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'Charles' killer named'

Daily Star

This is the most enjoyable kind of popular history, a lively and accessible introduction to one of England's most disastrous kings for those who have not yet made his acquaintance.

Ronald Hutton

Article: Kingdom of Fife

The Courier (Fife)

Article: Spooky parallels between these royal princes born almost 400 years apart

The Sunday Post (Dundee)

Engaging, easy-to-read, and compassionate, this book offers a new look at the reign of Charles I. Often polarized as either martyr or tyrant, he emerges in this intimate biography as a complex man. Starting with his overlooked early years as a sickly second son, the book delves into Charles' character development, and challenges common myths about his supposed unwillingness to compromise. Drawing on fresh perspectives and unpublished letters, it portrays Charles as a principled yet politically flawed man whose lack of ruthlessness led to his downfall.

NetGalley, Andrea Romance

After years – indeed, many decades – of the Tudor dynasty hogging the limelight of popular historical fiction and nonfiction, recently the Stuarts have come into their own. Numerous authors have begun turning their attention to this previously-overlooked dynasty and there has never been a better time to see the much-maligned Stuarts through fresh eyes. In Charles I’s Private Life, Mark Turnbull provides a stunning new addition to Stuart historiography; as he demonstrates, only by focussing on Charles the man is it possible to understand Charles the king.
In some ways, Turnbull has set himself a difficult task. As many excellent authors have shown in the past, Charles was one of the most complex monarchs ever to have sat on the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His reigns – and their problems, not least the Civil Wars – are thus best understood by analysis of what made Charles Stuart what he was: proud; arrogant; loving; deeply invested in the idea of family; as deeply invested in the idea of absolute monarchy. Charles, as Turnbull shows, was neither hero or villain. He was, rather, a man whose ideas were deeply entrenched by his experiences, upbringing, and relationships. Through examining these, this turbulent period can become far easier to understand.
What really sets Charles I’s Private Life apart from other tomes on the king is the attention Turnbull pays to the king’s youth. Here, readers will find genuinely new, incredibly valuable information about Scotland and his experiences there – information that will pay dividends when the Wars of the Three Kingdoms approach. In tracing the reign of James VI in Scotland, and that king’s accession to the English throne as James I, Turnbull is careful never to let either events or other personalities overtake Charles’s story – what emerges is a tale of the prince’s development in light of a canny but absolutist father and a doting, politically astute mother. This approach continues into Charles’s adulthood; his relationships with such figures as Buckingham and, of course, his wife, Henrietta Maria, are traced always in how they shine a light on the attitudes, policies, and personality of Charles himself.
The book is, further, absolutely stuffed with historical titbits (from reports of courtly thefts after progresses to catty comments from the Venetian ambassador on Charles’s handling of religious matters) drawn, clearly, from impeccable research. What results is a deeply rewarding narrative history which builds the colourful, divided world of Caroline England and sets the scene for a sensitive account of the Civil Wars and Charles’s role in them. Thankfully, Turnbull is skilled enough an author that this level of detail never feels intrusive or weighty – Charles I’s Private Life provides a pacey, pithy read, as rich in fine one-liners as in political analysis. I’ve no doubt this book will be immediately welcome on the shelves of students of the period as well as general readers hoping to understand this most elusive of kings.

Steven Veerapen, author of Elizabeth and Essex: Power, Passion, and Politics