The Declaration of Independence was a violent pillory, almost of Nuremberg Trials proportions, of poor old "Farmer George" III, and a blood libel on the American Indian. Neither Washington nor Jefferson could bring themselves to emancipate their slaves, though the Sage of Monticello was happy enough to procreate with the more comely of them. Relations between the two countries were coloured for a very long time by British un-certainty of what the Americans had been so upset about, and American self-cons-ciousness about being perceived as genuinely aggrieved.

Frank Prochaska underplays the British response to the US Civil War. Palmerston, Russell, Gladstone, and the young Cecil (fut-ure Marquis of Salisbury), all distinguished prime ministers in their time, all favoured the South and Palmerston was tempted to exchange embassies with the Confederacy.

It fell to outsiders, particularly Prince Albert in his last act before his premature death, and Disraeli, to point out that by supp-orting the South, Britain would be writing off Canada and its Caribbean possessions, and that morally and practically it could not take a position in favour of secessionism and slave-holding.

The author captures well the early Amer-ican preoccupation with George III. He also skilfully describes the way in which Edward VIII, as Prince of Wales, and Princess Diana, inserted themselves into the American star system. He tries admirably to build a solid bridge from revolutionary times to the era of Reagan and Thatcher.

But despite his diligent unearthing of US press and public comment on Queen Victoria, I don't think he makes the case that the American public had an interest in the British Crown after the death of the outrageous George IV in 1830, or the end of the last of the revolutionaries, around 1840 (when the United States also overtook Great Britain in population).

There was no great public soap opera value - always America's chief interest in the British royals - from the time of the shambles of George IV and Queen Caroline until the Abdication crisis over the American Wallis Simpson more than a century later. It is a myth that surfaces intermittently in America that the American public has ever particularly admired the British constitutional monarchy as a system of government.