Before Charles and Diana, before the impeachment of Bill Clinton,
and long before the slogan "the personal is political," an
astonishing British royal sex scandal threatened to trigger a
revolution. Its lessons for leadership, popularity, and the impact
of the absurd on history are fascinating. In The Trial of Queen
Caroline, Jane Robins tells the story of one of history's least
happy marriages. The future George IV could not be bothered to meet
Caroline, Princess of Brunswick, a woman "with indelicate
manners...and not very inviting appearance," before she arrived for
the wedding. He was immediately disgusted by her. He far preferred
one of his mistresses, whom he had secretly married in a Catholic
ceremony, knowing that the British state would not recognize the
marriage if it ever came to light. In 1797, just three years after
George and Caroline wed, the couple separated. George wrote to her
that "our inclinations are not in our power, nor should either of
us be held answerable to the other. "As Robins relates, Caroline
took him at his word and proceeded to live exactly as she pleased,
departing for Europe and a life of scandalous associations and
debauched parties. Rumors of Caroline's lifestyle soon reached
George, still Prince of Wales, who determined that she would never
become Queen. To the shock of the nation, he demanded that the
popular Caroline face a trial for adultery. The potential
consequences included a death sentence at worst, and certain
divorce and disgrace. The voice of the popular press, raised in
anger for the first time in Britain, roared in disapproval. Riots
spread in the countryside. The mother of a single, deceased child,
Caroline became the public's favorite martyr. Jane Robins combines
prodigious archival research with a sharp eye for telling detail.
She shows how the rise of the partisan press helped magnify the
story, until, at its peak, Caroline's trial became the story of a
bad marriage that brought England to the very brink of revolution.
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