Emma Hirst

Personal Information
Name/Handle: Clover
Age: 17
Gender: Female
How did you find us?: *bes an admin*

Have you read the rules?: Keywords approved - Clover

Character Information
Full Name: Emma Hirst
Nickname: Lady Hirst
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Nationality: English
Birthplace: Stratford-upon-Avon, England
Current Residence: Bordeaux, Aquitaine
Family:
Father - Lord John Hirst, age 51
Mother - Lady Elinor Hirst, age 42
Sister - Lady Margaret Howard, age 25
Sister - Lady Jane Russell, (died in child birth at age 19 one year ago)

Body Information
Clothing: Modest would likely be the best way to describe Emma's attire. With long sleeves and floor-length skirts, her gowns all follow the latest fashion without being overly ostentatious. With light, bland colours, her dresses aren't the kind to draw attention in a crowded room but fit her simplistic personality and suit her shy nature just fine. While she prefers the slimmer gowns to the large, bustling ones of the higher gentry, she does own a few dresses specifically meant for balls and for court. Most commonly, she can be seen in an open, square-necked gown with long sleeves fitted smoothly over a tight corset.
Hair: Rarely is her hair worn loose except for when she goes to sleep. Her shiny, blonde locks are typically kept up in whatever fashion is appropriate. As most women's preferred length for the time, Emma's hair is quite long, reaching to just about her lower back when down. She goes to great lengths to keep it clean and looking healthy, washing it as regularly as she is permitted to.
Face: With petite features, Emma's face is more pretty than beautiful. Two soft green eyes flank a button-sized nose that resides just above a pair of full lips. While neither round or angular, the shape of her face lies somewhere in between with her having inherited the jawline of her father and the plainer lines of her mother.
Body Build: Slender, she has very little strength to speak of and her physique reflects this in its lack of muscular definition. Not as well endowed as some of the bustier women of court, Emma is flat-chested with only her wide hips to off-set it. This is alright, however, as her mother has reassured her time and time again, for large hips are preferred for more successful child-bearing and far more useful than large breasts.
Height: 5' 6"
Weight: 115 lbs
Picture(s): See avatar.

General Information
Allegiance: England
Rank: Daughter of a Lord
Weapon: None
Major Skills:

• Having been raised in a privileged household, Emma is quite learned in many subjects. She can read and write in Latin, French, and Spanish. Her passion for learning has extended to other matters as well in life, allowing her an above average intelligence when it comes to many things.
• One of her greatest pleasures in life is horseback riding, and so she has become more than a proficient equestrian.
• A secret skill she frequently practices is writing fiction under the guise of keeping a personal diary. Many of the events and people she writes about are fictionalised exaggerations of what actually occurred or who the person actually is.

Minor Skills:

• She understands a few popular languages beyond her own but she is not as fluent when it comes to speaking them, preferring her native one to any others.
• As any respectable lady is, Emma can keep a household organised and running smoothly in the absence of her parents. She can cook, clean, sew, and perform any other number of menial tasks required for maintaining a good living.
• Her love of animals, especially horses, allows her to get along with them rather well. She has been known to be able to calm down an excited or frightened horse on occasion.
• She has a lovely singing voice, but a terrible fear of public singing which prevents many from hearing her heavenly vocals.

Additional Items:
+Personal diary
+Black Friesian horse named Henry after His Majesty who so graciously gave the creature to the Hirst household


Additional Information
Personality: Emma is a gentle soul. From childhood she was quiet and good-natured with that behaviour following into her teen years as well. Shy, she isn't one to attempt to draw attention to herself, but if attention does happen her way she is amiable and does her best to be pleasant company. Growing up in an established household with nobility often passing through, she has been taught what is appropriate of a lady of her standing and what is not. Well-mannered and serviceable, she is humble and acts the role of the submissive daughter, never daring to defy her parent's wishes. Afraid of conflict, she strives to avoid it at all costs even if it means biting back her own beliefs. Tame and calm, Emma hopes to go through life without running into any unseemly complications and tries to remain as chaste and virtuous as she can in order to avoid bringing shame unto her family name.

