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On this page you will find a chronology of the years of the extended Regency period, beginning with the first Regency Crisis in 1788 through the death of George III in 1820. This timeline is not intended to be a comprehensive history, but rather a brief summary of key events in the areas of politics, society, arts, literature, etc. All names are linked to Wikipedia entries.

Each of Candice's books is set in a specific time. Readers may use this timeline to place the stories in the context of real events.

Color codes:
Government, politics, war
Music
Literature, journalism, publishing
Science, exploration, industry
Art, architecture, design
Theater, dramatic arts
Society, social history
Natural history, exploration

1788 | 1789 | 1790 | 1791 | 1792 | 1793 | 1794 | 1795 | 1796 | 1797 | 1798
1799 | 1800 | 1801 | 1802 | 1803 | 1804 | 1805 | 1806 | 1807 | 1808 | 1809
1810 | 1811 | 1812 | 1813 | 1814 | 1815 | 1816 | 1817 | 1818 | 1819 | 1820

 

 
 
     
Botany Bay penal colony is established in Australia.
  
The Marylebone Cricket Club codifies the rules of cricket in its Code of Laws, which are universally adopted by the game. (MCC remains the custodian and arbiter of Laws relating to cricket around the world.)

 


Sir John Soane
painted by Thomas Lawrence

Actor John Philip Kemble becomes manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
Sir John Soane begins his re-design of the Bank of England building, the first Greek revival building in England.
January: The first edition of The Times of London is published.
January: The Young Pretender Charles Edward "Bonnie Prince Charlie" Stuart dies in Rome at age 67.
May: The last volumes of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire are published.
August: Mozart composes the "Jupiter Symphony" (Symphony No. 41).
August: Painter Thomas Gainsborough dies at age 61.
 
August: Louis XVI of France agrees to convene the Estates-General for the first time since 1614.
  
November: The first Regency Crisis is brought about by George's III's first bout of madness.
  
December: King Charles III of Spain dies and is succeeded by his son Charles IV of Spain.
  

 

William Blake, British poet, painter, and printmaker publishes Songs of Innocence.

 


Title page from Blake's
Songs of Innocence
Click on image to see a
larger version.

Mrs. Ann Radcliffe's first gothic novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne is published.
Pears' soap is introduced by London soapmaker Andrew Pears, whose oval and translucent product will gain worldwide distribution.
January: The first national elections are held in the United States.
March: The newly ratified Constitution of the United States is put into action as the first government begins operations.
April: Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny on HMS Bounty against Captain William Bligh.
April: George Washington becomes the first President of the United States.
May: In France, the Estates-General convenes for the first time in 175 years.
May: Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery opens in Pall Mall. It serves to exhibit a collection of pictures commissioned by engraver and publisher John Boydell in an effort to foster a school of British history painting. Contributing artists include Richard Westall, George Romney, Henry Fuseli, Benjamin West, Angelica Kauffmann, John Opie, and more.
June: At the Estates General, representatives of the Third Estate -- ie the general populace and not the clergy (First Estate) or the nobility (Second Estate) -- declare themselves the National Assembly of France.
 
July: Storming of the Bastille by citizens of Paris marks the beginning of the French Revolution.
 
August: The National Assembly of France adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
 
December: George III recovers, ending the Regency Crisis.
 

 
Mozart composes "Cosi Fan Tutte."


Portrait of Elizabeth Farren by Thomas Lawrence, exhibited at the Royal Acadmey in 1790. This portrait met with great public and critical acclaim, and was praised above even the work of co-exhibitor Josuah Reynolds for itsnaturalistic freshness and vivacity.
Click on image to see a
larger version.

William Blake publishes The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Scottish poet Joanna Baillie publishes Fugitive Verses.
Thomas Lawrence exhibits for the first time at the Royal Academy, with portraits of Queen Charlotte and the actress Elizabeth Farren (later Countess of Derby).
Joseph Mallord William Turner is accepted into the Royal Academy at age 15.
George Stubbs paints Lion Attacking a Horse. Its commingling of the horrific and the sublime, its exaltation of nature and the emotions mark it as a forerunner of the Romantic movement.
The British make an alliance with the Nizam of Hyderabad, and a third Anglo-Mysore War begins.
February: The Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II dies and is succeeded by his brother Leopold II.
July: Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher, dies at age 67.
October: Mozart's Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra in D major (Coronation) is performed for the first time at the coronation of Leopold II in Frankfurt-am-Main.
November: Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution of France, which condemns the revolution as the beginning of mob rule.
November: Vindication of the Rights of Man by Mary Wollstonecraft is the first published response to Burke.

Mrs. Ann Radcliffe's The Romance of the Forest is published.

 

 


William Wilberforce
painted by Karl Anton Hickel

James Boswell's Life of Johnson is published.
London furniture maker Thomas Sheraton publishes The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book, advocating a style more severe than those of Chippendale and Hepplewhite. It was immediately influential throughout England.
March: Thomas Paine publishes the Rights of Man, Parts I & II. The book is banned and Paine is charged with seditious libel, and tried in absentia after he flees to Paris.
March: Haydn's Symphony No. 93 in D minor and Symphony No. 96 in D major (Miracle) are performed for the first time at London's Hanover Square Rooms
April: William Wilberforce introduces the first Parliamentary bill to abolish the slave trade, but it is rejected.
June: The French Royal Family is captured at Varennes when they try to flee Paris in disguise.
July: The Priestly Riots take place in Birmingham, in which the rioters attacked and burned the houses, chapels, and homes of religious dissenters who supported the French Revolution.
July: 50 people are killed in Paris in the "Massacre of the Champs de Mars" when the National Guard fired into a mob gathered to sign petitions to overthrow the monarchy.
August: 100,000 slaves revolt in the French-controlled colony of San Domingo in the West Indies.
September: Mozart's "Magic Flute" premiers in Vienna.
October: Irish revolutionists Theobald Wolfe Tone, Thomas Russell, James Napper Tandy, and other Protestants found the Society of United Irishmen to unite Protestants and Roman Catholics in agitating for independence from Britain.
December: Mozart dies at age 35.

 
William Murdoch invents gas lighting.
 
January: Mary Wollstonecraft publishes her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, for which she is called by reviewers a "hyena in petticoats."
  
February: Benjamin West becomes the 2nd president of the Royal Academy, after the death of its first president, Sir Joshua Reynolds.
 
March: Thomas Lawrence is appointed principal painter to George III.
 
March: Architect Robert Adam dies at age 63.
  
March: The guillotine is adopted as the official means of execution in France, and remains so until the death penalty is abolished in 1981. The last execution by guillotine is in 1977.
 
March: Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, dies and is succeeded by his son, Francis II, who will be the last Holy Roman Emperor.

Lieutenant General Lafayette
painted by
Joseph Désiré Court.
March: King Gustav III of Sweden is assassinated.
March: Sierra Leone is established under British rule as a home for former slaves.
April: France declares war against Austria and Prussia.
August: Lafayette, leader of the French National Guard, is declared a traitor by the National Assembly and is imprisoned for 5 years.
August: French Legislative Assembly is dissolved.
August: A Paris mob storms the Tuileries Palace and 600 of the king's Swiss guardsmen are massacred. King Louis XVI is arrested and taken into custody. He and his family are held as prisoners in the Temple.
August: Coalition Armies (Austrian, Prussian, and French Royalist troops) attack France.
September: 1200 political prisoners are murdered in Paris during a wave of mob violence known as the September Massacres. Three Roman Catholic bishops and over 200 priests are slaughtered.
September: The French National Convention abolishes the monarchy and officially declares France a republic.
 
December: Thomas Paine is found guilty of sedition (for publishing the Rights of Man) and is sentenced to death in absentia.
 

 
The first Bank of England £5 note is issued in response to the need for smaller denomination banknotes to replace gold coin during the French Revolutionary Wars (previously the smallest note issued had been £10).

The Death of Marat
by Jacques-Louis David.
David was a close friend of Marat, as well as a strong supporter of Robespierre and the Jacobins. Determined to memorialize his friend, David not only organized for him a lavish funeral, but painted his portrait soon afterwards. Despsite the haste in which it was painted, it is generally considered to be David's best work, a definite step towards modernity, and an inspired political statement.
Click on image to see a
larger version.
Lansdown Crescent is completed in Bath.
January: King Louis XVI of France is tried and executed.
January: Louis XVI's brother, the Comte de Provence, who fled France in 1791, proclaims himself regent for his 7-year-old nephew Louis-Charles, Duc de Normandie, who is proclaimed Louis XVII by royalist émigrés.
February: The French Republic declares war on England, Holland, and Spain.
February: England declares war on France.
July: Radical Jacobin Jean-Paul Marat is assassinated by Girondist sympathizer Charlotte Corday, who stabs him in his bath. She not only holds him responsible for the September Massacres, but believes Marat to be the centerpoint for everything that is threatening a true Republic, and believes that his death will be the death of violence throughout the nation. Instead her action leads to reprisals that utlimately bring on the Reign of Terror.
September: The Reign of Terror begins in France. The National Convention is taken over by radical Jacobins who embark on a systematic and lethal repression of perceived enemies of the Revolution. Within the next 12 months, as many as 40,000 executions will take place.
October: Queen Marie Antoinette of France is tried and excuted.
October: The French National Convention adopts the Republican Calendar, with 12 30-day months beginning with the Year One of the revolution (September 22, 1792).
October: Jacques-Louis David paints The Death of Marat, one of the most famous images of the French Revolution.
November: The Louvre Palace is opened to the public as a museum.

