I’ve been following Ann Foster  around the internet for awhile now. In her popular podcast, Vulgar History,  and now in her substack Vulgar History A La Carte, Foster uses wit and impeccable research to shine the light on  historical women whose stories have been forgotten or told through a misogynist lens.  Obviously this is my cup of lapsang  souchang with a scone on the side.  So I was delighted to learn she had a book coming out.

Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Queen without a Crown does not disappoint. Foster uses those same combination of wit and research to bring Caroline of Brunswick, the mistreated wife and never-crowned queen of George IV[1] of England back to center stage, where she always belonged.  Fond of big wigs, bright make-up and revealing clothing, Caroline was flamboyant, bold, thin-skinned, big-hearted, and determined to fight her husband for the marital rights he was equally determined to deny her.  The people of Britain loved her as much her husband hated her. Foster makes  the reader love her, too, without downplaying any of the traits that made her a “difficult woman.”

The result is an unfamiliar and unforgettable picture of Georgian England. The Regency  England of popular fiction looks pale by comparison.

[1] For those of you who have trouble keeping the Georges straight:

George IV served as Prince Regent from 1811-1820 due to his father’s descent into mental illness and then reigned from 1820 to 1830, though he left most of the work of ruling to others. He is best known for financial extravagance, personal excess, and an illegal clandestine marriage to a commoner, Maria Fitzhugh, well before his official marriage to Caroline of Brunswick. One of his senior aides wrote of him in his diary, “ A more contemptible, cowardly, selfish, unfeeling dog does not exist.” Neither a good king, nor a good man.