A Royal Passion by Katie Whitaker Phoenix, £9.99; eBook, £5.99

As my husband never ceases to remind me, I have huge gaps in my knowledge of history.

Studying it only to O-level, or GCSE as it is now known, I add to my knowledge only through TV documentaries, many of which are simplistic and lacking in depth.

So, among a regular diet of chick-lit pulp, I try and read the occasional piece of historical non-fiction.

A Royal Passion, by Yorkshire-based author Katie Whitaker, details the turbulent marriage of the Protestant Charles I and the French Catholic princess Henrietta Maria.

For 20 years, Charles’s father James I of England and VI of Scotland, had been planning such a marriage, the book explains. When he inherited the throne in 1603 he had become the first ever monarch of a united England, Scotland and Ireland, and was fiercely proud of his new kingdom, ‘Great Britain’ as he called it.

He believed that a marriage to one of Europe’s two Catholic superpowers would provide a chance to exert his influence on a wider stage.

But it was a dangerous experiment. The couple met a month after their arranged marriage, and within hours began to quarrel. Yet, against the odds, the contrasting personalities fell passionately in love and for a decade England enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity.

It did not last, and when Charles became involved in war with Puritan Scotland, popular hatred of Henrietta’s Catholicism sparked fury. A civil war followed, which cost Charles his life.

For me, the book comes to life in the behind-the-scenes descriptions, from James’s male courtiers ‘gorgeously dressed in rich, bright-coloured doublets, smothered in jewels, with fancy lace at their necks and wrists, and high-heeled shoes on their feet, they wore tight silk stockings that showed off their legs right up to the thigh’, to the descriptions of the palaces which Charles and Henrietta decorated ‘at vast expense’, ‘with tapestried walls and furniture covered with pure gold leaf, or upholstered in silks and velvets and cloth of gold.’ Using many sources, the book details the king and queen’s daily life, how they enjoyed the warmer weather of spring, spending more time outdoors.

‘The historical record provides us with glimpses: of Henrietta cancelling all her official audiences and going out on impulse’, and ‘of Charles at his jousting exercises in St James’s Park.’ Together the royal couple amassed one of the greatest art collections in Europe – more than 1,700 paintings were spread through the royal palaces. ‘Their agents scoured the Continent and made vast purchases.’ The descent into civil war, and Charles’s fears for his wife’s safety, are skilfully interwoven with her predicament and desperate need to hear news of her husband after escaping to France.

I would have enjoyed the book more had Charles’s ultimate fate been held until the final pages. That it came at the front spoiled it for me.

It is complex in parts, but nevertheless, it is an interesting read, particularly if, like me, you knew nothing of the period beforehand.