They were known as the Ascendancy, the dashing aristocratic elite that
controlled Irish politics and society at the end of the eighteenth
century--and at their pinnacle stood Caroline and Robert King, Lord and
Lady Kingsborough of Mitchelstown Castle. Heirs to ancient estates and a
vast fortune, Lord and Lady Kingsborough appeared to be blessed with
everything but marital love--which only made the scandal that tore
through their family more shocking. In 1798, at the height of a
rebellion that was setting Ireland ablaze, Robert King was tried for the
murder of his wife's cousin--a crime born of passion that proved to have
extraordinary political implications. In her brilliant new book, Janet
Todd unfolds the fascinating story of how this powerful Anglo-Irish
family became entwined with the downfall not only of their class, but of
their very way of life.
Like Amanda Foreman's bestselling Georgiana, Daughters of Ireland
brings to life the world of a glittering elite in an age of
international revolution. When her daughters, Margaret and Mary, were at
their most impressionable, Lady Kingsborough hired the firebrand
feminist Mary Wollstonecraft to be their governess, little realizing how
radically this would alter both girls' beliefs and characters. The tall,
striking Margaret went on to provide crucial support to the United
Irishmen in the days leading up to the Rebellion of 1798, while soft,
pleasing Mary indulged in an illicit, and all but incestuous love affair
that precipitated multiple tragedies.
As the Kingsboroughs imploded, the most powerful and colorful figures of
the day were swept up in their drama--the dashing aristocrat turned
revolutionary Lord Edward Fitzgerald; the liberal, cultivated Countess
of Moira, a terrible snob despite her support of Irish revolutionaires;
the notorious philanderer Colonel George King, whose sexual debauchery
was matched only by his appalling cruelty; Britain's cold calculating
prime minister William Pitt and its mad ruler King George III.
With irresistible narrative drive and richly intimate historic detail,
Daughters of Ireland an absolutely spellbinding work of history,
biography, passion, and rebellion.
