The ‘Glorious Revolution’, Horspool argues deftly, was actually a foreign invasion dressed up in the rhetoric of an English uprising. He puts showbiz episodes like the gunpowder plot and Essex’s treason against Elizabeth I (‘one aristocratic rising that had more of the characteristics of a psychotic episode than a genuinely threatening rebellion’) into their proper perspective, and even offers a cautionary note of sympathy for the authorities after Peterloo.

Tell you what, though: being an olden-day king was a miserable job. Everyone wanted to overthrow you, bully you, excommunicate you or dispossess you. One little mistake — appointing two sworn enemies to the same job by accident, raising funds for a war you then decide to cancel, or buying Sicily off the Pope — and you’ve got armed men barging over London Bridge yet again, setting fire to stuff. The only thing, apparently, that made people want to stay king was that not being king was even more miserable.

How glad I am that we live in an age of welfare, common law and antibiotics. And how grateful I am, for two out of those three privileges, to the hardnuts and schemers, martyrs and refuseniks, Machiavels and downright heid-the-ba’s who populate Horspool’s fine book.

Blackwell Bookshop

Purchase your copy here, 10% off RRP