Tragedy in Tights

Rosemary Hill

• Rebel Queen: The Trial of Caroline by Jane Robins
  Simon and Schuster, 370 pp, £20.00, June 2006, ISBN 0 7432 4862 7

As marriages of convenience go, few can have turned out less conveniently than that of George IV and Caroline of Brunswick. The couple brought out the worst in each other, and there was a great deal to bring out, for among the few things they had in common were obstinacy, irresponsibility and an almost total lack of self-control. From the moment they met until what Walter Scott called the ‘brutal insanity’ of the queen’s trial for adultery in 1820, the relationship was a catastrophe acted out in public with little regard for decency, let alone dignity. Ever since, this riveting spectacle of royals behaving badly has offered ample scope for political and moral critics as well as a vast amount of more or less innocent amusement to the population at large. It is a story that bears retelling, and though Jane Robins makes no claims to have discovered anything new, she has enough insights and emphases of her own to make her deftly written account of the trial and its consequences worthwhile.