A downside to her submissive, innocent nature is that she is rarely aware of when she's being taken advantage of even when it's obvious to those around her. She does what she's told, and is altogether too trusting when it comes to strangers (and sometimes even family and friends). Having led a sheltered life in the country, she is naive and ignorant of much of the darker side to courtly life. She prefers seeing the good in people instead of the bad, and thus it is difficult to get on her bad side if she even has one. Her hopes and her dreams for life are simple: to make a good match that her parents approve of, have children, and be a good wife to a loving husband.
History: Born and raised in the country, Emma's earliest memories consist of chasing around her older sister, Jane, and being chided for "such silliness" by their eldest sister, Margaret. Life was simple then with the youngest Hirst child being ignorant of any political troubles brewing across England. Her largest concerns had been behaving herself around guests and trying to look and act as prettily as her older sisters whom she both loved and admired beyond words. Margaret whom always tried to act as though she were older than she actually was was like a second mother to Emma as she was growing up, but Jane was like her best friend being her seniour by only two years. There was always a bit of tension throughout the household due to her mother's inability to produce a male for her father, but Emma was never aware of the issue until she was much older. The marriage between Lord Hirst and Lady Hirst was one of convenience, and originally loveless though there was a trust and respect between her parents that came close to imitating love. This, too, was something that continued to go unnoticed by Emma even up to the present.

The nice thing about being the youngest child was that Emma went largely unnoticed for the most part while her parents focused on marrying off the eldest two sisters. Margaret ended up making an astoundingly good match, marrying into the famed Howard family who was renowned for their connections to the Crown, not to mention their manipulations and ruthless cunning when it came to getting what they wanted. This put the Hirsts in a good position, even leading them to getting to host a revel for the King at one point. Their status soared with the connection to the Howard family and also raised their manner of living, making them the envy of many of their neighbors. For the young Emma, it just meant that she got more pretty dresses.

Another critical change occurred in her placid lifestyle when their family was requested to move to Aquitaine by His Majesty's royal orders. Unbeknown to her at the time, but the newly crowned King Henry VIII was transplanting loyal families into Aquitaine in order to more firmly gain a hold of the land across the sea. Emma adapted with relative ease, things being much the same as always only in a new land; they were granted a nice estate of land and Henry even gave them a few horses, including a pony that her parents let her personally keep which she aptly titled Henry after the generous King who gave him to them. In the end, however, even the supplanted families loyal to the Crown weren't enough to stop the Duke of Aquitaine from proclaiming himself King and taking over with his radicals.

It was around this time that her family began conspiring with the Howards about how to bring Aquitaine back into the English fold. Their answer: marrying their remaining daughters off to Aquitine noblemen in hopes that they'd be able to persuade them into denouncing the "King" and returning to English rule. And so it was that Jane was married off to a man of remarkable reputation--very little of it good--who was relatively close to some of the "King's" good friends, and knew the "King" himself. The next two years were then devoted to honing and readying Emma for marriage, but the shy girl was proving less malleable for such manipulations of gentlemen as her sisters.

And then tragedy struck when Jane died in childbirth, the child following suit, and leaving Count Russell with no child and no reason to persuade others to join in him rejoining with England. A failure for the Hirsts and Howards that was not likely to be repeated with Emma whom her parents were convinced was one of their last hopes for culminating loyalist sentiments amongst a wealthy, powerful nobleman. Emma, more or less, is ignorant to just how deep she's being manipulated and for just what she's being groomed for. All she sees is her family trying to make a good match for her which is simplifying the matter to an incorrect extreme. Now with their family having moved to court at Bordeaux, it is Emma's chance to hook the right bachelor if she can . . .

RP Sample
From Sithspawn:

Your character has been approved! You may now join the RP with them! Welcome to Aquitaine!