Search ‘1812’ on your favourite social media platform and you’ll get a surprising number of hits for a war from 213 years ago. Until a few weeks back, I doubt one person in a thousand could tell you anything about the war if they lived in either Britain or America. Rather more knew about it in Canada.
Why the sudden interest?
In a recent speech at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump threatened military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama canal. He also expressed enthusiasm for the idea of making Canada the 51st state. When asked if he might consider military force against the Canadians, he replied that he would not use troops but, rather, “economic force”. Doubtless the reassurance that Canada would not face American tanks rolling across the border will have come as a relief to the folks living north of the 45th parallel but the threat of economic force is still a belligerent threat. Many Canadians view Trump’s speech as a preparation for a hostile annexation of their country. This has reminded people that the USA has history in this regard. In 1812, American troops invaded Canada with the intention of seizing the territory from the control of the British and allowing the growing United States to expand northwards.
What AI imagines Trump might have looked like leading his forces in 1812
The War of 1812 was a real war but, in world affairs, rather overshadowed by events in Europe, where the continent was engaged in a brutal conflict with Napoleon. In fact, if you ask any European to tell you about military conflict in 1812, their most likely response (after ‘I don’t know anything about history’) will mention Napoleon’s march on Moscow, if only because Tchaikovsky wrote his famous 1812 Overture about it.
With the British army and navy having other things to do, there were few British troops available to fight in North America. The war was therefore fought between US troops and state militias on one side and a small British force, reinforced by Canadian militia. Both sides also made tactical alliances with Native American tribes, although the native forces were generally more sympathetic to the British, who some of them considered might offer protection against US expansion into their territories. The Americans and British also fought on the high seas with ships of both nations duelling it out in what was effectively a separate conflict.
The result was, perhaps inevitably, a scrappy little war which dragged on for almost two years. With such a long border and few settlements within striking distance, the war degenerated into little more than a series of raids. The Americans would burn a village in Canada; the Canadians would burn a slightly bigger village in the United States; the Americans would burn a town in Canada and so it went on until, in 1814, the British eventually burned down the White House.
For Canadians, the war was a serious affair. Thousands were killed in battle or died of disease during the war. Canadians saw it as, in the literal sense of the word, an existentialist contest. Defeat would have meant the end of their country. At the time, Canada was British colony. Although the Canadians relied on the British Army for defence in 1812, many historians consider that driving the Americans out of their country was a significant point in their development as a nation.
For Americans, the War of 1812 became part of their country’s foundation myth. It was when the young country came of age, taking on the mighty British Empire and fighting them to a standstill. As with most myths, the historical facts of the war are often subverted to serve the interests of the myth makers. In reality, the war was an inconclusive affair. When Napoleon was exiled to Elba in 1814, the Americans realised that Britain would soon turn its full naval might against them. British reinforcements were already on their way to Canada and America was anxious to end the war before they faced almost certain defeat.
The resulting peace settlement restored the situation that had existed before the war started. The pre-war borders were reinstated. The lives lost had been sacrificed for nothing. In the end, the only real losers were the native Americans. Britain made a token effort to protect its tribal allies in the peace treaty that ended the conflict, but both sides knew that the British would not go to war to protect the indigenous people. Deprived of the opportunity to expand northwards, the United States pursued its movement west with renewed vigour and acted ruthlessly against any native tribes that got in the way. In 1800 the Native American population of what was to become the United States was estimated at 600,000. By the decade 1890-1900 it was down to around 237,000.
Until now, most people seemed happy to let the events of 1812 be forgotten. In the last few weeks, they suddenly seem relevant again. Canadians, at least, are remembering the war. They’re not very happy about what happened. Perhaps the rest of us might try to recall it and avoid another messy (but hopefully bloodless) unnecessary conflict.
Burke and the War of 1812
It’s not often that my books about the adventures of the British spy, James Burke, are suddenly caught up in the affairs of the modern world. Burke was a real person who spied for the British during the Napoleonic Wars. Although my first Burke adventure, Burke in the Land of Silver, is closely based on truth, his subsequent adventures are largely fictional. There is no evidence that he ever operated in North America, but he moved around a lot and may well have been involved in events there. At the urging of fans who enjoy reading about the War of 1812, I have written a story featuring native Americans, the Washington of the time, the Ohio militia, the siege of Detroit, and the betrayals and double-dealings that are part of Burke’s stock in trade. It’s all fun and games until somebody loses an eye, as my mother used to say, or, in this case until a farcical series of political misjudgements creates a bloody conflict that brought no good to anyone. As I said, “Suddenly caught up in the affairs of the modern world.”
