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Barely forty years after the England's golden age under Elizabeth, the country was at war with itself, split between loyalty to the Crown and Parliament, with armies raised in Scotland and Ireland, and fighters arriving from Europe to wage war on English soil for the last time in England's history. The English Civil War would set family against family, friend against friend, and its casualties were immense—a greater proportion of the population than in World War I. England had become a failed state. At the head of the disintegrating kingdom was the figure of the king: Charles I. In this vivid portrait—newly informed by previously unseen manuscripts, including royal correspondence between the king and his queen, some of it written in code—Leanda de Lisle depicts a man who was not cruel enough for his cruel times. He would not persecute his opponents in the bloody style of his Tudor antecedents, or throw his servants to the wolves to save his own skin in the time-honored royal style. He was tutored by his fat...