CHARLES II.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

CHARLES 11.

THE MONARCH AND THE MAN. Mr. Arthur Bryant, long acknowledged as an authority on seventeenth century England, has now issued, through Longmans, Creen and Co.. a new shorter edition (omitting bibliography, references and index! of his justly popular "King Charles II." First published in 1031. Mr. Bryant's biography has since sold in its thousands ami at the date of this new edition some .'S-1.000 copies bad already been issued. Based on firsthand authorities throughout, Mr. Bryant's work has had the advantage of his perusal of a very large collection of seventeenth century letters not hitherto available, and the author has hence been able to throw new light on many of the incidents of Charles' reign. Beginning after the Battle of Worcester in ltiol. Mr. Bryant first chows Charles as a fugitive from Cromwell's men and traces in detail the circuitous route by whl0! Charles Meil round the South of Kngland, taking more than six weeks (from September .'? to October 16) before escaping to France. A chapter is then devoted to Charles' life in exile and the remainder of the book deals with his return and subsequent reign. Mr. Bryant is a partisan—most biographers, after all. must conceive an affection for their subject—and shows his readers the King as a human being. There are pictures of the King which will stay with the reader- of Charles and his brother, for instance, dashing to ami fro along the line of amateur fire brigadesmen at the Croat Fire. "All that is left, of city and suburbs." wrote a subject, "is acknowledged to be wholly due to the King and the Duke of York." Charles' affection for his sister— Minette. as he called her—is a matter of common knowledge, but it illustrates the kindness and a fleet ion which was a great part of his charm. Mr. Bryant points out. too, that he never abandoned any of his mistresses, but remained affectionate and considerate to them as long as he lived, even managing to have them on good terms with each other. This is a brilliantly written book about, interesting , p| c ail< ] stirrinj; tunes, whose events include the Great I'lague and Fire, the struggle for and abandonment of Tangier, and the dramatic years when the guns of the Hutch Fleet were regularly heard in London until one terrible dav in 1667 saw "the Dutch Fleet riding in triumph from the North Foreland to the buoy of the \orc-as dreadful a spectacle as ever Englishman saw and a dishonour never to be wiped out."