Gilded Age Etiquette for London Season

There are few of the British castles or country seats that are not able to house from forty to one hundred guests, with a separate apartment for each, and equal accommodations in the servants’ hall for guests’ servants. The service in all respects does not materially differ from that in our best-class, semi-private hotels; save that each occupant of the castle has the exclusive attention of his or her own servant, in addition to the general service of the castle, always on call at any hour of the day or night… Every gentleman brings his valet and every lady her maid, and often her own footman, unless an express request to the contrary has been made in the invitations. The visiting valet is assigned a room in the servants’ hall, and ladies’ maids are provided with separate rooms, usually en suite with their mistresses’ apartments.

LONDON’S SEASON

Round of Gaieties of the English Nobility

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THE GRAND DINNER PARTIES

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The Season Ends by Aristocracy Seeking the Spas of the Continent

LONDON, June 22.- English literature, or rather that portion comprised in English fiction, has certainly done injustice to British nobility in at least one respect. It has totally misinformed all of us who are plebian, and rather like remaining so, as to the every-day life of the British aristocracy.

Nobody loves this class. Nobody believes in its hereditary rights and privileges, save those clergy who hold “livings” under them and the other lackeys that serve them. Nobody has any manly sympathy whatever with its semi-regal pretensions and prerogatives. Nobody has the slightest confidence that a century hence any such class will continue to exist in Great Britain. And yet every one of us, notwithstanding our flouting and scoffing, has the keenest interest in glimpses of its members’ daily lives. 

Your British Lord really believes in himself. That is worth something to character, and builds up on the lines of equable living and true dignity with anybody. Your American lordero knows he is an accident, a pretender, an irritating social misfit. The former’s real pleasures are found in relaxation from social duties which centuries of custom have rendered obligatory. The latter’s pleasures are solely attainable through the arrogant and offensive insistence of endless recognition of his money power. The one is a splendid nation’s permanent excrescence. The other is another splendid nation’s first growth of fungus. Both are interesting studies. But the British Noble has rather the advantage from a scenic standpoint, because speaking in uncouth simile, he is the most ancient, best acknowledged, and the most picturesque bump on the national log.

Many of the British Nobility occupy their establishments the year round. These would scorn to do else. Their ethics are exclusively evolved from their fondest dreams to which they cling, that they are feudal lords. For such to reside in town would be to descend to the utter debasement of burghers. With a great majority the London season largely controls their residence and its period at castle, seat or hall, and elsewhere. The “season” is controlled by Parliament, the annual closing of which practically depends on sport. 

The aristocratic fashionable world is formed and its movements controlled almost exclusively by those connected with the Houses of the Lords and Commons; these comprising largely the nobility. In other words, the intangible, awful formulated thing known as the great fashionable world contering in London, is after all simply the country nobility and aristocracy congregated for a brief season in London. London does not make this fashionable world. Those of the country make it in London. Their town-houses, for the entree to which fashionable toadies will resort to inconceivable humiliations, are the merest temporary lodging-houses of hated city life. This exclusive class, not far exceeding a thousand heads of houses, practically own and derive the revenues from the entire landed possessions of Great Britain.

In the main, British castle life begins with the grouse shooting season in August, and lasts until the following May. With those “in the world” the period is much reduced. Many forsake the estates in February for the “first swim” in the metropolis. There is a delightful though quiet social period in London preceding Easter. But just immediately before Easter, Parliament adjourns, when back come the Lords and Ladies; or a trip to the Continent is taken. After Easter the full London tide sets in. The Park is thronged; Rotten Row is filled with magnificent horsewomen and gallants; luncheons, dinners, and balls are innumerable; and the Queen’s drawing-rooms command the Nobility’s presence. Then comes Whitsuntide, when Parliament again takes a short recess, and London is again deserted by the aristocracy. But all the Nobility of England, Scotland and Ireland that make any pretensions whatever to correct form are back in London by the latter part of May.