Burke in the Land of Silver, is currently out with beta readers. (Let me know if that’s something you would be interested in.) Assuming they don’t find too many mistakes, it should be published early this Spring.
Picture Credits
Featured image shows the British burning Washington from Paul M. Rapin de Thoyras’ book, The History of England, from the Earliest Periods, Volume 1 (1816). Source: Library of Congress
Other pictures:
Pencil drawing depicting soldiers starting the fire in the White House is from the New York Public Library
The Battle of Queenston Heights, 13 October 1812. Library and Archives Canada, 2895485
It has a very French look to it, doesn’t it? I’d guessed it was built in the 19th century and much of its appearance now dates back to the second half of the 19th century when it was remodelled by the Duc d’Orleans after his family lost the throne of France and lived for a while in Twickenham. The house, though, is much older than that.
This stretch of the Thames, often referred to as the Arcadian Thames, used to have many great houses built looking out over the river. The Thames was a significant highway connecting the royal palaces of Westminster (and later St James) and Hampton Court. Kings and queens found it a convenient way to travel between their official residences and people who aspired to high social status wanted to live along their route. Today, the most obvious survivors are Marble Hill House (built in 1724) and Ham House (1610). Alexander Pope had a smaller, but still substantial, house built after he moved to Twickenham in 1719 and that was where he installed his famous grotto. His house was demolished (though the grotto survives) and that seems to be that as far as the riverside houses go.
Appearances can be deceptive. Hiding away behind the 19th century façade of York House is a Jacobean building, dating back to the 17th century. We cannot be sure when it was built, although there is some evidence that it may have been around 1635. The house had the H shaped floor plan typical of grand houses of the period and this can still be glimpsed in the centre block of the modern building. (The wings are much later additions.)
The Jacobean house would have looked very different. The original entrance was in the left hand bay as you look from the front. The entrance was moved when the house was remodelled and the original entrance hall is now rather a scrappy bit of office space. You can see that the windows do not match those on the right because originally there were no windows there.
The inside of the house has been dramatically changed about several times and it’s difficult to get an idea of what it would originally have looked like. The Jacobean entrance led directly into a hall with a rather splendid wooden staircase which has survived. Unfortunately it’s almost impossible to get a decent photograph of it, in part because a lift was installed up through the middle which is not a thing of beauty. The ceiling at the top of the staircase is not original but it has outlasted several renovations and is worth noticing.
The newel post at the foot of the stairs shows some fine Jacobean workmanship.
The hall led directly into the dining room. When the entrance was moved to the centre of the frontage, the dining room became the main entrance hall but the original Jacobean fire surround remains, the most striking feature of the old building.
One of the ceilings may date back to when the house was built. The plaster decoration shows various water birds, presumably reflecting the fact that the room faces towards the nearby river.
Although so little of the original house remains, its history is fascinating. The house went through many notable owners. The second Earl of Manchester was a friend of Charles I who went on to become a general for the Parliamentarians before becoming Lord Chamberlain to Charles II. This flexible courtier lived at York House in the mid 17th century. Later, it seems to have come into the hands of the Earl of Clarendon, although it’s not sure if he was ever the legal owner. Later owners included several British aristocrats but its most celebrated tenants were French. In 1864 the Comte de Paris moved in. He was the heir to the French throne but had to leave the country when revolution broke out in 1848. He added substantially to the house which by then had already sprouted various new wings and servants’ quarters. When political changes in France made it possible for him to move back there, he abandoned York House in 1871. The French returned in 1897 when the Pretender to the French throne the Duc d’Orleans (King Philippe VIII to his followers) moved in. The distinctively French look of the house nowadays is largely down to him. He made major alterations to the building. Local sources suggested that he spent £40,000 on the work. This is probably an exaggeration but he definitely made changes on a grand scale. A new wing was added which included a swimming pool and his own museum for his hunting trophies. Electricity was installed and a mile of new drainage pipes. Much of the decoration was in the style of the reigns of Louis XIV-XVI and fleur de lys popped up everywhere including rainwater pipes.
