Hey, Everyone! For my stop on the A Will of Iron Blog Tour, Linda Beutler is here with us today to discuss the interesting topic of Regency Funerals in conjunction with her new book, A Will of Iron! Now, this is one topic I haven't thought much about, but I found it fascinating!
Many thanks to Jakki at Leatherbound Reviews for organizing this Blog Tour!
Also, Meryton Press is giving away a paperback of A Will of Iron to one lucky person! You'll find the information for the giveaway at the bottom of this post.
Funeral Folderol
Thanks so much for the opportunity to guest post! It is always great to have So Little Time... offer to host a stop on a blog tour.
What follows might seem a tad morbid to some, but honestly, my best friend Jacky and I had a great time researching Regency era funeral fashions, customs, and slang for A Will of Iron. You see, there are a lot of deaths in this story, and three funerals (—ending with two weddings! Hmmm…one is a double ceremony. How do we count that, I wonder?). Anyway… thanks to The Regency Encyclopedia and similar sites for making my tale more authentic and stoking me with knowledge to make Lady Catherine de Bourgh reach new heights of pretension.
Rest assured, A Will of Iron is not a mystery. It is a macabre romp. Thanks to Anne de Bourgh’s journals being spirited into the guarding hands of Charlotte and Lizzy, readers learn the truth as Lizzy and Charlotte read the pertinent entries. There are murders here, but also enough foreshadowing to sink a battleship. The main death scene in the story is so weird that I hope it will also be relatively angst free. (There’s an author’s twisted logic for you. Or perhaps, there’s a twisted author’s logic?)
The first death in the story is the most important: Anne de Bourgh. Because she is the heiress to Rosings Park, Anne is first laid out for viewing in the largest, most splendid drawing room. Sadly, is it a warm April, and because Lady Catherine will have none but the Archbishop of Canterbury perform the funeral rites, and he has to preside at a royal event first, Anne must be removed to a cooler location (the basement of the Hunsford Church, where she is protected from rats and what-not by Mr. Collins).
Go ahead and start saying “Ewww!” now, because it gets rather worse. But for the timing and unseasonable heat, Anne would have been transferred from the table in Rosings to her casket, the service would have taken place in the drawing room with no ladies present, and the casket would then travel via black-draped hearse to the de Bourgh family crypt in the Hunsford churchyard. Pallbearers would have carried the casket from the hearse to the crypt.
