The Courtiers: Splendor and Intrigue in the Georgian Court at Kensington Palace »

Lucy Worsley is, by day, Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, the independent charity that looks after The Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace State Apartments, the Banqueting House in Whitehall, and Kew Palace in Kew Gardens. By night, she is a writer and presenter, most recently author of Cavalier: a Tale of Passion, Chivalry and Great Houses, described by the Mail on Sunday as 'a remarkable achievement by an immensely talented and innovative historian.'

Kensington Palace is now most famous as the former home of Diana, Princess of Wales, but the palace's glory days came between 1714 and 1760, during the reigns of George I and II . In the eighteenth century, this palace was a world of skulduggery, intrigue, politicking, etiquette, wigs, and beauty spots, where fans whistled open like switchblades and unusual people were kept as curiosities. Lucy Worsley's The Courtiers charts the trajectory of the fantastically quarrelsome Hanovers and the last great gasp of British court life. Structured around the paintings of courtiers and servants that line the walls of the King's Staircase of Kensington Palace—paintings you can see at the palace today—The Courtiers goes behind closed doors to meet a pushy young painter, a maid of honor with a secret marriage, a vice chamberlain with many vices, a bedchamber woman with a violent husband, two aging royal mistresses, and many more. The result is an indelible portrait of court life leading up to the famous reign of George III , and a feast for both Anglophiles and lovers of history and royalty.

The Washington Post - Jonathan Yardley

…an exercise in the higher (or, depending on one's view of royalty, lower) gossip. Worsley…writes breezy, chatty prose…The Courtiers is amusing and, among other things, a useful reminder that, contrary to what many believe, sex was not invented in the 1960s.