Regent's Queen

THE STRANGER IN THE HOUSE--Howard Coxe--Greysfone ($2.50).

Howard Coxe says nobody has ever cared enough about her to give a fair picture of Caroline of Brunswick, consort of George IV (Regent of England from 1811 to 1820). This statement is not quite true (besides an Italian biography translated in 1907, there has been the more recent Queen Caroline by Sir Edward Parry), but Author Coxe's sympathy and well-oiled wit make his biography of much-abused Caroline a pleasant addition to Regency history.

A frumpish German princess with healthy bad manners, Caroline was at first misinformed into expecting a happy marriage with a handsome prince. Met at Gravesend by George's most politely poisonous mistress, she took it on the chin from then on. At first sight of his betrothed, the swollen Prince retired to a far corner and asked for brandy. Their subsequent battles stirred up almost as much fuss in England as the contemporary Napoleonic Wars.

"Prinney," as the Prince was called, had a spoiled passion for his secret wife, Maria Fitzherbert (once, when near death from nerves, hangovers and bloodletting, he wrote a soulful will in her favor), and a funning relationship with catty Lady Jersey. It amused Lady Jersey to put Epsom salts in Caroline's food during the royal honeymoon. After their separation, the Prince indulged his hatred of Caroline by keeping her from their child, Charlotte. Caroline proceeded to mother every unattached infant she could lay her hands on, adopting one "Willikins" who turned out half-witted. In fits of raffish humor she sometimes hinted that Willikins was hers; though she also said (truthfully, according to Biographer Coxe): "De only time I ever committed adultery was wid de husband of Mrs. Fitzherbert."

If the English did not know what to do with the Prince, they knew still less what to do with the Princess, whose high spirits, admired by Lord Byron, became hoydenish and pathetic with middle age. Prinney tried and failed to trump up enough scandal about Caroline to get a divorce. Caroline sailed off to Italy and behaved outrageously but always just within the law. When Prinney became King in 1820 he had her name struck from the Prayer Book. She returned to London to fight it out.

Given a greater reception than even Wellington had had, vindicated as Queen in a summer-long session of the House of Lords, brash Caroline pushed her triumph too far. Forbidden to attend the Coronation, she tried to enter Westminster Abbey and was hooted by the crowd. Broken in spirit, perhaps understanding at last what a clown she had appeared for years, she failed rapidly. When news of Napoleon's death on St. Helena reached England, a satellite informed the King: "Sir, your greatest enemy is dead!" "Is she, by God?" cried Prinney, slapping his thigh.

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