"There are ideal series of events which run parallel
with the real ones. They rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally
modify the ideal train of events so that it seems imperfect, and its
consequences are equally imperfect. Thus with the Reformation, instead of
Protestantism came Lutheranism."
The Mystery Of Marie Rogêt" (1842) by Edgar Allan
Poe.
"If one man is fated to be killed by another, it
would be interesting to trace the gradual convergence of their paths. At the
start, they might be miles away from one another, and yet eventually, we are
bound to meet. We can't avoid it."
Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate
It is perhaps an understatement to say that Robert Harris
is a remarkably versatile and clever writer. He has written numerous books on
wide-ranging subjects such as Ancient Rome and The Second World War and a book
set 800 years in the future. Titles including 'Fatherland', 'Munich' and 'An
Officer and a Spy.
His latest narrative-driven book examines one of the most
contentious periods in British, if not world history, The English Revolution.
It is well-written and researched.
The book covers Charles I execution and the subsequent
pursuit of two leading regicides who signed the king's death warrant. Colonel
Will Goffe and Edward Whalley were exiled to America in 1660, where they were
welcomed with open arms by many colonists who were Puritans and had supported
their political stance against the king. Both men were high-ranking soldiers in
the New Model Army, and Whalley was Oliver Cromwell's cousin. Both played an
important part in the successful English revolution.
Harris's book treads an already well-trodden path. The
last few years alone have seen numerous books on the subject covered in his
book.[1]The book
appears well researched, but Harris, like many other historians, has found a
dearth of information about what Walley and Goffe did in America. So like all
good writers, he makes things up and employs a method favoured by the 18th-century
writer, poet and philosopher Novalis, who
wrote, "There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real
ones. They rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally modify the ideal
train of events to seem imperfect, and its consequences are equally imperfect."[2]
Regarding historiography, the book is part of a new wave
of studies, both fiction and non-fiction, concentrating on different aspects of
the Royalist cause in the 17th century.
Not all historians are fans of narrative-based historical
writing. When C V Wedgwood produced her splendid book A King Condemned-The
Trial and Execution of Charles Ist, it was criticised by some historians. In
the foreword of the 2011 edition, Clive
Holmes said: "Wedgwood's relationship with academic historians was not an
easy one, and the immediate reception of this work by the professionals in
their flagship journals was cool and even condescending."
While Harris's invention of the character Richard Naylor
is legitimate and interesting, one can't help feeling that Harris is trying to
persecute the two regicides again. He seems a bit miffed that they escaped the
so-called royal justice of Charles II. Further hostility came from the pen of
the Guardian newspaper, Andrew Taylor writes, "It's not easy to make
Whalley and Goffe sympathetic to a modern sensibility. They were hardcore
Puritans who believed that only the elect would go to heaven, that their
aggressively righteous ends justified their often ruthless means and that the
world would end in 1666."[3]
Just like their modern counterparts, the late 17th English bourgeoisie would rather forget their revolution of the 1640s; hence The 1660 Act of Oblivion(the title of the book), which was an act of parliament that was supported by Charles II to draw a line under the events of the 1640s and pretend they never happened.
'The wounds of the brutal civil war are still visible on men's bodies": the execution of Charles I in Whitehall, London, 1649. Illustration: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
But it cannot be denied that the killing of the king had, as Ann Talbot recounts, "a profound revolutionary significance entailing a complete break with the feudal past. Although the monarchy was later restored and the triumphant bourgeoisie was soon eager to pretend that the whole thing had been a dreadful mistake, no monarch sat quickly on the throne after that event until quite late in Victoria's reign".
Also as Christopher Hill put it so well, "In 1660
passive obedience was preached in all pulpits; a King was brought back "with
plenty of holy oil about him," because this was necessary for Parliament,
for the possessing classes, threatened by social revolution from below. A white
terror was introduced by the returned émigrés, and an attempt was made to drive
from political life all who did not accept the restored régime in Church and
State (the Clarendon Code, the Test Act). Educational advances, like the purge
which had made Oxford a centre of scientific research, were reversed. All this
broke the revolutionary-democratic movement for the moment, though it fought
back again in the sixteen-seventies and -eighties. In 1662 a Presbyterian
minister, who had been deprived of his living by the Restoration, wrote in
words that recaptured the fears of many respectable members of the possessing
classes at that time: "Though soon after the settlement of the nation we
saw ourselves the despised and cheated party ... yet in all this, I have
suffered since, I look upon it as less than my trouble was from my fears then
... Then we lay at the mercy and impulse of a giddy, hot-headed, bloody
multitude."[4]
Harris's book, albeit fictitious in parts, shows that this
manhunt dominated the reign of Charles II. While sanctioning what amounted to
judicial murder, the regime was hardly a picture of stability. The longer the
show trial went on, the more nervous Charles and his ministers became and
recognised the growing danger of rebellion. Charles II made one mistake in
giving a public funeral to one of the regicides. Over twenty thousand people
attended, testifying to the still considerable support for Republican ideas.
Conclusion
One of the difficulties of writing about this period of English history is that, as one writer put it, "intricacies of religious faith and faction can seem distant and abstruse to a modern audience". But Harris's book is timely as the United Kingdom is living through a period of constitutional upheaval and faces the distinct possibility of breaking up. Act of Oblivion is an enjoyable read and has a ring of authenticity. It is pointless recommending this book, and Harris's books sell in the millions, but it is a good read.
Notes
1. The Indemnity and Oblivion Act 1660
was an Act of the Parliament of England (12 Cha. II c. 11), the long title of
which is "An Act of Free and General Pardon, Indemnity, and
Oblivion". This act was a general pardon for everyone who had committed
crimes during the English Civil War and subsequent Commonwealth period, with
the exception of certain crimes such as murder (without a licence granted by the
King or Parliament), piracy, buggery, rape and witchcraft, and people named in
the act such as those involved in the regicide of Charles I. It also said that
no action was to be taken against those involved at any later time and that the
Interregnum was to be legally forgotten.
[1] See Charles I's Executioners -Civil
War, Regicide and the Republic By James Hobson- Pen & Sword
History-Published: 4th November 2020. https://keith-perspective.blogspot.com/2021/04/charles-is-executioners-civil-war.html andKillers of the King - The Men Who
Dared to Execute Charles I Hardcover – Charles Spencer 11 Sep 2014 352 pages
Bloomsbury Publishing - ISBN-13:
978-1408851708-https://keith-perspective.blogspot.com/2014/10/killers-of-king-men-who-dared-to_23.html
[2] The Mystery Of Marie Rogêt"
(1842) by Edgar Allan Poe
[3]
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/08/act-of-oblivion-by-robert-harris-review-regicides-on-the-run
[4] The English Revolution 1640- https://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/english-revolution/