His personal cipher also appeared around the house, for example on these rather splendid finger plates on the interior doors.
The Duc d’Orleans made himself unpopular with the locals, partly by cutting off access to what had been open land and partly by his support of the Boers during the Boer War. The result was that he spent less and less time in Twickenham, eventually selling the house to the Indian industrialist, Sir Ratan Tata, the owner of Tata Steel. The interior of the house was once again redesigned but the most striking addition was the construction of an elaborate fountain in the grounds, featuring sea nymphs and horses.
These are known locally as “the naked ladies” and have given their name to a craft beer brewed in the area.
The additions to the house are more obvious at the rear where the range of different architectural styles is more obvious.
York House is now owned by the local authority and used for ceremonial occasions and for council meetings. It’s a popular wedding venue. It’s unlikely that many of those posing for wedding photographs there realise that they are standing in front of a house that was built around 400 years ago and is one of the last survivors of the grand houses that used to line the Thames.
This time next week Christmas will have come and gone, though our celebrations, like many other people’s, will still be in full flow. This will be my last blog post of the year so I wish you all a really lovely Christmas and I will see you in 2025.
My Christmas picture (above) shows the decorations in Seven Dials. They are really pretty. I posted this picture last month together with a bit of history about the sundial that all the lights are arranged around. You can read about it HERE.
At this time of year, writers often like to include something from one of their books that references Christmas. That’s always a problem for me. My characters are usually away from England at Christmas time and are often quite busy fighting wars. Christmas hardly features. There’s more than usual about Christmas in my current WIP, Burke and the War of 1812, but, even so, it barely rates a mention. Burke has gone off to do something important somewhere comfortable, leaving poor William Brown, who often gets left doing the hard work, to spend winter living with the Shawnee tribe in a camp in what is now Indiana. Here’s his experience of Christmas.
Christmas came and went. William wasn’t sure of the day but he taught the Shawnee some carol tunes which they sang with their own words. William didn’t understand what they were singing and thought he would be happier not knowing, but the tunes provided some comfort as the shortest day came and went and the weather grew colder.
I hope your Christmas is more fun than his.
I’m always impressed by people who turn out short stories at the drop of a hat. I did do a special Christmas short story last year but I’m not going to manage this feat twice. Last year’s story was not historical but features Galbraith and Pole, the main characters in my Urban Fantasy series. It’s set soon after the two of them meet (in Something Wicked) and it’s an unashamedly sentimental tale of Christmas Eve. If you haven’t already read it, it’s still available HERE.
That’s all for this week, this Christmas and this year. I wish you all the best for the holidays and hope people give you lots of books.
I’ve been using my blog recently to suggest that you might like to consider buying some of my books as Xmas gifts. This week, I thought I’d take the opportunity to feature some other historical novelists whose books you might enjoy.
Penny Hampson
Penny is one of the contributors to Tales of Empire which features four short stories by different writers, including me. At just £2.99 in paperback, it is a stocking filler at a stocking filler price.
Penny writes (amongst other things) Regency novels with a strong romantic element. She’s chosen to feature her latest, An Adventurer’s Contract.
A man on the hunt for a traitor. A woman in search of the truth.
Gabrielle Mercer is in trouble. Her cousin is missing, her father’s death looks like murder, and now there are rumours she is spying for the French. With no one to turn to, dare she accept help from a man she doesn’t like?
Jack Ashdown is on a mission to unmask a ruthless spy. Could it be the reclusive young Frenchwoman who has made no secret of her contempt for Englishmen like himself? Perhaps Gabrielle’s predicament will be the perfect opportunity to win her trust and do some spying of his own.
Getting close to one’s enemy is a dangerous option, but the stakes for Jack and Gabrielle are too high to ignore. Will their gamble to trust one another lead to disaster, or will they discover that neither of them is what they seem?
I’m in awe of Deborah Swift whose books range from the Civil War to World War II. She’s chosen to feature one of my favourites, The Poison Keeper.
Discover the story of Giulia Tofana, Renaissance poisoner. When Giulia’s mother is accused of attempting to poison the Duke de Verdi, Giulia must go on the run. She goes to her Aunt Isabetta, a courtesan, but the Duke has his spies, and will not let her go so easily.
BookViral Gold Medal Winner and Wishing Shelf Book of the Decade.
