James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby was a pivotal figure in the Civil War in Lancashire, between 1642-51, and in governance of North-West of England across a quarter of a Century. As Lord of the Isle of Man, he enjoyed quasi-royal powers and fostered a court culture on the island which expressed itself through poetry, plays, masques and conspicuous display.A religious visionary and man of letters, he was a supremely gifted peace time administrator who was suddenly thrown into the maelstrom of a civil war for which he was neither prepared nor militarily suited. He was a bright and reflexive nobleman, a man of letters and of imagination; conscious of the need for compromise, who was destroyed through his role in the outbreak of the war in the streets of Manchester in 1642; the massacre of Bolton, in 1644, and by the mistrust and ingratitude of successive Stuart sovereigns.Triumphing at the battle of Warrington and crushing a Manx rebellion, he tasted bitter defeat at Sabden Brook and Wigan Lane, and was made the scapegoat for the eclipse of the Lancashire Cavaliers. Yet he, more than perhaps anyone, was savior of the Royalist cause after the battle of Worcester, when he spirited the fugitive King Charles II to Boscobel Hall. Incredibly, ‘the Great Stanley’ has had no biographer until now. This book reveals him in his all glory and tragedy as Cavalier and Lord of Man.