Prince of Pleasure

Prince of Pleasure is a biography of George, Prince of Wales, later George IV, set against the political and cultural transformation of Georgian Britain. His lavish spending, relationships, marriage to Maria Fitzherbert and hostility to his official wife made him a symbol of aristocratic excess, while the illness of George III raised repeated constitutional questions about a regency.

David follows the prince’s manoeuvring between Whigs and Tories, his patronage of architecture and fashion and his eventual assumption of power as Prince Regent in 1811. The biography also examines the wars against Napoleon, the victories of Trafalgar and Waterloo and the social upheaval of industrialisation. George emerges as a contradictory figure whose taste shaped the Regency even when his conduct damaged the monarchy.