19. Cromwell, the chief of men until his death in 1658.
20. A contemporary tapestry celebrating the restoration of Charles II.
21. Charles II, the supposedly ‘merry monarch’.
22. Catherine of Braganza, the wife of Charles II, who was reputed to have introduced tea-drinking to England.
23. Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland, one of Charles II’s many mistresses, who was described by John Evelyn as ‘the curse of the nation’.
24. Nell Gwynne, the orange-seller who became a royal courtesan.
25. Louise de Kérouaille, Charles’s French mistress who became duchess of Portsmouth and who was known by Nell Gwynne as ‘Squintabella’.
26. The earl of Rochester, rake and poet who did not mince his words.
27. Samuel Pepys, who turned the diary into an art form.
28. Sir Christopher Wren, the polymath who transformed London.
29. Sir Isaac Newton, arguably the greatest experimenter in English history.
30. Charles II in his role as patron of the Royal Society.
31. The members of the ‘Cabal’, a group of five self-interested councillors who ran a corrupt coalition around Charles II.
32. The duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son who yearned to be king.
33. The duke of York, soon to become James II, with his wife and daughters.
34. A confused scene supposedly depicting the covert arrival of an infant, ‘the warming-pan baby’, to be passed off as James II’s son.
35. The baby grows into James Francis Edward Stuart, better known to posterity as the ‘Old Pretender’ or the ‘King Over the Water’.
36. James II throwing the great seal into the Thames as he escapes from England into France.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Non-Fiction
The History of England Vol. I: Foundation
The History of England Vol. II: Tudors
London: The Biography
Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination
The Collection: Journalism, Reviews, Essays, Short Stories
Lectures Edited by Thomas Wright
Thames: Sacred River Venice: Pure City
Fiction
The Great Fire of London
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
Hawksmoor Chatterton First Light
English Music The House of Doctor Dee
Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem Milton in America
The Plato Papers The Clerkenwell Tales
The Lambs of London The Fall of Troy
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein Three Brothers
Biography
Ezra Pound and his World T. S. Eliot
Dickens Blake The Life of Thomas More
Shakespeare: The Biography Charlie Chaplin
Brief Lives
Chaucer J. M. W. Turner Newton
Poe: A Life Cut Short
First published 2014 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published 2014 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-1-4472-7170-3
Copyright © Peter Ackroyd 2014
Cover Images: Portrait of Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) (oil on canvas), Sir Peter Lely, (1618–80) / Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery / The Bridgeman Art Library.
Charles I in three positions, 1635 (oil on canvas), Sir Anthony van Dyck, (1599–1641) / The Royal Collection © 2014 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / The Bridgeman Art Library.
Wax Seal from Portrait of Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) from an original by Sir Peter Lely of 1653, and his seal and autographs (engraving) (b/w photo).
The right of Peter Ackroyd to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
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Table of Contents
Title page
Contents
List of illustrations
1. A new Solomon
2. The plot
3. The beacons
4. The god of money
5. The angel
6. The vapours
7. What news?
8. A Bohemian tragedy
9. The Spanish travellers
10. An interlude
11. Vivat rex
12. A fall from grace
13. Take that slime away
14. I am the man
15. The crack of doom
16. The shrimp
17. Sudden flashings
18. Venture all
19. A great and dangerous treason
20. Madness and fury
21. A world of change
22. Worse and worse news
23. A world of mischief
24. Neither hot nor cold
25. The gates of hell
26. The women of war
27. The face of God
28. The mansion house of liberty
29. A game to play
30. To kill a king
31. This house to be let
32. Fear and trembling
33. Healing and settling
34. Is it possible?
35. The young gentleman
36. Oh, prodigious change!
37. On the road
38. To rise and piss
39. And not dead yet?
40. The true force
41. Hot news
42. New infirmities
43. Or at the Cock?
44. Noise rhymes to noise
45. The Protestant wind
Further reading
Index
By The Same Author
Copyright page
Civil War: The History of England Volume III Page 59
