There being a phoney quietude in economics affairs at present while waiting
for the other shoe to drop (QE2 by Obama? More looming problems in the EU?
World currency or something similar at the G20 on 13 November?) I whiled
away my pre-breakfast time this morning in conversing earnestly with my dog
(complaining about lack of food -- as always) and also reading and thinking
about Lucy Worsley's recent book, The Courtiers.
Today, we don't have 'spies', such as John Hervey, a courtier within the
Palace of Westminster of King George I of England in the early 1700s.
Occasionally, a TV cameraman (inadvertently?) shows us the jostlings (with,
sometimes, quite energetic elbow work!) that go on in the front row of
politicians when readying themselves for a group photo at the end of an
important summit meeting. Usually, however, we only read about status
fighting within inner sanctums when we read the memoirs of politicians or
executives of large corporations. Incidentally, reading about Kink George's
"turned back" reminded me of the time that when Tony Blair met Bush for the
first time in the Oval Office, Cheney (the real "President", of course)
said not a word during the whole meeting.
I'll follow with an extract from Lucy Worsely's book.
Keith
<<<<
The Great Drawing Room, crammed full of courtiers, lay at the heart of the
Georgian royal palace. Here the king mingled most evenings with his guests,
signaling welcome with a nod and displeasure with a blank stare or, worse,
a turned back.
The winners and the losers of the Georgian age could calculate precisely
how high they'd climbed -- or how far they'd fallen -- by the warmth of
their reception at court. High-heeled and elegant shoes crushed the
reputations of those who'd dropped out of favor, while those whose status
was on the rise stood firmly in possession of their few square inches of space.
In the eighteenth century, the palace's most elegant assembly room was in
fact a bloody battlefield. This was a world of skulduggery, politicking,
wigs and beauty spots, where fans whistled open like flick knives. Intrigue
hissed through the crowd, and court factions were also known as 'fuctions'.
Beneath their powder and perfume, the courtiers stank of sweat, insecurity
and glittering ambition.
The ambitious visitors crowding into the drawing room were usually unaware
that they were under constant observation from behind the scenes. The
palace servants -- overlooked but ever-present -- knew of every move made
at court.
The Georgian royal household was staggeringly vast and complicated. The
highest ranking of its members, the courtiers proper, were the ladies- and
gentlemen- in-waiting. These noblemen and women were glad to serve the king
and queen in even quite menial ways because of the honor involved.
Beneath them in status were about 950 other royal servants, organized into
a Byzantine web of departments ranging from hair-dressing to rat-catching,
and extending right down to the four 'necessary women' who cleaned the
palace and emptied the 'necessaries' or chamber pots.
While the monarchy was slowly sinking in status throughout the eighteenth
century, the glamour of the court still attracted the pretty, the witty,
the pushy and the powerful.
But although Kensington Palace teemed with ambitious and clever people in
search of fame and fashion, it was also a lonely place, and courtiers and
servants alike often found themselves weary and heart-sore. Success in
their world demanded a level head and a cold heart; secrets were never
safe, a courtier had to keep up appearances in the face of gambling debts,
loss of office or even unwanted pregnancy.
Thousands longed to be part of the court, but John Hervey, knew all too
well that danger lay hidden behind the palace walls. 'I do not know any
people in the world,' he wrote to a courtier colleague, 'so much to be
pitied as that gay young company with which you and I stand every day in
the drawing-room.'
>>>>
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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