This account of Charles II's torturous escape to France after his failed attempt to regain his father's throne in 1650 is curiously structured. Each chapter begins with an excerpt from the King's reminiscences of the events to come in the chapter, as taken down by Samuel Pepys some years later. This has the advantage of giving one a sort of precis of key events to be looking for in the chapter, but also serves as a series of megaspoilers, as either the King had a pretty good memory or the author just follows along, as his narrative doesn't often vary much. Then, each chapter ends with a "Commentary" wherein the author fills in some blanks about the futures of some of the players, anomalies in the source material, and whether the venues described still exist today. The author writes very clearly and the story makes for a ripping yarn as well as significant history. The book could have used a couple of enhancements; there are maps, but they come along too late to be of much use unless one discovers that they are there ahead of time, and a dramatis personae would have been welcome; this cast of thousands drifts in and out and few of them are somebodies, at least four centuries on. The book ends anticlimactically with excerpts from Pepys' diary narrating Charles' restoration a decade later, which adds little. ( )