Becoming Jane Austen
The True Love Story That Inspired
the Classic Novels
by John Spence
Part of a continuing series.
When Phila wrote that Cassandra had had her fourth son in 1771, Tysoe replied: "That my brother & sister Austen are well, I heartily rejoice, but I cannot say that the news of the violently rapid increase of their family gives me so much pleasure." By the time he received this information, Cassandra was pregnant again. She had her fifth child, a girl at last, in early January 1773, and Tysoe, tersely commented: "I must own myself sorry to hear of your going to Steventon, & for the occasion of it: I fear George will find it easier to a family than to provide for them." Tysoe was not yet fifty, but his health had been undermined by work and worry and the harsh climate in India; he didn't live to reply to the news that the Austens had had another son in 1774, and he died a month before their second daughter, named after her aunt Cooper, was born on 16 December, 1775. Jane Austen was the seventh of the Austens' eight children.
Jane Austen
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Jane was only about six month old when news of Tysoe Hancock's death reached Steventon, and before she was two, her aunt Phila and fifteen-year-old cousin Betsey set out for the Continent where they eventually settled in France. Phila and Betsy didn't re-enter Jane's life until 1786, at about the time of her eleventh birthday.
There had been talk about Phila and her daughter spending some time in France when Betsy was only seven or eight, long before Tysoe's death. He had thought it a good idea at the time because, he wrote to Phila, "Betsy will soon be too old to risqué her picking up the levity of follies of the French. Perhaps by 1777 Phila had forgotten this warning.
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