© Copyright Gill Hicks and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
Mentions of dance in men's magazines are somewhat rarer than in women's, but in 1800, The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle twice briefly mentioned country dancing by the royal family at Frogmore, a royal country estate in Berkshire that is best known today as the burial place of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Frogmore House (left; click to enlarge) was built in the late seventeenth century and purchased by (or for) the queen in 1792. It was updated by the architect James Wyatt during the early 1790s; among his improvements was the front Colonnade, which in 1800 was open to the gardens.
In 1800 the royal family consisted of George III, Queen Charlotte, and their thirteen surviving children, most of whom were unmarried and still lived with their notoriously strict parents. Their oldest son, the future George IV, would become best known to history as the Prince Regent from 1810-1820. Their second son, Prince Frederick, and his wife, Princess Frederica, held the titles of Duke and Duchess of York.
Among their guests was the exiled William V, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, and a refugee from the spillover of the French Revolution.
Their third-oldest daughter, the Princess Elizabeth (right, in 1797), who would turn thirty in the May of 1800, seems to have served as organizer and hostess for her parents in the events at Frogmore. While there is no detailed description of the dancing, there are some intriguing tidbits of information in the description of the first event and appearances by noted performers of the era in the entertainment preceding the ball in the second.
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The first event was covered briefly under "Domestic Occurrences" in the January issue:
Tuesday, January 7, 1800
“The entertainment given on Twelfth-day by her Majesty, to the Royal family and nobility, was in the first of elegance and grandeur: their Majesties and the Princesses dined at Frogmore, and at 8 o’clock the company assembled, and were ushered into the Colonade, which was very beautifully lighted up; country dances then commenced to favorite Scotch tunes, the enlivening music of Messrs. Gow giving additional spirit to the lovely females who joined in the festive throng; the reels and strathspeys were led down in succession by Prince William of Orange and the Princess Augusta, and also Lord Amherst and her Royal Highness. The Duke and Dutchess of York, accompanied by Capt. Fitzgerald, left the company soon after supper; but the rest did not depart till an early hour this morning. The Princess Elizabeth was manager for the night, and under her direction the visitors were elegantly entertained.”
I'll take the interesting bits one by one:
The Colonnade
Early in the nineteenth century the Colonnade acquired French doors, as may be seen in a painting by James Roberts from 1858, but in 1800 it was still open to the outdoors. Was the dancing actually in the Colonnade? In January? Or were they ushered through the Colonnade to one of the interior rooms?
The Messrs. Gow
These were most likely John and Andrew Gow, two of the sons of the famous Scottish fiddler and composer Niel Gow. Both had taken up residence in London as musicians and music publishers. John Gow led a popular Scottish dance band, which Andrew joined regularly.
Their brother Nathaniel (also a musician, music publisher, and bandleader) was based in Edinburgh but traveled to London, where Prince George (the future Regent) was his patron. He is known to have played for royalty, so it is possible he might have been among the Gows playing at Frogmore.
Since both Niel and Nathaniel Gow were composers of dozens of popular dance tunes, it is also possible that it was only their "enlivening music" being danced to, rather than the Gows themselves playing.
Favorite Scotch tunes; reels and strathspeys
The popularity of Scottish music for country dancing during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century is quite obvious when looking through the numerous little tune books (Twenty-Four Dances for the Year...) of the era. Hence the success of Scottish dance bands.
Led down in succession..
"Led down" is a very historical way of expressing how a country dance of this era worked, with the focus being on the couple who originated the dance and was traveling down the set, rather than the communal experience of modern-style country dancing.
Assuming that the royal couple themselves were not participating, Princess Augusta, the eldest daughter still at home (at the advanced age of thirty-one), and the Duchess of York would have been the obvious choices to lead the dancing, as the highest ranking ladies of the younger generation present. Prince George's estranged wife Caroline would certainly not have been there.
Supper
This might have been eaten as late as midnight, so leaving "soon after supper" still allowed plenty of time for dancing beforehand.
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The second event, a Magnificent Royal Entertainment on July 14th, received a much larger writeup in the August issue. Princess Elizabeth was in charge again and seems to have completely outdone herself. The description adds absolutely nothing to my understanding of dance in this era, but the scale of the fête is so impressive that I will describe it just to put the dancing in context. I recommend reading the entire report for the full, glorious details.
The entertainment began with a dinner, which expanded into three tents to accommodate the royal family's numerous guests. Background music was provided by the band of the Staffordshire militia. The guests were then led to a grotto and were entertained by a Mr. Fawcett, who sang several songs and some glees with the accompaniment of the men of the militia.