From this time late dinners and later balls follow in bewildering succession. The stifling air of Parliament and court is continually breathed. Fashionable events and affairs, originated by the aristocracy and to which the aristocracy are truly slaves, compel the limit of physical and financial endurance. Derby Day, for which Parliament always adjourns, is followed by commencement at Eaton, and these by the great cricket matches between Lords and Commons, Rugby, Harrow and Eaton, and Cambridge and Oxford. Then come the wonderful garden parties of Cheswick, the two great breakfasts of the Prince of Wales, and the distinguished parties by Earls, Dukes and Duchesses, followed by Ascot week, and the court balls and great balls and banquets of foreign embassies, with the splendid afternoon teas by the Queen in the gardens of Buckingham Palace; until the military fêtes and the last fête champêtre at Wimbledon have arrived; and the “done” and jaded aristocracy seek the the spas of the continent in atonement for their sins. The “season” is at an end. The guns of the titled sportsmen commence ringing in the north and the home-life at the castles of Britain begins.

Usually a large portion of the family plate, some pictures, and much bric-a-brac have done duty at the town house, during the “season.” Every other moveable article of value has been left at the castle under the housekeeper’s direct charge, and the general charge of the steward, agent or executor of the estate, who resides nearby. The housekeeper, and possibly a half-dozen under-servants have remained at the castle on “broad-wages,” that is, reduced wages, and a certain weekly allowance with which to provide their own food. They lead no life of ease under these circumstances. Every habitable portion of the place is inspected, dusted and aired daily. Every floor is waxed once each week. At stated intervals every piece of furniture is uncovered and attended to, the books in the library opened, dusted and aired, and the plate and cutlery kept in constant readiness for immediate use. For, while the probabilities are that milord and milady will remain absent during the entire season, they may return at any moment.

After arrival, two or more weeks are devoted to absolute rest and quiet family reunion. This period is the children’s heaven of the year. If they are young, and the governess and the tutor (often the village curate) have had them in hand during their parents’ absence in London, it is a season of genuine jollity and love-making between old and young. If they are along in years, the daughters are returned from the fashionable school where they are being “formed,” and the sons, covered over with foot-ball and cricket scars, dash down from Eaton and Harrow; and as simple and jolly a time all around is had at this castle home, as may ever be found in the well-ordered homes of our own country.

But directly this is over. Milord and lady are slaves to a social system which demands nearly every moment of their lives. The remaining seven months of home life is a ceaseless round of entertainment of titled and other guests. The selections of these guests is of course occasionally with a view to, and in the anticipation of, pleasure to be obtained from congenial society. As a rule it is merely in repayment of similar entertainment received in London and in all parts of the world, from the Shetland Islands to British India. Whether guests are invited for a day, a week, or a month, the invitations are for a period absolutely limited in duration, and no social law of the British aristocracy is more inviolate than this.

The etiquette of a reception of guests is most simple. Indeed there is less formality shown in the actual relation of host to guest in a British Nobleman's home than will be at any time confronted in the house of a Hoboken brewer or a Kansas City merchant in hogs. The first coachman, with the family close carriage, if rainy, and with the wagonette, if in fine weather, brings the titled guests from the station, traps following after with the luggage; and the groom with another carriage, attends to the guests’ servants. Milord’s valet and milady’s maid meet the arriving guests at the castle entrance and conduct them at once to the drawing-room, where the host and hostess receive and welcome them; but they are not delayed in being shown to their apartments. Meantime the housekeeper is attending to the guests’ servants. 

Every gentleman brings his valet and every lady her maid, and often her own footman, unless an express request to the contrary has been made in the invitations. The visiting valet is assigned a room in the servants’ hall, and ladies’ maids are provided with separate rooms, usually en suite with their mistresses’ apartments. There are few of the British castles or country seats that are not able to house from forty to one hundred guests, with a separate apartment for each, and equal accommodations in the servants’ hall for guests’ servants. The service in all respects does not materially differ from that in our best-class, semi-private hotels; save that each occupant of the castle has the exclusive attention of his or her own servant, in addition to the general service of the castle, always on call at any hour of the day or night.