 
William Blake publishes Songs of Experience, which includes the poem "The Tyger."

 

 


Fashion plate from a
1794 edition of the
Gallery of Fashion
from Candice's collection.
Mrs. Radcliffe publishes The Mysteries of Udolpho.
Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin.
February: The French Assembly abolishes slavery.
March: The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which had been razed in 1791, re-opens in a new building designed by Henry Holland.
April: The first edition of Niklaus von Heideloff's upscale and exclusive fashion magazine, The Gallery of Fashion, is published.
April: Britain signs a treaty with Prussia and the Netherlands against France.
April: Joséphine de Beauharnais (future wife of Napoleon) is arrested along with her husband, the Vicomte de Beauharnais, during the Reign of Terror. The vicomte is executed. Josephine will be released in July.
May: Habeas Corpus is supended in England.
June: A Royal Navy fleet under the command of Admiral Lord Howe defeats a French fleet in the North Atlantic, capturing six French ships and sinking a seventh.
July: Robespierre is arrested and executed, ending the Reign of Terror in France.
August: British forces take Corsica from the French after bombardment by Captain Horatio Nelson, who lost the sight in his right eye due to an injury in the battle.
November: The Treason Trials exonerate three key British Radicals (Thomas Hardy, John Thelwall, John Horne Tooke) who had been charged with high treason. The trials had been orchestrated by Prime Minister William Pitt as a part of his campaign to cripple the radical movement in Britain, in hopes of avoiding a French-style revolution in England.

 
Famine in England is brought on by bad harvests and a wartime economy.
 
Methodists secede from the Church of England.
 
Napoleon Bonaparte rises to prominence in France through a series of brilliant military victories in Italy.

 


Louis XVII of France
painted by
Alexander Kucharsky

Haydn completes the last of his 12 London Symphonies.
January: Josiah Wedgwood, English potter and prominent abolitionist, dies at age 64.
March: Ludwig van Beethoven's Concerto No. 2 in B flat major for Pianoforte and Orchestra is performed in Vienna, marking his debut as composer and piano virtuoso.
April: Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany , is named Commander-in-Chief of the British Army.
June: The son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (known as Louis XVII though he never ruled) dies in the Temple Prison in Paris at age 10 and his body is dumped in a mass grave. His heart is stolen and kept by a royalist physician. When the French government announces his death, many doubt the news, giving rise to apochryphal legends of his escape, and to future claimants to the French throne. However, DNA tests performed in 2000 on the heart confirm that it indeed belonged to Louis.
October: Directory Goverment (the Directoire) is elected in France.
October: George III is attacked by an angry mob and narrowly escapes assault.
November: William Pitt introduces the infamous "Gagging Acts" or "Two Bills": the Seditious Meetings Bill forbids large meetings and political lectures, and Treasonable Practices Bill makes it a treasonable offense to incite hatred of the king, his government, or the constitution in speech or writing..
 

 
Fanny Burney publishes Camilla.

 


Title page from the 1796 first edition of Camilla: Or A Picture of Youth "By the Author of Evelina and Cecilia."
from Candice's collection.

Matthew Lewis publishes The Monk.
British forces take Malacca and Ceylon, and seize all Dutch property in the Far East except Java.
January: Princess Charlotte is born to the Prince and Princess of Wales.
January: British forces under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercromby arrive at Jamaica and take the Caribbean islands of St. Lucia, Demerara, St. Vincent, and Grenada.
April: Napoleon leads the French victory over Austria.
May: Napoleon enters Milan and establishes the Lombard Republic.
May: Vaccination against small pox is introduced by Edward Jenner.
June: Scottish physician-explorer Mungo Park reaches the Niger, becoming the first European to reach the West African interior.
July: Scottish poet Robert Burns dies at age 37.
October: Spain, now aligned with France, declares war on Britain.
November: Catherine the Great of Russia dies. She is succeeded by her son, Paul I.

 
Richard Wellesley (Earl of Mornington and later Marquess Wellesley) becomes Governor-General of India.
January: The first edition of the weekly fashion magazine, Journal des Dames et des Modes is published in Paris.
 
January: London haberdasher John Hetherington leaves his shop in the Strand wearing England's first silk top hat and attracting a crowd of spectators whose shoving causes police to arrest him. He is charged with disturbing the peace and wearing "a tall structure having a shining luster calculated to frighten timid people." Within a month he is overwhelmed by orders for the silk hats.
  
February: The Bank of England issues the first £1 note.
  
February: A British fleet under the command of Admiral Jervis defeats a larger Spanish fleet near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal. Captain Horatio Nelson distinguishes himself by seizing four Spanish ships; he is promoted to Rear Admiral and is knighted. Jervis is granted an earldom.

 

 

 


Mary Wollstonecraft
painted by John Opie
only months before her
death in 1797.

February: The Spanish Governor of Trinidad peacefully surrenders the colony over to a British naval force.
March: John Adams becomes the second President of the United States.
March: English writer and politician Horace Walpole dies at age 79.
April - June: Naval mutinies occur at Spithead and Nore over sailors' pay and living conditions.
May:Napoleon conquers Venice, ending the city's 1070 years of independence.
May: Actress Elizabeth Farren marries the 12th Earl of Derby (whose previous wife had died only 2 months earlier).
July: British statesman, orator, and political theorist Edmund Burke dies at age 68.
August: Painter Joseph Wright of Derby dies at age 62.
September: Mary Wollstonecraft dies at age 38 after complications from the birth of her daughter, Mary.
October: France and Austria sign peace treaty.
November: Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia dies and is succeeded by his grandson, Frederick William III

 
The first volume of Joanna Baillie's Plays of the Passions is published anonymously.
 
Beethoven composes the "Pathétique" Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Opus 13).
  
January: The first monthly issue of the Lady's Monthly Museum is published.
  
February: Napoleon occupies Rome, and begins his campaigns in Egypt and the Middle East.
 
March: French forces invade the Papal States and establish the Roman Republic.

Nelson as Hero of the Nile in a caricature by Gillray.
April: France annexes Geneva.
May: Society of United Irishmen spearhead the Irish Rebellion against British rule, which lasts through the end of summer when the British finallly put down the rebellion.
May: Napoleon dispatches 167 scientists in an expedition to Egypt, as a prelude to a military expedition.
June: Napoleon seizes Malta from the Order of St. John (Knights Hospitaller).
June: Italian adventurere and writer Giacomo Casanova dies at age 73 .
July: Napoleon enters Egypt, and fights successfully against the greater forces of the Marmelukes in the Battle of the Chobrakit and the Battle of the Pyramids.
August: Napoleon establishes the Institut d'Égypte, staffed with French scholars and scientists who are charged with the research, study and publication of physical, industrial and historical facts about Egypt, especially its tombs and temples.
August: Nelson is victorious at the Battle of the Nile, capturing or destroying all but two French ships of the line, stranding Napoleon in Egypt and frustrating his plans to strengthen the French position in the Mediterrean. His brilliant victory gains him the title Baron Nelson of the Nile.
September: William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge publish Lyrical Ballads (anonymously, in part because they wish to avoid Coleridge's stigma as a "Jacobin radical"), including "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey."
September: Haydn's Mass in D minor (Nelson Mass) is premiered at the court of Prince Nicolaus II Esterházy of Hungary. He has written the work without knowing of Nelson's victory in the Battle of the Nile, but people will soon begin calling it the Nelson Missa.
October: Elizabeth Inchbald's play Lover's Vows is performed for the first time at Covent Garden. It is an immediate success, but gains even more fame when it is featured in Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park.
 

 
Mungo Park's Travels in the Interior of Africa is published.
 
The Royal Institution is founded by leading scientists, with the mission of supporting scientific education and research.
 
Henry Fuseli exhibits a series of paintings from subjects from the works of John Milton, with a view to forming a Milton gallery corresponding to Boydell's Shakespeare gallery. Also situated in Pall Mall, it is a commercial failure and closes in 1800.
 
The first Combination Act is passed by Parliament, prohibiting trade unions and collective bargaining.
  
The Royal Military College at Sandhurst is founded by Prince Frederick, Duke of York.

Tipoo Sultan
painted by Edward Orme.
January: The first edition of the magazine Fashions of London and Paris is published.
January: Parliament passes the world's first general income tax bill, as a means to pay for the war with France.
February: Napoleon invades Syria and defeats superior Ottoman forces in several battles.
March: Napoleon captures Jaffa in Palestine and his troops kill more than 2,000 Albanian captives.
May: British forces (including a division led by Arthur Wellesley) defeat Tipoo Sultan of Mysore in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.
June: Arthur Wellesley is appointed by his brother as Governor of Mysore.
July: The Rosetta Stone is discovered by the French in Egypt.
July: Napoleon defates 10,000 Ottoman troops at Aboukir.
November: The Directoire government in France is overthrown in a coup d'état by Napoleon, who establishes the Consulate, with himself as First Consul.

 
Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent is published.

 


Portrait of Mme. Récamier
by Jacques Louis David.
Juliet Récamier, a Parisian socialite, disliked the portrait and commissioned another from David's pupil, François Gérard. His portrait, which she liked, is featured on the cover of Candice's Just One of Those Flings.
Click on image to see a
larger version.

