A dramatic story of the ruthless servant of King Charles. The Earl of Stafford rose to become the most powerful and the most hated man in the British Isles--only to find himself deserted by his master and forced to go to the scaffold to appease the wrath of the people. In this revaluation of the original version, Stafford emerges as a complex character: ambitious, greedy, unscrupulous, but with intense Puritan piety and unflagging devotion to duty. "Her style is a model of clarity. And, in sheer readability she is a match for any historian, living or dead."--The Sunday Times.