First published in 1957, Here Lies Our Sovereign Lord is the third in Jean Plaidy’s Charles II trilogy, which can also be purchased in an omnibus edition titled Charles II or The Loves of Charles II. The phrase “Here Lies Our Sovereign Lord” is from a satirical poem by Lord Rochester and was nailed to King Charles’s bedroom door.
‘Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King,
Whose word no man relies on;
He never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one.’
Thus wrote Rochester. The King, amused, replied:
‘The matter is easily accounted for–my discourse is my own, my actions are my ministry’s.’
Description from the 1973 Putnum edition:
“Remembering his exile and determined not to go “traveling again,” Charles II hid his secret political game with Louis Quatorze under a cloak of gay immorality. His objects were to keep religious strife and revolution away from his country and the crown on his own head.
Of the women who ministered to his pleasure at this period, three were more important to him than others: Nell Gwyn–the orange girl who graduated to actress and King’s mistress; Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, sent by Louis into England to act as his spy; and Hortense Mancini, the “most beautiful woman in the world,” who came to escape a mad husband obsessed by “purity.” Each is here vividly recreated–and with them the famous courtiers, Buckingham, Rochester, and Charles Sackville and the Dukes of York and Monmouth.
