by Lucy Worsley
This is an entertaining, readable, yet well-researched look at the royal courts of George I and II of England (early to mid-18th century). Worsley picks out a handful of people and follows them throughout the book: a royal mistress who was also the queen’s lady-in-waiting; an ambitious painter who g...
Really 4.5 stars.
Worsley tracks the people and art that populated the courts of George I and II of England. She has a very easy to read style, but cites well and was able to draw upon a good number of first-person sources. That said, there were three things I distinctly disliked about this book. One, Worsley has a...
A fascinating portrait of the early Georgian court, from the kings and their mostly dysfunctional families to the servants, inspired by a vast painting on a staircase in Kensington Palace that shows many of the ordinary people who worked there, not just the rich and famous.
I was very pleased with this book. Full of details about the lives of George II of England, and his wife, Queen Caroline (a woman who really deserves a biography of her own), along with various attendants, mistresses, and servants. The little drawings throughout the text really do add a lot to the s...