Royalist Rebel

A beautiful young royalist struggles to survive the English Civil War in a novel of love and loyalty based on the life of a seventeenth-century Scottish countess.

Royalist Rebel is the epic story of Elizabeth Murray, the daughter of a Scottish royalist family who would go on to become the influential Countess of Dysart and Duchess of Lauderdale.

Though her life is upended by the Great Rebellion, Elizabeth remains fiercely dedicated to the royalist cause. With her father William in Oxford at the exiled court of King Charles I, the five Murray women must protect Ham House, the family estate, on their own. Crippled by fines for their royalist sympathies, and besieged by the Surrey Sequestration Committee, Elizabeth must find a rich, apolitical husband to save herself, her sisters, and their inheritance.

Intelligent, witty, and beautiful, Elizabeth first finds safety in the arms of the wealthy baronet Lionel Tollemache, her husband of twenty years. But she then finally finds love with John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, a favorite of Charles II. This rich historical tale of a young woman’s choice between duty and love is based on true events and ranges across the first and second English Civil Wars.