King Charles II

Cover

Title

Dedication

About the Author

By Antonia Fraser

List of Illustrations

Author’s Note

PART ONE
:
The Hopeful Prince

1 Heaven Was Liberal

2 ‘I Fear Them Not!’

3 Present Miseries

4 Dependence

5 The King’s Son

PART TWO
:
Nothing but the Name

6 A Candle to the Devil

7 Ravished at Worcester

8 Heroical Figure

9 A Difficult Game

10 The Courtesies and the Injuries

11 At the Waterside

PART THREE
:
This Golden Age

12 Noah’s Dove

13 The Best of Queens

14 The Dutch Business

15 Black Day

16 This Revolution

17 A Very Near Alliance

18 Virtues and Imperfections

PART IV
:
The Monarchy in Danger

19 Subsisting Together?

20 The Knot in the Comb

21 Peace For His Own Time

22 Against Exclusion

23 A King at Chess

PART FIVE
:
His Autumnal Fortune

24 Bolder and Older

25 Another Way of Ruling

26 The Dregs of Life

27 His Royal Ashes

References

Reference Books

Picture Section

Index

Copyright

Antonia Fraser is the author of many widely acclaimed historical works including the biographies
King Charles II
, the recently republished
Mary Queen of Scots
and
Marie Antoinette: The Journey
which won the Franco-British Literary Prize in 2001 and was made into a film by Sofia Coppola in 2006. Most recently she has published
Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King
.

Antonia Fraser won a Wolfson History Prize in 1984, was made CBE in 1999, and was awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2000. She lives in London and has six children and eighteen grandchildren.

Letter from Charles, Prince of Wales (British Library)

Queen Henrietta Maria, King Charles
I
and Charles, Prince of Wales (by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen)

The five children of Charles
I
(by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen)

The Prince of Wales aged thirteen (the author; photo Angelo Hornak)

Queen Henrietta Maria (National Portrait Gallery)

Charles, Prince of Wales, in armour (by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen)

Charles
I
and the Prince of Wales (British Museum; photo John Freeman)

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (Courtauld Institute)

Seal of Charles
II
in 1650 (Société Jersiaise)

Mary, Princess of Orange (National Gallery of Scotland)

La Grande Mademoiselle (British Museum; photo John Freeman)

Whiteladies and Boscobel House (by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen)

Modern Worcester (photo by the author)

The Royal Oak today (Department of the Environment, Crown copyright)

Charles
II
in the Boscobel oak (Christie’s; photo A. C. Cooper)

Charles
II
and Jane Lane (Christie’s; photo A. C. Cooper)

Charles
II
in exile (Sir Arthur Bryant)

Lucy Walter (Mansell Collection)

James, Duke of Monmouth, as a boy (by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen)

Charles
II
dancing with Princess Mary (by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen; photo A.C. Cooper)

Charles
II
being welcomed at Delft in 1660

Charles
II
in a Plea Roll initial (Public Record Office)

Coronation of Charles
II
(British Museum; photo John Freeman)

Catharine of Braganza (by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen)

Medallion celebrating Charles
II
’s marriage (Cyril Humphris)

King Charles and Queen Catharine arriving at Hampton Court (British Museum; photo John Freeman)

The marriage certificate (by courtesy of the Dean and Chapter of Portsmouth)

Charles
II
at Dorney Court (collection of the Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley; photo courtesy of Agnew’s)

The
Royal Escape
(by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen)

Henriette-Anne, Duchesse d’Orléans (Victoria & Albert Museum)

William
III
of Orange (by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen)

James, Duke of York (Scottish National Portrait Gallery)

Anne Hyde, Duchess of York (Scottish National Portrait Gallery; photo Colin Scott)

Charles
II
at Windsor races (Robert Harding Associates; photo John Freeman)

A game of real tennis (Mansell Collection)

Playing pall-mall (Museum of London)

Charles
II
in 1665 (Mauritshuis, The Hague)

Medallion commemorating the foundation of a Mathematical and Nautical School (Cyril Humphris)

Frances Stewart (by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen)

Nell Gwynn (British Museum)

Hortense Mancini (Trustees of the Earl of Sandwich’s 1943 Settlement)

Barbara Villiers (Earl Spencer)

Louise de Kéroüalle (private collection; Courtauld Institute)

Charles, Earl of Plymouth

Charles, Duke of Richmond and Lennox (Christie’s; photo A. C. Cooper)

Charlotte, Countess of Lichfield (York City Art Gallery)

St Paul’s Cathedral (National Monuments Record, Crown copyright)

Henry Purcell (National Portrait Gallery)

John Wilmot (National Portrait Gallery)

Dorset Garden Theatre (Victoria & Albert Museum)

John Evelyn (National Portrait Gallery)

John Dryden (National Portrait Gallery)

Charles
II
in 1684 (by courtesy of the Governors of Christ’s Hospital)

Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby (National Portrait Gallery)

Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington (National Portrait Gallery)

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (National Portrait Gallery)

Thomas, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh (National Portrait Gallery)

Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale (Victoria & Albert Museum)

James Butler, Duke of Ormonde (National Portrait Gallery)

Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury (National Portrait Gallery)

Broadsheet concerning the Rye House Plot (Photomas Index; photo John Freeman)

Medallion commemorating Shaftesbury’s acquittal (Cyril Humphris)

James, Duke of Monmouth (National Portrait Gallery)

Declaration concerning his marriage by Charles
II
(Pierpont Morgan Collection)

Medal celebrating the marriage of William and Mary (Mansell Collection)

Mary of Modena (National Portrait Gallery)

Louis
XIV
(British Museum)

Effigy of Charles
II
(by courtesy of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster)

The House of Stuart and the House of Bourbon

The Netherlands in the seventeenth century

The British Isles in the age of Charles
II