Product Description

`This is by far the best modern biography of Charles I and will be welcomed both by general readers and by specialists...a strikingly individual contribution to our understanding of the personality of this King.' British Book News

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1511372 in Books
• Published on: 1995-09-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 456 pages

Review
`This is a splendid biography ... Professor Carlton deserves congratulations on this outstanding and fascinating book on the last ruling King of England.' Catholic Herald

The author shows an unusual degree of insight into the King's character, and excels in relating cause and effect.' Eastern Daily Press

`This is by far the best modern biography of Charles I will be welcomed both by general readers and by specialists ... a strikingly individual contribution to our understanding of the personality of this king.' British Book News

`The Best biography in print. Giving careful attention to the springs of the King's character, Carlton draws a subtle portrait which makes sense of royal actions and policies ... Carlton's thoughtful and well-researched biography brings us much closer that we have been before to understanding him.' English Historical Review

`An eminently scholarly yet very readable biography of a British monarch `won by losing' ... Carlton's work is probably the definitive biography of the British monarch whose reign saw the outbreak of the English Civil War. The sources are voluminous, the scholarship impeccable and the writing possessed of considerable grace.' Book World

`The finest available account of the troubled life that began in the retreat of Dunfermline Castle and ended on the scaffold at Whitehall.' The Sunday Times

From the Back Cover
Charles Carlton's biography of the `monarch of the Civil Wars' was praised for its distinctive psychological portrait of Charles I when it was first published in 1983. Challenging conventional interpretations of the king, as well as questioning orthodox historical assumptions concerning the origins and development of the Civil Wars, the book quickly established itself as the definitive biography.
In the eleven years since Charles I: The Personal Monarch was published an immense amount of new material on the king and his reign have emerged and yet no new biography has been written. Professor Carlton's second edition includes a substantial new preface which takes account of the new work. Addressing and analysing the furious historiographical debates which have surrounded the period, Carlton offers a fresh and lucid perspective. The text and bibliography have been thoroughly updated.