John Osborne has a promising career with the War Office and lacks for nothing. Except, possibly, a wife. Unfortunately, the woman he wants only has eyes for someone else. When a shared friend offers to help him win his love's heart--if only he will...
As always, THANK YOU, to everyone who's given this little story a chance. I hope you've enjoyed the story. If I'm absolutely honest, I have struggled massively with writer's block while writing it, so I'm kind of relieved it's finished. (Or, well, at least the first draft.)
Some Random Notes About Information In This Novella
I just wanted to touch on a few things in this novella. Obviously, where this house party is concerned, I'm taking quite a lot of liberties with history since I have no accounts of what a racy Regency house party might be like. But I have faith in humans' ability to be naughty, so I wouldn't be surprised if something existed back then. But probably not quite like this. For any history buffs who were horrified by my lack of historical accuracy, I apologise. (But I had fun making up these cheeky games...)
Hayes is a supporter of male suffrage which was gaining ground around this time in history. After the Napoleonic Wars, England was hit by an economic slump which was exacerbated by several different things all hitting at once. Only about 11% of adult males held the vote at this time, and very few of them were in the northern parts of England, which was one of the areas worst affected.
The House of Commons rejected the first petition for manhood suffrage, and when there was another slump in 1819, the cause gained more supporters again. Rallies were organised, and most were peaceful and broken up without incident.
In August 1819 a large protest was arranged on St. Peter's Field, Manchester, and this is where things went terribly wrong. Mounted men sent by the authorities charged into the crowd to apprehend and arrest some of the organisers and speakers, and a cavalry regiment was sent in to disperse the crowd. They did so by charging in with sabres drawn.
There are no exact figures, but they believe between nine and seventeen people were killed, and between 400 and 700 were injured. People were outraged, and rightly so. The event was dubbed the Peterloo Massacre (ironically comparing it to Waterloo).
The reaction from the government was to ban all reform, and not until 1832 did they actually change some of the voting laws. It still wasn't perfect, but some of the injustices in the current system were changed. (But this was also when they explicitly made the law say that a voter was a 'male person'. Women didn't fully get the vote until 1928, but some women--under specific circumstances could vote from 1918).
And thus concludes my little (quite incomplete, very brief) notes on Peterloo.
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