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  • Published: 1 August 2011
  • ISBN: 9781409017691
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 416
Categories:

A Royal Affair

George III and his Troublesome Siblings




The extraordinary story of Caroline Mathilde, as depicted in the award-winning film A Royal Affair.

The young George III was a poignant figure, humdrum on the surface yet turbulent beneath: hiding his own passions, he tried hard to be a father to his siblings and his nation. This intimate, fast-moving book tells their intertwined stories. His sisters were doomed to marry foreign princes and leave home forever; his brothers had no role and too much time on their hands - a recipe for disaster.

At the heart of Tillyard's story is Caroline Mathilde, who married the mad Christian of Denmark in her teens, but fell in love with the royal doctor Struensee: a terrible fate awaited them, despite George's agonized negotiations. At the same time he faced his tumultuous American colonies. And at every step a feverish press pounced on the gossip, fostering a new national passion - a heated mix of celebrity and sex.

  • Published: 1 August 2011
  • ISBN: 9781409017691
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 416
Categories:

About the author

Stella Tillyard

Stella Tillyard is a writer and historian whose acclaimed biographies include Aristocrats, Citizen Lord and A Royal Affair. Her first novel, Tides of War, was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012. She has lived in the USA and Italy and now lives in London.

Also by Stella Tillyard

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Praise for A Royal Affair

The story is brilliantly told. In its descriptive flourishes it is sometimes fearlessly novelistic, yet it travels long distances for scholarly scruples

John Mullan, Times Literary Supplement

In this superbly engrossing and revelatory book, Tillyard's detective instincts and clever narrative structure work together to inform and delight

Min Wild, Independent on Sunday

A joy to read, full of wit and fascinating detail. This is history told by a master storyteller

Princess Michael of Kent, Mail on Sunday

A very good read. There is pace, colour and well-researched writing

Leslie Mitchell, Literary Review

Dr Tillyard's masterful and entertaining accounts of the fates of George's brothers are poignant reminders of the curse of being born royal

Ben Wilson, Spectator

The numerous fans of her Aristocrats (in which number I include myself) will not be disappointed: here is the same judicious mixture of intimacy and scholarship

Antonia Fraser, Sunday Times

A Royal Affair is an entertaining tale ...Tillyard's account of the brothers is heroic...[she] tells this astonishing tale with bravura

John de Falbe, Daily Telegraph

She has returned to what she knows-and does-best, teasing out the bonds of love, hate and pretend indifference that bind siblings, no matter what their historical pedigree, into a cat's cradle of consequence

Economist

A rollickingly good read

Observer

Stella Tillyard tells this astonishing tale with bravura

Sunday Telegraph

A ripping good yarn, told with convincing authority

The Times