Whatever number of guests may be found at any one time at these great establishments and except on special occasions they will not exceed a dozen or twenty – in provision for the cuisine, in complete staffs of servants, and in the number of servants employed, they are at all times, during the occupancy of milord and milady, or either, as well prepared for the entertainment of the highest as the least number. That is one of the penalties of being a Nobleman. But to illustrate details of the ordinary regime, we will suppose that a dozen or score of guests are already gathered at the castle and the invitations read for “a week.”

The usual hours for meals are: breakfast at 9 to 10; luncheon at 2; tea at 5; dinner at 8; and supper at from 11 o'clock until midnight. Whether guests have arrived before luncheon or before dinner, etiquette requires that all shall gather in the drawing-room for introductions. This is absolutely the first and last of formality among these tired people during their sojourn. Whatever the difference in rank, none whatever is thereafter recognized. The story-books do not put it in this way, but the fact remains. 

It is the unwritten and inviolable law of such occasions that, while mere distinction in rank, in form of address, is adhered to, for the time being the offensive distinction of precedence is wholly abolished. Socially and ethically while you are his Lordship’s guest you are neither his superior nor inferior. Otherwise you would not be there. Not only is this true, but there can be only two possible oссаsions for extreme dressing. Those are at dinner, where of late years everything savoring of full dress has been tabooed, and in the event of a ball being given to which neighboring Nobility are invited.

There is probably no other place in the world where a guest for a week is so much the master of his or her own inclinations. Etiquette and form make no demands whatever upon you. You are as free to follow your own whims, either for rest or activity, as though quartered in a glen-side cabin. Remain up all night, sleep all day, never appear at a meal save the first luncheon or dinner, and there is none to wonder, question or criticize. The entire motif of the hospitality of the British Nobility is, in short, the dignified but complete indulgence of the guest in rational activities, simple pleasures or complete rest. There are many sources of amusement There is certain to be one or more grand “meets,” where the ladies join in the exciting hunt across country to the music of the yelping hounds. Often the occupants of near castles join in these. Then there will be return sport of like nature, and delicious “hunt breakfasts” are given. 

For the gentlemen exclusively, there will perhaps be a “pheasant shoot” on the grounds, or the more sportsmanlike pleasure of grouse-shooting on the moors. The ladies often join in fishing parties to some distant stream, where lunch is served in the open wood beside some spring. Even when there is no riding after the hounds, the pleasant roads and lanes swarm with merry cavalcades of horsewomen and men, distant bits of scenery, castle ruins or historic abbeys being thus visited. The drives the finest in the world, and most brilliant intercourse is had between castle and castle. 

Within and without the great establishment itself there is always provision for almost every imaginable sport. Billiards and ten-pins are as great favorites with ladies as with gentlemen. There is always a superb cricket field. Frequently football matches are gotten up between the lordly old boys. The tennis-courts are nowhere excelled. Nearly every castle demesne has its well-stocked streams of trout and its reaches of natural or artificial lakes for sailing and rowing. But in every feature of all this high-class life at the British nobleman’s home, there is an utter absence of theatric show, so insufferable in the American Lord’s home. 

As before stated, save at dinner and at balls, you will find lordly frames almost exclusively hung with old clothes. Whatever is comfortable is in form. The baggy pajama for room-lounging; the ancient slipper, cap and jacket for the lawn, the lake and the tennis-court; the loosest and most ancient of toggery for the breakfast-table, and, among real noblemen, the most faded, spotted and ragged old pink jackets, for the “meet;” are the rule rather than the exception, despite those whose pens cannot but run riot in portrayal of British high life. 

The truth is that, despite the immense establishments, the great retinues, and the enormous general outlay as penance to rank and station, the real home-life of the British nobility is an accusative contrast, in all essentials to comfort and sterling entertainment, to the hot-house home life and grotesque social writhings of many of our own people of equal wealth. – Edgar L. Wakeman, Special Correspondence of the Mercury, 1891

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor of the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia