A Passion for History

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The History behind The Earls Prize

I discovered the Regency National Lottery quite by chance when I was researching for another book. There were references to it in Shopping in Regency York, by Prudence Bebb and in Dr Johnson's London by Liza Picard.

The state lottery ran from 1569 until 1826, when William Wilberforce achieved its abolition. The lottery raised money for good causes such as hospitals and building programmes in much the same way that the current National Lottery generates funds for charities.  Tickets were bought from licensed offices and the draws were public events. Huge sums of money could be won and the lottery was immensely popular with rich and poor alike. News of the winners was taken by messenger and carrier pigeon to outlying areas after a draw. Gambling was so pervasive that prayers were even said in church for the success of people's lottery tickets! It was all part of the gambling mania that gripped Regency society. Real live rakes and gamblers of the time on whom Seb Fleet and Joss Tallant were based included Thomas Lord Foley, Richard Barry 7th Earl Barrymore, William Arderne and Lord Alvanley.

This gambling mania gave me the idea for The Earl's Prize, but I did not want to make this a straight rags to riches story. The heroine, Amy, is confronted with several dilemmas during her story and gambling, whether at the card tables or on the lottery, or even on life and love itself, is everywhere.

As Lord Byron said:

"In play there are two pleasures for your choosing –The one is winning, and the other losing."

As  Motorhead said some hundred and fifty or so years later:

"If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man

You win some, lose some, all the same to me

The pleasure is to play, makes no difference what you say..."