Very Interesting

A captivating and detailed book that offers an insight into Charles II's many mistresses. Well researched and featuring mostly core information, the book is a great introduction to the topic. The author is engaging and good for the book, although she sadly mispronounces many (if not most) of the non-English names and locations - but this is a minor detail.

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1 person found this helpful

Restoration naughtiness.

A brief but well written biography of the chief mistresses of Charles II, and his long-suffering wife Catherine of Braganza. Although several of these women, the Queen included, merit deeper study, this book is a great introduction to, and overview of, a court that, it could be argued, instigated the two party political system that still blights our country today.

I found the narration irritating at times. The failure of the narrator to pronounce names and places correctly always irks.

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2 people found this helpful

Fantastic!

This book was fascinating, I knew little just a few myths so this book really held my interest. The narration was wonderful.

I highly recommend.

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No wonder he was merry

Excellent .not just the mistresses but the whole debauched court brought vividly to life and very well narrated by Julie Teal

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"Restless he rolls from whore to whore"

Lord Rochester invented the "Merry Monarch" title for Charles II as well as this headline. With his insatiable appetite for women and fine food, it seems fitting, but it doesn't seem very merry to self-dose and finally self-poison with mercury in the vain hope that it will protect you from venereal disease. or to suffer agonies of gout and obesity from vast over-eating which is what the ebullient and genial Charles II did.

Linda Porter's quite brief clearly researched account of the seven most important women in Charles' life rips along at a good pace and is crammed with detail, from the incredibly vast sums of money lavished on these women to the galley slaves who manned the ships carrying dignitaries to England. She also lays out succinctly the political backdrop to these liaisons and the minutiae of the excessively hedonistic court life.

Poor Catherine of Braganzia brought to Charles' court from Portugal to marry the King! Suffering from ghastly sea-sickness, she arrived in England ill and exhausted with no great celebrations to welcome her to the alien land where Charles' long-term mistress Barbara Villiers later made Duchess of Portsmouth, was reigning high. Despite writing effusively to his new mother-in-law about his delight with his new wife, Charles found her completely unappealing whilst Catherine fell in love with him and stayed devoted, despite the pain and suffering his antics with his endless mistresses gave her. She never managed to produce an heir, suffering only miscarriages as Charles' many bastard children prospered. It was only on his death bed in 1685, 25 years after the Restoration, that Charles revealed his sorrow at the way he had treated her.

Charles' mistresses detailed here from the most famous, the raised-in-a-brothel Nell Gwyn to the aristocratic Louise de Keroualle (who held the record at 15 years for her role as maitresse-en-titre) are majestic in their ambition, rivalries and eccentricities. Barbara Villiers had herself painted by Peter Lely with herself as the Madonna and her bastard child as a thumping great baby Jesus.

It's a serious work which carries its authority lightly - a very enjoyable, lively recreation of that extraordinary Court. Julie Teal reads it very well, but I think it's a pity that when she has obviously taken the trouble to pronounce the many French names correctly, she makes errors with English words: mores; forte and scurrilous, the latter many times as it's an obvious adjectives for much of went on!

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interesting book

I really enjoyed this well narrated listen. it gives lots of detail about the Mistresses lives before and after their affairs with the king

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Very enjoyable

My first read of history of Charles the second, very well researched. Narrator had a nice voice

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An interesting idea, spoiled by spite.

The idea of writing a book about these interesting and diverse women is a very good idea. However, the spite with which the author regards some of the protagonists spoils much of the book. It is extremely odd that some personages are singled out for vitriol, while others are sympathetically portrayed.

Frances Stewart is painted as a young woman with much more intelligence and good sense than she is given credit for (despite the fact that she married an obvious bounder and ruined her life) but Louise de Kérouaille is portrayed as a rapacious harpy with delusions of grandeur. Queen Catherine is sympathetically regarded for the most part but is not immune to spiteful digs (her nose bleed and fainting spell as a result from her shock and distress to having her husband's mistress presented to her while she was just a new bride is apparently hard to understand).

Much of the author's ire is reserved for King Charles II. She takes every opportunity to blacken his character and to state that modern perceptions of him as the "Merry Monarch" persist only because his true character is not widely known.

There is nothing in this book about his great personal courage during the civil war, his desperate attempt to save his father's life, and his devastation when he could not. The Great Fire - during which he showed great leadership - is conveniently not mentioned, likely because the author seeks at all times to portray him as distant from and uninterested in the people (ignoring that they had deposed and murdered his father not so long ago).

When it cannot be avoided, the good things he did are mentioned but rapidly glossed over.

A king who proved his ability to father sons with other women was well within his rights to divorce his infertile wife. He didn't, despite the fact that her dowry - the only reason the match was made - was never paid by Portugal. There is an allusion to the full dowry not materialising and then nothing more. At a time when hatred of Catholics was running high, his protection of his wife when zealots tried to have her prosecuted for treason (for involved in a Papist Plot) was at great risk to himself (his mother's Catholicism was one of the reasons his father was so unpopular).

Charles II was no angel. But he was an extremely complex figure whose indolent attitude hid a sharp mind. He could behave with great compassion (witness the number of executions during his reign and his treatment of different faiths) but was unsympathetic to his loving wife by forcing her to accept his mistresses. He behaved in underhanded ways (for example, by making a secret deal with France) but stood up for his core principles, even when it would have been easier not to (for example, by preserving the position of James as his heir when attempts were made to bypass him over his Catholicism).

Charles Stuart and all of the women in this book should be treated as the complex and multi-faceted people they were. They deserve better than a spiteful character assassination.

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