Myth has it that, when Charles I was lying in state, a masked man, presumably Oliver Cromwell, stood by the corpse and muttered "cruel necessity". There was an entire inevitability about what happened--King Charles was as incapable of compromise as his opponents and sought martyrdom as vehemently as the Parliament sought his death. He was as perverse as his doomed grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots, and as certain of his own entire rightness. Yet the paradox of the story is that at his trial he made the divine right of kings a particular case of a general principle--warning citizens that, if he was not safe from arbitrary dictatorial power, then neither were they. Graham Edwards' account is at its best when he lets the protagonists speak for themselves--all of the players in this particular drama were masters of English prose and Edwards, alas, is not. The book is usefully illustrated--inevitably, Charles, as patron of the arts, gets all the best images. His even-handed account of the intrigues that lead Charles to his death, and of his trial and execution, is an efficient piece of work--The Last Days of Charles I is is an almost unwreckable story and Edwards is a safe pair of hands. --Roz Kaveney