Book Review: Killers of the King by Charles Spencer

About:
Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I by Charles Spencer is a non-fiction story of treason and revenge taken to its most extreme. The book takes place in England, in the mid 1600s.

• 352 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Press
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1620409127

 

My Rat­ing for Killers of the King — 4

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Thoughts:
I wanted to read Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I by Charles Spencer primarily because it sounded interesting and I knew very little about the time or the events it attempts to capture. I was not disappointed, this is a well written, easy to read book.

Charles I, King of England, was living beyond his means with England paying the bills. Parliament planned and carried out a trial, verdict and execution of the monarch. After several years, the Royalists return his son, aptly named King Charles II, to power.

Charles II begins to hunt down and punish those he believed responsible for the death of his father. The book goes into details how those who signed Charles I’s death sentence, key military commanders, and yes, those who never participated in the regicide were individually tracked and were made to pay.

I specifically enjoyed reading about the role Oliver Cromwell played in capturing the king and the power he wielded afterwards. I’m going to have to get myself some more books on this fascinating person.

Even though I found some of the book tedious and repetitive, Mr. Spencer managed to add a human side to the royals, parliamentarians and military personnel he writes about. One can tell that the author did his research carefully and wrote a splendid book about this fascinating time in English history.

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Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I got this book for free.
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