Book description
The two decades after Waterloo marked the great age of foreign fortune
hunters in England. Each year brought a new influx of impecunious
Continental noblemen to the world s richest country, and the more brides
they carried off, the more alarmed society became. The most colourful of
these men was Prince Hermann von Pckler-Muskau (1785-1871), remembered
today as Germany s finest landscape gardener. In the mid-1820s, however,
his efforts to turn his estate into a magnificent park came close to
bankrupting him. To save his legacy his wife Lucie devised an unusual
plan: they would divorce so that Pckler could marry an heiress who would
finance further landscaping and, after a decent interval, be cajoled
into accepting Lucie s continued residence. In September 1826, his
marriage dissolved, Pckler set off for London. Pckler is the most
intelligent of the overseas visitors who noted their impressions of
Regency England. His matrimonial quest brings him into contact with such
luminaries as Walter Scott, George Canning, Princess Lieven, Nathan
Mayer Rothschild, Beau Brummell and John Nash. The object of many
rumours and caricatures, the prince sticks doggedly to his task for
nearly two years. And just when it seems that he has failed, England
fills his coffers in the most unexpected way, and in doing so launches
him on a new career. In telling the story of Pckler s adventures in the
context of the trend for Anglo-European marriages based on the exchange
of a title for money, The Fortune Hunter writes a new chapter in the
history of England s relationship with its Continental neighbours. The
two decades after Waterloo marked the great age of foreign fortune
hunters in England. Each year brought a new influx of impecunious
Continental noblemen to the world s richest country, and the more brides
they carried off, the more alarmed society became. The most colourful of
these men was Prince Hermann von Pckler-Muskau (1785-1871), remembered
today as Germany s finest landscape gardener. In the mid-1820s, however,
his efforts to turn his estate into a magnificent park came close to
bankrupting him. To save his legacy his wife Lucie devised an unusual
plan: they would divorce so that Pckler could marry an heiress who would
finance further landscaping and, after a decent interval, be cajoled
into accepting Lucie s continued residence. In September 1826, his
marriage dissolved, Pckler set off for London. Pckler is the most
intelligent of the overseas visitors who noted their impressions of
Regency England. His matrimonial quest brings him into contact with such
luminaries as Walter Scott, George Canning, Princess Lieven, Nathan
Mayer Rothschild, Beau Brummell and John Nash. The object of many
rumours and caricatures, the prince sticks doggedly to his task for
nearly two years. And just when it seems that he has failed, England
fills his coffers in the most unexpected way, and in doing so launches
him on a new career. In telling the story of Pckler s adventures in the
context of the trend for Anglo-European marriages based on the exchange
of a title for money, The Fortune Hunter writes a new chapter in the
history of England s relationship with its Continental neighbours.
