The King's Wife

The King's Wife
Author: Valerie Irvine
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2007-08-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 184725053X

a highly readable account of a love match that pre-echoes the later relationship of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Memoirs of Mrs Fitzherbert

Memoirs of Mrs Fitzherbert
Author: Charles Langdale
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2013-07-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1108064590

An 1856 defence of Maria Fitzherbert's virtue and Catholicism, with regard to her unlawful marriage to the future George IV.

The Wives of George IV

The Wives of George IV
Author: Catherine Curzon
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2022-01-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1473897513

The scandalous life of George IV is revealed in this account of his marriage to Princess Caroline and his secret union with a longtime mistress. In Georgian England, few men were more eligible than the Prince of Wales. The heir to George III’s throne would seem to be an excellent catch. Though the two women who married him might beg to differ. Maria Fitzherbert was a twice-widowed Roman Catholic with a natural aversion to trouble. When she married the prince in a secret ceremony, she opened the door on three decades of heartbreak. Cast aside by her husband one minute, pursued by him tirelessly 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. When she arrived for the ceremony, 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. In The Wives of George IV, Maria and Caroline navigate the choppy waters of marriage to the capricious, womanizing king-in-waiting. With a queen on trial for adultery and the succession itself in the balance, Britain had never seen scandal like it.

A Historical Dictionary of British Women

A Historical Dictionary of British Women
Author: Cathy Hartley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 1031
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135355347

This reference book, containing the biographies of more than 1,100 notable British women from Boudicca to Barbara Castle, is an absorbing record of female achievement spanning some 2,000 years of British life. Most of the lives included are those of women whose work took them in some way before the public and who therefore played a direct and important role in broadening the horizons of women. Also included are women who influenced events in a more indirect way: the wives of kings and politicians, mistresses, ladies in waiting and society hostesses. Originally published as The Europa Biographical Dictionary of British Women, this newly re-worked edition includes key figures who have died in the last 20 years, such as The Queen Mother, Baroness Ryder of Warsaw, Elizabeth Jennings and Christina Foyle.

Who was the Man in the Iron Mask?

Who was the Man in the Iron Mask?
Author: Hugh Ross Williamson
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780141390970

Sheds new light on a broad spectrum of tantalizing historical mysteries, answering questions, re-evaluating the evidence, and drawing on the latest research to offer provocative questions about Charles I's executioner, the true identity of the Man in the Iron Mask, the real father of Elizabeth I, and more. Original.

The King and the Catholics

The King and the Catholics
Author: Antonia Fraser
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2019-11-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0525564837

In the eighteenth century, the Catholics of England lacked many basic freedoms under the law: they could not serve in political office, buy or inherit land, or be married by the rites of their own religion. So virulent was the sentiment against Catholics that, in 1780, violent riots erupted in London—incited by the anti-Papist Lord George Gordon—in response to the Act for Relief that had been passed to loosen some of these restrictions. The Gordon Riots marked a crucial turning point in the fight for Catholic emancipation. Over the next fifty years, factions battled to reform the laws of the land. Kings George III and George IV refused to address the “Catholic Question,” even when pressed by their prime ministers. But in 1829, through the dogged work of charismatic Irish lawyer Daniel O’Connell and the support of the great Duke of Wellington, the watershed Roman Catholic Relief Act finally passed, opening the door to the radical transformation of the Victorian age. Gripping, spirited, and incisive, The King and the Catholics is character-driven narrative history at its best, reflecting the dire consequences of state-sanctioned oppression—and showing how sustained political action can triumph over injustice.