FORMER Oxford teacher John Fox did not have to look far to find inspiration for his new book about a red-headed spy who slept with a king.

For Jane Whorwood, the romantic heroine of Mr Fox’s new book The King’s Smuggler, once lived only a short distance from his home near Wheatley.

Mr Fox became interested in Whorwood soon after setting up home near Holton Park, just outside Wheatley, where the aristocrat lived during the reign of Charles I.

His fascination with the little known royalist has ended with him uncovering one of the great untold adventure stories of the Civil War.

Whorwood, the woman who was set to be only remembered for “her one-night stand” with Charles I, turned out to have been one of history’s greatest female spies. She secretly raised a fortune for the royalist cause and tried to save Charles I from the block.

Whorwood, the unhappy wife of an Oxfordshire squire, became one of Charles I’s closest confidantes after the court moved to Oxford in 1642.

Mr Fox, who studied history at St Benet’s Hall, Oxford, and worked for 30 years at Oxford’s Cherwell School, became fascinated in Whorwood during walks around the grounds of what had been her magnificent home.

As a keen local historian, Mr Fox had written extensively about Holton Park, which is now occupied by Wheatley Park School and Oxford Brookes University’s Wheatley campus.

His heroine was to leave no will or last words and there is no existing portrait of her. But crucially her letters have survived which enabled Mr Fox to put her squarely at the centre of Civil War intrigue and royalist spy rings.

When Charles was imprisoned, from 1646 to 1649, she organised several escape attempts to free her king from imprisonment on the Isle of Wight.

Mr Fox will be speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival on March 26. His new book is on sale priced £20.