THE LAST PROTECTOR
Andrew Taylor
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020
Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2020
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Cover illustrations © Andrew Davidson/The Artworks Inc
Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Endpapers show a reduced copy of Fisher’s Ground Plan of the Royal Palace of Whitehall, 1680’, (1881) © The Print Collector/Alamy Stock Photo
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008325510
Ebook Edition © April 2020 ISBN: 9780008325534
Version: 2021-02-04
For Caroline
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
The Main Characters
Epigraph
Map
Historical Note
Read on for a sneak peek of The Royal Secret, the next book in Andrew Taylor’s acclaimed series due April 2021
Keep Reading …
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
Infirmary Close, The Savoy
James Marwood, clerk to Joseph Williamson, and to the Board of Red Cloth
Margaret and Sam Witherdine, his servants
Stephen, his footboy
At the sign of the Rose, Henrietta Street
Simon Hakesby, surveyor and architect
Catherine Hakesby, his wife, formerly Lovett
Jane Ash, her maid
Brennan, Hakesby’s draughtsman
Pheebs, the porter
Whitehall
King Charles II
Lord Arlington, Secretary of State
Dudley Gorvin, his clerk
Joseph Williamson, Undersecretary of State to Lord Arlington
William Chiffinch, Keeper of the King’s Private Closet
George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham
Ezra Reeves, a mazer-scourer
Ferrus, the mazer-scourer’s labourer
Others
Mistress Elizabeth Cromwell, late Lady Protectoress of England (died 1665)
The Reverend Jeremiah White, formerly chaplain to the Lord Protector
Richard Cromwell, late Lord Protector of England, in succession to his father, Oliver Cromwell
Elizabeth Cromwell, Richard’s