John Brooke
Foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales
King George III
London 1972
Stron XIX+411, format: 16x25 cm
14 czarno-białych ilustracji
Książka jest używana: bez defektów, stan dobry plus.
In common opinion King George III wasthe 'mad' King, the King who lost the American colonies. To Americans he is the King stigmatised in the Declaration of Independence as 'unfit to be the ruler of a free people'. This is all most people, either British or Americans, know about him.
Yet there is another side to King George 111. He was a great book collector, the founder of the Royal Academy, and a patron of art and science. He was a beloved and popular King, and his ideal of monarchy determined the pattern of the future. 'It is high time', writes the Prince of Wales in his foreword to this book, 'that the veil of obscurity stifling the King's true personality, known and loved by his contemporaries, should be lifted. Mr. Brooke's account of George Ill's life achieves this purpose.'
The book is based on a thorough study of the King's papers in the Royal Archives, and is written by one of the foremost historians of the eighteenth century. It is more than a political biography. It is an account of how royalty lived in the eighteenth century.
As the Prince of Wales explains, this book is 'by no means a whitewash of the King' but it does portray him 'in a thoroughly human and sympathetic manner'. King George 111 was neither a great man nor a great king, but he was a human being and not a cardboard figure of history. It is as a human being, with all his faults and follies, with all the qualities that make people loved and disliked, that the author has presented him.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD vii
INTRODUCTION XV
1 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER I
2 PRINCE OF WALES 26
3 POLITICAL APPRENTICESHIP 73
4 THE YEARS OF CONFUSION 123
5 REBELLION IN AMERICA 162
6 POLITICAL CRISIS 217
7 THE KING AND HIS FAMILY 260
8 THE KING'S ILLNESS 318
9 THE NEXT GENERATION 344 IO OLD AGE AND OBLIVION 374
NOTES 388
SOURCES 393
GENEALOGICAL TABLE 4OO
INDEX 4OI
|