The Wives of George IV

by Catherine Curzon

Subtitled ‘The Secret Bride, The Scorned Princess’, The Wives of George IV tells the stories of two women: twice-widowed Maria Fitzherbert who married the-then Prince of Wales in a secret ceremony, and Caroline of Brunswick – the king’s official bride whom he married for money and alternately loved and loathed.

Barred from marrying Maria both by The Marriages Act of Settlement and the Marriages Act, the hapless Prince of Wales nevertheless proceeded with the union after pursuing his wouldbe bride in an intensive courtship of more than a year which ended in an illegal marriage ceremony at her home. For George, the thrill of the chase was more important than a long-standing union and when he needed a release from his substantial debts, he began to look elsewhere for a wealthy bride, settling his attentions on Caroline of Brunswick.

This second union would give the Georgian press years more of court gossip in which to revel. This German princess had been brought up in a very different way to Maria Fitzherbert, in secluded isolation, and would have had no idea of the torment that would await her. Isolated from her new husband, humiliated by rumours of his infidelity and kept apart from the couple’s daughter, Charlotte, this second wife too would bitterly rue her royal union.

These stories were the sensation of Georgian Britain and many of our18th-century ancestors would have avidly followed the stories from the court as the man who had been one of Europe’s most eligible bachelors struggled to find love.

• Published by Pen and Sword Publishing (hardback) £20, (ebook) £8.99. ISBN 9781473897496. RB