SIGNED COPY Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court by Lucy Worsley published by Faber and Faber

In the eighteenth century, the palace’s most elegant assembly room was in fact a bloody battlefield. This was a world of skulduggery, politicking, wigs and beauty-spots, where fans whistled open like flick-knives…

Ambitious and talented people flocked to court of George II and Queen Caroline in search of power and prestige, but Kensington Palace was also a gilded cage.

Successful courtiers needed level heads and cold hearts; their secrets were never safe.

Among them, a Vice Chamberlain with many vices, a Maid of Honour with a secret marriage, a pushy painter, an alcoholic equerry, a Wild Boy, a penniless poet, a dwarf comedian, two mysterious turbaned Turks and any number of discarded royal mistresses.