Drinking for England - Fergus Linnane

The English have long been the drunken men of Europe and for many centuries observers have marvelled at the capacity of the English to get bevvied, blotto, fuddled, hammered, titillated, plastered or sozzled. Everyone has been involved: drunken clergy were a scandal, and grave politicians, including prime ministers, might have drunk six bottles of port before collapsing under the table. At a masque given by James I in 1606 for the King of Denmark, a noblewoman playing the Queen of Sheba collapsed at the royal guest's feet. George IV collapsed when dancing at a party and vomited on the floor. Pitt the Younger, a six-bottle man, was sick behind the Speaker's chair in the Commons Francis Bacon's hangovers were considered a stimulous to his work, Jeffrey. Bernard woke up one morning to find himself in bed with a jockey a local charwoman...and the story goes on. This meticulously researched and compelling book takes the reader on a heady tour of ale houses and inns, bars and taverns, palaces and clubs, to tell the extraordinary story of the English addiction to the bottle through the lives, and often wild times, of the larger-than-life characters who frequented them. Fergus Linnane is the author of the critically acclaimed London's Underworld: Three Centuries of Vice and Crime. Since retiring as executive editor of The European he has written six books.