***A Best Book of 2022 The Times******Book of the Year Spectator***A myth-busting biography
of Henrietta Maria wife of Charles I which retells the dramatic story of the civil war from
her perspective Henrietta Maria Charles I's queen is the most reviled consort to have worn
the crown of Britain's three kingdoms. Condemned as that 'Popish brat of France' a 'notorious
whore' and traitor she remains in popular memory the wife who wore the breeches and turned her
husband Catholic - so causing a civil war - and a cruel and bigoted mother. Leanda de Lisle's
White King was hailed as 'the definitive modern biography about Charles I' (Observer). Here she
considers Henrietta Maria's point of view unpicking the myths to reveal a very different
queen. We meet a new bride who enjoyed annoying her uptight husband a leader of fashion in
clothes and cultural matters an innovative builder and gardener and an advocate of the female
voice in public affairs. No bigot her closest friends included 'Puritans' as well as Catholics
and she led the anti-Spanish faction at court linked to the Protestant cause in the Thirty
Years' War. When civil war came the strategic planning and fundraising of his 'She
Generalissimo' proved crucial to Charles's campaign. The story takes us to courts across Europe
and looks at the fate of Henrietta Maria's mother and sisters who also faced civil wars. Her
estrangement from her son Henry is explained and the image of the Restoration queen as an
irrelevant crone is replaced with Henrietta Maria as an influential 'phoenix queen' presiding
over a court with 'more mirth' even than that of the Merry Monarch Charles II. It is time to
look again at this despised queen and judge if she is not in fact one of our most remarkable.
'this is revisionist history at its absolute best' ANDREW ROBERTS'beautifully written and
endlessly fascinating' ALEXANDER LARMAN'popular history of the finest kind' RONALD HUTTON
