Episode 109: The Thing About the Assizes

Admiral Croft went away to sea, and Mr. Musgrove went away to Taunton. And Mrs. Musgrove seems to think that's the same thing. Grab your fanciest and most judicial red robe because this episode, we're covering the assizes.

Joseph Ryland (after David Ogborne),"A perspective view of the county town of Chelmsford, in Essex, with the judges procession on the day of entrance attended by the high sherrif & his officers," 1762, hand-coloured etching and aquatint.

Selected Sources:

• Byrne, Paula. The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things. Harper Perennial, 2014.

• Clery, Emma Juliet. Jane Austen: The Banker’s Sister. Bb. Biteback, 2017.

• Cockburn, J. S. A History of English Assizes, 1558-1714. Cambridge University Press, 1972. https://archive.org/details/historyofenglish0000cock/page/132/mode/2up.

• Doody, Margaret Anne. Jane Austen’s Names: Riddles, Persons, Places. The University of Chicago Press, 2015.

• Fenn, Violet. Secrets and Scandals in Regency Britain: Sex, Drugs and Proxy Rule. Pen & Sword Books Limited, 2022.

• Hufstader, Alice. “Family Patterns in Persuasion.” Persuasions 6, no. 1 (1984): 21–23.

• Lynch, Deidre. “Notes.” In Persuasion, by Jane Austen, edited by James Kinsley. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford University Press, 2004.

• Pool, Daniel. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist; the Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England. Touchstone, 2007.

• Pugsley, David. “The Trial of Jane Austen’s Aunt Jane Leigh Perrot and the Opinion of John Morris, KC.” Persuasions On-Line 41, no. 1 (2020). https://www.jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/vol-41-no-1/pugsley/.

• Worsley, Lucy. Jane Austen at Home. First U.S. edition. St. Martin’s Press, 2017.

Also, we have to drop a note on a major mispronunciation in this episode, mostly because we say it So. Many. Times. The surname Cockburn is apparently pronounced Coburn, which is something we learned by complete happenstance — after the episode was already published. Anyway, if you want the full backstory on that, we reveal all in our upcoming episode on Lovers’ Vows. Stay tuned!