Monmouth has landed and the West is awake! Young Oliver Hardman enjoys his life as head gamekeeper on George Speake`s West Country estate. He`s twenty, useful with a bow, tall and handsome too - as Lady Anne Trenchard, George Speake`s daughter, appreciates to the full. Then in 1685 rebellion sweeps through Somerset, and Speake`s odious son, John, takes Oliver with him to join the Duke of Monmouth`s cavalry. Oliver`s heroism and strategic skills bring him into the duke`s confidence and Lady Anne`s special favour, while Colonel Speake, seething with envy, plots bitter revenge on the battlefield. Can Captain Hardman, now head of Hardman`s Horse, survive the debacle of Sedgemoor? And more to the point, can he survive Speake`s insane jealousy? Peter Forrester`s outstanding familiarity with local topography and historical detail lend a palpable whiff of reality to this action-filled account of Monmouth`s attempt to rid England of her last Catholic monarch - the disastrous James Stuart. Monmouth`s fate is well known, but in these pages our sympathies lie with him - and his trusty Captain Hardman - right to the very end.