My review of A Gambling Man: Charles II's Restoration Game, by Jenny Uglow

A Gambling Man: Charles II's Restoration Game

by Jenny Uglow

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Restoration monarch Charles II I had long procrastinated reading on, until this splendid book appeared before me. At once admiring this elegant product, its cover art and back page snippets, I was compelled to take it home.

This great grandson of the executed Mary, Queen of Scots and son of the executed Charles I was invited to take the throne following the Interregnum.

Known as the Merry Monarch, his court was a den of hedonism, his subjects loving his looseness after the puritan Cromwellian protectorate, or de facto Republic. He sired a dozen acknowledged bastards by seven mistresses.

Charles II was not merely the most infamous royal sleazebag of them all, he was a respected patron of the arts and sciences and had his work cut out in restoring England's shaky monarchy and seeing his kingdom through several great disasters. 

His watch saw London's Great Plague eliminate approximately 100,000 people, thinning the capital's population. Also the Great Fire of London, famously ignited in Pudding Lane and destroying over 13,000 houses, 80-odd churches and old St. Paul's Cathedral. The fire's aftermath saw Sir Christopher Wren add his splendid architectural mark to London's rebuilding, initiated by Chares II.

Charles also reinstated the theatre, initiating two acting companies and legalising acting for women, after a long puritanical spell wherein theatre was considered frivolous and banned altogether.

Leaving no legitimate heir, he was succeeded by his brother, the less popular, more zealously Catholic James II, whose short reign reached an abrupt halt when he was overthrown for producing a Catholic heir and suspected of aiming to steer then staunchly Protestant England religiously backwards.

I enjoyed studying this lovable, decadent, cultured rogue, whose mistresses included legendary orange-seller-turned-actress Nell Gwynn and notorious Barbara Villiers who bore five of his royal bastards.

While the Restoration is still not one of my favourite periods, Jenny Uglow lured me in, guided me well and made it accessible in a way no other has.

Recommended reading.