He prides himself on being a ‘Pink of the Ton’, that is, an ardent follower of fashion. He is a ‘slender young gentleman of average height and graceful carriage’, and he’s later described as ‘willowy’. To answer this, I’m going back to the beginning and looking at what we know about the Honourable Frederick Standen, the eldest son of the viscount, Lord Legerwood. Other characters, like his cousin Jack Westruther, use a lot of gaming slang that was around at the time, and the subject matter might not always be suitable for ladies to hear, but they don’t speak in a plebeian accent. It’s unlikely that he spoke flash as a child, so when did he adopt it, and why? And, we note, he is the only character in Cotillion who uses this deliberately ‘common’ register.

I had a feeling that answering this question might be central to Freddy’s emotional journey in the book which leads satisfactorily to him becoming a proper hero, if an unusual one. It’s not going to shock anyone, but it’s not really appropriate for use in polite society. He also indulges in constant low level swearing, ‘a dashed lot of cockerels’ and so on. He relishes calling old Great-Uncle Matthew the old hunks – vulgar slang for ‘a covetous miserable old fellow’ according to the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. If he doesn’t drop his h’s, he usually uses the ungrammatical and lower class ain’t instead of isn’t. We follow his journey from an inarticulate young man of fashion to a man who is capable of sorting out a number of sticky social problems and who will show himself to be the perfect husband for Kitty.Īs I read, a thought struck me: Why does Freddy talk flash? That is, why does he deliberately talk in a ‘low, vulgar form of slang’, as the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue has it. But, of course, he needs to become a hero, too. Many readers, I’m sure, agree with Georgette Heyer’s own comment that ‘My dear Freddy is a poppet’. I’ve been re-reading Georgette Heyer’s Cotillion and thinking about Freddy.

Cotillion by Georgette Heyer