Oh Sharpe...Sharpe, Sharpe...

[erastes]

Sharpe's Peril on Tv right now.

I'm so happy that this is AFTER the Napoleonic Wars - as the other one he did when he was supposed to be in India BEFORE he got promoted simply was cringeworthy, he looked mid 40's - which he was at the time - not in his 20s.

*happy sigh*  Tight Green Uniform. Check. Silver epaulettes. Check. Grumpy gravelly voice. Check. Blonde flossie for him to shag at some point. Annoyed Check.  I love Sharpe to pieces.  Book canon where he looks and sounds nothing like Mr Bean - and series canon where I don't care what he looks like as long he gets his jacket off at some point.

Just been reading a post of some of the Harlequin Historical Undone new series and good lord - talk about wallpaper historicals. An earl's second son with a "fortune too vast to be bribed."  oh really?  A woman writing scandalous books in Regency England?  Er... No. I don't think so. For all the reasons that TJ Pennington explained in this review... I don't really mind exaggerations or over-use of things that happened. For example, I know there were sometimes women on Nelson's ships but I don't want to read books where it's a normal occurrence.  Women wrote books in the Regency, but ...

*distracted* Oh - he's got his shirt off already. This is good - and possibly a record.

there were indecency laws. Whopping big fat ones. Convince me how she got around them please?

black soldiers in the Indian regiments in 1820 ish?  I don't mean Sub-continent Indian soldiers, I mean black English (ex-African) ones. I don't know enough to comment, does anyone?

ETA: I with they'd saved the money and filmed in England instead of India. they could have employed more than four soldiers then.

Comments

[leni-jess.livejournal.com]

Re your 2nd-last para, I don't know either!

However, last year in the National Gallery in London they had this thing (also in the Portrait Gallery, I think) relating to an anniversary of emancipation (don't remember details, sorry) where every picture with a black person in it was annotated, incl the name and what was known, where possible, and they pointed out how there were black persons (not just cute page boys, and not all held in slavery, either) in England from Elizabethan times at least.

So given the population % levels they were suggesting, it's not impossible in theory, at least.

I'm sure some demographer or student of regimental histories could give you a far better answer!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, there were blacks here from very early on - and slavery was illegal for many many years before the empire gave it up, but I can't imagine them being allowed in the army with the white soldiers. I need to know now! Drives me mad no knowing!

:)

[leni-jess.livejournal.com]

Your link below makes clear the British Army wasn't worried about it, if they were prepared to buy slavesa for the purpose of making them soldiers. (It was interesting that they paid them, though the soldiers remained slaves. And that all such slaves were eventually specifically emancipated.)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Ah ha!!!

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/work_community/fighting.htm

[leni-jess.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that link; that's really interesting, and detailed, with document facsimiles and what looks like a useful bibliography.

There, see, YOU can find anything you need to know!

[lusiology.livejournal.com]

Come now, surely you remember that superbly accurate archaeological series Bone Kickers? There was an episode that explained how black men how fought for us in the American war of independence, with Excalibur no less.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*giggling*

[haydenthorne.livejournal.com]

Aristocrats. Again. Sigh. What's with the Lord and Lady fetish? I see that in historical YA all the time, too.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Tell me about it. I'm happy to say that there's not a lord or lady in Transgressions. Mentioned once or twice as being part of the army - but that's about it.

You'd think that England had nothing else and you couldn't walk to the shop without tripping over one.

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, Sharpe! I miss seeing Sharpe.

Um. Can I ask you a question -- historical romance writing wise? I've got my character as the third son of an earl, by a second wife, and they are trying to get him to become a vicar of the local church (which I assume his father has the power to name). Would that be at all likely? I mean, would an earl want his son being the local vicar or would he expect the boy to go somewhere else?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

After a quick search around I think it would be acceptable. He wouldn't exactly be a poor church mouse, I would imagine - even Edmund in S&S did pretty well for himself.

I found this page
http://freespace.virgin.net/mp.hearth/EarlBishop.html

Where it states that:As a nobleman's son he was entitled to take his M.A. degree without examination

And he was an Earl on his own merit.

An Earl's son did so here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_de_Dunbar,_11th_Earl_of_March

scroll down.

So - yes, perfectly possible, I'd say.

[drachenmina]

But ugh! Who wrote the dialogue between the common soldiers? Clearly someone who'd been overdosing on Shakespearian rude mechanicals lately...

Ha. It's Sharpe, so it's all good fun. But classic Sharpe? I don't think so.

And he's going bald on top.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I got bored with the whole thing I have to admit - not good Sharpe at all.

After four marriages - wouldn't you?

:)

[volterra.livejournal.com]

RE: indecency laws. It depends. Did she write under a pseudonym? More often than not it was the publisher of the indecent stuff that got put into gaol.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

yes - the publisher would. And when he'd shopped her - her husband would have been to blame too.