Anne Somerset takes us on, through Queen Caroline’s eccentric behaviour and George IV’s numerous mistresses to Victoria’s overturning of a Tory government by her unconstitutional refusal to lose her mostly fiercely Whig ladies, her maltreatment of Lady Flora Hastings and the freezing gloom of Balmoral. As this book was first published in 1984, we learn nothing about today’s court, but it is a fascinating reprint.