Stepping into History: Pictures from London and Edinburgh
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One year ago I packed my bag and my laptop and hopped a plane to London, and from there, traveled by train to Edinburgh, Scotland. My journey allowed me to retrace the footsteps of Katherine Cochrane, whose story is at the center of my forthcoming novel, The Admiral’s Wife. I walked in Regents’ Park, the London neighborhood where she lived for a time, read her letters at the National Records of Scotland, and visited Culross Abbey House, the Scottish estate where her husband had lived as a boy and which she visited with him many years later. These pictures capture the places I visited and provided a thrilling opportunity to step into Kate and Thomas’ world.
Follow along on the trip through my post on World Travelers’ Today: Books, Bagpipes, and Muddy Boots.
P.S. The slideshow also includes images from Keats House, home of the poet John Keats, a contemporary of the Cochranes.
From Source to Story: How I Used Primary Materials
The most memorable writers I’ve encountered have a way of throwing you into the story through your senses. Think of Zora Neal Hurston’s description of Janie lying under the peach blossoms, or Jack Kerouac chronicling his manic, visceral, joyous romp across the United States.
Primary sources are our surest means of knocking the dust off the past and getting our hands on it. They are goldmines for writing historical fiction, and here are three ways I’ve used them for my current novel-in-progress.
| Evening gown, c. 1810. The Met. |
The item: Letters written by Lady Katherine Cochrane
Kate’s surviving letters, held at the National Library of Scotland and the National Records of Scotland and elsewhere, offer an engaging look at a charming, strong-minded, brave, affectionate, resourceful, stubborn, sexy woman – with a bit of a temper. Next to speaking with her, the letters have offered me the best way to hear her voice. Whether she’s reminding her husband of her brilliant success in helping him attain a pardon from the British government, or lamenting her separation from her children, she’s a force to be reckoned with.
My favorite line – so good it could have come from Jane Austen – is “With a few dinners and a little flattery I might accomplish a great deal.”
The item: Clothing from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
A heroine must be dressed! But how? Thanks to the Met’s collection of Regency clothing – much of which has been digitally photographed– I gained a sense of what a woman like Kate might have worn for day-to-day activities as well as special events like balls.
The item: a reproduction of an 1816 cookbook
| Homemade strawberry preserves. |
As soon as I saw A New System of Domestic Cookery by Mrs. Rundell listed in the Persephone Books catalog, I knew I had to have it! Not only is it an invaluable source of what people ate and how meals were prepared, it includes the early 19th-century version of Hints from Heloise. There are tips for mending broken china, making homemade ink, and removing stains from linen.
I’ve found that in the era before freezers, refrigeration, and chemical preservatives, food was much more seasonal! Mrs. Rundell’s book includes monthly menus of what meats, fish, game, vegetables, and fruits are available, and also offers suggestions for
which dishes to serve for dinners at various levels of formality.
Mutton collops, anyone?
Three Weddings
It’s February, which means that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Whether or not you’re into the candy hearts and overpriced roses, it’s a perfect opportunity to take a look at the matrimonial adventures of Kate and Thomas Cochrane. These kids got married not once, not twice, but three times – and yes, to each other every time.
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| The River Annan near the village of Annan, Scotland. |
#1: The Scottish Marriage, 1812
What can be more romantic than an elopement? Thomas is 37-year-old a war hero, Kate is about 16, adventurous, beautiful, and charming (but penniless). The couple heads off to Annan, Scotlandby coach for a private ceremony, so secret that it was concealed from Thomas’ family for months.
But the ceremony is far from romantic! After marrying his young bride, Thomas flies off to London – alone! – leaving Kate to trail behind. Back in the city, Kate returns to her aunt’s house, and the couple do not share a home for many more months. When news of the marriage breaks, Thomas’ rich uncle, incensed that his nephew did not marry the wealthy heiress his family had intended for him, cuts Thomas off from a sizable inheritance.
#2: Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Speldhurst, Kent, 1818
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| St. Mary the Virgin, Kent. |
Unlike the first ceremony, which had no priest or church, Kate and Thomas’ second marriage took place with a traditional ritual according to the Church of England. The ceremony was held in the small parish church of St. Mary the Virgin on a Monday morning in June. Thomas paid an extra fee for a license for the ceremony. By this time, Kate and Thomas had two young children, although he signs the register as a “bachelor” and she as a “spinster,” the common term for an unmarried woman.
Interestingly, one other couple was married in the church that same day. The bride, a Sarah Morris, made a mark in the register in lieu of signing her name.
Sadly, the church that Kate and Thomas were married in no longer stands, The parish, however, is still active and the present church building was erected in the late 1800s on the basis of a previous medieval design.
#3: Again in Scotland, 1825
The third and final marriage was held according to the rites of the Church of Scotland. It is believed that this ceremony took place so that Thomas could receive an inheritance from one of his relations!
Kate and Thomas traveled to Scotland during the summer and autumn of 1825, retracing part of their earlier elopement route, visiting the villages of Fife, and spending time in Edinburgh. While in Edinburgh, Kate caught the attention of Sir Walter Scott, who promptly dashed off six verses of poetry in admiration!
Sources:
Information on the first and third marriages drawn from Cochrane: The Real Master and Commanderby David Cordingly.
Information and documents related to the second marriage acquired through the kind assistance of staff at the Kent County Archives.
