Guided by its various twists & turns, To Catch a King tells the story the manhunt for Charles II, following the rebellion that spurred his father`s beheading in 1649. This unputdownable sequel to Killers of the King tells an old story with new eyes, challenging our polarised notions of royalism, nationalism & loyalty. In January 1649, King Charles I was beheaded in London outside his palace of Whitehall & Britain became a republic. When his eldest son, Charles, returned in 1651 to fight for his throne, he was crushed by the might of Cromwell`s armies at the battle of Worcester. With 3, 000 of his supporters lying dead & 10, 000 taken prisoner, it seemed as if his dreams of power had been dashed. Surely it was a foregone conclusion that he would now be caught & follow his father to the block? At six foot two inches tall, the prince towered over his contemporaries & with dark skin inherited from his French-Italian mother, he stood out in a crowd. How would he fare on the run with Cromwell`s soldiers on his tail & a vast price on his head? The next six weeks would form the most memorable & dramatic of Charles` life. Pursued relentlessly, Charles ran using disguise, deception & relying on grit, fortitude & good luck. He suffered grievously through weeks when his cause seemed hopeless. He hid in an oak tree
- an event so fabled that over 400 English pubs are named Royal Oak in commemoration. Less well-known events include his witnessing a village in wild celebrations at the erroneous news of his killing; the ordeal of a medical student wrongly imprisoned because of his similarity in looks; Charles disguising himself as a servant & as one half of an eloping couple to escape capture. Charles never forgot those who helped him &, when restored to the throne as Charles II, told the tale of his adventures to Samuel Pepys who transcribed it all. In this gripping, action-packed, true adventure story, based on extensive archive material, Charles Spencer, bestselling author of Killers of the King, uses Pepys` account & many others to retell this epic story. With bloodied feet & facing certain death if caught, Charles relied upon a patchwork of hiding places that had evolved to hide Catholics from lethal persecution. Now, in the 1650s, they saved the life of a king.