Princesses : the six daughters of George III
(Book)

"I am like poor Lear,' said George III at the height of his madness during the Regency crisis of 1788-9, 'but thank God I have no Regan, no Goneril, only three Cordelias.' He was referring to his elder daughters, Charlotte, Augusta and Elizabeth, whom he regarded - with their younger sisters, Mary, Sophia and Amelia - as symbols of perfect English womanhood. He had a lower opinion of his seven sons, headed by the dazzling Prince Regent. On the surface the sisters were busy, accomplished girls. Their lives were full of charitable works, music, bookbinding, embroidery, painting and silhouette cutting. However, the real story beneath their composed image was quite different. No one who reads Princesses will ever look in the same way again at the calm, composed women in Gainsborough's portraits. The king may have believed that his six daughters were happy to live celibately with him and Queen Charlotte at Windsor, but secretly, as Flora Fraser's absorbing narrative of royal repression and sexual licence shows, the sisters enjoyed startling freedom. Three of them, torn between love for their ailing father and longing for independence, forged their own scandalous and subversive lives within the castle walls. The other three were more circumspect, more desperate to marry. But each then faced difficulties with her husband and settled with relief into bustling widowhood.