The King's Henchman: Stuart Spymaster and Architect of the British Empire

I learned much more about the Stuart line of kings of England through this book than I had ever learned in school, Anthony Adolph has researched his subject well and written it so that it captures your interest right from the start.

The writer brings his subject Henry Jermyn to life and explains his actions in the context of revolution, exile and counter revolution. In order to keep the narrative interesting conjecture is often not sufficiently qualified compared to known facts. This of course makes the book more readable and as a non-professional historian i appreciated the authors efforts very much. I am still not absolutely certain how far Charles II went with his attempts to appease Catholic France this book implies that he went further than any other history I have read.

I enjoyed reading this book but felt the author kept repeating facts and ideas. Of course what most readers probably want is more detail about Charles II's possible father - was he or wasn't he Charles I's son? I guess we will never know. Not a bad read and I learned lots about the Stuart court.

My partner and I are English Civil War re-enactors and I bought this book, as I knew my partner would find it interesting. He's currently part way through it and finding it fascinating.Having received an email from the author, I then searched for the item on Amazon in order to get value for money. I'm not disappointed with the purchase, and my partner is delighted with the gift.So, huge thanks to Anthony Adolph for writing the book and to Amazon for providing it at a very reasonable price!

This is a well-considered book, heavy on facts and generally persuasive. The author has a tendency to dramatic reconstruction that may irritate some, but this appears less as the book continues. The font is unusually large, for which my eyes were grateful. The focus on Jermyn's architectural development was especially interesting. I feel that more might have been made of the Royal family's connections - the names Henry and Henrietta are not unusual if the grandfather is Henri, the mother Henriette/Henrietta and the uncle Henry, and although Charles I was short, his father, mother and brother were all described as tall, making Charles II's height (remarkable for the era) a little less so.Unfortunately, the editing is deplorably sloppy. The index is basic and not always accurate (e.g. the last entry for Mary, Princess of Orange should be 223-5, not 253-5) and the proofreading appears to have stopped at checking that every printed word was a real word. Words are repeated or omitted, and it is sometimes difficult to ascertain what the author meant; the nonsensical phrase "he was prompted to became" (sic) should probably be "he was promoted to become", for example. Grammar is inconsistent; one person is "thirty five-year old", while another is "twenty-five year-old".Because of the poor presentation of this work, I have changed what would have been 5 stars to 4.

Henry Jermyn led an important and interesting life during a key period but the book does not do him justice. For example, there is great emphasis on his "romance" with Henrietta Maria without much examination of the evidence. Also frequent references to his role as spy master without analysis of what he achieved through this. I did not feel I knew him any better at the end than when I started.