The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 (The Revolution Trilogy Book 1)

by Rick Atkinson

For George and Queen Charlotte, monarchical rhythms changed little from month to month, or year to year. “They both meet in the breakfast room about a half hour after 8. When she goes to the breakfast, she rings for the children,” the king had written in an account of their domestic life. “Every evening after dinner they retire into her apartments to drink coffee, & there they generally spend the remainder of their evening.” He fussed with his collections—barometers, clocks, coins, Handel oratorios—or immersed himself in a book and read aloud passages he found especially pithy. Both kept an orchestra and patronized the opera; he played a creditable flute, harpsichord, and violin. Much of their time in the Queen’s House—the family residence, later called Buckingham Palace—was spent instructing their growing brood in the ways of royalty, as in Charlotte’s letter to George P., the Prince of Wales, read to him by a tutor on his eighth birthday: “Above all things I recommend unto you to fear God.… We are all equal, and become only of consequence by setting good examples to others.”