Queen Catherines Court: Power and Rebellion in Restoration England

(Paperback, Main)

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'A good story, embracing character, emotion and drama... refreshing.' THE TIMES

'A splendidly sympathetic and sparky portrait... Wittily written and rich in detail' Miranda Seymour

Catherine of Braganza - Boring Plain Ineffectual Think again.

Charles II's wife was a trouser-wearing tastemaker who introduced tea drinking, popularised card games and championed baroque fashion and art. Her salon culture was infamous for its parties, theatricals and frequent trips to the pub. A Catholic queen in a strictly Anglican country, she was the diplomatic bridge between an unstable Britain and the European mainland, and carefully navigated the treacherous political landscape of Restoration England.

In this illuminating portrait historian Sophie Shorland brings Catherine vividly to life for the first time, revealing a woman who defied the limitations imposed upon her to have a profound impact on the world around her.

Previously published as The Lost Queen.

Reviews

[An] often delightful biography... [Shorland] writes with the confidence of a much more experienced author. She has thankfully discarded the rigid conventions of academia in favour of telling a good story, embracing character, emotion and drama. Her often lighthearted manner is for the most part refreshing, especially given a story so bleak... * The Times *
Wonderfully rich in the 17th century details of lives, loves, politics and power, in England and in Europe. The book rightly challenges ideas about the wife of Charles II and his treatment of her. We've too easily preferred the gossip of the merry monarch's mistresses over this remarkable woman showing dignified courage and tenacity in the face of constant threats to her position. * Suzie Edge, as seen on TikTok and the author of Mortal Monarchs: 1000 Years of Royal Deaths *
What a wonderful subject Sophie Shorland has picked. It's for far too long that Charles II's Portuguese queen has been neglected or misrepresented. Shorland connects her to our own times in a splendidly sympathetic and sparky portrait, filled with unexpected images of a courageous woman who wasn't afraid to create her own circle and defend her beliefs at an English court dominated by her husband's mistresses. Wittily written and rich in detail. -- Miranda Seymour, author of I Used to Live Here Once
Another neglected Early Modern woman finally gets the biography she deserves! Shorland's is a confident, cosmopolitan and always accessible life of the Queen Consort who brought England nothing less than the first toeholds of a truly global empire, and the habit of tea-drinking. -- Ophelia Field, author of The Favourite
Between these covers we rediscover a lost queen, having now emerged from the shadow of her husband, Charles II. She stands before us as never before, complex, astute and fully realised, all thanks to Shorland's sensitive and robust retelling of her life. "Let Bonfires blaze" indeed, for here, finally, is the long-awaited history of Catherine of Braganza. * Anthony Delaney, HistoryHit presenter and author of Queer Georgians *
A lively and long-awaited biography of one of Britain's most under-rated queens. * Linda Porter, author of Mistresses *
This lively, fascinating book retrieves an overlooked queen from a historical siding and restores her to the centre of European politics and Charles II's London. * Suzannah Lipscomb, award-winning historian and broadcaster, and author of What is History, Now *
What we get is a vivid picture of how, as queen consort, Catherine bore the rebuffs she received politically and socially among certain factions of the court, and how she ultimately rose to become a prominent figure in her own right... The Lost Queen succeeds in its aim of restoring Catherine to her rightful place at the centre of Restoration history. * History Today *

Author Bio

Sophie Shorland has a PhD in Early Modern English literature and is a former Research Fellow at the University of Warwick. She was a semi-finalist in the BBC's New Generation Thinkers competition and the proposal for her first book was shortlisted for the Tony Lothian Prize.