Britain's Wildest Era

If you've seen the film of Alan Bennett's play “The Madness of King George,” you know that George III — who ruled England for six decades, starting in 1760 — suffered from periodic episodes of insanity. When the king didn't emerge from a final descent into mental darkness, his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, was appointed regent in 1811, though only crowned George IV after his father's death in 1820. In “The Regency Years” Robert Morrison showcases that relatively brief period — less than a decade — as an age of “remarkable diversity, upheaval, and elegance,” during which, in the words of his subtitle, “Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron Makes Love, and Britain Becomes Modern.”

In his opening chapter Morrison dramatically recounts the 1812 assassination — pistol shot at point-blank range — of the Tory Prime Minister Spencer Perceval, an act that was jubilantly celebrated by a crowd of “from fifty to a hundred thousand persons” who gathered in the hours just after the murder. Nowadays, the phrase “the Regency”calls to mind BBC images of spotlessly dressed dandies, lascivious rakes and Elizabeth Bennet look-alikes chatting and flirting at the Brighton Pavilion. Yet for most people back then, life was anything but a 20-course dinner party or fancy costume ball. The entrenched elites brazenly used the law and military force to retain their power and extend their privileges, while the mass of exploited workers, servants and peasants led brutish lives of endless, relentless toil.