Jennifer Ash is one of the pseudonyms of Jenny Kane, who uses different names to differentiate her books in different genres. Her Jennifer Ash persona is my favourite. Behind the plot line of her Folville Chronicle series sits a huge amount of historical research she did over twenty-five years ago when she studied for a PhD in fourteenth century English crime.
The Folville Chronicles is a set of four novels (The Outlaw’s Ransom, The Winter Outlaw, Edward’s Outlaw and Outlaw Justice). This fourteenth-century, historical crime, series features Mathilda of Twyford, a 19 year old potter’s daughter, who suddenly finds herself a prisoner in the Folville brother’s manor in Ashby-Folville, Leicestershire.
This series of murder-mysteries are set in the winter months, with book two, The Winter Outlaw, featuring the Christmas period – but before Mathilda and the brothers can celebrate, they need to find out just who the winter outlaw is…
Lynn writes the hugely popular Peninsular War Saga, following the adventures of a fictional Light Division brigade fighting under Wellington as the French are driven out of Spain. The brigade might be fictional but the details of the military history are painstakingly accurate and she provides a brilliantly clear picture of the campaign. Personally I prefer the naval adventures in her less well known Manxman books. I raved about the first in the series, An Unwilling Alliance, when it first came out (my review is HERE). It centres on the British attack on Copenhagen in 1807 and I can wholeheartedly recommend it.
Antoine Vanner’s novels, about naval warfare in the early days of steam, follow the adventures of the fictional Nicholas Dawlish as he rises up the ranks in battles in locations from Denmark, Turkey, Paraguay and the United States to Cuba, Korea, Britain, East Africa and the Sudan. This year is his first venture into non-fiction, with a book about naval exploits in the age of sail. Broadside and Boarding is a collection of some eighty stories, ideal for coffee breaks, or whenever you want a short but fascinating read. Buy it now in paperback and get it in time for Christmas. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Broadside-Boarding-Small-action-Fighting/dp/1943404550.
They say that if you want to make God laugh, you should tell him your plans. I had some vague plans about using November blog posts to try to sell the odd book. Even with my attempts to cut back on blogging, I still post something almost every week and most of them are remarkably unconnected to the business of getting you to buy the stuff I write. So November should be nose-to-tail selling posts. Then I suddenly got my spot on the NHS waiting list to get a new elbow (details HERE if you’re interested) and my selling blogs skidded to an unscheduled stop.
So here we are in December and I hope that I still have time to encourage you to buy a friend one of my Galbraith & Pole books for Christmas.
Galbraith & Pole is my foray into Urban Fantasy. I didn’t even know what urban fantasy was until I started to write it. Apparently it’s fantasy stories (in my case featuring vampires, werewolves, and mad scientists doing exciting things with genetic modification) which are set in a realistic contemporary environment. If you’ve read Rivers of London, that’s the sort of thing I mean. (And if you haven’t, can I suggest that you should?)
I’ve written three Galbraith and Pole stories so far and I hope to write more. They are an awful lot less work than historical fiction (he said with feeling after nine months stuck in the world of 1812). I really enjoy doing them but, sadly, with only three they don’t have the visibility of the James Burke series. People who have discovered them seem to like them. Here are some comments on Amazon:
A cleverly-conceived, well-written and excellently plotted novel about murder, policing, vampires, and Tango… fresh, original, and hugely entertaining.
This is a fast paced good read … I shall never look at Brompton Cemetery in quite the same way again!
If a book can be too engaging and unputdownable, then this one is a great example of such a novel.
Fun and fast to read, with just the right amount of black in its comedy.
All three are available in paperback at £6.99. They make excellent Christmas gifts.
I’m taking a break from writing about history or books this week to return to something more personal.
Decades of use and abuse have resulted in me wearing out my elbow joint. I used to think that the elbow was one of the less important joints (and I am incredibly grateful that it was my elbow rather than knees or hips) but it turns out that once your elbow packs in, so does a lot of control in your wrist and hands. Plus, in my case, it triggered rheumatism that led to joints everywhere else coming under a lot of strain. The upshot is that I’ve been seeing the inside of hospitals quite a lot lately. And that’s made me think about the NHS, an institution that is, understandably, coming in for a lot of criticism these days. Perhaps you are American – I know this blog gets American readers – and you may be one of those people who believe that socialised healthcare is bringing Britain to the brink of communism. Or you are one of the small but increasingly vociferous number of Brits who think that spend on the NHS is out of control and we would be better off with some sort of insurance based system. So it’s worth a quick reminder of what actually happens when you get sick.
