1789 Septimus Hodge born
1788 Byron born
1795 (June 10th) Thomasina Coverly born
Septimus Hodge and Lord Byron attend Harrow and...
Post 1800
...Trinity College Cambridge at the same time.
1808 Ezra Chater writes The Maid of Turkey
It is reviewed by Hodhe in the Piccadilly Recreation, published by his brother
Captain Edward Brice conducts an affair with Charity Chater - providing her husband with this entree into Sidley Park.
Septimus Hodge is employed as tutor to Thomasina Coverly at Sidley Park
Richard Noakes, Landscape Gardener, employed by Lord Croom to re-design the grounds.
1809 Ezra Chater writes The Couch of Eros
1809 Byron first writes of his intention to leave England.
April 1809 - Guests at Sidley Park, Derbyshire are: Lord Byron, The Chaters, Capt Brice (first day in scene 1)
Septimus Hodge seen by Mr Noakes in carnal embrace with Charity Chater in the gazebo.
Hodge set to review The Couch of Eros for the Piccadilly Recreation.
Chater write a note challenging Hodge to a duel, but is placated due to the above and flattery.
Augustus Coverly shoots a hare whichis claimed by Lord Byron in the game book.
Thomasina contemplates the effect of jam in rice pudding ("you can't stir things apart") and determinism (the possibility of a 'formula for all the future'). She draws a hermit on Noakes' garden design.
Charity Chater writes to Septimus warning of her husband's jealousy and saying she will 'keep her room'
(Second day in the play - day 3)
Lord Byron lets it slip at breakfast that the unflattering review of The Maid of Turkey was written by Hodge, and Chater's anger is rekindled.
Thomasina gets the idea for a new geometry of natural forms
Chater again challenges Hodge, this time with Brice as second. Hodge accepts. In the process, he insults Brice who challenges him too.
Lady Croom removes Hodge's copy of The Couch of Eros (with three letters inside: two challenges from Chater and one note from Charity Chater) for Byron to read.
Thomasina writes her marginal note in the style of Fermat.
(Third day in play - scene 6)
Hodge leaves two letters in his bedroom to be opened in the event of his death: one to Lady Croom, professing his admiration, the other to Thomasina, telling her of the significance he sees in her 'rice pudding' discovery. He sleeps in the boat-house in preparation for the duel(s) at dawn, but the duellists are absent.
(That night)
Mrs Chater is discovered by Lady Croom on the threshold of Byron's room and she, her husband , Capt Brice and Byron are expelled from the house.
Captain Brice and Mr and Mrs Chater leave Sidley Park in a carriage in the middle of the night. Lord Byron leaves on a horse at 4 a.m. taking Hodge's book and leaving a letter for him with the valet.
Lady Croom goes to Hodge's room and finds and opens both his letters.
Hodge is present at the time appointed. He shoots a rabbit for Thomasina.
Hodge is confronted by Lady Croom regarding the letters. Through flattery he placates her, burning Byron's letter un-read, and , ultimately, the two he has written. He is invited to come up to Lady Croom's chambers at 7 o'clock.
Later in 1809 Byron leaves England.
Capt Brice with Charity Chater as his mistress sails for the Indies with Ezra Chater as botanist.
1810 Ezra Chater describes a dwarf dahlia in Martinique and dies htere, after being bitten by a monkey. The dahlia, named 'Charity' by Brice is sent back as a gift to Sidley Park.
Capt Brice marries Charity Chater.
1811 Byron returns
Lady Croom and Septimus are in London (waltzing). They see Byron posing at the Royal Academy (with Lady Caroline Lamb). When they return, they bring the polish Count Zemlinksy.
1812 - Count Zemlinksy is a guest. Hodge kisses Thomasina in the gazebo, promising to teach her to waltz.
Augustus Coverly returns to Sidley Park from Eton.
Thomasina devises an equation which feeds back on itself "rabbits eating their own progeny" (an iterated algorithm).
Lady Croom decides to try and employ a hermit.
Thomasina draws a picture of 'Septimus holding Plautus'. She realsies the implications for determinism in a new French theory (thermodynamics, diminishing returns) and draws a disgram of heat loss, which Septimus asks her to explain in an essay.
(Evening, about a week later - the night before Thomasina's 17th birthday)
Septimus teaches Thoamsina how to waltz and gives her an alpha for her essay on determinism and heat theory, which she takes to her room with a candle. He refuses to join her.
Thomasina is burnt to death the night before her seventeenth birthday.
Septimus is driven mad by her loss, her incomplete discovery which only she had the genius to finish and his guilt at not going to her room (he lit the candle that killed her). He takes the post of hermit and vainly attempts to apply his "good english algebra" to the problem.
he fills the hermitage with iterations, trying to prove (or disprove) the 'end of the world' theory ("...the improved Newtonian Universe must cease and grow cold" - the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, etc.).
1816
Lord Byron leaves England for good. His books including The Couch of Eros are sold.
1832
The Peak Traveller and Gazetteer makes reference to the hermit in a description of the property.
1834
Septimus Hodge, alias the hermit of Sidley Park, dies aged 47.
Post 1834
1862
Cornhill Magazine (edited by Thackeray) quotes above letter in an article on hermits.
Compiled by Ben Speedy, April 1998.