Lady Flora Hastings

 

Lady Flora Hastings

The first time I heard about Lady Flora Hastings was in the book by Julia Baird; Victoria the Queen.

What I read about her broke my heart. What she was subjected to, strangely, wasn't surprising for those times. And to be honest, even in these times.
To be accused of something horrible, I commend her for sticking her ground and not giving in to the accusation.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, let me explain.

Lady Flora Elizabeth Rawdon-Hastings was born on 11 February 1806 to Francis Rawson-Hastings 1st Marquess of Hastings and Flora Mure-Campbell 6th of Loudoun.

Now to the scandal that rocked Queen Victoria's reign early on.

The unmarried Lady Flora Hastings was alleged to have had an affair with John Conroy, a favourite of the Queen's mother, the Duchess of Kent. Who Lady Flora was a lady-in-waiting for the Duchess of Kent.
Before I continue, there needs to be a bit of a backstory to the characters involved. 

Duchess of Kent (left)
John Conroy (right)

Queen Victoria hated and despised John Conroy, her mother, and her mother's household. There is a lot to get into for the reasons why, I advice reading Victoria the Queen if you want more details, but take my word for it that as soon as Victoria became Queen, she kept her mother's household away from her own. The hate was definitely strong.

Sometime in 1839 Lady Flora Hastings started to experience pain and swelling in her lower abdomen. She visited the Queen's physician, Sir James Clark (who I should mention now, I hate the man and I don't know how he got any qualifications), who couldn't diagnose her condition so he assumed she was with child. An assumption about an unmarried woman was scandalous to say the least especially in those times.

My guess is that this so called doctor told her enemies, Baroness Lehzen and the Marchioness of Tavistock, who then spread the rumour that she was with child. Queen Victoria also wrote in her journal on 2 February 1839 that she accused John Conroy of being the father.
Lady Flora, with every right, felt that she had to defend herself in public, publishing her version of events in the form of a letter which appeared in the Examiner, and blaming "a certain foreign lady" (more than likely Baroness Lehzen) for spreading the rumours.

She was examined to see if she was still a virgin. A concept that makes me sick to the stomach to be examined like that. It feels degrading to say the least. And as it turns out, Lady Flora was still a virgin.
Her family fought for her honour with success; public sympathy was clearly with Lady Flora, who kept appearing in public so that people would not think she was pregnant.

Queen Victoria

By April, Lady Flora was growing very weak, the distressed Duchess of Kent was convinced that Lady Flora was going to die, but even in June, Victoria  was still dismissing her condition. It also didn't help that Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria's most trusted adviser, was giving her terrible advice. Pettiness is a horrible trait.
However, Queen Victoria finally visited the now clearly dying Lady Flora and was mortified at what she saw. I think this visit changed Victoria's view as she wrote that she hoped that Lady Flora will recover. Her guilt was obvious.

On 5 July 1839, Lady Flora passed away. She made her last wish as her weeping family surrounded her: that a post-mortem be conducted on her body that would finally, thoroughly prove her innocence. 
Not surprisingly, there were still rumours that her death was due to a botched abortion. But the autopsy report showed that Lady Flora had a grossly enlarged liver, which was pressing on her stomach. It was also reported that "the uterus and its appendages presented the usual appearances of the healthy virgin state". Even with this diagnosis, her virginity was still examined.

After the public heard the news, hate was increased towards Queen Victoria and Lord Melbourne, and rightly so. The hate didn't last for long, but it was something Victoria will always think about during her long reign.

This scandal made me hate the people involved and the way women were treated back then. My modern mind went straight to, "what does it matter that she had sex before marriage", but I kept reminding myself that this was still a time period of sexism. It's not fixed today, but it definitely has improved.
My heart goes out to Lady Flora, and I also admire her inner strength to stand her ground no matter what was thrown at her.

I highly recommend reading Victoria the Queen by Julia Baird. Don't feel intimidated by the size, it's an amazing read.

Until next time, happy reading.

Mythos by Stephen Fry

 

I've always been fascinated by the ancient Greek Gods and Goddesses (I mean, you just have to look at my username). Reading their tales, how they came to be, what they got up to, everything is just fascinating.
I do love how they aren't 100% perfect, you just have to look at Zeus alone to know he isn't perfect, and his wife Hera was in continuous anger with him over his never ending infidelity. Except her anger was always targeted to the innocent women and not her husband.

Tera and I picked Mythos by Stephen Fry for our Clio's Book Club read.
This is actually my second time reading it, but I'm not fussed at all. I loved it the first and second time.

Stephen Fry gives these stories a modern twist, adding his own comedic flare to these crazy characters. 

It is a bit hard when you first get into the book, you are inundated with character after character, trying to decipher who is related to who, but trust me, once you get past that God and Goddess dump, the stories begin.

Like I said earlier, this isn't my first time reading this, yet I'm always surprised to find out how many words we are still using today from the ancient Greeks. 
I also love the stories on how the bees came to be and the spider. And I know you are going to hear this word a lot, but I find it fascinating. Is there any other word for that?

If you can't tell already, I highly recommend reading Stephen Fry's ancient Greek books. I have also read his book Heroes, but I still haven't read Troy but that is definitely on my list to get.

