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The White King

Charles I, Traitor, Murderer, Martyr

Audiobook (Includes supplementary content)
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
From the New York Times bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the tragic story of Charles I, his warrior queen, Britain's civil wars and the trial for his life.
Less than forty years after England's golden age under Elizabeth I, the country was at war with itself. Split between loyalty to the Crown or to Parliament, war raged on English soil. The English Civil War would set family against family, friend against friend, and its casualties were immense—a greater proportion of the population died than in World War I.
At the head of the disintegrating kingdom was King Charles I. In this vivid portrait — informed by previously unseen manuscripts, including royal correspondence between the king and his queen — Leanda de Lisle depicts a man who was principled and brave, but fatally blinkered.
Charles never understood his own subjects or court intrigue. At the heart of the drama were the Janus-faced cousins who befriended and betrayed him — Henry Holland, his peacocking servant whose brother, the New England colonialist Robert Warwick, engineered the king's fall; and Lucy Carlisle, the magnetic 'last Boleyn girl' and faithless favorite of Charles's maligned and fearless queen.
The tragedy of Charles I was that he fell not as a consequence of vice or wickedness, but of his human flaws and misjudgments. The White King is a story for our times, of populist politicians and religious war, of manipulative media and the reshaping of nations. For Charles it ended on the scaffold, condemned as a traitor and murderer, yet lauded also as a martyr, his reign destined to sow the seeds of democracy in Britain and the New World.
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    • Kirkus

      September 1, 2017
      Biography of an English king whose "life and reign add up to far more than the sum of his mistakes."Charles I (1600-1649) has always received bad press as the villain of "the triumph of virtuous, warty-faced politicians and soldiers over a king who is weak, stupid and backward looking...a mere speed bump on the high road to liberal democracy." Reading this description on the first page, one may suspect that the author disagrees. Sure enough, veteran British historian de Lisle (Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England's Most Notorious Royal Family, 2013) delivers a more generous portrait. Charles was the son of James I and mostly a chip off the old block: a High Church Anglican who believed in the divine right of kings and clerical authority, which guaranteed trouble with the austere, Protestant Calvinists who were gaining power. Charles ruled without Parliament from 1629 to 1640, but lack of money and war with Scotland forced his hand. Fiercely anti-Royalist, the legislature passed a torrent of laws limiting his authority and expanding its own while persecuting his advisers. Despite plenty of Royalist support, Charles lacked his opponents' political acumen and ruthlessness, even after raising his standard in 1642. In 1647, after a bloody civil war, he found himself a prisoner of Parliament, the members of which wanted a negotiated settlement that might have happened if extremists under Oliver Cromwell hadn't expelled that majority in 1649, leaving those willing to condemn the king. De Lisle's parliamentarians are an irascible group, resembling not so much freedom fighters as the tea party; on the other hand, the author's Charles often seems the voice of reason. Recent elections in Britain and the United States have produced surprisingly dysfunctional governments. De Lisle's fine, revisionist view of Charles may arouse nostalgia for a time when national leaders, elected or not, looked out for the nonzealous majority.

      COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Library Journal

      October 15, 2017

      Granted access to closed archives at Belvoir Castle, de Lisle (The Sisters Who Would Be Queen) paints a sympathetic portrait of Charles I (16007-49), who was executed by antiroyalist forces. The English Civil War was a political contest over the proper balance of power between the king and Parliament, and the nature of the Church of England itself. The author skillfully places Charles's story within the context of the religious, international, and domestic political rivalries of the 17th century. Readers will find relevance in the saga of Charles and his family relationships. Misogyny, religious prejudice, and prurient propaganda were used against his queen, French Catholic Henrietta-Marie, who emerges as a warrior in her own right; an effective diplomat for the king's cause. Another notable is the queen's friend Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle, a descendant of Anne Boleyn. This fascinating look at a society in turmoil and the resilient, principled leader who tried to remain true to his religious and dynastic responsibilities will leave readers to determine for themselves the meaning of "The White King," a sobriquet used by both enemies and friends of Charles. VERDICT An engrossing read for fans of British biography and history.--Marie M. Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ

      Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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