A new edition of Lyrical Ballads is published, with a Preface by William Wordsworth (expanded in the 1802 edition) that stands as a Romantic manifesto on the nature of poetry.
Jacques Louis David paints his famous Portrait of Mme. Récamier.
London's Royal College of Surgeons is founded.
April: English poet William Cowper dies at age 68 .
April: Beethoven premiers his Symphony No. 1 in C major in Vienna.
May: An assissination attempt is made on George III at Drury Lane Theatre.
May: Napoleon crosses the Alps and invades Italy.
June: Napoleon drives the Austrians from Italy (which they had conquered while he was busy in Egypt) in the Battle of Marengo.
September: At the invitation of the Maltese, British troops liberate the Islands of Malta and Gozo from the French.
December: Peace negotiations between France and Austria break down, and Napoleon sends General Moreau into Austria, where he is victorious at the Battle of Hohenlinden.
December: Washington, DC is officially established as the capital of the United States.

 


TALES FROM THE TABLOIDS

"The Masquerade given at the King's Theatre, on the 1st instant, was numerously attended. Among the several characters, a Quack Doctor was most conspicuous – a Sylvester Daggerwood who had an infinite deal of nothing to say -- Sailors, Countrymen, Chimney Sweepers, Flower Girls, Gipsies, a Tommy Tonsor, a band of Mrs. Montagu's friends, a Rolla, who tore his fine speeches, full of logic and grammar, and a great number of Harlequins and Clowns, the former sans agility, the latter sans humor, filled up the scene. The supper was the best by far that has of late been given upon such an occasion, and the company was truly respectable. We cannot conclude this brief account without expressing our disapprobation of the indecent custom of men habiting themselves like women. The conduct of some persons of this description, during the evening, disgusted the greater part of the assembly; but at length some gentlemen, much to their credit, actually compelled them to retire from the merry scene."

- The Sporting Magazine, May 1800

More Tales from the Regency Tabloids are scattered throughout this website. There's one more on this page. Scroll down ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once a Dreamer and Once a Scoundrel are both set in 1801

 

 
Maria Edgeworth's Belinda is publlished.
 
Architects Charles Percier and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine publish the Recueil de décorations intérieures, a compilation of drawings of contemporary design that will set the standard for the Empire style of interior decoration that spreads throughout Europe.
 
Lord Elgin, with permission of the Turkish government that controls Athens, begins the removal of sculptured portions of the Parthenon, a task that takes five years to complete.
  
English horse racing at Goodwood is introduced by Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond.
 
Beethoven completes the "Moonlight Sonata" (Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Opus 27).
January: the Act of Union with Ireland creates the United Kingdom.


The Union Jack becomes the new flag of the United Kingdom in 1801, incorporating the Cross of St. George (England), the Cross of St. Andrew (Scotland), and the Cross of St. Patrick (Ireland).

January: Emma Hamilton gives birth to the illegitimate daughter of Lord Nelson.
February: The Treaty of Lunéville, between France and the Holy Roman Empire, is signed, giving France control up to the Rhine and the French client republics in Italy and the Netherlands. Britian is now the sole nation fighting against France.
February: The government of William Pitt collapses over the issue of Catholic emancipation. Pitt had made veiled promises of emancipation in order to secure the Act of Union, but George III would not support it, and Pitt resigned.
March: Henry Addington becomes Prime Minister.
March: England conducts its first census.
March: Thomas Jefferson becomes the third President of the United States.
March: Tsar Paul I of Russia is assassinated. He is succedded by Tsar Alexander I.
March: The London Stock Exchange is founded.
 
April: The U.S. Library of Congress is founded.
 
April: At the Battle of Copenhagen, Lord Nelson deals a death blow to the League of Armed Neutrality (Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia) with his destruction of the Danish fleet. When he returns to England in June, he is elevated to a viscount.
 
June: Cairo falls to British troops.
 
August: The West India Docks open after a two-year design and construction project by William Jessop. Built on the Isle of Dogs, they are the first large wet docks built in the Port of London, and can accommodate 600 ships.
 
October: The Treaty of London is signed, a preliminary peace treaty ending the war between France and Britain.
 
December: Richard Trevithick builds and demonstrates the first steam-powered road locomotive.
 

 
Lady Ann's Excellent Adventure and
Once a Gentleman are set in 1802.
The Factories Act (sometimes called the "Health and Morals of Apprentices Act") is passed, regulating factory conditions, especially in regard to child workers in cotton and woollen mills.

 

 

 

 

The Rosetta Stone.
The Ptolemaic stela includes three translations of a single passage: in hieroglyphics, Demotic, and Greek. It was ultimately the key to understanding the previously undecipherable ancient hieroglyphic language. French scholar Jean-François Champollion is credited with the first translation in 1822. The stone has been on display at the British Museum since 1802.

The second volume of Joanna Baillie's Plays of the Passions is published under her name.
Henry Holland converts York House on Piccadilly (for ten years a residence of the Duke of York) into the Albany apartments, 69 sets of rooms for bachelors.
Sculptor Antonio Canova's Perseus With the Head of Medusa is so admired that it is placed in one of the stanze of the Vatican hitherto reserved for the most precious works of antiquity.
William Cobbett begins publishing the Political Regsiter, a weekly newspaper.
February: The Rosetta Stone, having been taken from the French as part of the spoils of war in Egypt, arrives in London and is presented to the Society of Antiquaries. A few months later, it is given to the British Museum.
March: the Peace of Amiens, the final peace treaty with France, is signed.
April: A general amnesty is signed by Napoleon allowing all but about one thousand of the most notorious émigrés of the French Revolution to return to France.
April: Parliament repeals the British income tax of 1799 and orders that all documents and records relating to the tax be destroyed in response to public outcry.
May: Napoleon establishes the Légion d'Honneur or Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur as a reward to commend civilians and soldiers. (All orders of the kingdom had been abolished during the French Revolution.) The Order remains the highest decoration in France.
August: Napoleon is declared First Consul for life in a new French constitution, and is given the right to name his successor.
October: The Edinburgh Review begins publication.
October: The French army enters Switzerland.
November: British watercolorist Thomas Girtin dies at age 27. His early death prompts J.M.W. Turner to remark: "Had Tom Girtin lived, I should have starved."
November: British painter George Romney dies at age 67.
December: Madame Tussaud arrives in London and exhibits her wax figures for the first time in England at the Lyceum Theater. From 1803 to 1835, she tours throughout England with her exhibition. In 1835 the exhibiton finally gets a permanent home on Baker Street in London.

 
John Constable exhibits for the first time at the Royal Academy.


The Nude Maja, c1800.
The Clothed Maja, 1803
by Francisco de Goya.
The second painting was created after general outrage in Spanish society over the first painting (primarily because it showed pubic hair). Without a pretense to allegorical or mythological meaning, The Nude Maja has been called "the first totally profane life-size female nude in Western art".
Click on image to see a
larger version.

 


An uncolored fashion plate from an 1803 edition of Le Miroir de la Mode from Candice's collection

Thomas Sheraton publishes The Cabinet Dictionary, a compendium of instructions on the techniques of cabinet and chair making.
Spanish painter Francisco de Goya paints The Clothed Maja, a picture of the same woman in the same pose as The Nude Maja, painted around 1800, but this time fully dressed. In 1815 the Spanish government confiscates both paintings, calling them obscene, and strips Goya of his position as Court painter.
Napoleon revokes the French assembly's emancipation decree of 1794, declaring his intention to reintroduce slavery in Hispaniola and other French territorial possessions.
Construction begins in Scotland on a 60.5-mile Caledonian Canal to connect the Atlantic with the North Sea across northern Scotland.
John Philip Kemble leaves Drury Lane and becomes manager of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. His sister, Sarah Siddons, follows him to Covent Garden, where she will perform until her retirement in 1812.
January: William Cobbett begins publishing Parliamentary Debates, an unofficial record of Parliamentary proceedings.
January: The first edition of the British fashion magazine Le Miroir de la Mode is published by the famous modiste, Madame Lanchester. Read more about her here on this site.
April: Beethoven premiers his Second Symphony (Symphony No. 2. in D major, Opus.36) in Vienna.
May: Napoleon abandons plans to expand his empire into North America when it becomes clear that French possessions on that continent had become indefensible. He needs money to finance a renewed war with Britain that is looming, and sells all the French territories to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase.
May: Britian declares war on France, dissolving the short-lived Peace of Amiens.
May: France begins to assemble a fleet at Boulogne in preparation for an invasion of England.
July: Robert Emmet leads an unsuccessful uprising in Ireland, and is later executed.
August: Lewis and Clark embark on their transcontinental expedition to the Pacific coast of North America.
September: At the Battle of Assaye in India, British-led troops under the command of Arthur Wellesley defeat Maratha forces.
October: British scientist John Dalton presents his atomic theory for the first time, in which he proposes that matter is composed of discrete units called atoms.
November: French writer Choderlos de Laclos, author of Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons), dies at age 62 while campaigning as a general for Napoleon.
December: The Mughal emperor Shah Alam II comes under British protection.

 
Gas lighting is demonstrated at London's Lyceum Theatre by German inventor Frederick Albert Winsor.

