ACT OF OBLIVION - book review

 

Robert Harris’s 2022 novel Act of Oblivion is yet another bestseller, and justifiably so.

It begins in 1660, after Charles II has been proclaimed king (the Restoration). In the new regime those involved in the trial and execution of Charles I are hunted by the regicide committee of the Privy Council and ‘brought to justice’, charged with regicide. A small number of individuals have fled to the Continent; two, however, have sought sanctuary in the other direction, the American colonies: Colonel Edward (Ned) Whalley and his son-in-law Colonel William Goffe.

Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee has his personal reasons to hound Whalley and Goffe. The majority of individuals in the novel existed; Nayler is an exception, though it’s highly likely somebody like him did exist. ‘… a most useful shadow; a shadow who causes things to happen’ (p41).

The Act of Oblivion of 1660 effectively pardoned everyone who had committed crimes during the English Civil War (1642-1649) with a few heinous exceptions, particularly those individuals named in the actual death of Charles I. The Interregnum was to be legally forgotten. Unfortunately, ‘There is no end to it. Only four men were to die for murdering the King. Then we found records of the trial… and the four became eight, then twelve and now there are dozens of them’ (p44).

The story and much of the hunt takes place in Massachusetts, New Haven, Connecticut, Germany, France, and London. Harris conveys the period with deft visual word-strokes that put the reader in the scene, amidst the squalor of London and the strangely beguiling New World, as well as the sinister dark panelled recesses of powerful men.

‘The destitute of London, mere bundles of rags, crouched in the shadows of the walls. Wounded veterans, missing limbs and hobbling on crutches, swung themselves between the graves. A fearful, horrid place, it seemed to him, more a prison than a hospital. It reminded him of his long period of sickness after Naseby, and the gaol where he was kept after his wife had died’ (p80).

Harris does not flinch from showing the appalling graphic beastliness of the time, notably when Nayler is tasked by the Lord Chancellor Hyde with exhuming the corpse of Cromwell. Nayler is not keen on the ‘foul work’: ‘Since when did that deter you? The idea is certainly not mine, believe me. But Parliament commands it, and really, Mr Nayler, if you cannot find any more living regicides to bring to justice, you might as well at least employ yourself in hanging the dead’ (p121). On 30 January Cromwell’s body and two others were hanged in view of thousands of witnesses and towards the day’s end decapitated, their heads impaled on poles above Westminster Hall, the trunks tipped into a common grave.

There are many instances where Harris’s descriptions put the reader in the scene. ‘No sun tempered the iron frost, just the occasional flurry of snow and a grey sky so heavy it seemed to press all the colour from the buildings. Time itself felt frozen’ (p17). And of course much of their time in hiding would be like that, empty days blending together…

 ‘… stood in the water, inhaling the peace of the wood, the scent of the pine resin, the cooing of the pigeons, the gentle splash of the flow over the stones. Midges swirled above the surface, like dust thrown into a shaft of sunlight; occasionally a fish rose to a mayfly’ (p226). [Though he couldn’t inhale cooing and splashing of water; a semi-colon missing, perhaps].

‘The waves breaking on the shore made a sound no louder than an intake of breath, followed by a long withdrawing sigh’ (p313).

During his investigations in Holland, Nayler encounters ‘the Blackamoor, a ship of the Royal Africa Company, owned by the Duke of York, that lay moored in Rotterdam’ (p273). A topical reminder concerning the slave trade of the period. One regicide, Sir John Lisle, was living under the pseudonym of Mr Field in Switzerland. [Coincidentally, a character in recently reviewed Michael Connelly’s The Black Echo, Billy Meadows, used the pseudonym Fields!] Nayler’s thirst for vengeance acknowledged no obstacles…

This was the time when New Amsterdam was taken from the Dutch and became New York (pp323, 357) which would mean war between the two nations.

During their lengthy periods of hiding the two fugitive regicides dwell on the past, in particular their association with Cromwell: ‘One could never be sure with Oliver. Ambition and godliness, self-interest and the higher cause, the base metal entwined with the gold’ (p342).

Also covered in the story are the terrible Black Death and the Great Fire of London; both well realised.

This is a gripping book about an unrelenting manhunt right up to the last two pages.

Excellent writing and storytelling!

Editorial comment

A minor quibble, which I appreciate as a writer: the book is in four parts – Hunt, 1660; Chase, 1661; Hide, 1662; and Kill, 1674. Yet (inevitably) those dates are exceeded by the storyline; for example on p308 (Hide) it is 1664, and of course the Plague and Fire were in 1666; perhaps inclusive dates would have been more appropriate.

Part vs Book. I’m pleased to see that as the book is broken into parts, the chapter numbering continues. In some books, when instead of Part, the divisions are referred to as Books , in some of these cases the chapter numbering still continues. Logically, in my view, if a book is broken into Parts, the chapter numbering continues; if it is broken into Books, then each Book begins with a chapter one.

History lesson for POTUS Biden:

The two principal New York boroughs were King’s (for King Charles) and Queen’s (for Queen Catherine); while the first is now Brooklyn, the second has retained its English royal name. The Duke of York granted control of the land between the Hudson and Delaware rivers to John, Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. They named the land ‘New Jersey’ after the island of Jersey in the English Channel where Carteret was born. Shortly after the Restoration Charles II granted a wide tract of North America to a group of nobles who founded the colony of Carolina (from the Latin form of their monarch’s name) and its capital was Charlestown.