eBook George III's Children download

This is a very complete account of every historical fact known about the children of George III. Great research was undertaken and all facts are footnoted. I personally am not a great fan of Van der Kiste's writing style, but it is straightforward and factual. No fanciful ideas are introduced. Since 15 individuals are involved, 13 of which attained adulthood, he did a pretty good job of keeping them all straight in the reader's mind. I would have appreciated first names being used more, perhaps together with their titles. After the boys were given dukedoms and some of the girls married, their titles were given instead of names, or perhaps they were just referred to as the Duke. This became somewhat confusing. At the end of the book, genealogies were included as well as a list of each child with significant dates, titles, marriages, and issue, but since I was reading on Kindle, it was not easy to go to the end to see which son was Cambridge, which Cumberland, etc. Maybe most people don't care, but for some reason, I became very interested in these individuals. I had already read the biography of Queen Charlotte, so they were not complete strangers to me. George III suffered from a very sad hereditary disease, which was considered insanity in his day. A number of his children suffered from the same, but not to the intense degree in which it affected George III. This George seems to have been a noble, very Christian ruler, conscientious, and faithful to his wife and family. The realization that he had lost the American colonies plus trouble with his 3 oldest sons seems to have provoked his first attack. Although he recovered from this attack, he continued to have spells that finally rendered him unable to rule and resulted in his oldest son being appointed Regent. George III lived to the age of 81, and I believe his total reign, including the regency, is the third longest for an English or British monarch after Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria. Queen Elizabeth II still has about two years to go in order to pass Queen Victoria's record. A strange possessiveness started by G. III and later enforced by Queen Charlotte resulted in the passage of a law restricting the marriage of his children. This law, although perhaps well intended, seemed to cause anguish to almost all of the 13. Some of the sons had many children, one 10, with mistresses whom they were not allowed to marry, and so the children were illegitimate and not eligible for the throne. The Prince of Wales, the future George IV, was pushed into marriage with a suitably royal German princess with a close familiar tie, who produced one daughter. This German princess caused scandalous problems for the royal family and left for the continent before George IV attained the throne. The daughter was raised in England and suitably married, but her untimely death at age 21 bearing a stillborn child, left Fredrick,the second son, in line for the succession. Unfortunately, Prince Fredrick's wife was barren, and he himself predated his father in death. Now the responsibility fell upon the third son, William, he of the 10 illegitimate children. Somehow he found Adelaide, an older princess of a small kingdom in Europe, who was willing to marry him and be a step mother to the 10 previous kids. Several miscarriages prevented this couple too from producing an heir. Edward, the next duke, number 4, suffered an untimely death, but before he expired, he fathered a daughter with a legitimate wife of royal blood. Who was this little daughter, and will she survive to adulthood? Don't worry though; there are still 3 more dukes available as well as some six sisters, so you would think the succession was secured. As you can see, this is a fascinating story although rather dryly written. The facts themselves are stranger than fiction.

This book provided great information about the children of King George III. One of the pieces of information it provided was which of George III children Queen Victoria was a descendant of. It was also interesting how King George and his wife had 15 children yet had very few grandchildren, with most of the descendants of later years came from only one of his sons. Queen Charlotte the wife of King George III was a very distant and selfish woman in regards to her children. She selfishly clung to all of her daughters to the point that either they married when they were almost or over the age of 40, which was too late for them to have children, or they remain spinsters. The only thing that I did not like about the book was that initially the author would refer to the children by their name, until they received a title other than prince or princess. Afterwards the author referred to them by their title. Since there were so many children, it was often hard to keep track of who was who. I solved the problem by writing each of the children's name and title down, on a slip of paper that I could constantly refer to. Also, it would have been nice if the author provided pictures, other than those on the cover of the book. Despite these minor drawbacks, this book was a good read.

For the casual student of the Georgian era, this is a good read about George III, Queen Charlotte and their fifteen children. A less tough woman could never have survived the barbaric childbirth practices of the era. While well intentioned, George and Charlotte were just not that bright or clever, and did not bring up any bright or clever children. Perhaps a more enlightened education would have helped the boys, for the Prince of Wales, later Prince Regent, was a hot mess, and his brothers followed in his footsteps. Womanizing spendthrifts, they lacked any sense of how government works, and their role in it. The daughters were kept cloistered in a kind of harem presided over their prudish and selfish mother, and only two escaped into the only career open to them, marriage. These descendents of a buffoon imported from Hanover Germany to replace the Stuarts remain not too bright to this day, but at least they have the good sense now to marry attractive people.

A very few pages into this book, Queen Victoria is called George III's great-granddaughter. She was, of course, his granddaughter. How could this mistake have not been caught? Gave it three stars only because I haven't read any further yet, and want to be fair. Update: author very quickly and pleasantly responded that he caught this error, but it wasn't changed. Upgraded to four stars.

I have read several of the authors books but this was not a great effort on his part. The book was a very slow read and while I have read many books about royals and been able to keep the names and titles separate, this author made it very difficult to know which of George III's many children he was referring to.

The only problem was that it was challenging to read as the constant changes in names used to identify the characters was confusing. I recommend you have a genealogy chart with you. All in all though it was a good read.

george iii and his queen sons were money spending ,lusty ,selfish men who only give pain and shame to their parents.the sister parents were so selfish not letting them to married have they own family. dsyfucnial family who make i present royal family look healthy.