Laughing STOCK
“King George IV was a figure of mockery… What was it that precipitated such a reputation?”
The BBC’s historical comedy series Blackadder was not known for sparing its muses, yet Hugh Laurie’s invincibly stupid Prince Regent came off worse than most. The future King George IV describes himself as “thick as whale omelette”, thus cementing his modern-day reputation as such.
And yet the 19th-century monarch’s artistic legacy and architectural bequests to the nation are remarkable, as explored by , an exhibition that will transfer from London’s Buckingham Palace to Edinburgh’s Holyrood House later this year. The collection that he assiduously, and indeed extravagantly, amassed in his lifetime – which includes Old Master paintings, Sèvres porcelain and a silver-gilt Grand Service – accounts for some of the most
