King Charles II's reign ends violently. Monmouth's bloody defeat leaves Helena Woulfe searching for her family. The crown confiscates the family estates. Helena hopes to make a new life, and perhaps find love. Before she finds security, respectability, and love, her family's allegiances threaten her life. Anita Davison's popularity as an author is born in her love for her fans, and her ability to seamlessly weave a heart wrenching romance and a mainstream historical into a without the fluff and sexual fillers most writers rely on.
'A superb biography, which paints a vivid picture of the times and of her subject' Daily Telegraph 'Fascinating, compelling, outrageous and ultimately tragic' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'It is the best royal biography I have read in years' A.N. Wilson From the Duff Cooper Prize-winning author of The Restless Republic, a remarkable biography of one of the most intriguing figures of the Restoration era. James, Duke of Monmouth, the favoured illegitimate son of Charles II, was born in exile the year his grandfather Charles I was executed and the English monarchy abolished. Abducted from his mother on his father's orders, he emerged from a childhood in the backstreets of Rotterdam to command the ballrooms of Paris, the brothels of Covent Garden and the battlefields of Flanders. Such was his appeal that when the monarchy itself came under threat, the cry was for Monmouth to succeed Charles II as king. He inspired both delight and disgust, adulation and abhorrence and, in time, love and loyalty. Louis XIV was his mentor, Nell Gwyn his protector, D'Artagnan his lieutenant, William of Orange his confidant, John Dryden his censor and John Locke his comrade. In The Last Royal Rebel, Anna Keay matches rigorous scholarship with a storyteller's gift to enrapturing effect. She paints a vivid portrait of the warm, courageous and handsome Duke of Monmouth, a man who by his own admission 'lived a very dissolute and irregular life', but who was ultimately prepared to risk everything for honour and justice. His story, culminating in his fateful invasion, provides a sweeping chronicle of the turbulent decades in which England as we know it was forged.
In the summer of 1745, Charles Edward Stuart, the grandson of England's King James II, landed on the western coast of Scotland intending to overthrow George II and restore the Stuart family to the throne. He gathered thousands of supporters, and the insurrection he led—the Jacobite Rising of 1745—was a crisis not only for Britain but for the entire British Empire. Rebellion and Savagery examines the 1745 rising and its aftermath on an imperial scale. Charles Edward gained support from the clans of the Scottish Highlands, communities that had long been derided as primitive. In 1745 the Jacobite Highlanders were denigrated both as rebels and as savages, and this double stigma helped provoke and legitimate the violence of the government's anti-Jacobite campaigns. Though the colonies stayed relatively peaceful in 1745, the rising inspired fear of a global conspiracy among Jacobites and other suspect groups, including North America's purported savages. The defeat of the rising transformed the leader of the army, the Duke of Cumberland, into a popular hero on both sides of the Atlantic. With unprecedented support for the maintenance of peacetime forces, Cumberland deployed new garrisons in the Scottish Highlands and also in the Mediterranean and North America. In all these places his troops were engaged in similar missions: demanding loyalty from all local inhabitants and advancing the cause of British civilization. The recent crisis gave a sense of urgency to their efforts. Confident that "a free people cannot oppress," the leaders of the army became Britain's most powerful and uncompromising imperialists. Geoffrey Plank argues that the events of 1745 marked a turning point in the fortunes of the British Empire by creating a new political interest in favor of aggressive imperialism, and also by sparking discussion of how the British should promote market-based economic relations in order to integrate indigenous peoples within their empire. The spread of these new political ideas was facilitated by a large-scale migration of people involved in the rising from Britain to the colonies, beginning with hundreds of prisoners seized on the field of battle and continuing in subsequent years to include thousands of men, women and children. Some of the migrants were former Jacobites and others had stood against the insurrection. The event affected all the British domains.
Helena Woulfe has put the horrors of the Monmouth Rebellion behind her and looks to her future life as the wife of Guy Palmer. Helena has what she always wanted, respectability and security, although her brothers remain a constant worry - Aaron is in Holland with the Prince of Orange, and surely what he plans is treason? While Henry carries his own sorrow, pining for another man's wife. Prince William arrives in England to re-establish the Anglican Church, and when riots break out in London, Helena is forced to flee from her home - again. Guy Palmer grows more prosperous and their marriage is happy, until Helena's discovery of her husband's weakness drives her into an unwise liaison and she learns there is a price to pay for recklessness and keeping secrets. While Helena strives to keep what she holds dear, Henry seeks his own happiness and Aaron's ambition is to retain the family estate. Can they attain what they desire and above all, will the Woulfe siblings ever learn the fate of their missing Father?
Edith of Barnfield is the daughter of a merchant. He doesn’t think she should follow in his trade. That decision will drive her to witness a mighty battle, engage with a Princess, and resist those who would mistreat the subjects of her kingdom.
