Duke Charming
The King of Hearts. By Dorothy H. Somerville. (Allen and Unwin, 40s.) CHARLES TALBOT, the first Duke of Shrewsbury, possessed some of his mother's charm but, for- tunately, more of his father's good sense:
otherwise he would not' have escaped the con- sequences of his wretched childhood. His father died from wounds given him by his wife's lover in a duel. Nothing, however, deterred her in her headstrong self-indulgent life. Deprived of parents, Shrewsbury was brought up by quarrel- some guardians and he was bred a Roman Catholic at a time when delusions of future grandeur dangled before the hopes of papists in the person of James II. Shrewsbury disen- tangled himself from his family, became a Protestant, invited William III to England, secured his dukedom and entered on a curious political career. Ill-health, bursts of disillusion and sheer incapacity to face the hurly-burly of political life drove Shrewsbury out of office. His charm, his reputation for being above or beyond faction, and perhaps his very reluctance, led to office being pressed on him and gave him a standing in the grave crises of 1710 and 1714 out of proportion to his gifts. Yet he remains a subject for an essay rather than a biography: his public life is too much a matter of bits and pieces for extended treatment.
This present study is agreeably written, but most of it covers well-trodden ground and adds little to the standard biography by Nicolson and Turberville. Writing, it would seem, long ago, the authoress ignores many great manuscript collections—Harley in the British Museum, Portland in Nottingham University, Cowper in the Hertford Record Office—and a score of minor ones, which would have yielded some fresh material and would certainly have deepened her knowledge of the politics of the reigns of William Ill and Queen Anne.
J. H. PLUMB
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