Volume 27, Number 4 · March 20, 1980
Underqualified for the Job
By J.H. Plumb
The Image of the King: Charles I and Charles II
by Richard Ollard
Atheneum, 211 pp., $12.95
In the flurry created by Antonia Fraser's King Charles II Richard Ollard's book is likely, undeservedly, to be overlooked. Also it is an odd book—a long essay, attached to a simple narrative structure, or rather chronology, since there is no story in a strict sense of the word. Salient facts are mentioned—the fiasco of the Spanish marriage negotiations of Charles I's youth, the Civil War, the Execution, the Restoration, the Dutch in the Medway—episodes which are connected by little or no narrative. The one exception, perhaps, is Charles II's years of exile, where the author supplies more of a story. At times, one almost feels that a larger book was intended, maybe a life of Charles I or perhaps more probably a life of Charles II. Certainly I wished that either biography had been written, and the wish grows stronger as one reads The Image of the King. Nevertheless the book at hand is a remarkable one and immensely readable.
Review, 1130 words
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