{"product_id":"the-king-and-the-catholics-9781474601948","title":"The King and the Catholics","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe story of Catholic Emancipation begins with the violent Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in 1780, fuelled by the reduction in Penal Laws against the Roman Catholics harking back to the sixteenth century. Some fifty years later, the passing of the Emancipation Bill was hailed as a 'bloodless revolution'. Had the Irish Catholics been a 'millstone', as described by an English aristocrat, or were they the prime movers? While the English Catholic aristocracy and the Irish peasants and merchants approached the Catholic Question in very different ways, they manifestly shared the same objective. Antonia Fraser brings colour and humour to the vivid drama with its huge cast of characters: George III, who opposed Emancipation on the basis of the Coronation Oath; his son, the indulgent Prince of Wales, who was enamoured with the Catholic Maria Fitzherbert before the voluptuous Lady Conyngham; Wellington and the 'born Tory' Peel vying for leadership; 'roaring' Lord Winchilsea; the heroic Daniel O'Conn\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFraser knows better than anybody how to make political and religious history fun. And as the mob besieges the Palace of Westminster, red-faced politicians rant and rave and George IV tucks in to yet another banquet, \u003cb\u003eher tale flows with such elegance and enthusiasm\u003c\/b\u003e that you barely stop to notice just how skilfully she does it. -- Dominic Sandbrook * SUNDAY TIMES *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFascinating \u003c\/b\u003e... Fraser approaches the subject not as one of arid doctrinal debate, but rather as a story, told by \u003cb\u003ean extraordinary cast of characters\u003c\/b\u003e.  William Pitt, George Canning, the Duke of Wellington, Robert Peel, Percy Bysshe Shelley, [Daniel] O'Connell and two kings named George all played idiosyncratic parts in this drama.  Supporting actors included some of Fraser's ancestors, who were active in the opposition to emancipation.  \u003cb\u003eThe people make this story\u003c\/b\u003e -- Gerard DeGroot * THE TIMES *\u003cbr\u003eFraser, a convert to Catholicism, as well as a descendant of the Anglo-Irish Protestant Longfords, \u003cb\u003etells the story with erudition, \u003ci\u003esprezzatura\u003c\/i\u003e and a tremendous sense of fun\u003c\/b\u003e.  Every page is \u003cb\u003eshot through with humour and humanity\u003c\/b\u003e.  Columns of bloated, bewhiskered bigots fall to Fraser's skewer, but the many Georgians with rent consciences are handled with great sensitivity.  She is excellent on Ireland. She \u003cb\u003ewrites beautifully and she includes just the right amount of smut\u003c\/b\u003e -- Jessie Childs * GUARDIAN *\u003cbr\u003eThis is a complicated tale with a large cast of characters, making it harder still to maintain the tension that is essential to good, readable history.  But \u003cb\u003eAntonia Fraser does it triumphantly\u003c\/b\u003e.  The result is not simply a book that will remind now thoroughly integrated British Catholics of how far we have travelled from being a harassed and despised minority.  It also explains, without ever obviously seeming to do so, how implacable prejudices and intractable issues can be tackled and overcome. In other words, it is \u003cb\u003ethat rarest of things: a good news story\u003c\/b\u003e -- Peter Stanford * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *\u003cbr\u003eThe author, now 85, has not lost her skill in writing history principally through the stories of particular people - and for the success of Catholic emancipation the decisions of a few people were essential: the Duke of Wellington and Robert Peel, ideologically and temperamentally anti-Catholic, who changed their minds; George IV, who wavered; and Daniel O'Connell, who resisted the allure of leading violent insurrection in Ireland and instead offered to keep his nation quiet in return for religious tolerance. \u003cb\u003eFraser's prose is a pleasure to read\u003c\/b\u003e -- Christopher Howse * DAILY TELEGRAPH *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWriting with a historian's skill and a novelist's heart,\u003c\/b\u003e Fraser shows how O'Connell was able to bring the British government to the point where it felt it had no alternative but to concede emancipation...In many ways this is \u003cb\u003ea book for our Brexit times,\u003c\/b\u003e a cautionary tale of how a spirit of courage and compromise is necessary when dealing with the political challenge of a generation...\u003cb\u003eElegant, timely and thought-provoking\u003c\/b\u003e -- Patrick Geoghegan * IRISH TIMES *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eUtterly gripping and consistently witty\u003c\/b\u003e -- Damian Thompson * LITERARY REVIEW *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRipples with colour\u003c\/b\u003e and is full of contrasting characters, from \"roaring\" Tory Lord Winchelsea to voluptuous Lady Conyngham and heroic \"King Dan\" O'Connell.  