I found this to be a worthwhile book to read. While touching on the entire family of George III, it details the life of the oldest son, who became in time George IV. He did not seem to be a very likable person, but he was the only hope of his six sisters who were held on such short leases by their parents. He definitely seems to have a lack of personal relationship skills, but the worst debacle was his marriage to Caroline. The two could not have been less compatible, and I think they separated right after the failed honeymoon, however, she did get pregnant and bear a daughter. This girl died young after giving birth to a stillborn boy, so that was the end of the line for the dynasty of George IV. George III and his wife had a lot of sons, I think it was about seven who lived to adulthood, but most of them didn't have legal marriages, so their offspring were illegitimate and not able to inherit the throne. The next brother after George, Fredrick, died without heirs, so the rest of the brothers left their mistresses and started looking for princesses who would be acceptable for a royal marriage. The third brother was William, the Duke of Clarence. He had an actress as a mistress, and with her had 10 illegitimate children, but he left her and found a princess, Adelaide, who was willing to marry him. Although William succeeded his brother as William IV, poor Adelaide couldn't produce a living child. Next was Edward, the Duke of Kent. He found a princess named Victoria to marry, and they had a baby girl, who they named Victoria. However when the baby was only 8 months old, the Duke of Kent, died of a respiratory infection. The next two sons each had a boy named George, born shortly after Victoria, but she was the heir as the daughter of the older of the brothers after William. According to British law,
women were not prohibited from coming to the throne as was the case in France and other European countries. So, the long and successfi; reign Queen Victoria was thus implemented.
Returning to the present story, it is sad to read how a well-meaning, Christian couple like George III and his wife could have such a disaster with all of their children. The sons were dissolute, and the daughters were miserable, repressed and over-protected women. George III had
wanted to reverse the trend of his fore bearers, and produce an exemplary family, but it didn't happen. All of the preceding Hanoverian kings, George I and II had detested their crown princes, and the same thing happened between George III and Prince George. George III's bouts of insanity of course did not help the situation. Although the reign of George III was the longest of any English or British monarch prior to Queen Victoria and now the present Queen Elizabeth II, who has surpassed them all, for the last years, George III had become hopelessly psychotic, and a regency was formed with the future George IV as the Regent. When he became the actual king upon the death of his father, his
estranged wife, Caroline, showed up and wanted to be in on the coronation and be honored as the queen. She had been living a very dissolute and disordered life in Europe, and George had been equally bed in England, but he would not have her upon any circumstances, and she was actually physically disbarred at the door where the coronation was taking place. Defeated, she went back to Europe where she sickened and died. Victoria married her maternal cousin Albert and the two of them became the morally exemplary monarchs that George III had envisioned. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history.
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