Words in Progress: From Mayfair to Chelsea, Regency-style

Having discussed the Regency social status of Leicester Square in terms of the character Nathan Brooks from Twelve Letters, I’m now moving on to his paramour, Percy Havilland.

During the Twelve Letters series, Percy not only moves house but shifts in social status. In the first book, he’s comfortably ensconced in a lavish apartment in exclusive Mayfair. As the younger son of a landed aristocrat, Percy has a privileged existence. He’s young, beautiful, wealthy and socially desirable, both in the ballrooms of Mayfair and amongst the discreet circle of gentlemen who long for his fleeting favours.

In Queer Relations, the second book in the series, a family scandal means that Percy’s charmed life comes crashing down about his ears. Before marrying his current wife and producing a large family, Percy’s father, Sir Edgar, entered into an earlier marriage that he conveniently forgot about, so Percy and his siblings are declared illegitimate and face social ignominy.

In our modern age, money is synonymous with class, but as I mentioned last week, the mindset was very different in Regency times. It helped to be wealthy, of course, but social status was all about the hierarchy of noble birth.

From reading Regency romances, we might be forgiven for assuming there were thousands of dukes and earls in circulation. In fact, the highest echelons of society consisted only of a few hundred families known as the ton. Regina Jeffers’ blog has a great description of this exclusive group.

For a social butterfly like Percy, being cut off by the people who recently fawned over him is almost unbearable. It’s hard for us to comprehend his sense of loss. After all, he’s still wealthy, so we might ask, why doesn’t he cut his losses and start again somewhere else?

Again, the answer lies in the relatively rigid social mores of the time. For someone as vain as Percy, having shone at the centre of high society in England’s greatest city, the contrast of presiding over a provincial assembly room in a comparatively dull backwater would be untenable. Also, given the relatively small population, it would only be a matter of time before news of the family scandal travelled and Percy faced yet more rejection.

After briefly wallowing in self-pity, Percy realises that his teenage sisters are worse off. They will take the brunt of the scandal, rendering them virtually unmarriageable. For their sake, he decides to leave his bijou bachelor apartment and find a house where his sisters can live under his protection.

In terms of the modern city, the idea of moving from Mayfair to Chelsea is simply exchanging one posh central London neighbourhood for another. But a glance at the 1806 Mogg map shows that Chelsea (although soon be swallowed up by the conurbation within the next few decades) is still a separate village on the outskirts of London.

You can find it on the map, at the bottom left above Chelsea Reach marked on the River Thames. Little Chelsea, where Percy decides to live (above and further to the left of Chelsea Village on the map) is no more than a hamlet. It might be a short carriage ride away from Mayfair and central London, but socially, it’s a considerable gulf.

With our large 21st century cities, we’re accustomed to the idea of people moving to the countryside for a slower lifestyle and to afford a larger property. But there was no such equivalent in Regency times. The social elite had their country estates as their main residences and their London town houses as a social and political base.

In taking a modest property, keeping a certain distance from Mayfair and the gossip that surrounds his family to protect his sisters, Percy is making a deliberate sacrifice and also showing the very first signs of unselfish maturity.