A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration - Hardcover

Uglow, Jenny

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571217338 ISBN 13: 9780571217335

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2009

Synopsis

Charles II was thirty when he crossed the Channel in fine May weather in 1660. His Restoration was greeted with maypoles and bonfires, like spring after long years of Cromwell's rule. But there was no going back, no way he could 'restore' the old. Certainty had vanished. The divinity of kingship fled with his father's beheading. 'Honour' was now a word tossed around in duels. 'Providence' could no longer be trusted. As the country was rocked by plague, fire and war, people searched for new ideas by which to live. Exactly ten years later Charles II would stand again on the shore at Dover, laying the greatest bet of his life in a secret deal with his cousin, Louis XIV.

The Restoration decade was one of experiment: from the science of the Royal Society to the startling role of credit and risk, from the shocking licence of the court to the failed attempts at toleration of different beliefs. Negotiating all these, Charles II, the 'slippery sovereign', played odds and took chances, dissembling and manipulating his followers. The theatres were restored, but the king was the supreme actor. Yet while his grandeur, his court and his colourful sex life were on display, his true intentions lay hidden.

A Gambling Man is a portrait of Charles II, exploring his elusive nature through the lens of these ten vital years - and a portrait of a vibrant, violent, pulsing world, racked with plague, fire and war, in which the risks the king took forged the fate of the nation, on the brink of the modern world.

About this title

Product Description:

Physical description; xi, 580 p., [16] p. of chiefly col. plates : ill., maps, ports. ; 24 cm. Subjects; Charles II, King of England 1630-1685. Charles II, King of Great Britain and Ireland - Studies. Great Britain - History - Restoration, 1660-1688.

Review:

A Gambling Man is a glorious romp of a book, filled with glittering anecdotes about Britain at its most glamorous and easy-going best. ... A double biography of both a man and his age which gleams with a rare kind of intimacy. Here is popular history at its compelling best. (Kathryn Hughes Mail on Sunday)

Our finest biographer of the working life, Uglow excels in writing about the public, professional self. Like many a good card game, A Gambling Man is intense, involved, absorbing. (Frances Wilson Sunday Times 2009-09-27)

An absorbing and memorable book ... If the king is at the centre of her extensively researched book, it ranges far beyond him. Its achievement is to bring together the analytical insights of recent studies of the politics of the period with the re-creation of mood and atmosphere. (Blair Worden The Spectator)

Splendidly, and evocatively, Uglow opens her account with the very moment of restoration, the king's stately arrival by sea on the Royal Charles ... As an account of an intriguing figure and an absorbing decade, A Gambling Man - lively, imaginative and constantly engrossing - proves superb. (Miranda Seymour Daily Telegraph)

This is a terrific book, sparklingly written. Even the most ingrained republican ought to be enthralled. (Salley Vickers The Independent)

It is no surprise (Uglow) carries off her task here with triumphant bravura. We will probably never have a better description of the Restoration court, elegant, libidinous and lethal by turns. ... An unrivalled pen-picture of this bold, charming and supremely cynical royal gambler at the very height of his unprincipled powers. (Richard Holmes Financial Times)

It's a really wonderful book and the richness of the detail and the quality of the writing bring out a whole society - it's not just about a king and his court. (Orlando Figes Start the Week)

(Uglow's) terrific A Gambling Man ... a fabulously rich and insightful account of Charles II during the first decade of the Restoration, taking in everything from high fashion to the politics of the London mob. (Dominic Sandbrook The Times)

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0571217338
• ISBN 13: 9780571217335
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 592