The group then proceeded to another part of the gardens, where they were met by a group of "gypsies" led by one Mrs. Mills, "fantastically dressed, and who acted as their queen" and sung a "gypsey song" and delivered the "poetical destinies of good fortune" to the royal family, including making a joke of the word "Orange" to the Dutch prince. Mrs. Mills and her "gypsey throng" danced, then Mr. Fawcett sang some more.
This was followed by a "Mr. Du Crow, the Flemish Hercules", performing slack-rope walking and feats of strength that included
"balancing, on his chin, three large coach wheels, also a ladder, to which were affied two chairs with two children on them, and bearing on his hands and feet a table, in the form of a pyramid, with eight persons on different parts of its surface (weighing more than 900 pounds)..."
After a stroll to the canal, where they found a boat standing in for a ship and Mrs. Mills dressed as a sailor, Mr. Fawcett delivered a politically tactful address about how happy Hibernia (Ireland) would be to be united to Great Britain. This was followed by six York hussars from Hungary, two of whom fiddled while four others
"...performed the Pyrrhical Dance, agreeable to their own dancing, in boots and spurs....their steps, in the adagio movements, were from heel to toe, and vice versa, with their hands placed to their sides; but, when the time change, they jump and turn about with great activity, clapping their knees with their hands, and putting themselves in a hundred different attitudes."
Eventually the company repaired to "Princess Elizabeth's Thatched Barn", which she had set up with seats for six hundred (!) of the nobility to watch the ball. The barn was decorated with arched colonnades of crystal lamps, flowers, chandeliers in the form of a beehive suspended by a tassel of ears of corn, and a new verse to "God Save the King". Clearly, Princess Elizabeth and the Boston wine clerks of 1888 were kindred spirits.
Sadly, the dancing gets only the briefest mention, probably because country dancing is just not as exciting to describe as elaborate decorations and theatrical performances:
"The ball commenced with a dance by Mr. Francis, cymbal-player to the Staffordshire militia, his daughter (a child), and Mrs. Mills, to shew the Turkish Quick Step. The Princesses and Nobility then led down country dances till 12, when their Majesties returned to Windsor. The Company who remained partook of a cold collation; but the whole departed soon after their Majesties."
I've no more idea what the "Turkish Quick Step" was than I do the "Pyrrhical Dance" of the Hungarian hussars, but it's interesting to note that the ball opened with a theatrical piece rather than formal minuets. And once again we have the "led down" phrasing and a late-night supper.
While they had nothing to with the social dancing, I'm always interested in theatrical performers as well, so I'm going to add a few words and some links for those curious about the sort of performers hired for this kind of entertainment:
Peter Ducrow was a traveling strongman who appeared at many circuses, including London's famous Astley's Ampitheatre, home of the equestrian performer Philip Astley, who was said to have danced a minuet on three horses' backs. Ducrow's son Andrew, who may have been one of the children Ducrow balanced on chairs at Frogmore, would later become a famous equestrian performer and, eventually, the owner of Astley's.
John Fawcet(t) ("the younger") was an actor, the son of an actor of the same name. He was originally a tragic performer but soon switched to comedy and song. He had a lengthy stage career, and later in life became the stage manager at Covent Garden as well as the treasurer of the Covent Garden Fund. Quite a few portraits of Fawcett, both in and out of roles, survive.
Mrs. Mills is somewhat harder to track down, since there were at least three actresses of that name in London during the eighteenth century. The most famous of them was Isabella Burchell, later Mrs. Vincent, and eventually Mrs. Mills. She retired from the stage in 1767 when she married Captain John Mills. She was still alive in 1800, but seems unlikely to have been performing at Frogmore at age 65.
Another Mrs. Mills was the former Susan Moore, or More, who had not actually been married to the comedian John Mills (a different person from Captain John Mills), but had been living with him and performing under his name. When Mills died abruptly, she married John Fawcett. Eight years her junior, he is said to have improved as a comedian under her instruction. But this Mrs. Mills was billed as Mrs. Fawcett after her marriage (in 1788) and in any case died in 1797.
The most likely candidate is yet another Mrs. Mills, née Keys, who came from a theatrical family and married an actor of "little or no consequence". She and her sister, Mrs. Lee, were "great proficients" at dancing, and she may be reasonably supposed to have been the Mrs. Mills who starred in a production of The Heir at Law at the Theatre Royal in 1799. The role of Dr. Pangloss in that play had been created two years earlier by none other than the omnipresent John Fawcett.
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