William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland
William Augustus was he first of the house of Hanover to be born in England. Rex Whitworth describes how, politically, the Duke became almost First Minister of the Crown.
Books innumerable have been written about Prince Charles Edward, the Young Pretender. For about a year in 1745/6 his brave and forlorn adventure occupied the fascinated attention of Europe. He emerged from the wings into a blaze of glory and retired, disillusioned, from the world stage to a life of slow dissolution. His equally youthful opponent, the so-called ‘Butcher of Culloden’, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, second son of King George II and Queen Caroline, has received comparatively short shrift at the hands of historians.
One or two contemporary memoirs in the Whig cause, a single Victorian volume confined mainly to extracts from his military orderly books in Europe and Scotland, and two volumes separately produced by Edmund Charteris in 1913 and 1936 are all the serious notice that has been taken of one of the most active of all our Royal Princes.
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