To Catch a King

Name: To Catch a King
Rating: 4.4 (870 reviews)

by Charles Spencer

First published 2017

Amazon

4.4(870)

To Catch a King reconstructs Charles II’s flight after the Royalist defeat at Worcester on 3 September 1651. With Parliamentarian forces searching the country and his attempt to regain the throne apparently destroyed, Charles depended on a small network of supporters, disguises and repeated changes of plan as he tried to reach the coast without being recognised.

Charles Spencer follows the escape through episodes involving Henry Wilmot, Jane Lane, Boscobel and the later Royal Oak tradition, ending with Charles’s successful passage to France. Drawing on contemporary and later testimony, including the king’s own recollections, the book treats the episode as a true survival narrative set within the final military phase of the English Civil Wars.