Episode 13

Rose Tremain returns triumphantly to one of her best loved characters, in the long awaited sequel to her Booker short-listed best-selling novel, Restoration, published in 1989.

Seventeen years after the events related in Restoration, Merivel, a man of wit, wisdom and not a little passion, is facing a crisis. Older and perhaps a little wiser, with his daughter now away at Court and his dearest friends ageing too, life on his Norfolk estate has ceased to satisfy. How to reinvigorate his life and find new purpose?

In today's episode: Despite Louise's marriage plans for him, Merivel has returned to England, to attend on the King whose health is failing and to find that Margaret has an amour of her own.

The reader is the stage and screen actor Nicholas Woodeson.
The abridger was Sally Marmion and the producer was Di Speirs.