GLOSSARY
European Socialite: Often arranged gatherings called salons, which were held to amuse, refine taste, and increase knowledge of participants particularly in the age of the enlightenment.
19th Century England Social Hierarchy: Aristocrats (the royal family, baronets, knights); Middle Class (upper-middle: consisted of factory owners, bankers, doctors, lawyers, and clergymen) and (lower-middle: consisted of shopkeepers, merchants, and civil servants); Lower Class (the working class: factory workers, miners, seamstresses) and the poor.
The Royal Circle: A network of prominent socialites and politicians in England.
John Baker Church: An English born businessman and supplier of the Continental Army during the American Revolution; husband to Angelica Church.
Reynold’s Pamphlet: A 95-page written confession by Alexander Hamilton of his affair with Maria Reynolds; one of the first sex scandals in American political history.
Thirteen Original Colonies: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Declared independence from Britain in 1776.
Parliament: An assemblage of the nobility, clergy, and commons called together by the British sovereign as the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom.
Battle of Yorktown: The last battle of the Revolutionary War, fought in 1781 near the seacoast of Virginia. The British surrendered to George Washington.
Inbreeding: The mating of closely related individuals, as cousins, sire-daughter, brother-sister, or self-fertilized plants, which tends to increase the number of individuals that are homozygous for a trait and therefore increases the appearance of recessive traits.
Porphyria: A group of diseases which substances called porphyrins build up, negatively affecting the skin or nervous system.
Mania: A mental illness marked by periods of great excitement or euphoria, delusions, and over activity.
Psychiatric illness: A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning.
Phillip Hamilton: The eldest child of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton.
George Eaker: A New York lawyer who fatally shot Phillip Hamilton in a duel on November 23, 1801, in Weehawken, New Jersey.