Jane Austen’s Contemporaries
-
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was an English author and early feminist who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. She initially eschewed marriage and bore her first child out of wedlock, but eventually married a fellow outspoken progressive author, William Godwin, before dying shortly after giving birth tow their daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.
-
Lord Byron was an impoverished Irish lord and poet who left England for the continent in disgrace following a series of affairs and eventual divorce.
-
George, the Prince of Wales, reigned as the regent during his father’s illness from 1811 until the end of the regency when King George III died in 1820. He then ruled as George IV until his own death ten years later.
-
Sarah Villiers, Countess of Jersey, was a leading member of London society during the Regency period and a notable patroness of Almack’s.
-
Maria Margaret Molyneux, Countess of Sefton, was a leading member of the ton in London and a patroness of Almack’s noted for her kind nature.
-
Queen consort to George III, she bore him 15 children and was a devoted wife even after he was declared insane and his eldest son was granted regency over the kingdom. Often rumored to have African ancestry based on her features as depicted in contemporary portraits, she was a German princess with distant Portuguese ancestry.
-
George III ruled England from the age of 20 until he was declared insane in 1811 and his son was placed as regent over his sovereignty until his death in 1820. He was noted as a tyrant to justify the American Revolution and likely suffered from porphyria which led to progressively worsening mental illness.
-
The only child of the failed marriage between George III and Queen Caroline, Charlotte, Princess of Wales, married Prince Leopold of Belgium in a love match, but died less than a year and a half later in childbirth at the age of twenty-one, predeceasing both of her parents.
-
Married to William Lamb, Lady Caroline wrote Glenarvon following the aftermath of her torrid affair with Lord Byron and subsequent disgrace.
-
Caroline of Brunswick married George, Prince of Wales, at the behest of his parents, King George III and Queen Charlotte. Caroline and George never liked each other and separated shortly after the birth of their only child, Princess Charlotte.
