A Bright Particular Star (55 page)

The Morning Chronicle
LONDON, THURSDAY 21
^st
May
,
1818

An extraordinary incident occurred last Friday at the Reg
ent
’s
Canal.
During
final
work on
the Islington Tunnel
, a navigation man
employed by the Regent
’s
Canal Compa
ny, JOSIAH DADDERIDGE, retrieved
an article from the mud
near
the east portal of the tunnel
.
Mr
Dadderidge,
being a respectable man of
good
character
,
at once
informed the Clerk of the Regent
’s
Canal Company,
Mr
EDWARDS, of his discovery.
Mr
Edwards took possession of said article and upon closer inspection
, ascertained that it was a
hat pin
belonging to A
Lady
.

Since he had no
means of discerning its
value or
the identity of the owner
,
the pin
clearly having lain undiscovered
for some time,
Mr
Edwards
conveyed the item
to
Bow Street, in the hope rather than expectation
that it be restored
to its rightful owner
, who, he feared, might have suffered great distress at its loss
, it being most certainly unique
.
The pin was
indeed
of a most unusual design, being fashioned in the style of cornflowers, and whether due to this circumstance or some other, a gentleman from the Home Office, of whom we have no record of
his name but who was, by various
accounts, a most
distinguished
man
of military bearing
, called
in Bow Street upon hearing news
of the pin.
Although he
could offer
no
explanation as to
how the pin had been lost, he
professed to know the true owner
and described it in
such
intimate
detail as to
convince the Chief Magistrate
of the
veracity
of his assertion
.

In a further astonishing
development,
we understand that
when
the gentleman informed the Lady of the pin
’s
recovery, and offered to return it into her keeping, she expressed her
surprise
and pleasure
at its retrieval
, but instructed him to
place the pin for sale at auction, i
t being, in fact, the setting for
a valuable and
extremely
handsome jewel, and
to
donate the proceeds of said auction to the Governors of the Foundling Hospital, to use as they saw fit.
The U
nknown Lady further instructed that
Mr
.
Dadderidge and
Mr
.
Ed
wards each receive a reward of
£
5
0
for their honesty and consideration.

The gem will be therefore placed for sale by auction in due course, and because of i
ts rarity, is expected to realiz
e a considerable sum.
It has been remarked that t
he e
xtrao
rdinary
b
enevolence of this Lady and the
strange
circumstances surrounding the loss and discovery of this valuable gem have no equal and, whilst we cannot but wonder at the secrets that remain around this
singular
event
, it is to be h
oped
the sale
funds
will bring fo
rward
b
eneficial effects for the
unfortunate
,
deserted
children
at
the Foundling Hospital.

The Bath Road was one of the great main roads in England.
The road came into existence casually, on no determined plan
and
encroaching
only here and there on the ancient Roman way to Bath. O
nly when turnpike tolls and road improvements began in the early 18
^th
century did it really resemble a road.
By late Georgian and Regency periods, the coaching age was at its peak and the Bath Road was busy with mail coaches, stage coaches, private post chaises, gigs, farm carts and travellers on horseback.

Bath was then the most fashionable place outside London.
Every sick person, invalid and hypochondriac who could afford it also went to Bath to drink or bathe in the famous waters.
Turnpike gates (or pikes as they were known) were private trusts set up to collect
road tolls to pay for maintenance.
They were
more frequent nearer to towns.
Posting houses and coaching inns sprang up along the route to cater for travellers, as did smaller ale-houses and inns.

Some of these coaching inns feature in
A Bright Particular Star
.
The White Hart no longer exists but in 1817 it was one of the main inns in Bath and had most of the
coaching traffic.
The Castle
I
nn in Marlborough is now part of Marlborough College, but in previous years it was the home of the Earl of Hertford.
It was one of the largest and most fashionable inns
on the Bath Road.
The Pelican
I
nn at Speenhamland, just outside Newbury, was perhaps the most celebrated inn on the route.
It was well known to every traveller.

Portions of the original Bath road still exist, updated and improved of course.
It was renamed the A4 in 1922.
Much of the route is now paralleled by the M4 motorway which carries the bulk of long distance traffic from London to the west of England and back, leaving the A4 primarily for local traffic.

The Angel
Inn
at Islington was situated on the outskirts of London, at the start of the Great North Road.
T
he original Angel was built in 1639, on the site of Islington High Street. Replaced in 1819, and again at the turn of the 20th century, it remained an inn until 1921, when it opened as a restaurant and caf
é
.
In 1998 it once again became an inn and continues to the present day.

The Regent’s canal runs across an area just north of central London. It links the Paddington arm of the Grand Union canal in the west of the city to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in east London. Work began in October 1812 and the first section opened in 1816. The section containing the 886 metre (969 yard) long Islington tunnel opened four years later in 1820. Originally built to transport goods from the River Thames to the larger canal network, the Regent’s canal is used today for pleasure cruising and the towpath has become a busy cycle route for commuters into London.

All the characters in
A Bright Particular Star
are fictitious and entirely the produ
ct of my imagination, but Luc
Grey is loosely based on an intelligence officer, also heir to a barony, who fought a very unusual war in the Peninsular.
He often worked exclusively for Wellington behind enemy lines and on one occasion with the safety of the
whole
army dependent on his expertise.
His diaries display him as a modest man of tremendous courage and vision, as well as thoughtful, enterprising and intelligent.

Combining humour, emotion, great characters and engaging plots, Elizabeth Hanbury writes historical romance that appeals to a wide range of readers.
Elizabeth lives in a village in the heart of the English countryside and writes romance whenever
she can sneak away to her desk.

She is a full member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Historical Novel Society, and has been a finalist for the RNA’s prestigious Joan Hessayon award.
Her latest titles include
The Paradise Will, Ice Angel, Midsummer Eve at Rookery End, Brief Encounters
and
A Bright Particular Star.

Astraea Press

Pure. Fiction.

www.astraeapress.com