3rd April 2024
Robert Harris is a hugely successful and popular author of fast-paced thrillers, usually based on historical times and events – Ancient Rome, the Munich Agreement of 1938, the cracking of the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park, amongst others.
The actual Indemnity and Oblivion Act of 1660 was the result of the negotiation between the Royalists, newly re-established in power following the Restoration to the throne of Charles II in that year, and the remnants of the Puritan regime that had won the Civil War and ruled the country after the execution of Charles I in 1649. The Act included an agreement on the degree of retribution that the restored Government could take against those who had been instrumental in bringing the King to trial or signing the death warrant (59 in total) or administering the execution itself on a cold January morning outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall.
The hunt for the regicides is led by Richard Nayler – secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council – whose particular focus is on two of Puritan colonels, Edward Whalley and William Goffe. Edward – or Ned – is the father-in-law of William and older by about twenty years. He was also a cousin of Oliver Cromwell, who had died in 1658 after acquiring the autocratic powers of a military dictator: a king himself in all but name. We learn early on that Nayler – a committed Royalist who was wounded at the Battle of Naseby – also has his personal reasons for hunting Whalley and Goffe: reasons that account for his fanaticism to complete the task. (Nayler is the only one of the book’s main named characters to be fictional).
When Nayler finds out that Whalley and Goffe have fled to New England, he follows them there and recruits a local posse whose members are either attracted by the sizeable reward on offer or keen to avenge their own experiences in the Civil War. After their folly in circulating freely in Cambridge following their arrival in Boston – and then having to flee from their temporary home there – Whalley and Goffe take flight through Massachusetts and then Connecticut, wary of being seen by anyone who might succumb to the lure of the reward. The first half of the novel describes the desperate conditions that the hunted endure – whether in the frozen wilderness or hidden away in the attics or cellars of Puritan supporters – and the progress of Nayler and his men in their pursuit. At one point, Nayler is standing within feet of his quarry without realising that they are there.
Harris evocatively describes the small New England communities in which Whalley and Goffe hide and the strict codes of Puritan beliefs that sustain those who live there. Interestingly, these codes have local variations, New Haven and Hadley being even stricter than Cambridge or Hartford. The fugitives themselves see their suffering as part of God’s overall plan and oversight. After hiding in the wilds for several weeks – well past the 40 days and nights that Jesus was in the wilderness – they view their Biblical faith as being tested and drawn upon: “God has sent us this trial for a reason. It is our duty to endure it”.
Harris is also skilled at weaving in the general historical context to the immediate story without the narrative reading as a history book. At various times, we are taken through some of the Civil War battles, the trial and execution of Charles and Cromwell’s malignant undermining of Parliamentary business in the 1650s. There is a careful attention to period detail without overwhelming the reader with extraneous information. In this respect, it might be noted that we are not spared the gruesome nature of the Crown’s punishment of those convicted of treason: that is, the hanging, drawing and quartering of those of the regicides who had the misfortune not to find refuge in Europe or (as Nayler arranges on one occasion) to be assassinated in the street or to die before their arrest.
The years pass and, in them, the well-known events of the time: the British capture of New Amsterdam (renamed New York) from the Dutch in 1664, the Great Plague of 1665 and Fire of London in 1666. For the hardline Puritans, however (including William Goffe), these events merely constitute the wrath that heralds the Second Coming in 1666 – the End of Days – but the calendar turns to 1667 and, as Ned notes with a combination of bitterness and cynicism, the world is unchanged .
It is these years that provide the main poignancy in the tale. Whalley and Goffe are separated from their families in England with risky communication being possible only rarely through coded messages that are smuggled into the letters sent or received by their local supporters. The letters sent by Goffe’s faithful wife, Frances, tell of the marriage and death of children whom he can only remember as infants.
Even more years pass. Harris stretches the duration of the narrative’s timescale well beyond that which most people might think appropriate for the pursuit and arrest of those wanted by the law, even perhaps for the killing of a King. But the task set for Richard Nayler – by Richard Nayler – has no limit to the length of its undertaking.
JR Alexander 