 


Emperor Napoleon I
on His Imperial
Throne, painted in all his imperial splendor by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in 1806.
Click on image to see a
larger version.

The Society of Painters in Water Colours is founded by artists who do not believe their medium commands enough respect by the Royal Academy.
February: Richard Trevithick designs and demonstrates the first steam-powered railway locomotive.
February: German philosopher Immanuel Kant dies at age 79.
February: A royalist conspiracy against Napoleon is uncovered.
March: The Royal Horticultural Society is founded.
March: The Code Napoleon is adopted as French civil law.
March: One of the royalist conspirators, Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, duc d'Enghien, is seized, condemned by a commission acting under Napoleon's orders, and shot, ending any hope of a reconciliation between the emperor and the royal house of Bourbon. The young duke's murder is discussed in the opening of Tolstoy's War and Peace.
April: Another of the royalist conspirators, General Charles Pichegru is found strangled in his cell at the Temple prison. It was rumored, but never proven, that his murder was ordered by Napoleon.
May: William Pitt once again becomes Britian's Prime Minister after the resignation of Henry Addington.
May: Napoleon is proclaimed Emperor of the French by the French Senate.
August: Alice Meynell becomes the first female jockey in England.
December: Napoleon crowns himself Emperor of France at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
December: Spain declares war on Britain.

 
William Blake publishes Milton.
 
Thomas Sheraton publishes the "Cabinet Maker, Upholsterer and General Artist's Encyclopaedia".
  
The London Docks open at Wapping.
 
The first annual Eton vs Harrow cricket match is held at Lord's Cricket Ground. The young Lord Byron is on the losing Harrow team.
 
April: Beethoven premiers his "Eroica Symphony" (Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Opus 55) in Vienna. When he composed it early the previous year, he dedicated it to Napoleon, but struck out the dedication when he learned the First Consul had declared himself emperor.
 
May: Napoleon is crowned, by himself, as King of Italy at the Cathedral of Milan.
  
June: The The British Institution (in full, the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts under the Patronage of His Majesty) is founded by a group of connoisseurs who organized exhibitions and competitions. Read more about it here on this site .


The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory by J.M.W. Turner.
Click on image to see a
larger version.

July: Muhammad Ali Pasha (the "founder of Modern Egypt") becomes the Ottoman Viceroy in Egypt. His "dynasty" will rule Egypt until 1952.
October: At the Battle of Trafalgar, the British Royal Navy defeats the combined French and Spanish fleet in the most decisive naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars, effectively ending French pretensions as a sea power. Admiral Lord Nelson dies in the battle, and is still considered the greatest naval hero in British history.
November: Beethoven's opera Fidelio (under the name Leonore) premiers in Vienna.
December: Napoleon defeats the Russian and Austrian armies at the Battle of Austerlitz.
December: The French Republican Calendar is abandoned, and France returns to the Gregorian calendar.

 
Rossini's first opera, "Demetrio a Polibio," is performed in Rome.
  
English sisters Ann and Jane Taylor publish Rhymes for the Nursery, which includes Jane's nursery rhyme "Twinkle, twinkle, little star."

 

 


Funeral procession of
Admiral Lord Nelson,
from the Admiralty to
St. Paul's, London,
January 9, 1806 -
print by Augustus Charles Pugin.
Click on image to see a
larger version.

 

 


Title page from the first issue (February 1806) of La Belle Assemblée "or Bell's Court and Fashionable Magazine Addressed Particularly to the Ladies" from Candice's collection.
British essayist William Hazlitt publishes Principles of Human Action.
Watier's Club is established in London. Dubbed the "Dandy Club" by Lord Byron, it was known for its fine food and high-stakes gambling. Beau Brummell is appointed as perpetual president.
January: Admiral Lord Nelson is the first commoner to be given a state funeral.
January: Prime Minister William Pitt dies at age 46. He leaves behind enormous personal debts, which the House of Commons contrives to pay off, but manages to leave his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope, a penison of £1200 a year. She has acted as housekeeper and hostess for her bachelor uncle in the last 3 years of his life.
January: The Times of London publishes its first illustration, showing Nelson's funeral.
January: Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina of Naples flee to Sicily, and Napoleon installs his brother Joseph Bonaparte as King of Naples and Sicily.
January: The British occupy the Cape of Good Hope after the surrender of Cape Town by the Dutch.
February: The first issue of the magazine La Belle Assemblée is published.
February: Lord Grenville becomes Britain's Prime Minister.
March: Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, celebrated beauty, society hostess, and political campaigner, dies at age 47.
May: England introduces a blockade of the European coast from Brest to the Elbe, but permits ships of neutral nations to pass if they are not carrying goods to or from enemy ports.
June: Napoleon installs his brother Louis Bonaparte as king of Holland.
July: The Vellore Mutiny is the first instance of a mutiny by the Indian sepoys against the British East India Company.
June: Architect Henry Holland dies at age 60.
July: English painter George Stubbs dies at age 81.
August: Francis II abdicates as Holy Roman Emperor, thus ending the 806-year old Holy Roman Empire.
August: French painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard dies at age 74.
September: Prussia and Saxony declare war on France.
September: Charles James Fox, prominent Whig statesman and persistant rival of William Pitt, dies at age 57.
October: Napoleon defeats Prussia in the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt.
October: The first edition of the British magazine Le Beau Monde is published.
October: Opera singer Angelica Catalani arrives in London and is a huge success when she sings at the King's Theatre in Haymarket.
November: Napoleon enforces the Continental System, a blockade forbidding every major power in Europe (who were by then either his allies or conquests) from trading with Britain.

 
Lord Byron publishes his first volume of poetry, Hours of Idleness.


Horseman from the west frieze of the Parthenon, part of the "Elgin Marbles" brought to England by Lord Elgin between 1801 and 1812. They were first displayed in 1807 in a special shed built by Lord Elgin at a house he rented on Park Lane. In 1811 the Duke of Devonshure agreed to house them at Burlington House. Elgin was finally able to sell them to the British Museum in 1816. From their first exhibition in 1807, the sculptures drew enormous interest. Artists and poets praised them, but others, like Lord Byron, denounced Elgin as a vandal and thought the scultures should have remained in situ. Many still agree with him, and there is an ongoing debate between the Greek government and the British Museum about the rightful disposition of the sculptures.
Wordsworth publishes Poems In Two Volumes, including the poems "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" and "The World is Too Much With Us."
Charles Lamb and his sister Mary publish the children's book, Tales of Shakespeare, and it is an instant bestseller.
Jacques Louis David paints his monumental work, The Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine.
The Geological Society of London is founded, the first society devoted to earth sciences in the world. Humphry Davy is one of its founders.
January: London's Pall Mall is the first street to be lit by gaslight.
March: George III dismisses his prime minister Lord Grenville and replaces him with the Duke of Portland.
March: Parliament passes the Slave Trade Act, ending the trade in slaves but not slavery.
March: The horse-powered Swansea and Mumbles Railway in Wales, originally built to transport mined ore to the Swansea docks, becomes the first passenger carrying railway in the world. It does not covert to steam-powered locomotives until 1877.
March: Beethoven premiers his Fourth Symphony (Symphony No. 4 in B Flat Major, Opus 60) in Vienna.
June: Napoleon defeats Russian troops at the Battle of Friedland.
June: The Elgin Marbles are displayed to the public for the first time.
July: The Treaty of Tilsit between France and Russia divides Europe between the two powers. The new kingdom of Westphalia is created by merging territories ceded by Prussia, including the former Electorate of Hanover, with the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg and the Electorate of Hesse. Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte is named King of Westphalia.
July: The Earl of Minto becomes the Governor-General of India.
November: Portugal refuses to honor the trade embargo against England, and Napoleon sends an army into Spain with the task of invading Portugal. Spain enters into the alliance with France under promises of Portuguese territories, and also with an eye on the Portuguese fleet.
November: Painter Angelica Kauffmann dies at age 66, and is honored by a splendid funeral under the direction of Antonio Canova.
December: Lisbon is captured by the French.

 


TALES FROM THE TABLOIDS

"July 2: Yesterday, just as His Majesty's carriage arrived at the Queen's palace, a woman decently dressed attempted to force her way into the palace after His Majesty. Mssrs. Manus, Townsend, and Sayers were in attendance; they seized her, and she proved to be the same woman Sayers apprehended a few weeks since, under similar circumstances. She was extremely violent, and said she was sent by the Almighty to see the king, who was a very good sort of man, if they would let him alone. She had a petition and a pamphlet, which she wanted to give to the king. The officers took her to the secretary of state's office. Her name is Margery Flett, and she resides in Star Court, Nightingale Lane, Wapping."

-The Lady's Magazine, July 1807

More Tales from the Regency Tabloids are scattered throughout this website. Find the next one somewhere on this page »

 

 
Leigh Hunt becomes editor of the Examiner, a newspaper founded by his brother John Hunt.

