The first accessible biography in 50 years of one of the most dramatic and bloody reigns in history
Leanda de Lisle is the highly acclaimed author of three books on the Tudors and Stuarts, including the bestselling The Sisters Who Would Be Queen and Tudor- The Family Story. A former weekly columnist on the Spectator, Guardian and Daily Express, she contributes to numerous national publications. She lives in Leicestershire.
A revelation... White King is that rare thing, a page-turning
history that gently but insistently also asks provocative questions
about a period on which our opinions have been all too fixed.
Charles does not emerge with his reputation restored, but he
emerges whole
*Financial Times*
Fascinating
*Evening Standard*
Humane and scholarly... De Lisle's deeply and originally researched
book brings Charles alive not in kingly isolation but as a father
and a husband. Both biography and subject deserve our fullest
attention
*Mail on Sunday*
Engaging, well-researched and beautifully written... Emphatically
not another book about the civil wars, this instead offers a
nuanced and detailed examination of one of our most complex
monarchs. It is probably the definitive modern work about Charles
I
*Observer*
De Lisle, who has long been an original voice in popular Tudor
studies, is generous to Charles, but too sharp a reader of evidence
to ignore his flaws... Pellucid, compelling and enriched by fresh
evidence... Sympathetic but scrupulous to the last
*Sunday Telegraph*
An impeccably researched and thought-provoking biography which
reads as well as a fine novel... It also revives one of this
country's greatest stories: a blinkered king, a warrior queen, a
war that turned brother against brother and scandals caused by
money, sex, espionage and power, woven together in the life of this
extraordinary but flawed king
*Daily Express*
Formidable... with remarkable clarity she unpicks the tangle of
religious, political and economic conflicts that led to the Civil
War... De Lisle draws on little-known and in some cases previously
unrecorded letters to explore the important part that women played
in Charles’s story... This is not a story of a weakling or a
villain: it’s the tragedy of the right man in the wrong place in
history
*The Times*
De Lisle effortlessly carries the reader along with her as she
recreates the tragedy of Charles I and the Civil War. Her book is
beautifully constructed, telling the story chronologically with a
nice eye for detail, illuminating each period and major character
by vivid tableau, but with plenty of analysis... This is the most
gripping piece of revisionist history I have read for a long
time
*Spectator*
Elegantly written... the book proceeds at a cracking pace as the
king's tragedy unfolds... Leanda de Lisle's splendid book is a
timely reminder of the fascination of this turbulent period
*History Today*
Excellent -- clear, fair, sympathetic and detailed
*Wall Street Journal*
A riveting study that casts [Charles] as a blinkered idealist, and
draws on previously unpublished royal letters that restore the
humanity of his despised queen, Henrietta Maria
*Daily Telegraph*
Leanda de Lisle's very readable new biography of the king reveals
the twisting path through love, politics and war that led him to
his ultimate desintation
*Daily Mail*
A grand tragedy related with searing pathos
*Good Housekeeping*
Britain's Stuart monarchs have long been overlooked in favour of
their more flashy Tudor counterparts, but in White King Leanda de
Lisle offers a case for Charles I being one of history's most
compelling rulers... [a] revelatory account of Charles's unstable
and ultimately tragic reign
*Radio Times*
Uses newly revealed letters and manuscripts to inform a new
portrait of Charles I
*Choice Magazine*
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