Dimensions
129 x 186 x 19mm
Remembered as one of Britain's most charismatic, affable and instantly recognisable monarchs, Charles II embodies all the luxury, theatricality, excess and raciness of the Restoration.
Yet, as Clare Jackson's gloriously enjoyable and perceptive biography shows, his father's execution and his own years of exile following the Civil War made Charles a guarded, curious and unusually self-aware ruler, acutely sensitive to public perceptions of his kingship and adept at the art of role-playing. Here she captures Charles' complicated mixture of majesty, lasciviousness, cynicism and elusiveness. Encompassing events from the Fire of London to the Dutch wars, and drawing on the many depictions of Charles from Pepys to popular novels, this is a study of kingship as the ultimate performance.