 

 

 

 

 


The Third of May 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid by Francisco Goya, 1814.
This painting, along with its companion piece The Second of May 1808 depicting the suppression of the uprising, were commissioned after the fall of Napoleon by Ferdinand VII, King of Spain to celebrate the bravery of the people of Madrid. He disliked both paintings and they were not hung publicly for many decades. Recognized today as masterpieces, they both now hang in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
Click on image to see a
larger version.
Walter Scott publishes his epic poem Marmion.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's drama Faust, Part 1 is published.
Sir Humphrey Davy proves that electricity could produce heat or light between two electrodes separated in space and connected by an arc. His public demonstrations in London are extremely popular, and cause several women to swoon.
February: Napoleon drops the charade of a French-Spanish alliance, ordering French commanders to halt their marches and seize key Spanish fortresses at San Sebastian, Pamplona, Figuera, and Barcelona.
May: Napoleon forces the Spanish royal family to abdicate and places his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Spain.
May: Madrid revolts against the French and a brutal retaliation sets in motion an eruption of uprisings across Spain. Full-scale war begins, forcing Napoleon to increase his military commitment in the Peninsula.
June - August: The first Siege of Saragossa takes place as 12,000 French troops storm the city. After a long and bloody conflict throughout the summer against Spanish troops and intrepid citizens (including Agustina, Maid of Aragón, immortalized by Goya and Lord Byron) , the French are forced to retreat.
July: The Battle of Bailén is a spectacular victory over the French by the Spanish General Castaños, resulting in the total collapse of Naploeon's military machine in France. It was the first major setback in Napoleon's unchecked imperialism.
July: The Times of London sends journalist-diarist Henry Crabb Robinson, 33, to report on the Peninsular War in Spain. He is the world's first war correspondent.
August: In response to the uprisings in Spain and Portugal, British forces under the command of Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington) land in Portugal.
August: Wellesley defeats the French under General Delaborde at Rolica.
August: Wellesley defeats the French under General Junot at Vimiero.
August: Napoleon names his brother-in-law Joachim Murat as King of Naples and Sicily (replacinghis brother Joseph Bonaparte, who is now King of Spain).
August: The Convention of Cintra is signed, in which the defeated French are allowed to evacuate Portugal without further conflict.
September: The British government is outraged at the terms of the Cintra agreement, and all the generals, including Wellesley, are recalled to England for a Court of Inquiry. Sir John Moore is left in command of the 30,000 British troops still in Portugal.
September: The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden is destroyed by fire.
November: Napoleon personally leads his Grande Armée, 200,000 strong, into Spain, promising to conquer it. He routs the Spanish in a series of engagements in November.
November: Tsar Alexander I of Russia proclaims Finland a part of Russia.
December: The Second Siege of Saragossa begins.
December: Sir John Moore leads 16,000 men toward Burgos with the ultimate goal of driving the French back into Spain, but is ordered to retreat when it is learned that Napoleon himself was advancing against him with 80,000 troops. The British begin a grim, hazardous retreat to Corunna.
December: Beethoven premiers his Fifth Symphony (Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Opus 67) and the "Pastoral Symphony" (Symphony No. 6 in F major, Opus 68) at a concert in Vienna.

 
England's Two Thousand Guineas race has its first running at Newmarket.
  
January: Sir John Moore's demoralized forces stagger into Corunna, face attack from Marshall Soult's troops, and are finally bundled onto transports back to England. Moore is killed in the battle. The failed campaign is a major political embarrassment to the British government.
 
January: Ackermann's Repository of Arts begins publication.
 
January: The Treaty of the Dardanelles is signed between Britain and the Ottoman Empire, affirming thatno warship of any nation may enter the Straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. The treaty is aimed implicitly against Russia, whose Black Sea fleet poses a threat to Britain in the Mediterranean, and it pledges British support for Constantinople in the event of a French declaration of war against the Turks.
  
February: Robert Fulton patents the steamboat.
 
February: The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane burns down.
 
February: The Second Siege of Saragossa comes to an end when the Spanish finally surrender to French forces after what is considered one of the most brutal battles of the Napoleonic wars. Most of the city lay in ruins, and 54,000 people had perished in the siege.
  
February: Austria declares war on France.
 
March: The Quarterly Review begins pubication.

The Bishop and His
Clarke or a Peep Into
Paradise by Thomas
Rowlandson, 1809.
The Duke of York (who also held the title Bishop of Osnabrück) is lampooned for succumbing to the demands of his mistress, Mary Anne Clarke. He says: "Ask anything in reason and you shall have it my dearest dearest dearest love." She says: "Only remember the promotions I mentioned. I have pinned up the list at the head of the bed."
Click on image to see a
larger version.
March: James Madison becomes fourth President of the United States.
March: England signs a treaty with Persia forcing the French out of the country.
March: Soult captures Oporto.
March: The Duke of York resigns as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army when his mistress, Mary Anne Clarke, is accused of illegally selling army commisions under his aegis.
April: Arthur Wellesley returns to Portugal to command the Anglo-Portuguese forces.
April: Wellesley drives Soult out of Oporto in one of the most brilliant operations of his military career.
April: Napoleon defeats the Austrians in the Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria and again at the Battle of Eckmühl.
May: Composer Franz Joseph Hadyn dies at age 77.
May: Napoleon captures Vienna.
May: Napoleon orders the annexation of the Papal States to the French empire and announces the Pope's secular power has ended. Pope Pius VII is imprisoned after he excommunicates the emperor.
May: Dartmoor Prison opens in England to hold French prisoners of war.
June: Thomas Paine, pamphleteer, revolutionary, and author of Rights of Man, dies at age 72.
July: Wellesley advances into Spain, joining forces with the Spanish army, under the command of General Gregorio de la Cuesta, at the Battle of Talavera. It is a decisive victory over the French, led by Joseph Bonaparte, and makes a hero of Wellesley at home. He is created Viscount Wellington.
July: Napoleon defeats the Austrian army at the Battle of Wagram.
 
August: 40,000 British troops commanded by John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, attempt an unseccessful expedition to the Netherlands in the expensive Walcheren Campaign, intending to open up a second British front against France in mainland Europe to aid Austria. Little fighting occurs, and most of the 4000 British casualties are lost to fever (known as "Walcheren Fever").
 
September: A new Royal Theatre at Covent Garden opens in London to replace the one destroyed by fire in 1808. Ticket price increases lead to the Old Price Riots which last for 64 days.
 
October: Spencer Perceval becomes Britain's Prime Minister after the death of the Duke of Portland.
 

 
The famous Portland Vase is given to the British Museum, on permanent loan from the Duke of Portland. (It will be purchased by the museum in 1945.)

 


The Portland Vase.
The first century BC Roman cameo glass vase served as an inspiration to many glass and porcelain makers, especially Josiah Wedgwood, since it was first brought to England by Sir William Hamilton in 1784.

 

 

 

 


Princess Amelia, youngest child of George III, was said to be his favorite. His grief over her death in 1810 at age 27 is believed to have brought on his final bout of madness.

Walter Scott's narrative poem, The Lady of the Lake, is published.
Thomas Love Peacock's Genius of the Thames: a Lyrical Poem is published.
January: Based on a minor technicality, the marriage of Napoleon and Joséphine is annulled. Though he claims to still love her, he needs an heir and she has not been able to produce one.
January: British portrait painter John Hoppner dies at age 51.
March: Napoleon marries Archduchess Marie Louisa of Austria, daughter of Austrian emperor Francis I.
April: Beethoven composes "Für Elise" (Bagatelle in A minor)
May: In the May Revolution, Armed citizens of Buenos Aires expel the Viceroy from Spain, declare their independence, and establish a provincial government for Argentina.
May: While on his Grand Tour, 22-year old Lord Byron swims across the Hellespont (Dardanelles) in a romantic imitation of the mythical Leander, who swam the mile and a half each night to be with his lover, Hero.
July: Napoleon annexes the Kingdom of Holland following the abdication and flight of his brother Louis Bonaparte, who has been king since 1806 but refused to join the emperor's Continental System.
July: Columbia declares independence from Spain.
August: Napoleonic general Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte is elected as Crown Prince of Sweden.
September: Chile declares independence from Spain.
September: A disagreement over troop deployment between George Canning, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary of State for War, ultimately leads to a duel. Canning, who had never fired a pistol, misses; Castlereagh wounds him in the thigh.
October: Wellington prevents French forces under Marshall Masséna from capturing Lisbon by staging a successful rearguard action at Torres Vedras.
November: The death of Princess Amelia sends George III into another bout of mental illness.
November: Painter Johann Zoffany dies at age 77.
December: English prizefighter Tom Cribb defends his world bareknuckle championship at Copthall Common, in Sussex, against American-born ex-slave Tom Molineaux, drawing over 10,000 spectators. Cribb is declared the winner after 34 rounds.
December: The HMS Minotaur, a 74-gun ship of the line, strikes a bank and goes down off the coast of the Netherlands. 480 crew members are lost.

 
 
Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility is published.

