Secrets

AUTHOR’S NOTE

AUTHOR’S NOTEBrighton – first called Brighthelmstone – was ‘discovered’ in 1753 when Dr. Richard Lewis advocated bathing in seawater and drinking it, as a sovereign cure for various ailments. This combined with a spring of chalybeate waters at Hove made Brighton a popular seaside spa.

In 1783 the Prince of Wales came on a visit to his uncle and aunt, the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland. He stayed eleven days, riding with the stag hounds, attending the theatre and a ball at the Assembly Rooms. The next summer the Prince returned as his physicians had advocated sea bathing as a cure for the swollen glands in his neck.

This unsightly affliction led to the extremely high starched neckcloths copied by all the bucks, beaux, and dandies.

In 1786 the Prince had his own house on the East side of the Steine, with Mrs. Fitzherbert in a villa nearby. By 1806, after the Prince’s disastrous marriage, he had built the exotic Marine Pavilion, a riding school, and stables which cost £55,000 and Mrs. Fitzherbert an attractive new house on the Steine.

Under her benign influence this was the happiest time of the Prince’s life. At the Pavilion the food, the music, the conversation were all superlative and despite the ‘vapour baths’, he had put on weight, his grace, but his charm were as captivating as ever.

Many émigrés landed on Brighton beach during the reign of terror in France and when war broke out in 1793 which was to continue for more than twenty years, they still contrived in one way or another to cross the Channel.