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Books

James Duke of Monmouth: perhaps the best king we never had

Anna Keay may go weak at the knees over Charles II’s dashing illegitimate son — but he still emerges as the most honourable of the Stuarts

4 June 2016

9:00 AM

4 June 2016

9:00 AM

The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James Duke of Monmouth Anna Keay

Bloomsbury, pp.480, £25, ISBN: 9781408827826

In Pepys’s famous words, James, Duke of Monmouth was ‘the most skittish, leaping gallant that ever I saw, always in action, vaulting, or leaping or clambering’. Reading Anna Keay’s biography of the adored illegitimate son of Charles II, this image of his energy appears paramount — as Monmouth seems to live his life at speed several times over before his death, by order of his uncle James II, at the age of 36, in a horribly botched execution on Tower Hill.

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