Parliament's victory in the English Civil Wars, followed by the failure of a series of royalist attempts to overthrow the Commonwealth, caused the flight into exile in Europe of hundreds of Cavaliers, often accompanied by their families. By drawing extensively on the correspondence and memoirs of the exiles themselves, the author shows what a varied and colourful collection of nobles and generals, country gentry and courtiers, wives and mistresses, scholars and adventurers, spies and traitors, soldiers and civilians, children and servants, they were. The first major study of the Cavaliers in exile to be published, this is a lively and scholarly account of how the Cavaliers coped, or in some cases failed to cope, with the hardships and challenges of life in exile. The book also examines the significant and far-reaching influence of the experience on those exiles who survived to welcome the Restoration.