Lords of Ashridge: The Bridgwaters and their Monuments

'The 'Canal Duke', Francis Egerton was the most famous of the Bridgwater dynasty which owned Ashridge in Hertfordshire for 250 years, and whose fine monuments grace Little Gaddesden church.

Astonishingly, Francis was thought, as a youth, to be an "imbecile". His brother was undoubtedly mad. One or two of the other Egertons were bad and dangerous to know.

In Lords of Ashridge, Roger Bolton tells their stories and those of their sometimes brilliant ancestors, who include one of Britain's first female dramatists, the duke who invented dressage, and the Lord Chancellor, born a bastard, who made a disastrous marriage to Shakespeare's patron.'