The Last Royal Rebel ─ The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth

At first light on 7 July 1685, the last battle ever fought on English soil was already under way. On one side of the watery pasture at Sedgemoor, in Somerset, was the dashing 36-year-old Duke of Monmouth. The charming, charismatic son of Charles II, adored by the people, he was a reformer, a romantic and a Protestant. He was fighting the army he had once commanded, an army that now answered to James II. Yet even before he launched his attack, Monmouth knew he would die.

Born in the backstreets of Rotterdam in the year his grandfather Charles I was executed, Monmouth was the child of a turbulent age. His mother, the first of Charles II's famous liaisons, played courtesan to the band of raw and restless young royalists forced abroad by the changing political current. Conceived during a revolution, Monmouth was born into a new world: a republic. By the time he was twelve the tide had turned again and he was the sensation of the most licentious and libertine court in Europe. Adored by the king and drenched in honors, he became the greatest rake and reprobate of the age.

Anna Keay deftly wields the life of James, Duke of Monmouth to craft an engrossing and sweeping history of this dramatic period in English history. On his path to becoming 'the last royal rebel,' Monmouth consorted with a spectacular list of contemporaries: Louis XIV was his mentor, William of Orange his confidant, Nell Gwyn his protector, the Duke of Marlborough his pupil, D'Artagnan his lieutenant, Andrew Marvell his censor and Samuel Pepys his jailer. In this magnificent biography, Keay expertly chronicles Monmouth's life and offers splendid insight into this crucial and turbulent age.

Anna Keay is a historian and broadcaster specializing in Stuart England. She studied at Oxford and received a Ph.D. from London University. Having worked as curator of Hampton Court Palace and the Tower of London, and as curatorial director of English Heritage, she is now director of the Landmark Trust. Anna's television work includes a series for the History Channel and commentating on royal events. Her previous publications include The Magnificent Monarch: Charles II and the Ceremonies of Power, and The Crown Jewels: A History of the English Regalia.