Firstly, to be fair to the NHS’s critics, you spend a lot of time moving through the system until you belatedly arrive at the right place. In my case, the right place was a rheumatology consultant at my local hospital. As I began to panic that my body was suffering from more and more aches and pains and bits of it were increasingly often refusing to do what they were supposed to do, she reassured me that modern drug treatments meant that everything was going to be OK. I was put on to the standard medication for the sort of rheumatism I was suffering from. (There are different sorts. Who knew?) When it didn’t work, this was supplemented with another. There was definite progress but I was still far from well.
Had I been paying for my own treatment or having it funded by an insurance company, I strongly suspect that would have been the end of the story. As it was, my consultant explained so there is a newish drug that should do the trick but that, as it is ridiculously expensive and I will have to take it for the rest of my life, she would have to make a special case and get it approved for use with me. It took a couple of months and then I moved onto it and the change has been spectacular. All the aches and pains vanished and, although there is some residual damage here and there, I’m basically sound except for the elbow that created the problem in the first place. My rheumatology consultant admitted that even her wonder drugs could do nothing for it. The elbow was literally just worn out. (An X ray showed that where cartilage should provide a relatively friction-free surface to the bones in the joint, there was nothing.)
Elbows are notoriously complicated joints, enabling you to move your forearm at all sorts of weird angles, rotating it as you do so. I was not surprised to learn that my local hospital could do nothing about it. However my consultant referred me to another nearby hospital where they told me that elbow replacement is now an option. There was a long waiting list – around a year – but I wasn’t even absolutely sure that I wanted it. After all, I could sort of get by with just my left arm and I developed lots of ways of working around the problems with my right. As time went on, though, things began to get worse and a routine checkup pointed out that I could no longer pretend it didn’t need dealing with. So I was moved up the list and, surprisingly quickly, I was in hospital having my arm cut open.
That was just over a week ago and I am amazed at how much the new improved elbow is already capable of. I can, for example, write my name. (My inability to write for the past few months has been hideously embarrassing, even though I use a keyboard for most things.) And I can open a jam jar and eat with a knife and fork. Once the dressings are off, I look forward to the really exciting stuff like being able to touch my nose.
And, overseas readers, what has this cost me?
Nil, zada, zilch, nothing.
That’s for an innovative and hideously expensive drug that has fixed one problem and surgery that didn’t even exist when I was younger that has fixed the other.
Seeing the NHS from the inside, it is all too clear that it’s a mess. It’s grown so much that even the hospital is a collection of buildings, some quite old, some brand new, all connected by miles of corridors. Expensive MRI scans have gone missing, my GP frequently doesn’t read all he is sent about treatment protocols, I get caught up in ridiculous arguments about which bit of the NHS bureaucracy picks up the bill for some of the dozens of blood tests that I’ve been given, though that’s nothing compared to the overall costs of my care.
It’s a ridiculous system which relies on dedicated, underpaid staff going above and beyond in a system that has massively outgrown the structures that were set up in 1947. But the important thing is that it works. Creakily, slowly, sometimes inefficiently, but it gets there. I am better. I have friends who are only still alive and active and happy because the NHS has saved them.
Yes, it could be more efficient. Yes, it could be more streamlined. But you know what it needs most? It needs money.
I haven’t seen any of the most recent studies, but I’ve seen studies in the last 10 years that have compared costs and outcomes across different health systems. The British system is not the best in the world – but it does provide the best outcomes for the budget that it is given.
I am older, though not that old, and the problems I have had are increasingly being seen in younger people. Nor are they “complex needs”. Bodies wear out, and as the population gets older, so more bits need to be repaired or replaced. If you are young and healthy, you may not see money spent on people like me as a particularly wise investment. But I was young and healthy not that long ago and eventually you will be old and you will need medical care. (Or you will be dead, which not everybody sees as a preferred alternative.)
The sad truth is that everybody, everywhere, wants to see the best possible medical care available to them and the people around them but nobody wants to pay for it.
Next time any government tells you that they can square the circle without putting up taxes or cutting services, they are lying.
Look after your NHS. One day, god willing, it will be looking after you.
