Flora Fraser - The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline

Flora Fraser is the author of the bestselling biographies of Emma Hamilton, Beloved Emma, and Queen Caroline, The Unruly Queen. Her most recent biography, Princesses, is about the lives of the six daughters of George III. She lives in London with her husband and three children.

Princess Caroline of Brunswick. A contemporary commented on her penetrating eyes, long cut and rather sunk in the head.

Carolines mother. Her protuberant eyes and fleshy cast of features were characteristic of the English House of Hanover.

Carolines father, by Pompeo Batoni. Charles William Ferdinands resolute appearance was belied by a fatal tendency to vacillate.

George, Prince of Wales, was blessed at birth with looks, talent and fortune all of which he dissipated.

Mrs Fitzherbert, the Catholic widow who was illicitly married to the Prince of Wales by an Anglican clergyman.

Caroline, Princess of Wales, on her wedding day. Her bridegroom, the Prince of Wales spent the night that followed under the grate, where he fell, and where I left him, recorded the bride.

The Princess of Wales lavished affection on her daughter, Princess Charlotte, during her infancy at Carlton House.

Frances, Lady Jersey, the Princes mistress.

Charlotte, Lady Douglas, who maligned the Princess of Wales.

Isabella, Lady Hertford, the Princes Tory confidante.

William Austin, the Deptford boy whom Caroline adopted.

Princess Charlotte, painted during an adolescence bedevilled by her parents quarrels.

The elaborate monument to Princess Charlotte erected in St Georges Chapel, Windsor, following her death in childbirth.

A prurient crowd jostles for a view of a loyalist printsellers display of anti-Queenite caricatures.

James Gillrays response to the Princes intended second marriage. Mrs Fitzherbert, with tattered feathers, flees, sinister, while an idealized Princess Caroline appears dexter.

One of a series of fifty plates illustrating The Attorney-Generals Charges and attacking the Queen. This witty caricature illustrates the charge that Pergami attended the Princess when she bathed on shipboard.

Another cartoon from The Attorney-Generals Charges. Pergami rides a she-goat with the head of Queen Caroline. Lake Como and the Villa dEste lie behind them.

Cruikshank shows the Kings and Queens heads emergent from the infamous Green Bags. A rare even-handed caricature.

The Effusions of a Troubled Brain. The Queen, hair on end, is surrounded by subversive writings; the owl above wears a fools cap.

Opposite, top: Henry Brougham, the MP and lawyer, who made the Queens cause his own after some hesitation.

Opposite, bottom: The Queens defence resisted strenuously the charge that the Queen had placed her hand on Pergamis private parts.

Above: On trial in the House of Lords, the Queen is visible, right, while Lord Grey, arm outflung, declaims.

An intoxicating evening at Brandyburg House, where the queen dreams of coronation. Lady Anne Hamilton wears a Scotch bonnet.

A regatta before Brandenburg House, to accompany the Watermen of Englands arrival with their address to the Queen. Gin and gingerbread were handed out on the lawns.

A view of King George IVs Coronation procession, showing the wooden platform and one of the spectator galleries built for the occasion.