 

 

 

 


Empress Marie-Louise
and the King of Rome
by François Gérard

The Duke of Clarence (who would later reign as William IV) is named Admiral of the Fleet.
Mary Anning, age 12, discovers the 30-ft-long fossil of an ichthyosaur at Lume Regis, the first such fossil known.
January: Marshall Soult captures Olivenza.
February: The Regency Act is passed by Parliament, authorizing the Prince of Wales to rule in his father's place as the Prince Regent.
March: Napoleon's only son is born, and is designated as King of Rome.
March: Ottoman Viceroy Muhammad Ali Pasha orchestrates a massacre of hundreds of Maremluke leaders when he invites them to a celebration in Cairo.
March: Soult capture Badajoz.
March: The Great Comet of 1811 is visible to the naked eye for 260 days.
May: The Duke of York is re-instated as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army.
May: Wellington defeats Marshall Masséna at Fuentes de Onoro.
May: British Major General Beresford begins the First Siege at Badajoz.
May: Beresford defeats Soult at Albuerra.
June: The Print Regent stages an elaborate fete at Carlton House, costing over £120,000, ostensibly in honor of the exiled royal family of France, but actually in celebration of his assumption of the Regency.
July: Venezuela declares independence from Spain.
August: Paraguay decalres independence from Spain.
September: Java, Palembang (in Sumatra), Macassar, and Timor are ceded by the Dutch to the British at the conclusion of the Anglo-Dutch Java War.
September: Thomas Stamford Raffles is appointed Lt-Governor of Java, which he will administer until 1816..
September: A rematch between bareknuckle champion Tom Cribb and the American ex-slave Tom Molineaux, attracts 20,000 spectators to Thistleton Gap, outside London. Cribb wins easily in 19 minutes. He retires in 1822, undefeated.
November: Beethoven's Concerto No. 5 in E flat major for Pianoforte and Orchestra (Emperor) is premiered in Leipzig.
November: The Luddite movement (protesting the mechanization of the textile industry, often by destroying new machinery) begins in Nottingham and spreads throughout England.

 
A Proper Companion is set in 1812.

 
The final shipment of the Elgin Marbles arrives from Greece.

 

 

 


Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps by J.M.W. Turner, 1812.
The painting was popular with contemporary viewers not only for its revolutionary atmospheric effects and its vision of the destructive power of nature, but also because it suggested a parallel between Hannibal and Napoleon, who had crossed the Alps to invade Italy in 1797 -- thus giving hope that Napoleon, too, would eventually be defeated.
Click on image to see a
larger version.

William Bullock's museum of antiquities and curiosities opens in his newly built Egyption Hall on Piccadilly.
Maria Edgeworth's The Absentee is published.
Poet William Combe publishes his Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque by with illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm publish their first collection of 86 German fairy tales in Folk Tales for Children and the Home.
German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel publishes the first volume of his Science of Logic, which will dominate metaphysical discourse for the next quarter century.
J.M.W. Turner exhibits Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps at the Royal Academy.
The third volume of Joanna Baillie's Plays of the Passions is published
Angelica Catalini performs in the first London production of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro.
January: Wellington captures Ciudad Rodrigo.
February: Poet Lord Byron gives his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defense of Luddite violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire. Despite his eloquence, Parliament passes the Frame Breaking Act, which permits the death sentence for anyone convicted of destroying machinery.
February: Viscount Wellington is made Earl of Wellington for his service in the Peninsula.
March: The first two cantos of Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage are published.
April: Wellington captures Badajoz in one of the bloodiest battles of the Peninsular wars. Afterwards, the British Army participates in some of the worst atrocities of the war -- looting, vandalizing, raping, and murdering civilians of the town for 3 days before order was restored. Wellington is outraged by the solders' conduct, and a gallows is erected to punish offenders. A few men are flogged, but no one is hanged.
April: Lord Byron begins his notorious affair with Lady Caroline Lamb.
April: Gas Light and Coke Company is granted a charter to operate the first gas works in London (and the world).
May: British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated.
May: The Treaty of Bucharest ends a 6-year war between Russia and the Ottoman Turks, who cede Bessarabia to Russia.
June: Napoleon's invasion of Russia begins.
June: Lord Liverpool becomes Britain's new Prime Minister (a position he holds until 1827).
June: The United States declares war on Britain over trade restraints and territory disputes (ie the War of 1812).
June: Sarah Siddons retires from the stage after her last performance as Lady Macbeth at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. She will continue to do occasional charity performances and private readings until her death in 1831.
July: Wellington defeats Marshall Marmont at the Battle of Salamanca.
August: USS Constitution defeats the British frigate Guerrière off the coast of Nova Scotia. The British shot is said to have bounced off the Constitution's sides, earning her the nickname "Old Ironsides".
September: Napoleon leads his Grande Armée against the Imperial Russian army at the Battle of Borodino. It is largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars, involving more than 250,000 troops and resulting in at least 70,000 total casualties. Napoleon eventually captures the main positions on the battlefield, but fails to destroy the Russian army.
September: Napoleon enters Moscow, but most of the city's 300,000 inhabitants have fled, and fires set by the Russians burn much of Moscow in the next 5 days.
October: Earl of Wellington is made Marquess of Wellington for his victories in the Peninsula.
October: The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (which burned down in 1809) re-opens in a new building designed by Benjamin Dean Wyatt with a production of Hamlet.
 
October: American naval forces capture two British warships, HMS Detroit and HMS Caledonia.
 
October: Napoleon begins his retreat from Moscow. His army moves west through country that has been laid waste to deny it sustenance, and the retreat turns into a rout as the army runs out of provisions. French losses in the Russian campaign amount to 570,000 against about 400,000 Russian casualties and several hundred thousand civilian deaths.
  

 
The Charter Act of 1813 asserted the sovereignty of the British Crown over territories in India held by the British East India Company, and deprived the Company of its Indian trade monopoly.
  
Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes Queen Mab.
 
Lord Byron publishes the Oriental Tales: The Bride of Abydos and The Giaour.
 
January: The Philharmonic Society of London is founded, "to promote the performance, in the most perfect manner possible of the best and most approved instrumental music".
 
January: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is published.
 
January: Leigh Hunt is imprisoned for libel after an attack against the Prince Regent is published in the Examiner.
 
January: The Luddite movement is smashed by English troops and magistrates with greatly expanded powers provided by the Frame Breaking Act; 17 of the Luddite leaders are hanged, many others are transported.
  
January: British forces defeat American forces at the Battle of Raisin River in Michigan.
 
March: The first concert presented by the Philharmonic Society of London is performed in their Concert Rooms in Hanover Square, and includes works by Haydn and Beethoven.
 
April: American forces attack and pillage the town of York (later called Toronto) and occupy it for 11 days before being driven out by the British.


Beau Brummell
by Richard Dighton

May: Napoleon defeats an Allied army at the Battle of Lützen,
May: Napoleon defeats an Allied army at the Batle of Bautzen.
June: H.M.S. Shannon of the Royal Navy destroys the U.S. Navy frigate Cheseapeake outside of Boston Harbor.
June: British forces defeat American forces at the Battle of Stony Creek on Lake Ontario.
June: Wellington defeats Joseph Bonaparte at the Battle of Vittoria in a last major offensive that drives the French armies from Spain.
July: In response to a public snub by the Prince Regent, Beau Brummell utters his famous line to Lord Alvanley: "Ah, Alvanley, who is your fat friend?" The prince, once a close friend, never spoke to Brummell again.
August: The Battle of Dresden results in a victory for French troops led by Napoleon against a Coalition force of Russian, Austrian, and Prussian troops. The Coalition lost 38,000 men, the French 10,000.
September: Robert Southey is appointed Poet Laureate of England.
September: American forces are victorious over the British at the Battle of Lake Erie.
October: Wellington advances his troops into France. He wrests a first victory on French soil from Marshall Soult at the Battle of Bidassoa.
October: America forces are victorious at the Battle of the Thames in Ontario, but are soundly defeated by the British at the Battle of Châteauguay River (Spears) in southern Quebec.
October: The Battle of Nations at Leipzig against the allied Coalition (which now includes Sweden and Saxony) is one of the most decisive defeats suffered by Napoleon. It is considered the largest battle in Europe before World War I, with over 500,000 troops involved and 120,000 casualties. The battle brings an end to the kingdom of Westphalia (its king, Jérôme Bonaparte flees to France), and the liberated German states join the Coalition.
November: Wellington pursues Marshall Soult deeper into France and defeats his army at the Battle of Nivelle.
 
November: Dresden surrenders to Allies forces.
 
December: London's Westminster Bridge is lit by gas, as well as other areas of Westminster, including seven residential customers.
 
December: Beethoven premiers his Seventh Symphony (Symphony No. 7 in A major, Opus 92) at a charity concert in Vienna for wounded soldiers.
  

 
Jane Austen's Mansfield Park is published.

 

 

 


La Grande Odalisque
by Ingres, 1814.
His contemporaries considered the work to signify Ingres' break from Neoclassicism, indicating a shift toward exotic Romanticism.
Click on image to see a
larger version.

 

 

 

 

 


Actor Edmund Kean as Richard III.
Kean burst onto the London stage in 1814, rousing audiences to "uncontrolled enthusiam." He continues to be regarded as one of the great tragic actors of all time.

