This was a hugely enjoyable biography. Keay knows how to spin a narrative. I'm left somewhat perplexed that while she tries to rescue dear Monmouth from the gutters of history, she rather throws his poor mother under the bus. It's disappointing to see Keay regurgitating the opinions of the men of the period without unpicking or questioning it, aside from some platitudes about the difficulties Lucy Walter must have faced. We're still holding seventeenth century women to a higher moral standard than their male counterparts it seems.

This aside, she does a rather good job of rehabilitating poor old Monmouth. I mean, he comes across as rather stupid at times, and block headedly idealistic but the gift of hindsight and 300 odd years is a wonderful thing.