1820 is about much more than a single year. Integrating in detail the experiences of both Britain and Ireland, Chase provides a compelling narrative and analysis of the United Kingdom in a year of European revolution.

This fascinating study charts the events and forces that tested the government almost to its limits, and the processes and mechanisms through which order was maintained. Locating the Queen Caroline divorce crisis within a broader analysis of the challenges confronting the government, it places that much-investigated episode in a new light. It illuminates both the pivotal Tory Ministry under Lord Liverpool and the Whigs (by turns febrile and feeble) who opposed it, and represents a major contribution to our understanding of popular radicalism and its political containment.

This book will be required reading for everyone interested in late-Georgian and early nineteenth-century Britain or Ireland.