A Captain for Monmouth

Monmouth has landed and the West is awake! Young Oliver Hardman enjoys his life as head gamekeeper on George Speake's West Country estate. He's twenty, useful with a bow, tall and handsome too - as Lady Anne Trenchard, George Speake's daughter, appreciates to the full. Then in 1685 rebellion sweeps through Somerset, and Speake's odious son, John, takes Oliver with him to join the Duke of Monmouth's cavalry. Oliver's heroism and strategic skills bring him into the duke's confidence and Lady Anne's special favour, while Colonel Speake, seething with envy, plots bitter revenge on the battlefield. Can Captain Hardman, now head of Hardman's Horse, survive the debacle of Sedgemoor? And more to the point, can he survive Speake's insane jealousy? Peter Forrester's outstanding familiarity with local topography and historical detail lend a palpable whiff of reality to this action-filled account of Monmouth's attempt to rid England of her last Catholic monarch - the disastrous James Stuart. Monmouth's fate is well known, but in these pages our sympathies lie with him - and his trusty Captain Hardman - right to the very end.