Read Online Martha Washington by Patricia Brady - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Patricia Brady
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muskets, the parlor and dining room on the first floor, the formal reception room on the second floor, and the broad stairwayâwere lit by uncountable candles in lavish chandeliers and outsize globe lamps. Patsy would have joined the other women, probably in the parlor, shaking out their skirts, rearranging powdered tresses, and changing their street shoes for silk slippers, so delicate that they might be danced to shreds by the end of the evening.
A new lieutenant governor took office in November 1751, ushering in a fresh social and political era in Virginia. Robert Dinwiddie was an experienced colonial administrator, a stout middle-aged Scot who wore the plainest of white bobbed wigs; his family came with himâa much younger wife, Rebecca, and two little girls. Daniel waited nearly a month after his sonâs birth to ride into the capital and pay his formal respects.
The public celebration of coronations, battle victories, peace treaties, and royal births and birthdays was an essential element of imperial policy; British colonies around the world joined the motherland in reiterating their common heritage and loyalty through these grand events. Dinwiddie followed that policy with verve. At Williamsburg there were fireworks and general illuminations, militia parades with drums rat-a-tatting and fifes shrilling, cannons booming and volleys of muskets cracking, crowds of ordinary folk in the Market Square gathered around a great bonfire and drinking bumbo (rum punch) from the large barrels provided for them, and fashionable assemblies and balls for the gentry at the Governorâs Palace.
Dinwiddie unveiled the new ballroom wing at the palace with the celebration of the kingâs birthday in November 1752. This elegant addition at the rear of the palace included a grand rectangular ballroom and an adjoining supper room. Tables for cards, dice, and backgammon were set up in the other rooms of the palace. The new formal gardens adjoining the ballroomâeight diamond-shaped boxwood parterres planted with periwinkles and English ivy, towering topiary cylinders of clipped holly, trained beech arbors, and a mazeâbrought an English country estate to mind. Even though she was five months pregnant with their second baby, Patsy and Daniel probably joined the other revelers at that celebration; no fashionable planter could bear to miss it.
Along with the governorâs ballroom, the rebuilding of the Capitol was completed the following year, providing another large assembly room. Theater too was a major source of entertainment. Williamsburg had been a theater town on and off for more than thirty years, but the new playhouse, completed in 1752 on Eastern Street behind the Capitol, housed two successive companies of professional English actors, who played to packed houses. These troupes arrived with copies of the most popular plays of the London stage (scripts were often hard to come by in America), chests full of costumes, and brightly painted sets. Colonial audiences adored spectacle, and theater managers obliged them by âimprovingâ the old standards with processions, dances, songs, crowd scenes, and duels with naked swords. So realistic were the sword fights that the empress of the Cherokees, in town for the inauguration of the governorâs ballroom, almost sent her guards onstage to prevent a killing during a performance of Othello .
An evening at the theaterâseven shillings, five pence for a box seatâwas well worth the cost. To open, the troupeâs lead actor delivered a poetical prologue filled with local references. Then the actors performed a well-known crowd-pleaser. During the times that Patsy and Daniel were in Williamsburg, such dramas as Richard III and the broadly comical Lying Valet were presented. This would be followed by an interval with instrumental music and songs, a jig or other solo dance, and perhaps a comic turn. The evening ended with an afterpiece, usually a
A new lieutenant governor took office in November 1751, ushering in a fresh social and political era in Virginia. Robert Dinwiddie was an experienced colonial administrator, a stout middle-aged Scot who wore the plainest of white bobbed wigs; his family came with himâa much younger wife, Rebecca, and two little girls. Daniel waited nearly a month after his sonâs birth to ride into the capital and pay his formal respects.
The public celebration of coronations, battle victories, peace treaties, and royal births and birthdays was an essential element of imperial policy; British colonies around the world joined the motherland in reiterating their common heritage and loyalty through these grand events. Dinwiddie followed that policy with verve. At Williamsburg there were fireworks and general illuminations, militia parades with drums rat-a-tatting and fifes shrilling, cannons booming and volleys of muskets cracking, crowds of ordinary folk in the Market Square gathered around a great bonfire and drinking bumbo (rum punch) from the large barrels provided for them, and fashionable assemblies and balls for the gentry at the Governorâs Palace.
Dinwiddie unveiled the new ballroom wing at the palace with the celebration of the kingâs birthday in November 1752. This elegant addition at the rear of the palace included a grand rectangular ballroom and an adjoining supper room. Tables for cards, dice, and backgammon were set up in the other rooms of the palace. The new formal gardens adjoining the ballroomâeight diamond-shaped boxwood parterres planted with periwinkles and English ivy, towering topiary cylinders of clipped holly, trained beech arbors, and a mazeâbrought an English country estate to mind. Even though she was five months pregnant with their second baby, Patsy and Daniel probably joined the other revelers at that celebration; no fashionable planter could bear to miss it.
Along with the governorâs ballroom, the rebuilding of the Capitol was completed the following year, providing another large assembly room. Theater too was a major source of entertainment. Williamsburg had been a theater town on and off for more than thirty years, but the new playhouse, completed in 1752 on Eastern Street behind the Capitol, housed two successive companies of professional English actors, who played to packed houses. These troupes arrived with copies of the most popular plays of the London stage (scripts were often hard to come by in America), chests full of costumes, and brightly painted sets. Colonial audiences adored spectacle, and theater managers obliged them by âimprovingâ the old standards with processions, dances, songs, crowd scenes, and duels with naked swords. So realistic were the sword fights that the empress of the Cherokees, in town for the inauguration of the governorâs ballroom, almost sent her guards onstage to prevent a killing during a performance of Othello .
An evening at the theaterâseven shillings, five pence for a box seatâwas well worth the cost. To open, the troupeâs lead actor delivered a poetical prologue filled with local references. Then the actors performed a well-known crowd-pleaser. During the times that Patsy and Daniel were in Williamsburg, such dramas as Richard III and the broadly comical Lying Valet were presented. This would be followed by an interval with instrumental music and songs, a jig or other solo dance, and perhaps a comic turn. The evening ended with an afterpiece, usually a
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