The King's Jaunt: George IV in Scotland, 1822 - Tapa dura

An account of the visit of George IV to Edinburgh in August 1822, the first visit by a British monarch for almost two hundred years. It was a visit surrounded by ceremony. The feasting and processions went on almost continuously for ten days, before the satiated monarch sailed again for London. But the visit was a very complex affair. The author describes the political machinations which preceded the event, and the way different courtiers attempted to sway the King's dithering sybaratic moods. He also describes the true state of the Scottish clans and the hypocrisy which lay behind the welcome extended to the King. John Prebble is author of "Culloden", "Glencoe" and "The Highland Clearances" among many others.

John Prebble was born in Middlesex in 1915 but spent his boyhood in Saskatchewan, Canada. He became a journalist in 1934 and is now a historian, novelist, film-writer and the auhtor of several highly praised plays and dramatized documentaries for BBC television and radio. During the war he served for six years in the ranks with the Royal Artillery and later wrote a war novel, "The Edge of Darkness," based on his experiences. He is the author of "Age Without Pity," "The Mather Story," "The High Girders," an account of the Tay Bridge Disaster, "The Buffalo Soldiers," which won an award in the United States for the best historical novel of the American West, and "Culloden," a subject he became interested in when he was a boy in a predominantly Scottish township in Canada. "Culloden" was subsequently made into a successful television film. His other books include "The Highland Clearances," "Glencoe," "The Darien Disaster," "The Lion in the North," "Mutiny: Highland Regiments in Revolt," "John Prebble's Scotland" and "Landscapes and Memeories: An Intermittent Autobiography," for which he was awarded the McVitie Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year, 1993.