Prince George and Master Frederick
Rosaline Freeborn shared with us some of the research from her debut novel about Frederick Blomberg the orphan child who was adopted by King George III and Queen Charlotte in 1765 and brought up as a prince.
Having grown up within the royal household, Frederick remained a close friend of Prince George, future regent and King George IV and was believed to be a significant figure in Georgian royal history.
Ros with her book
Turns out that Frederick Blomberg was the illegitimate outcome of a relationship with a farmer’s daughter in the autumn of 1760 when Prince George (future King George III) was 21.
All grown up and as the vicar of our own St Giles’, the Rev Dr Frederick Blomberg was quite an illustrious resident of Cripplegate but all the memorials to him, which once existed in the church, have gone. There was a plaque to remember his kindness to residents. It appeared in the History of Cripplegate 1888 and read: A man of most charitable disposition and universally esteemed. A tablet in the south aisle of the church states that he gave the munificent sum of £750 during the first three years of his pastorate, toward relieving the necessities of his poor parishioners.
It is assumed that this memorial was destroyed either in the ‘Great Fire of Cripplegate’ in 1897 or the Blitz of 1940 which is when the vicarage was destroyed, along with its beautiful garden.
When the Rev Dr Frederick Blomberg died in 1847, his half-brother, Prince Adolphus, the Duke of Cambridge attended. He was King George III and Queen Charlotte’s tenth child but he must have wanted to represent this much loved cleric’s ‘royal family’.
The story of Frederick’s birth first came to light through the author’s grandmother, who consistently claimed that their family had ties to Georgian royalty. Intrigued by her assertion, the author embarked on a journey of research, uncovering the remarkable life of Frederick Blomberg. The origins of the story now seem clearer—linked to a property in Yorkshire that Frederick Blomberg was meant to inherit from his namesake but was denied. Instead, the estate was later gifted to him by Prince George, his half-brother, after becoming Prince Regent in 1810. The author’s great-grandfather purchased the property in the late 1890s, and it became the childhood home of the grandmother, who fondly remembered a portrait of Frederick Blomberg hanging in the house. That very drawing, created by court artist Hugh Douglas Hamilton, was recently acquired by King Charles III for the Royal Collection and is now securely housed in the Print Room at Windsor.
Trailblazer
Jesse Peach interviews author Diana Souhami about writing her final book, her memoir.
Polari Prize
When I arrive at Diana’s sixth-floor Barbican flat, she’s hovering in the kitchen with bright eyes. She’s worried about Trump. She was born in 1940, you see, and there was fascism. Now, she says – with a wry smile – “I’m on the way out – and there is fascism again”. Diana has seen great change in her lifetime. The 1960’s were very different for gender queer lesbians like her, she tells me. You just couldn’t imagine it.
She moved to the Barbican fifteen years ago. She loves London and loves living right in the middle of the city. At some point she was awarded first prize for her garden by the Barbican Horticultural Society for her geraniums and things. But her most astonishing achievements have been in writing. Walking into her apartment, the thing that strikes you is the white walls, and of course all the books. “They call it a penthouse” she says, now at the table where she sits – trying – at least – to write her latest book, her memoir, which she says will be her last.
Her day begins at 6:30. There will be a cup of coffee. Often an early swim across the way. Sometimes, off to the London Library to work, where it’s easier to concentrate. “I procrastinate. Working from home I will have a sudden desire to do the dusting rather than get on with it.”
Work on her memoir is slow. It’s 18 months overdue and she’s already spent the advance.
“You know I’ve written about fourteen books. This is the most difficult one. It’s much easier writing about other people than it is writing about yourself. It can’t just be therapy. You’ve got to want to read it. You’ve got to want to turn the page.”
Many of Diana’s books have been about lesbian trailblazers. Gertrude Stein. Sylvia Beach. Bryher. Radclyffe Hall. Natalie Barney… So what will we hear about the next one: Diana Souhami?
“What I’m trying to do is to take the decades and have some flavour of each one. To show how different times are. I mean, to be growing up as a lesbian in the 50s, 60s and 70s wasn’t easy. It really wasn’t. So the book’s about sort of finding your identity, you know? And I think I found my identity through writing really. I hope that is a sort of trajectory of finding identity. It’s important isn’t it? To be who one is.”
She has a lot to live up to. She won the Whitbread biography award and her latest book, No Modernism Without Lesbians, was named a Sunday Times book of the year and won the Polari Prize. She was last year made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. At 84, Diana’s work life is busier than ever.
