27. The Golden Age continues

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