Charles II follows the Stuart prince from civil-war defeat and exile to the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. It describes the compromises that brought him back to the throne and the challenges of governing after revolution, including religious division, parliamentary distrust and war with the Dutch Republic.
The biography covers the plague, Great Fire of London, court culture and the succession crisis created by the Catholicism of Charles’s brother James. It also examines the king’s political skill, private life and later reputation as the apparently carefree “Merry Monarch.”
