WIVES OF GEORGE IV: The Secret Bride & The Scorned Princess

In Georgian England, few men were more fashionable or more eligible than George, Prince of Wales, heir to one of the most powerful thrones in the world. Wild, glamorous, and with a penchant for beautiful women, the 57 year marriage of George III and Queen Caroline was by far the most fruitful of any of the kings of Georgian Britain. From the birth of George IV in 1762 to that of princess Amelia in 1783, Queen Charlotte was either carrying a child or recovering from a birth for more than 20 years. Maria Fitzherbert was a twice-widowed Roman Catholic with a natural aversion to trouble. When she married the prince in a secret ceremony conducted in her Mayfair sitting room, she opened the door on three decades of heartbreak. Cast aside by her husband one minute, pursued tirelessly by him the next, Maria's clandestine marriage was anything but blissful. It was also the worst kept secret in England. Caroline of Brunswick was George's official bride. Little did she know that her husband was marrying for money and when she reached her new home in England, she found him so drunk that he couldn't even walk to the altar. Caroline might not have her husband's love, but the public adored her. In a world where radicalism was stirring, it was a recipe for disaster. Maria and Caroline never met but navigated the choppy waters of marriage to a capricious, womanising king-in-waiting. With a queen on trial for adultery and the succession itself in the balance, Britain had never seen scandal like it. The King's two marriages provided acres of newsprint and oceans of gossip. 32 illus. 201 pages.