Analyzes the reign of Charles II during the first decade of the Restoration, assessing influences ranging from plague and court licentiousness to intolerance and war, in an account that describes the kings daring secret deal with his cousin, Louis XIV. By the PEN International Prize for History-winning author of The Lunar Men. In this biography of King Charles II (1630-1685), the author of other books on English history chronicles his restoration to the British throne after Oliver Cromwells rule. Uglow portrays the Restoration as an innovative yet insecure period spent battling the Dutch, plagues, and the Great Fire of London. The game of the title involves sexual as well as political affairs, e.g., a secret deal with his cousin Louis XIV of France offering conversion to Catholicism for his support. The book includes maps and period illustrations. Originally published in 2009 in Great Britain by Faber & Faber Ltd., as A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration, 1660-1670. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) The Restoration was a decade of experimentation: from the founding of the Royal Society for investigating the sciences to the startling role of credit and risk; from the shocking licentiousness of the court to failed attempts at religious tolerance. Negotiating all these, Charles II, the “slippery sovereign,” laid odds and took chances, dissembling and manipulating his followers. The theaters may have been restored, but the king himself was the supreme actor. Yet while his grandeur, his court, and his colorful sex life were on display, his true intentions lay hidden.Charles II was thirty when he crossed the English Channel in fine May weather in 1660. His Restoration was greeted with maypoles and bonfires, as spring after the long years of Cromwell’s rule. But there was no way to turn back, no way he could “restore” the old dispensation. Certainty had vanished. The divinity of kingship had ended with his father’s beheading. “Honor” was now a word tossed around in duels. “Providence” could no longer be trusted. As the country was rocked by plague, fire, and war, people searched for new ideas by which to live. And exactly ten years after he arrived, Charles would again stand on the shore at Dover, this time placing the greatest bet of his life in a secret deal with his cousin, Louis XIV of France.Jenny Uglow’s previous biographies have won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and International PEN’s Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History. A Gambling Man is Uglow at her best: both a vivid portrait of Charles II that explores his elusive nature and a spirited evocation of a vibrant, violent, pulsing world on the brink of modernity.
