The Trials of the King of Hampshire: Madness, Secrecy and Betrayal in Georgian England

by Elizabeth Foyster

Overview

A Guardian best history book of 2016

Eccentric, shy aristocrat ... or mad, bad and dangerous to know?

Neighbour Jane Austen found the 3rd earl of Portsmouth a model gentleman and Lord Byron maintained that, while the man was a fool, he was certainly no madman. Behind closed doors, though, Portsmouth delighted in pinching his servants so that they screamed, asked dairy-maids to bleed him with lancets and was obsessed with attending funerals. After he’d lived this way for years, in 1823 his own family set out to have him declared insane. Still reeling from the madness of King George, society could not tear itself away from what would become the longest, costliest and most controversial insanity trial in British history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786071781
Publisher:	Oneworld Publications
Publication date:	10/10/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Foyster is a Fellow and Senior College Lecturer at Clare College, Cambridge. She explores the sort of subjects that are often left out of the history books – childhood, married life, sex, relationships with siblings and parents, masculinity, old age and widowhood. She lives in Barnet, North London.

Editorial Reviews

‘Thoroughly absorbing...heading beyond the immediate confines of its subject...the 3rd earl emerges...as a Georgian “character” to rank with Beau Brummell or Parson Woodforde’.

Times - DJ Taylor

'A highly engaging book that should reach a wide public'.

Times Literary Supplement - Anne Crowther

‘Foyster documents a family scandal ripped directly from early nineteenth-century headlines...The standing-room-only proceedings are exhaustively detailed, but equally as compelling are the stories of Wallop’s family, friends, and servants, who contributed, one way or another, to his cover-up, his exposure, and his downfall.’

Booklist

‘Ms. Foyster did a wonderful job taking all of the information from the case and putting it into chapter form to make it easier for the layperson to understand. She really makes you look at how those with mental disorders or disabilities were treated in Georgian England and makes you wonder if it is any different than today.’

San Francisco Book Review

‘Foyster has turned a great mound of papers lying neglected in the Lambeth Palace Library into a grippingly readable tale.’

London Review of Books Terry Eagleton

‘Highly readable and illuminates the world Portsmouth lived in. Cameos by the family of Jane Austen and Lord Byron are an added bonus.’

Historical Novel Society

‘One of the early nineteenth century’s most notorious lunacy inquiries and a dynasty in turmoil...If this were a novel, no one would believe it.’

Sarah Wise

‘Extensively researched and gracefully written.’

New York Times Book Review

‘Fascinating’.

Spectator

‘Foyster proves to be not only a scrupulous and thorough historian, but also a delightfully inquisitive one...compelling.’

Literary Review Miranda Seymour

‘Reveals an aristocratic household turned upside down by scandal and mental illness...Unputdownable.’

John Guy

‘A well-informed, sympathetic portrayal of an extraordinary world.’

Best History Books of 2016 Guardian

‘Portsmouth’s story unfolds like a novel, filled with blackmail, abductions, adultery, secret marriages, disputed inheritances and family scandals. Readers will find the book difficult to put down. There’s also a Canadian postscript to the story: Portsmouth’s widow eventually immigrated to Canada and settled in Chatham-Kent where the story of “How the Countess of Portsmouth came to Chatham” remains a fixture of haunted walks in his Ontario town.’

royalhistorian.com - Dr Carolyn Harris

‘Extraordinary...A well researched and vividly readable account.’

Catharine Arnold

‘Foyster documents a family scandal ripped directly from early nineteenth-century headlines...The standing-room-only proceedings are exhaustively detailed, but equally as compelling are the stories of Wallop’s family, friends, and servants, who contributed, one way or another, to his cover-up, his exposure, and his downfall.’

Booklist

'A highly engaging book that should reach a wide public'.

Times Literary Supplement

‘Thoroughly absorbing…heading beyond the immediate confines of its subject…the 3rd earl emerges…as a Georgian “character” to rank with Beau Brummell or Parson Woodforde’.

Times

‘Reveals an aristocratic household turned upside down by scandal and mental illness...Unputdownable.’

bestselling author of Elizabeth: The Forgotten John Guy

‘Extraordinary...A well researched and vividly readable account.’

author of Necropolis: London and Its Dead Catharine Arnold

…[an] extensively researched and gracefully written account of how a member of the House of Lords became the subject of a legal investigation called a Commission of Lunacy.

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

"Extensively researched and gracefully written ... Compassion, of which he got precious little in his life, is exactly what Portsmouth receives from Foyster."
—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

"Portsmouth’s story unfolds like a novel, filled with blackmail, abductions, adultery, secret marriages, disputed inheritances and family scandals. Readers will find the book difficult to put down."
—Carolyn Harris, The Royal Historian

"Foyster proves to be not only a scrupulous and thorough historian, but also a delightfully inquisitive one…as compelling as a Wilkie Collins novel."
—Literary Review

"If this were a novel, no one would believe it."
— Sarah Wise, author of Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England

"Reveals an aristocratic household turned upside down by scandal and mental illness. Taboos of sex, death, and politeness are routinely shattered, with tragic, sometimes hilarious results. Unputdownable.
—John Guy, bestelling author of Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years

‘"Extraordinary...A well researched and vividly readable account."
—Catharine Arnold, author of Necropolis: London and Its Dead

"The standing-room-only proceedings are exhaustively detailed, but equally as compelling are the stories of Wallop’s family, friends, and servants, who contributed, one way or another, to his cover-up, his exposure, and his downfall."
—Booklist

From the Publisher