The Soldier, the Gaoler, the Spy and Her Lover

30 January 1649

England is not a country that wishes to execute its divinely appointed king. Yet Charles I finds himself shivering on a scaffold in Whitehall, the axe man by his side.

In this brilliantly atmospheric novel, Simon Parke explores one of the most gripping tales in English history, weaving together the coinciding stories of:

* Charles, including his extraordinary year-long imprisonment on the Isle of Wight

* Robert Hammond, the poor man who found himself the king’s gaoler

* Charles’s remarkable mistress, the super-spy Jane Whorwood, and

* the brilliant but depressed Oliver Cromwell, anguishing over religion, politics, love and death.