Henry Cuff News Today

By Francis Quinn (S&S £14.99, 384 pp) ‘You’re small on the outside. But, inside, you’re as big as everyone else. You show people that and you won’t go far wrong in life.’ It’s a maternal mantra which 18in high Nat Davy takes to heart as he attempts to survive in the tumultuous court of Charles I, where a dithering King and a homesick Queen (Henrietta Maria of France) are unable to prevent civil war. As religious factions plunge the country into routs and regicide, Nat’s life plot...