Royal Survivor: The Life of Charles II - Softcover

Stephen Coote

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312238339 ISBN 13: 9780312238339

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001

Synopsis

When Charles I was beheaded, Charles II escaped to Europe where he lived a life of incredible poverty, bedded a wide variety of women and sparred with his mother before he returned to England to restore the monarchy. This is a brilliant biography of Charles II, one of England's most glamorous kings. Coote introduces the reader to the drama and danger of an England torn by civil war, ruled over by a villanous Cromwell and populated with the lustful, rapacious and streetwise women Charles bedded on his road to his restored throne: Lady Castlemaine, Lady Porstmouth, Nell Gwynn, and Hortense Mancini among others.

About this title

Review:

The biographer of several prominent English literary figures (including Byron and Keats) turns his attention to a wily politician in this lively portrait of Charles II (1630-85). When he assumed the throne in 1660, Charles had already survived his father's 1649 execution during the English civil war and years of uneasy exile. His restoration had more to do with England's yearning for peace than any desire to reestablish the monarchy's ancient rights, in which Charles fervently believed, and Coote shows the king wielding personal authority and considerable guile to assert prerogatives that his parliament was determined to restrict. Baptized a Catholic on his deathbed, Charles never publicly declared his faith, knowing it would be unacceptable in Protestant England, nor did he let it interfere with his lighthearted affairs. Nonetheless, he was fond of his queen and refused to discard her when she failed to produce an heir. His political maneuvers ensured the peaceful succession of his brother James, who managed in a scant four years to provoke England's bloodless "Glorious Revolution" and the lasting abrogation of royal powers Charles had astutely maintained in trying times. Writing with vigor and color that suit his pleasure-loving subject, Coote limns a man of contradictions in an engaging work of popular biography. --Wendy Smith

About the Author:

Stephen Coote was educated at Magdelene College, Cambridge and at Birkbeck College, University of London. His previous biographies include John Keats: A Life,A Play of Passion: The Life of Sir Walter Raleighand most recently, W.B. Yeats: A Life. Stephen Cootelives in Oxford.

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0312238339
• ISBN 13: 9780312238339
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416