REBEL OF THE REGENCY

A defiant royal.

Making her book debut, Foster, host of the Vulgar History podcast, offers a chatty, gossipy biography of Caroline of Brunswick (1768-1821), the unhappy wife of George IV and, briefly, queen of Britain. When Caroline accepted a marriage proposal from the eldest son of George III, she looked forward to escaping her overprotective family. For his part, George, known as Prinny, agreed to marry so that Parliament would pay his mounting debts. He cared nothing about Caroline, since he already was secretly married to a commoner. Overweight, hard-drinking, and beset by health problems, Prinny was hardly a dream husband. He turned up drunk at their first meeting and was drunk at the wedding that elevated Caroline to princess of Wales. Nine months later, she gave birth to a daughter; she and Prinny lived apart thereafter, and she was barred from seeing her child. Mired in court intrigue, Caroline engaged in behavior—fostering wards, living abroad, allegedly taking lovers—that caused some to deem her insane. Prinny hated her, and in 1811, when he became regent after his father became too ill to reign, he banned Caroline and his daughter—both popular among the public—from his court. His efforts to divorce Caroline—intensifying after George III died, making her queen—only served to increase her popularity, as did decades of economic hardship that incited hatred of the self-indulgent Prinny and his gilded court. Foster contextualizes Caroline’s life within roiling political and social change, but she blunders in trying to make her relatable by comparing her to pop culture figures, such as Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, and “the wildest members of Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise.” Caroline was colorful enough in her own time to not need updating.

An eventful life, told with enthusiasm.