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Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill Jean Plaidy 9780449217405 Books

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Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill Jean Plaidy 9780449217405 Books

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Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill Jean Plaidy 9780449217405 Books Reviews

George IV, when he is Prince of Wales, falls in love with Maria FitzHerbert. Unlike the other women he's fallen in love with, this one refuses to become his mistress. Why doesn't he marry her? There is a slight problem. It is illegal for an heir to the throne of England to marry a Catholic. If he does marry her, he will give up his right. He secretly marries her, and after a few years of happiness, he realized his mistake. But when he realizes it wasn't a mistake, he had already left her. What follows is a lifetime of even more heartbreak for the poor Prince.
If you've read The Secret Wife of King George IV, you may be cautious about reading this one. Don't worry! It is much more respectable and accurate, as are all of Jean Plaidy's works. It is wonderfully and beautifully written, with a haunting historical lesson.
It is no secret that I am a huge Plaidy fan. Yet, I will be honest and give this book a 4, instead of my more generous 5.
This was a very good and well researched account on Georgie Porgie and his "real" wife. I did find it interesting that no mention was made about the supposed children that Mrs.Fitzherbert may or may not have borne. Wasn't sure what to make of that aspect. Is it in the next book or was it overlooked or did it never happen?
The book, I thought, was a little disjointed and perhaps more could have been told of the Prince's later philanderings. What a life they led! So reckless and without a care or responsibility. I learn so much from these books, a life so different and chaotic.
Great read, and very hard to put down.
I polished off Jean Plaidy's Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill today. It's a vast improvement over Diane Haeger's The Secret Wife of King George IV, and also an improvement over Plaidy's The Third George.

Like the Haeger book, this tells the story of Maria Fitzherbert's marriage to Prince George--or part of the story, anyway, as the novel ends immediately before George's marriage to Caroline. Though the viewpoint shifts between various characters, the focus is mainly on George and his misadventures, at least until the last third or so of the book, when it shifts to the dysfunctional royal family as a whole. (So dysfunctional and featherbrained is this bunch, in fact, that I found myself longing for the Plantagenets, who seem like a breath of sanity by comparison.)

Plaidy's prose is a little less stiff than usual, perhaps because with George III talking to trees, a Madam von Schwellenburg talking to her pet toads ("'Herr Prince vos up to no goot'"), and everyone taking snuff, it's hard not to have a little authorial fun. My only real complaint, in fact, was with the abrupt ending. I'll have to wait until the next book in the series, Indiscretions of the Queen, to see whether George ever comes back to Maria and whether Queen Charlotte ever throws her snuffbox at Prince George.
Jean Plaidy (Victoria Holt) does a service to readers that writers of historical biographies seem unable to do. She tells a good story and makes the people seem real. Biographies of royalty tend to be stilted, heavily burdened with the intricacies of politics and remote from the person and character of the royal. They are not fun to read. Plaidy's novels are fairly close to historical fact without being tediously so.
The Sweet Lass of Richmond not only is fun to read, it brings to mind an interesting parallel between George IV and his great-great-great nephew, The Duke of Windsor. Both men were the brilliant centers of fashionable society, on bad terms with their fathers, and both fell heedlessly in love with unacceptable, older women. Where Wallis Simpson was a twice-divorced woman, Maria Fitzherbert was a twice-widowed woman. Where Wallis did not mind welcoming her prince into her bedchamber outside of marriage, devotely Catholic Maria Fitzherbert would have nothing less than marriage before she'd consent to give in to her prince. This drove George IV into a secret marriage, a device that allowed him to keep his place in the succession while enjoying the marital favors of the woman he loved. Had this marriage been open, he not only would have been at odds with his father for marrying without the King's consent, he would be barred from the succession for marrying a Catholic. George IV wanted Maria, his crown and his debts paid. George ended up choosing money and the Crown over Maria, his good wife--a choice he regretted for the rest of his life.
After his affair with Perdita Robinson, Prince George sets his sites on yet another older woman. But this time she's more respectable in the eyes of society. Maria Fitzherbert has been married and widowed twice already, but is a good and charming woman any man would be proud to have on his arm. So, of course, George sets out to put her there. But she comes with her own set of problems. She's Catholic nd pulls an Anne Boleyn (His mistress she shall not be, his wife she cannot be.) So what can a man like George do, one who's never been told no and gets everything he wants? He flouts the law, the Royal Marriage Act stating he needs permission to marry and can't marry a Catholic and marries her anyway! He secretly marries woman who could help collapse the entire country. All for the sake of having her in his bed!

So you'd think this story would have a happy ending. He defies the law, marries her, treats her as his wife, has everyone else do so as well. Well no, George is a waster. He gambles money he doesn't have, drops her at a dime for another woman/women and causes her to have debts too, in an effort to entertain him. This causes much heartache for people, mostly Maria Fitzherbert, who does love him and his father, who does love him in his way. When his debts become too much and he must ask his father for help he's met with a very big dilemma. He must marry. But he's married. Not according to the State he's not. So he must choose. The crown or Maria.

While I only gave it a three, it does drag on like the previous book, it's again worth the time to read. You cannot tell the story of George IV, as he becomes, without telling the story of the most important woman in his life.
Love this series of books!