Sifting the Historical Record
In my previous post, I introduced Katherine (aka Kate) Barnes Cochrane, intrepid traveler and mother of five, whose remarkable adventures are, in my humble opinion, enough to make her a candidate for inclusion on Badass of the Week. But tracking Kate across the pages of history requires luck, patience, and a good bit of metaphorical digging. To my knowledge, no biography has ever been written about her. To get to know this woman – to unearth the “facts” of her life, to discover her voice – I turned to her paper trail.
Historical research isn’t just finding the right records – it’s knowing where to look. Google searches often turned up dead ends, or offered leads that didn’t seem entirely credible. One site, and even her headstone, suggest that Kate was born in 1796, making her just 16 years old when she married Thomas!
I was willing to bet that she was young, but not that young. 1794 seems a likelier year. She would then be about 18 when she wed Thomas in the summer of 1812. As for the month and date of her birthday, a letter from her husband offers a tantalizing hint. He writes, in a letter dated 12 October 1816, “Many happy returns to the day to my lovely Kate.” The greeting is often used for birthdays, and offers the best clue I’ve come across for Kate’s actual birth date.
According to Burke’s Peerage, Kate’s father, Thomas Barnes, lived in Romford, Essex. It seems likely that Kate spent her childhood in that town, connected to London via good coach roads and home to many thriving industries, including brewing and weaving. After her father died, Kate lived in the care of her aunt, a Mrs. Jackson.
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| Portman Square, London, 1813. |
While in her late teens, Kate resided in London with her aunt near the posh Portman Square neighborhood. A letter written during Kate’s adulthood suggests that her education was not all that she would have wished: How much more happy should I have been had I been brought up under the eye of a fond Mother, rather than by relations who only felt for me in the moment of childhood and left me to battle in ignorance and poverty my growing years.
It was in London that she met Thomas, and after several refusals, finally accepted his offer of marriage. Less than two years after their marriage, Thomas was convicted in a criminal case and sent to the King’s Bench prison. Kate remained in London with their infant son, visiting Thomas whenever she could and writing frequent letters.
Upon Thomas’ release and commission with the Chilean navy, Kate traveled with her husband throughout South America. Later, she also lived in several locations in Europe. Eventually, at some time during the 1830s, the couple separated. Kate moved to France, where she resided for a time in Paris (on the Champs Elysees!), and also in the seaside town of Boulogne.
Katherine Cochrane – by now Countess of Dundonald – died in France in 1865. Upon further investigation, I found that her body was brought back to England and buried in the churchyard of St. Mary the Virgin, Speldhurst, in Kent. (Her husband is interred at Westminster Abbey.)
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| Headstone of Katherine Cochrane, Countess of Dundonald. St. Mary the Virgin, Speldhurst, Kent. |
Kent happens to be the location of my graduate studies at the University of Kent, but ironically, I did not learn of Kate’s story until I was on the wrong side of the pond. But I had been close, and like many good mysteries, it was only a matter of time until the clues unfolded.
Notes:
First letter held at the National Records of Scotland, GD233/13/6/1/1/3. Cochrane, Thomas. 12 October 1816.
Second letter held at the National Records of Scotland, GD233/13/6/1/3/8 (2). Cochrane, Katherine Barnes. 1828.
Enter Kate Cochrane
A secret elopement. Intrigues in South America. A knife fight with a would-be assassin. Crawls across rope bridges in the Andes. A four-month sea voyage with a teething infant.
Such adventures, one might think, would make a woman famous, especially if she undertook them all 200 years ago, when a woman’s chances of attempting even one such feat were considerably more circumscribed.
Kate Cochrane did them all.
I came across her accidentally – and I confess, through reading about her husband. (If you’ve ever seen the film Master and Commander, you’ve met one of Lord Thomas Cochrane’s literary counterparts in the figure of Jack Aubrey.) Kate is mentioned in one article as “a beautiful orphan, nearly twenty years his junior.” Reading further, I discovered that the couple had six children over the course of their marriage, and that Kate routinely crossed the Atlantic to accompany her husband on his naval campaigns.
Hot damn, I thought. Who is this woman? And why haven’t I heard about her until now?
| Portrait of Katherine Cochrane, Countess of Dundonald, and her daughter Elizabeth. |
Part of the reason, I think, is that historical records on Kate have serious gaps. For example, we don’t know what year she was born, or who her mother was (leading to speculation among some Cochrane biographers that she was illegitimate.) Her father died while Kate was young, and she spent her later childhood and teen years in the care of relatives.
Furthermore, with a larger-than-life figure like Thomas Cochrane for a husband – radical MP, eventual Earl of Dundonald, and author of multiple books, including two autobiographies – it is understandable, though unfortunate, that Kate’s story had been subsumed within her husband’s colorful career.
Toni Morrison once said this: “If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”
So I started writing. And researching. And writing some more. I traveled to England and Scotland, retracing some of Kate’s time there. I walked the London neighborhood where she and Thomas eventually settled. I read some of Kate’s surviving letters, miraculously preserved in Scottish archives, and took a bus through Fife to see the Cochrane family home that Thomas and Kate visited in the autumn of 1825.
I’m still writing – still journeying, for writing is a journey – and finding the voice to tell of Kate’s adventures. Kate, like all of us, is more than the sum of her parts. More to come.