 

 
Fanny Burney's The Wanderer is published.
The Times of London installs the first steam-driven, stop-cylinder printing press, permitting the newspaper to print 1,100 sheets per hour.
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres paints La Grande Odalisque, commissioned along with several other pieces by the Queen of Naples.
Francisco Goya paints The Third of May 1808, depicting the execution of Madrid rebels on that date.
January: Phillip Astley, proprieter of Astley's Amphitheatre who is recognized as the "father of the modern circus," dies at age 72.
January: Lord Byron publishes The Corsair, which sells 10,000 copies on the first day.
January: Edmund Kean performs for the first time at Drury Lane, in the role of Shylock, and was an immediate success.
February: Beethoven premiers his Eighth Symphony (Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Opus 93) in Vienna.
Febraury: A Frost Fair on the Thames takes place when the river freezes. This will be the last frost fair ever, as milder climates and increased embanking make the river less likely to freeze.
March: The Allied armies of Russia and Prussia enter Paris.
March: The Duchess of Oldenburgh, sister of the Tsar, enters London in great state. A grand banquet is held in her honor at Carlton House.
April: Napoleon abdicates in favor of his 2-year old son, Napoleon II, but the Allies refuse to accept him.
April: The Battle of Toulouse is one of the final battles of the Napoleonic Wars, fought four days after Napoleon's surrender of the French Empire to the Coalition nations. News of the wars' end has yet to reach the south of France, and so thousands of British, Spanish, and Portuguese soldiers, under the command of Wellington, and French soldiers under Soult's command, die in the battle unnecessarily.
April: The Bourbon monarchy is restored in France under King Louis XVIII.
May: The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the wars between France and the Coalition nations, restoring the 1792 border of France, and exiling Napoleon to the island of Elba.
May: Marquess of Wellington is made Duke of Wellington.
May: Joséphine de Beauharnais, former wife of Napoleon and first empress of France, dies at age 50.
June: England's Princess Charlotte, having come of age, is formally presented at Court.
June: The Prince Regent, visiting dignitaries, and several generals from the late war review 12,000 troops in Hyde Park as part of the formal Proclamation of Peace.
June: White's Club sponsors a ball held at Burlington House to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon. Beau Brummell is one of the organizers. Nearly 4000 attendees include the visiting Tsar of Russia and the King of Prussia.
July: Walter Scott's Waverly is published anonymously. (He thought the romantic novel might harm his reputation as a poet.)
August: The "Burning of Washington" by British forces destroys most government buildings, including the White House.
August: A public celebration of the peace is held in London, including a reenactment of the Battle of the Nile on the Serpentine in Hyde Park, the transformation and illumination of the Temple of Concorde in Green Park, balloon assents, and fireworks.
August: Princess Caroline, estranged wife of the Prince of Wales, leaves England.
September: The failed British bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore is a turning point in the American war, and the American defense of the fort inspires Francis Scott Key to compose the poem later set to music as "The Star Spangled Banner."
October: At the Horseshoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road, a large vat containing over 3500 barrels of beer bursts, demolishing houses and killing nine people.
November: Congress of Vienna convenes to redraw the European political map after the defeat of Napoleon. Much scheming and secret alliances between delegates abound.
December: The Treaty of Ghent is signed ending the war between the United States and Britain. It does little more than restore the pre-war staus quo between the nations, with no gain to either side.

 
The rebuilding of Brighton Pavilion by John Nash begins, replacing the neo-classical pavilion with a Mughal-inspired pleasure palace of minarets and onion domes.
 
Portrait painter Thomas Lawrence is knighted by the Prince Regent.
  
Percy Bysshe Shelley writes Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude.
  
Lord Byron's poem "She Walks in Beauty" is published in his collection Hebrew Melodies.
 
Walter Scott publishes The Antiquary and Guy Mannering.
 
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm publish their second volume of Folk Tales for Children and the Home, adding 70 new fairy tales to the collection.
  
The Corn Laws introduced import tariffs to support domestic grain prices against competition from less expensive foreign-grain imports, causing a significant increase in the price of grain (called "corn" in England).
 
John McAdam's new method for surfacing roads (a hard, durable process of crushed stone and gravel, similar to asphalt) is adopted by England. The new process came to be known as "macadamization" and roads were said to be "macadamized."
 
January: Andrew Jackson defeats British troops in the Battle of New Orleans. The Treaty of Ghent had been signed on December 24, 1814, but news of the peace does not reach New Orleans until February.
  
January: Lord Byron marries Anne Isabella Milbanke.  
January: Emma, Lady Hamilton, famous mistress of Lord Nelson, dies in Calais where she had fled to escape her creditors.
 
February: Napoleon escapes from Elba.

Louis XVIII of France
by Antoine-Jean Gros
Click on image to see a
larger version.
March: Napoleon raises an army and marches into Paris where he takes over the government again for a period known as The Hundred Days.
March: A new alliance mobilizes to oppose Napoleon's renewed threat to peace. Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Britain raise a combined force of one million men,
June: Despite Napoleon's return to power, the Congress of Vienna has proceeded, and finalizes its last act nine days before Waterloo. The results of the Congress are too complex to list. Click here to read the Wikipedia entry that describes the Congress in detail.
June: Final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. He again abdicates in favor of his son, but the Allies' entry into Paris puts an end to the Bonaparte regime.
June: London banker Nathan Mayer Rothschild receives carrier pigeon reports from Belgium advising him of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. Feigning gloom, he depresses the price of British consols by selling short, then has his agents buy them up at distress prices, and when news of Wellington's victory sends prices sky-high, Rothschild sells, reaping a great fortune on the London Exchange
June: British caricaturist James Gillray dies at age 57.
July: The French Legislative Assemblies vote to restore Louis XVIII to the throne.
July - December: Britain suffers economic depression as demand for military supplies abruptly ceases and as Continental markets are unable to absorb backlogged inventories of English manufactured goods. Prices fall, thousands are thrown out of work, and 400,000 demobilized troops add to the problems of unemployment.
September: American painter John Singleton Copley dies at age 77.
October: Napoleon begins his final exile on the island of St. Helena.
October: Sir Humphry Davy patents the miner's safety lamp for use in coal mining.
November: A second Treaty of Paris signed, and is much harsher to France than the 1814 treaty. France is reduced to its 1790 boundaries, losing the territorial gains of the Revolutionary armies in 1790-92, which the previous treaty had allowed France to keep. It also requires France to support a 150,000-man Allied army of occupation.  

 
Candice's novella in It Happened One Season is set in 1816.

 
Cold weather persists throughout the summer of 1816 in much of the world's temperate zones creating the "year without a summer," especially in North Amerca. The unusual climate is likely due to a major volcanic eruption in Indonesia, and inspires Lord Byron's poem "Darkness."

Princess Charlotte's wedding dress at the Museum of London.
Click on image to see a
larger version.
Jane Austen's Emma is published.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge publishes the poem "Kubla Khan" (though he claims to have first written it in 1797).
Percy Bysshe Shelley writes Hymn To Intellectual Beauty.
Lady Caroline Lamb publishes the novel Glenarvon anonymously.
Lord Byron publishes several important poems this year, including "The Siege of Corinth," "The Prisoner of Chillon," and "Prometheus."
Poet Thomas Love Peacock publishes his first novel Headlong Hall.
The British Museum purchases the Elgin marbles for £35,000 and they become a permanent display.
The income tax is abolished in Britain (it will be reintroduced in 1842).
January: Lord Byron's wife leaves him, taking their infant daughter Ada with her.
January: Napoleon's carriage, captured at Waterloo, is displayed at Bullock's Museum in London.
February: Rossini debuts "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" (“The Barber of Seville”) in Rome where it is badly received with much hissing and booing from the audience. The second performance was a rousing success.
May: In the wake of rumors of marital violence, sodomy, incest, and adultery, Lord Byron leaves England, never to return.
May: George "Beau" Brummell leaves England to escape his creditors, never to return.
June: Luddites make well-organized efforts to smash machinery in riots at several industrial centers in England.
July: Argentina declares independence from Spain.
July: Playwright and stateman Richard Brinsley Sheridan dies at age 64 .
July:Dorothea Jordan, actress and long-time mistress to the Duke of Clarence (future King William IV), dies at age 54.
August: Britain returns Java to the Netherlands.
November-December: Mass meetings organized by radical Spenceans (named after radical Thomas Spence) descend into the Spa Fields Riots.
December: Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley marries Mary Godwin (daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin), shortly after his first wife commits suicide by drowning in the Serpentine.

 
Miss Lacey's Last Fling is set in 1817.

 
Walter Scott's Rob Roy is published.

 

 

 

 


An 1817 gold sovereign.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge publishes Biographia Literaria.
Maria Edgeworth publishes Ormond.
John Keats publishes Poems.
Dr. William Kitchiner publishes his cookbook Apicius Redivivus, or the Cook's Oracle.
The Royal Mint replaces the gold guinea with a new gold sovereign coin.
The British secretary for Ireland Robert Peel establishes a regular constabulary for Ireland. The Irish will call the constables "Peelers."
Waterloo Bridges, built by Scottish civil engineer John Rennie, opens.
The Dulwich College Picture Gallery opens to the public in the London borough of Southwark. Designed by architect John Soane, it is the world's first public art gallery.
A third Anglo-Maratha War begins as the British governor general Lord Hastings sends troops into Maratha territory while conducting operations against Pindari robber bands.
January: The satirical radical journal Black Dwarf begins begins publication in London by Thomas Wooler. Within three months, he will be arrrested and charged with seditous libel. He is acquitted and will continue publishing Black Dwarf until 1824.
March: Parliament passes the Coercion Acts against seditious meetings, primarily to suppress civil disturbances such as 1816's Spa Fields Riots and the various activities of the Luddites. Among other things, they temporarily suspense habeas corpus.
March: James Monroe becomes fifth President of the United States.
April: The infamous imposter, Princess Caraboo, makes her first appearance in England.
April: The first edition of Blackwood's Magazine is published, as a conservative rival to the Whig quarterly Edinburgh Review..
June: Actor John Philip Kemble makes his last appearance on the London stage in the role of Coriolanus at Covent Garden.
July: Author Jane Austen dies at age 41.
November: Rossini premiers his opera La Cenerentola (Cinderella) in Rome.
November: Princess Charlotte dies giving birth to a stillborn son.

