From the New York Times bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the tragic story of Charles I, his warrior queen, Britain's civil wars and the trial for his life. Less than forty years after England's golden age under Elizabeth I, the country was at war with itself. Split between loyalty to the Crown or to Parliament, war raged on English soil. The English Civil War would set family against family, friend against friend, and its casualties were immense--a greater proportion of the population died than in World War I. At the head of the disintegrating kingdom was King Charles I. In this vivid portrait -- informed by previously unseen manuscripts, including royal correspondence between the king and his queen -- Leanda de Lisle depicts a man who was principled and brave, but fatally blinkered. Charles never understood his own subjects or court intrigue. At the heart of the drama were the Janus-faced cousins who befriended and betrayed him -- Henry Holland, his peacocking servant whose brother, the New England colonialist Robert Warwick, engineered the king's fall; and Lucy Carlisle, the magnetic 'last Boleyn girl' and faithless favorite of Charles's maligned and fearless queen. The tragedy of Charles I was that he fell not as a consequence of vice or wickedness, but of his human flaws and misjudgments. The White King is a story for our times, of populist politicians and religious war, of manipulative media and the reshaping of nations. For Charles it ended on the scaffold, condemned as a traitor and murderer, yet lauded also as a martyr, his reign destined to sow the seeds of democracy in Britain and the New World. Leanda de Lisle is the highly acclaimed author of The Sisters Who Would Be Queen, After Elizabeth, and Tudor. She has been a columnist on the Spectator, Country Life, the Guardian, the Sunday Telegraph, and the Daily Express, and writes for the Daily Mail, the New Statesman, and the Sunday Telegraph. She lives in Leicestershire, England. "Engaging.... Charles had many virtues, and Ms. de Lisle does justice to them.... Ms. de Lisle's account of the Revolution and the war is excellent-clear, fair, sympathetic and detailed.... she grants him the stature of a tragic hero."-AllanMassie, Wall Street Journal "Leanda de Lisle has approached one of the great icons of history with understanding and compassion. She takes her readers through the twists and turns of the English Civil War so that they understand the enormity of the regicide and the foolishness and courage of the king."-Philippa Gregory, author of TheOther Boleyn Girl "The reign of King Charles I of England is perhaps best known for its bloody end, when the monarch was beheaded on January 30, 1649.... The polarized nature of the debate concerning Charles's execution, however, has advanced a simplistic understanding of the Stuart king's legacy, one concerned chiefly with his abuses of power and attachment to the doctrine of divine right of kings. Leanda de Lisle's new biography of Charles, based on existing scholarship as well as newly discovered letters from the king's own hand, promises to challenge this legacy."-TheNew Criterion Critic's Notebook "Charles I (1600-1649) has always received bad press....veteran British historian de Lisle delivers a more generous portrait.... De Lisle's parliamentarians are an irascible group, resembling not so much freedom fighters as the tea party; on the other hand, the author's Charles often seems the voice of reason. Recent elections in Britain and the United States have produced surprisingly dysfunctional governments. De Lisle's fine, revisionist view of Charles may arouse nostalgia for a time when national leaders, elected or not, looked out for the nonzealous majority."-KirkusReviews "De Lisle paints a sympathetic portrait [and] skillfully places Charles's story within the context of religious, international, and domestic political rivalries.... Misogyny, religious p