Charles II's Golden Age continues in this next episode, although the title, with its trace of irony, rather betrays some of the things that were going on under the surface. A lot of duplicity by the merry monarch, as well as some fine mistresses, and a growing head of steam for more active anti-Catholicism, drawing considerable encouragement from the behaviour of the monarch himself
Illustration: Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, with an unknown female attendant
by Pierre Mignard, 1682
National Portrait Gallery 497
Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License