25 APRIL 1914, Page 13

On the Left of a Throne. By Mrs. Evan Nepean.

(John Lane. 10s. 6d. net.)—This entertaining and admirably illus- trated book does not claim to be a "complete biography " so much as a "personal study" of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, as seen " through the eyes of the two people who knew and loved him better than anyone else in the world, Charles IL and Henrietta Lady Wentworth." Mrs. Repeat; herself bas evidently fallen under the spell of "the beguiling. charming, weak, unsuccessful Monmouth, whom women loved and men died for." She has been rewarded for her labour of love by producing an eminently readable book. But we find difficulty in accepting the story that a certain Duke of Buceleach found the marriage certificate of Charles IL

and Lucy Walter in the muniment room at Dalkeith, and deliberately destroyed it.