advising against visiting his brother, the
Duke of Clarence, who’d been living with his mistress, the
actress Mrs Jordan:
But in your sex and under the present Melancholy situ-
ation of your father the going to Public Amusements
except where Duty calls you would be the highest mark
of indecency possible. The visits to your brothers I will
no further touch upon than to say that you can never
be in the House with those that are unmarried without
Jane Austen’s Christmas12
a Lady, and that even that Pleasure, innocent as it is,
should be well considered before it is done …
As it happened, William, Duke of Clarence, under consid-
erable pressure to find a ‘suitable’ wife, had just separated
from Mrs Jordan, who had been anticipating a happier out-
come the Christmas before:
My two beloved boys are now at home … we shall have
a full and merry house at Christmas: ‘tis what the dear
Duke delights in:- a happier set when altogether I believe
never existed.
The poor soul had no idea what was lying in wait for her.
Unlike Jane’s heroines, partying was not in prospect
for the Prince of Wales’ sisters. Princess Sophia wrote
in December 1811 to her brother from Windsor Castle,
which she referred to as ‘The Nunnery’ and lived in a state
of near seclusion with her sisters, including herself as ‘Four
old Cats’:
How good you are to us however imperfectly expressed
I feel most deeply Poor old wretches as we are, a dead
weight upon you old lumber to the country like old
clothes. I wonder you don’t vote for putting us in a sack
and drowning us in the Thames …
She finishes the letter, ‘Ever your unalterably attached
Sophy.’
Jane Austen wrote of what she knew, essentially a wealthy
middle class. Her Christmases reflect this, avoiding specu-
lation about the excesses, scandals and controversies of
court life with its German customs – and through the
Prince Regent’s unapproved marriage to the Catholic Maria
Fitzherbert – any hint of Popish practices.
There was a fascination with all things royal, not all of
them meeting with undiluted approval, which is not so dif-
ferent from what we see today with the many, sometimes
contradictory, stories surrounding the wider royal family.
Perhaps, as Napoleon might have said: ‘Plus ça change, plus
c’est la même chose.’ All English families, the Austens being no
exception, were both appalled and fascinated by the French
emperor. Anything he may or may not have said was soon
passed into the vernacular as, despite the recent horrors
of the French Revolution, French was still regarded as the
language of sophistication and learning, aided no doubt
by the presence of so many French aristocrats living in
English exile. Royalty was expected to behave, the fear of
republicanism was real, yet Christmas was, in some way, a
reaffirmation that all was well in Jane Austen’s England.
At first sight, life seems very different. Yet, at all levels,
there were so many parallels with our twenty-first-century
Christmas. Families got together and, as you will see from
Jane’s letters, there was genuine sadness that others were
stranded on the other side of the world, unable to get back
for Christmas. Family fun, goodwill and reconciliation were
as familiar then as they are now.
Humanity changes very little, for all the trappings of
modern communication and convenience. Everyone wanted
a cheerful and happy Christmas. When it was all over there
was the mixture of regret after the guests had gone and at
the same time a feeling of relief. Not at all different from
what any family today would feel once the decorations had
come down and life returns to the grey normality of winter.
This book is an authentic festive romp through the ages,
which leaps into a particular corner of Jane Austen’s world,
where we hear from members of the Austen family and
read Jane’s own words, meet the likes of the Revd William
Holland (the parson whose diary is a fascinating insight
into Georgian daily life), and explore the rituals and festivi-
ties that Jane and people like her enjoyed at Christmas.
Note those similarities, enjoy those human touches from
the pen of Jane Austen during her all too brief life and
together let’s step into the Christmas of Jane Austen’s time.
