During the Jodi Arias fiasco, I was amazed at how swept up the public gets in all these things. Thousands of people standing in downtown Phoenix screaming 'Justice for Travis.'. All fueled by the non-stop coverage by HLN and it's resident Georgia Peach, which makes you wonder whether public opinion can have an impact. It certainly can impact a decision to prosecute a case, as it did with George Zimmerman. But can the public prevent a case from being brought or affect the outcone of a verdict? How did this strange marriage of courts, media and public begin?

Jane Robins' book, The Trial of Queen Caroline: The Scandal That Nearly Ended the Monarchy, gives us several clues. It also has all the right players, a sympathetic defender, a lecherous bully, a Kato Kalinesque playboy, and a young and McDreamy attorney struggling through his first high-profile trial. You also have the madding crowd and the even more maddening jury. And instead of one judge who makes us all wonder what the heck just happened, you have an entire roomful of judges.

So let's sort this out. The story begins long before the trial in 1820. It began when our last king, George III forced his playboy son the Prince of Wales to marry Caroline of Brunswick. She was overweight, unintelligent, with zilch sex drive, or so it seemed. After they produced a daughter, Young George couldn't stand it anymore and proposed that they go their separate ways.

Fine by Caroline. She headed to Europe for years of party hopping and picked up a younger Italian companion. He served as an escort and hanger on and loved outlandish dress as much as the princess. These escorts, called cavalier servants, were a necessary fashion accessory to high class women traveling alone. But this guy seemed inordinately familiar with the Princess and was often in her bedchamber. Prince George heard the rumors but did nothing.

This state of affairs came to a screeching halt in 1820 when George III died and his son, George IV came to the throne. Trying to shake his playboy past himself, he refused to be crowned with Caroline, charging her with adultery. The common people saw through this hypocrisy and were easily agitated by the hack editors of the day with their penny news sheets. They turned Caroline, someone whom most people had never seen, to a defenseless woman driven out of England by her heartless husband. That her daughter had by this time died without ever really knowing her mother added to the pathos.

The first stage of the trial took place in the House of Lords, before such luminaries as the Duke of Wellington. Wellington was no longer the people's hero who had beaten Boney at Waterloo. He was viewed as being as corrupt and heartless as the other nobles. They were surrounded each day as they made their way to Parliament by booing mobs, demanding Caroline's exoneration.

Reporters made sure that the public got its daily dose of courtroom farce, complete with detailed descriptions of Caroline's bed and sheets. The day her companion testified and couldn't remember anything, no mi recuerdo became a catchphrase. Caroline's moods and neediness sorely taxed her lead attorney, Scotsman Henry Brougham, struggling himself with depression, pessimism, an unhappy marriage and a complex love life. Public opinion was appeased when Caroline was acquitted by nine votes. The King wanted to bring a case before the House of Commons, but knew he didn't stand a chance. Public opinion would stand it.

The only way out was to physically prevent Caroline from entering Westminster Abbey. When she showed up anyway and made a scene, the fickle crowds turned against her. George IV was crowned alone, Caroline died in obscurity. Henry Brougham became 1st Baron Broom and Vaux and later Lord Chancellor in this own right.

Robins' book packs all this into a readable story, which traces the standard script for a high profile celebrity trial.The Trial of Queen Caroline: The Scandalous Affair that Nearly Ended a Monarchy