Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III

Contemporary Review, April, 2005

Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III. Flora Fraser. John Murray. xix 476 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6108-6. Having written a biography of Queen Caroline the author has now turned her attention to that Queen's sisters-in-law. They were known as inhabitants of the Windsor Nunnery (their own term) because of their parents', and especially their mother's over-protection.

They led frustrated lives and were pitied by many yet they were, as the author points out, admirable in many ways. Mrs Fraser is also concerned to show that the seclusion which surrounded the Princesses, and the refusal to contemplate marriage, was in large part due to the King's illness and the effects of this on the Queen. While, as Maria Fitzherbert's biographer, this reviewer doubts that 'intimate' is the correct adjective to describe Mrs Fitzherbert's friendship with the Duchess of Devonshire, he along with others is impressed by the amount of work undertaken, especially in the Royal Archives, to give these often patronised Princesses a fair treatment. She has done much to correct centuries of neglect and to show that there was much more to them than either their contemporaries or historians have thought. (J.E.B.M.)