ELIZABETH CRAVEN AND HER WORLD

Chawton cottage.    I'm sure many people are, like me, enjoying watching the TV dramatisation of Gill Hornby's novel "Miss Austen", which centres on Jane Austen's elder sister, Cassandra.    I have not, alas, read the book. I intend to do so but for now will be content to enjoy Keeley Hawes' performance as Cassandra in later life, and the very atmospheric recreation of the Regency world. The casting of Jane Austen herself is certainly rather surprising, not at all like the classical beauty we are used to seeing on the £10 banknote. Patsy Curran has an expressive and distinctly comical face, far darker than most portrayals of the authoress.    If you know anything about Jane Austen you will be familiar with the story of how her elder sister's fiancé died before they could be married, leaving her to remain "Miss Austen" for life. After Jane's death Cassandra destroyed an unknown number of her sister's letters, cutting out passages from the ...

William, the  first Earl Craven,  was a loyal supporter of the Stuarts during the English Civil War, and  after  it  in 1663 King Charles II rewarded him in many ways, among other things making him one of the Lords Proprietors of Carolina, a position he could pass on to his  successors. William Craven 1st Earl of Craven of the 1st creation In 1663, King Charles II granted the land that became South and North Carolina to eight English noblemen: the Earl of Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, the Earl of Craven, the Earl of Shaftesbury,  Sir George Carteret, Sir John Colleton,  Baron Berkeley of Stratton, and his brother Sir William Berkeley.   (These Berkeleys were not the ancestors of Elizabeth Craven but a different branch of the family, distantly related.) Carolina itself was of course named after King Charles II, and the king or his officials appointed North Carolina's governor and had the right to approve (or disapprove) its l...