I really do want to get into reading more ancient Greek mythology and even just about the people of the time. If you have any recommendations, please don't hesitate to comment on this blog post, or you can message me on my Instagram page.

Until next time, happy reading

Currently Reading 7-9 May 2021

 

A long time ago I used to do a blog post nearly every week where I would say what I'll be doing and especially what I'll be reading for that weekend.
I actually used to love doing these posts and I don't know why. I think it was just a casual post on what is going on. Who knows.
I also want to start posting much more on here, so this is a great idea.

So, what are my plans this weekend...

I'm currently rereading Stormbird by Conn Iggulden. It's book one in his War of the Roses series.

I really enjoyed this series. I love how it's in the point of view of different characters from royals to fighters and spies. Conn Iggulden gives you a perspective of what is happing while war is waging.

I'm nearly half-way through, so if I finish it this weekend I might pick up book two or I might start the book club book; Mythos by Stephen Fry.

Besides reading this weekend it's also Mother's Day this Sunday. And as a mother of two kids, it's going to be a great day with family. I'll also be visiting my mum and Nonna (grandmother). It's going to be a nice relaxing day.

Nothing else exciting this weekend, but if there is reading, what more do you want?

Until next time, happy reading

Book Club

 

My sister from another mister, my best friend and fellow Queen, Tera and I are starting a book club together.

To say that we are exactly alike would be an understatement. We both have an obsession with history and learning everything we possibly can. So, why not read books together.

This came about after we read Victoria the Queen by Julia Baird together. Have you ever been reading a book and all you want to do is talk to someone about it? I do that all the time, especially history books.

Our first book together is Mythos by Stephen Fry. I have read this book before, but I really enjoyed it and I also want to take notes this time. I'm all for rereading, especially really good books.

I think Stephen Fry has an amazing way of telling these ancient stories for a modern audience. I can not wait to get into this with my best friend.

Stay tuned for more posts on our book club.

Please follow my dear friend on her blog and Instagram.

Until next time, happy reading

Victoria the Queen by Julia Baird

 With an extraordinary woman like Victoria, her biography of her life is bound to be fascinating to read. I really don't know where to begin with this big book, I do however want to say how much I loved reading this book. Julia Baird has a way of giving you all this information without feeling like you're overloaded. It's also written from the beginning of Victoria's life to the end, so it's not all over the place and hard to follow.

If you are interested in Victoria, or just curious, I highly recommend picking up Victoria the Queen by Julia Baird. Don't be intimidated by how big the book is. I could not put this book down and I devoured it.

After a few chapters in I instantly messaged my sister from another mister Tera, that she had to pick this book up immediately. She got it the next day and we buddy read it. It's one of those books you need to talk to someone while you're reading it.

During my read I wrote down a lot of notes, things that either piqued my interest or things that I wanted to look more into.

Because there was so many notes, I might later on do blog posts for things that I want to look more into, like for instance the scandal of Lady Flora Hastings. That poor woman and what she went through. 

Actually, there are a lot of instances that really made my blood boil when it came to girls and women. That, is definitely for another post.

I don't want to go too much into every detail of the book, because I really do think you need to read it and experience it yourself, but I want to mention a few things.

As much as I appreciated Albert and how he ran things, I do think that Victoria became way too dependent in him. I do think this has a lot to do with how women were perceived as a married woman. This is horrible to say, but we were seen as a mans property. He was our master and were basically his slave.

Now this power dynamic was strange in Victoria and Albert's relationship; she was Queen of England, head of the British Empire, while he was the husband who technically in their terms, supposed to be head of the house.

As an independent woman, I just wanted to see Victoria be that strong woman who doesn't let men walk over her and belittle her (no pun intended).

I also want to definitely mention John Brown. After reading Julia Bairds' notes at the end of the book, I am so happy she kept information about him and what was left in Victoria's coffin in the book.

I do believe that Victoria loved John Brown, whether that is in a romantic way or just friendship, I personally don't think that matters.

She was so dependent of people, it was good to have someone close to her to bring her out of the gloom after Albert died.

There is so much more to unpack not just with Victoria's life, but also with the world during her reign, that I will definitely (hopefully if I remember) to make posts about it in the future.

Like I said before, I highly recommend picking up Victoria the Queen by Julia Baird. It's an amazing book that I will definitely be going back again and again and recommending to anyone who I come across.

Until next time, happy reading...

Something Slightly Different

 

Well, technically, it's doing something that I planned to do from the beginning but ending up doing what I do on Goodreads, and that's just review books.

Recently I have decided that I no longer want to be on Goodreads and review books. I'll talk about books, and more so about how much I love them, but I will no longer be doing star ratings.

It seems that if you disagree with someone about a book they like, all of a sudden only their opinions matter. 

I don't want to go too much into it, let's just say that for my sanity, I'm not going to bother with Goodreads no longer.

So, saying all that, I started this blog because I wanted to share my two favourite things; books and history.

This blog will only be about history books that I've read or just talking about history in general.

I am in no way a professional about any of this, I just have a passion that I just want to share with the world.

I hope you enjoy my blog and share your passion as well for history.

Until next time, happy reading