The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth

(Paperback)

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'Brilliant and revelatory...a superb biography, which paints a vivid picture of the times and of her subject*****' Daily Telegraph James, Duke of Monmouth, the adored illegitimate son of Charles II, was born in exile the very year that his grandfather was executed and the English monarchy abolished. Abducted from his mother on his fathers orders, he emerged from a childhood in the backstreets of Rotterdam to command the ballrooms of Paris, the brothels of Covent Garden and the battlefields of Flanders. Pepys described him as the most skittish, leaping gallant that ever I saw, always in action, vaulting or leaping or clambering. Louis XIV was his mentor, Nell Gwyn his protector, DArtagnan his lieutenant, William of Orange his confidant, John Dryden his censor and John Locke his comrade. He inspired both delight and disgust, adulation and abhorrence and, in time, love and loyalty almost beyond fathoming and Anna Keay brings him to glorious life, matching rigorous scholarship with a storytellers gift to enrapturing effect. His story is one of the bond between father and son, the power struggle between King and Parliament and the conflict between love and honour. His life, culminating in his fateful invasion, provides a sweeping history of the turbulent decades in which England as we know it was forged.

Reviews

Here is Monmouth, and here is his world. It is a considerable achievement -- Andrew Taylor * The Times *
Beautifully written ... Anna Keay has provided not just a great life of a long forgotten royal rebel and revived his place in popular politics, but also a compelling account of British history during one of its most dangerous and tumultuous eras -- Tristram Hunt
Written with the flair of a novelist and the punctilious skill of a forensic historian It is the best royal biography I have read in years -- A. N. Wilson
Fascinating, compelling, outrageous and ultimately tragic The Last Royal Rebel delivers, with scholarly authority, political acumen, exciting narrative and a worldly, playful eye for drama, character and detail a vivid politicalpersonal portrait of the hitherto-neglected Monmouth but also a shrewd study of Charles II, his dangerous, seductive, amoral court and Restoration England and of a golden youth doomed -- Simon Sebag Montefiore
Anna Keay has effectively turned [the] old-fashioned, censorious judgment of Monmouth on its head by making him the hero of his own story. It is a bold approach, and this vividly told story will remain in the readers memory long after the last page of Keays book has been turned. No one can deny that Monmouths life was anything other than dramatic Keays real achievement in this book is not so much a re-evaluation of Monmouth himself, though that may be well overdue, but her deft analysis of 17th-century personalities and politics Keay has brought a period almost lost to popular history compellingly alive * Literary Review *
Brilliant and revelatory Anna Keay has written a superb biography, which paints a vivid picture of the times and of her subject. She has an instinctive feel for character and place, and combines elegant prose with a novelistic gift for narrative. Above all, she has rescued this much-traduced and forgotten royal rebel from the backwaters and set him once more at the centre of one of Britains great historical whirlpools * Daily Telegraph *
Powerful [A] penetrating and superbly researched biography * Country Life *

Author Bio

Born in the West Highlands of Scotland, Anna Keay read history at Magdalen College, Oxford, where she won two academic scholarships. She was awarded her PhD on the reign of Charles II by the University of London. She was formerly a curator for Historic Royal Palaces, Curatorial Director of English Heritage and is currently Director of the Landmark Trust. She is married with two children and divides her time between London and Kings Lynn, Norfolk.