 
The Brida Sale is set during 1818 and 1819 .

 
John Keats' epic poem Endymion is published.
 
Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey is published postumously.  
Jane Austen's Persuasion is published postumously.
 
Lord Byron completes the 4th and final canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
  
Susan Ferrier's first novel, Marriage, is published.  
Thomas Love Peacock's Nightmare Abbey is published.
 
The third Anglo-Maratha War ends in India as British troops crush all resistance. Having destroyed the Maratha confederacy, the British annex its territories. India's Rajput states (Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Udaipur), Poona, and the Holkar family of Indore come under British control, ending the independent kingdom of the Maharashtra that was established in 1674. Rajasthan had surrendered in 1817. The British now control most of India.
  
Britain's Institution of Civil Engineers is founded.

 

 


The Pedestrian Curricle, or Hobby Horse. It is propelled by the rider striking his heels to the ground, as though running. Denis Johnson, who patented the vehicle in England, opened a riding school in London, where gentlemen were instructed in the fine art of riding these new contraptions. Even so, they caused so many accidents that many municipalities banned them.

Scottish explorer John Ross commands an Arctic expedition organised by the Admiralty, the first of a new series of attempts to solve the question of a Northwest Passage, ie going around the extreme northeast coast of America and sailing to the Bering Strait. His expedition fails to dscover anything new, and is later discredited.
The Royal Coburg Theatre that opens in Lambeth to stage popular melodramas and other productions. It will later be known as the Old Vic.
John Nash begins work on the new Regent's Park area, with its neighbouring streets, terraces and crescents of elegant town houses and villas.
February: Sweden's King Karl XIII dies and is succeeded by Karl XIV Johan.
March: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is published.

April: The first known two-wheeled, rider-propelled vehicle goes on display at Paris. Developed by German inventor Karl Drais, it has a seat and handlebars but no pedals. Called a Draisienne, it becomes a popular novelty throughout Europe. The following summer, a Covent Garden coachman, Denis Johnson, patents his own version of the contraption that he calls a "pedestrain curricle." But most people will call it a "hobby horse." It will disappear into oblivion after a few years, but it ultaimtely led to the invention of the pedal-driven bicycle in 1863.
May: Author Matthew "Monk" Lewis dies at age 42.
July: William, Duke of Clarence (who would later reign as William IV) marries Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. After Princess Charlotte's death, the 53-year old duke is third in line to the throne after his brothers, the Prince Regent and the Duke of York. Since neither of his brothers have legitimate children, William is sure to inherit the throne, and marries to insure the succession. He and Adelaide will have two children who die in infancy.
July: Edward, Duke of Kent, 4th son of George III, enters the race to secure the succession and marries Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. (Like his elder brother William, he had never married but instead had kept long-term mistresses.)
September: England's Queen Charlotte dies at age 74.
October: The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle is a gathering of the four allied powers (Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia) to decide the question of the withdrawal of the army of occupation from France and the nature of the relations of the four powers towards each other, and collectively towards France. Occupation troops begin to leave France before winter.
 
October: Sir Thomas Lawrence travels to Aix-la-Chapelle to paint the sovereignas and diploats gathered for the Congress.    

 
The Brida Sale is set during 1818 and 1819 .
Walter Scott's Ivanhoe is published.

 

 

 

 

 


Raft of the Medusa
by Théodore Géricault in 1819 .The monumental painting depicts the aftermath of a shipwreck that occurred in 1816 in which the captain and officers took the life boats and abadoned the rest of the crew to a makeshift raft. Only 15 of the 149 raft passengers survived. The painting is not only an allegorical indictment of a corrupt establishment, but also dramatizes man's struggle with nature. The classical compositon combined with the turbulent subject marks the painting as a bridge between neo-classicism and romanticism.
Click on image to see a
larger version.

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer publishes The World as Will and Representation in which he builds upon Kant's metaphysical system of transcendental idealism and than rejects it in favor jhis own philosophy of the human will as the essense of exerience.
British explorer John Franklin undertakes a new expedition to locate the Northwest Passage on behalf of the Admiralty. The Arctic expedition is poorly prepared, its boats are too heavy to be portaged and too small to hold all the necessary supplies, the sailors know nothing about survival techniques. Most died of starvation, but there was also at least one murder and suggestions of cannibalism. Franklin is one of the few to survive, and he is lionized at home as "the man who ate his boots"
The Burlington Arcade opens in London.
The world's first eating chocolate to be produced commercially goes on sale at in Switzerland: François-Louis Cailler introduces the first chocolate to be prepared and sold in blocks made by machine. (Until this time, chocolate had primarily been used for beverages.)
The Prado Museum (Museo del Prado) opens in Madrid.
John Constable paints The White Horse and is elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (though he was not elected to full membership until 1829). .
Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa is exhibited at the Paris Salon.
Prime minister Lord Liverpool bolsters Britain's monetary system by restoring the gold standard.
Singapore comes under British occupation under Sir Stamford Raffles.
May: Princess Victoria (later to reign as Queen Victoria) is born to the Duke and Duchess of Kent.
June: The first steamship to cross the Atlantic arrives in Liverpool.
July: Lord Byron publishes the first two Cantos of Don Juan.
August: At what becomes known as the Peterloo Massacre. eleven are killed and over 500 injured when the calvary charges into a large public meeting in St. Peter's Fields in Manchester, which had been organized to protest the Corn Laws and agitate for radical political reform.
August: Radical reformer Henry Hunt, who was supposed to address the St. Peter's Fields meeitng but never got the chance, is charged along with others with holding an "unlawful and seditious assembling for the purpose of exciting discontent," found guilty, and is sentenced to 2½ years' imprisonment
October: Richard Carlile, another speaker at the St. Peter's Fields meeting who had begun publishing a radical newspaper, The Republican, shortly after the Peterloo Massacre, is found guilty of blasphemy and seditious libel and sentenced to 3 years imprisonment. He will continue publishing The Republican from prison.
December: In the wake of the Peterloo Massacre, Parliament passes the Six Acts to prevent further distrubances. They are: the Training Prevention Act (or Unlawful Drilling Act), the Seizure of Arms Act, the Misdemeanors Act, the Seditious Meetings Prevention Act, the Blasphemous and Seditious Libels Act (or Criminal Libel Act), and the Newspaper and Stamp Duties Act.

 
The Venus de Milo is discovered in the Greek Island of Melos.

 

 

 


The Hay Wain
by John Constable.
It is revered today as one of the greatest British paintings of the 19th century, but when it was originally exhibited at the Royal Academy it failed to find a buyer. It was better received in France, where it caused a sensation when it was exhibited with other works by Constable at the 1824 Paris Salon. It was singled out for a gold medal awarded by King Charles X of France.
Click on image to see a
larger version.
Bristol's Royal York Crescent is completed.
Francisco de Goya paints Saturn Devouring His Children.
The Book of Job in the Old Testament is published with illustrations by William Blake.
John Constable paints The Hay Wain.
Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes Prometheus Unbound: A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, With Other Poems. "To a Skylark" is one of the poems published here for the first time.
Walter Scott publishes The Monastery and The Abbot, and is made a baronet by George IV.
American writer Washington Irving publishes The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent , which includes the stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle."
The Royal Astronomical Society is founded by, among others, inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage and astronomer Sir John Frederick Herschel.
January: King George III dies. The Prince Regent succeeds as King George IV.
January: John Keats publishes "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode to a Nightingale," and "To Autumn" in his collection Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems.
January: The Duke of Kent dies, leaving his infant daughter Victoria one step closer to the throne.
February: The Cato Street Conspiracy is uncovered, in which a group of radical Spenceans, angered by the Peterloo Massacre and the Six Acts, plan to assassinate the prime minister and all his cabinet ministers. Their hope is to overthrow the government and oversee a radical revolution, similar to the French Revolution. One of the conspirators happened to be an agent of the Home Office, who insured that the operation was foiled by a group of Bow Street Runners. Most of the conspirators were convicted of treason and hung.
March: Sir Thomas Lawrence is named president of the Royal Academy upon the death of Benjamin West.
May: John Keats first publishes "La Belle Dame sans Merci" in the May issue of the Indicator
June: British naturalist and botanist Sir Joseph Banks dies at age 77, having served as president of the Royal Society since 1778.
June: Princess Caroline (now Queen Consort) returns to England. Her husband refuses to acknowledge her as Queen and riots break out in support of her.
August: Regent's Canal opens after a decade of construction to link the Grand Junction Canal's Paddington branch around the city to Limehouse. The eight-and-a-half-mile waterway has cost £772,000 (twice the original estimate), has two tunnels, 12 locks, and in its first year carries 120,000 tons of cargo.
August: The Pains and Penalties Bill is introduced in Parliament at the request of George IV, with the aim of dissolving his marriage to Caroline and depriving her of the title Queen. After a hearing in the House of Lords lasting through November, the bill is thrown out. (The following July, Caroline is barred from the king's coronation, and dies 3 weeks later.)

 

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