Indeed, it's like an \u003cb\u003eexhilarating \u003c\/b\u003eliterary point to point, with falls at the fences, but the favourite winning by a neck. -- John Martin Robinson * COUNTRY LIFE *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFraser succeeds triumphantly\u003c\/b\u003e in bringing to life the struggle for Catholic rights. A superb narrative historian, like a modern-day Macaulay, she enlivens her story with vivid character sketches, verve and wit.  This is \u003cb\u003ea marvellous book\u003c\/b\u003e -- Jane Ridley * THE TABLET *\u003cbr\u003eThis is \u003cb\u003ean absolutely splendid book\u003c\/b\u003e. With the \u003cb\u003ebrio and narrative skill\u003c\/b\u003e which has been in evidence since her first book - the irreplaceable classic biography of \u003ci\u003eMary Queen of Scots\u003c\/i\u003e - Fraser gives us \u003cb\u003ea vivid account of Catholic Emancipation\u003c\/b\u003e. Some of the most dramatic scenes in our parliamentary history are here \u003cb\u003ebrought to life with unmatched verve\u003c\/b\u003e. -- A. N. Wilson * THE SPECTATOR *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMasterly\u003c\/b\u003e -- Daniel Johnson * STANDPOINT *\u003cbr\u003eThe widespread violence, excited by a modest Catholic relief Bill, is the start of Fraser's \u003cb\u003esuperb\u003c\/b\u003e account of how British Catholics, over the next 50 years, managed to get their rights back - and how Britain narrowly avoided another civil war * DAILY TELEGRAPH *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMeticulously researched and thoroughly engrossing\u003c\/b\u003e -- Simon Griffith * MAIL ON SUNDAY *\u003cbr\u003eFraser's narrative skilfully interweaves the progress of activism in Ireland - painting a deeply sympathetic picture of the great Daniel O'Connell, \"the Liberator\" - and pragmatism in England, as emancipation gradually came to appear as the only outcome that offered justice and stability...This book has all the liveliness and clarity of Antonia Fraser's other historical writing. -- Rowan Williams * NEW STATESMAN *\u003cbr\u003eLady Antonia's interest is in the politics of religion, to which she brings all of her remarkable gifts. -- Michael Wheeler * CHURCH TIMES *\u003cbr\u003eThe fight for Catholic Emancipation in 1829, explored with great skill and elan by a historian who knows how to tell a good story. * SUNDAY TIMES *\u003cbr\u003eExpertly written and deftly argued, The King and the Catholics is also a distant mirror of our times, reflecting the political issues arising from religious intolerance. * CATHOLIC TIMES *\u003cbr\u003eThis is a very fine book indeed.  Fraser is an excellent historian.  Her research is thorough, her use of it discriminating.  The has a dramatic story to tell here, and tells it compellingly, never forgetting that events now in the past were once in the future, and that what now seems inevitable often appeared otherwise at the time...There is no reason why good history should not entertain as well as enlighten.  This thoroughly enjoyable book does both. -- Allan Massie * CATHOLIC HERALD *\u003cbr\u003eFraser's book is the first full length history of the emancipation struggle for nearly 20 years and she writes with informed sympathy for both sides, drawing on the experiences of her own Irish Protestant Packenham family history: one ancestor opposed reform and another came to support it. -- Stephen Bates * BBC HISTORY *\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe King and the Catholics\u003c\/i\u003e, Antonia Fraser recounts the saga of the emancipation of British Catholics, who finally achieved equal civil rights in 1829. Hitherto Catholicism had, since the Reformation, been considered 'a form of national treachery', with Catholics blamed for the Great Fire of London -- Simon Heffer * DAILY TELEGRAPH History Books of the Year\u003ci\u003e *\u003cbr\u003e[An] intelligent, wide-ranging, elegantly written account -- Peter Stanford * THE TABLET \u003c\/i\u003eBooks of the Year\u003ci\u003e *\u003cbr\u003eProving there's no retirement age for writers, Antonia Fraser brings 50 years of accumulated skill in the writing of gripping history to a book it is impossible to imagine anyone else writing with such liveliness and insight. \u003ci\u003eThe King and the Catholics \u003c\/i\u003ealso offers unobtrusive contemporary parallels on issues including xenophobia, terrorism and the long tendency of English politicians to underestimate the complicating issue of Ireland -- Mark Lawson * THE TABLET \u003c\/i\u003eBooks of the Year\u003ci\u003e *\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Orion Publishing Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48885793554775,"sku":"9781474601948","price":10.44,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781474601948.jpg?v=1722537717","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-king-and-the-catholics-9781474601948","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}