The King and the gentleman - Derek Wilson

The chronicle of the first half of the seventeenth century is, in a very real sense an account of the conflict between Charles Stuart and Oliver Cromwell and the beliefs that impelled them. King and subject were almost exact contemporaries (nineteen months separated their birth dates). Both were possessed by a deep sense of divine mission. Both were profoundly religious. Both were immovably stubborn. Their ideals set them on a collision course which culminated in one of the most dramatic events in our history: the execution of a reigning sovereign on 30 January 1649. THE KING AND THE GENTLEMAN intriguingly parallels the lives of the foreign-born aesthete-prince and the down-to-earth representative of a struggling squirearchy. The result is a lucid and authoritative account of one of the most fascinating periods in British History.