Review: ACT OF OBLIVION, Robert Harris

• 
  This edition provided by my local library
  
• published by Penguin UK 2022
• ISBN 978-1-52-915176-3
• 458 pages

Synopsis (publisher) 

From what is it they flee?'

 He took a while to reply. By the time he spoke the men had gone inside. He said quietly, 'They killed the King.'

 1660, General Edward Whalley and Colonel William Goffe, father- and son-in-law, cross the Atlantic. They are on the run and wanted for the murder of Charles I. Under the provisions of the Act of Oblivion, they have been found guilty in absentia of high treason.

In London, Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is tasked with tracking down the fugitives. He'll stop at nothing until the two men are brought to justice. A reward of £100 hangs over their heads - for their capture, dead or alive.

ACT OF OBLIVION is an epic journey across continents, and a chase like no other. It is the thrilling new novel by Robert Harris.

My Take

Despite his assurances when he was offered the English throne, Charles II was never going to forgive those who had tried and beheaded his father. Mind you, Charles I had demonstrated that he could not be trusted and still believed he was God's anointed, so he and his captors had really come to an impasse, although there were those among them who hoped for a settlement.

I thought I knew my English history but have never looked at the Restoration in this amount of detail. This fictional re-creation is based around what happened to two men who escaped capture and punishment as regicides. I knew that Parliament bayed for the blood of those whose names were on the warrant of execution, but never how bloodthirsty and gruesome that retribution turned out to be. The novel primarily covers the 20 years after the Restoration when Whalley and Goffe were on the run.

The other thing that I never realised was how strong the belief was by Puritans and others that the Second Coming of Christ would happen in 1666, which they termed the year of the Devil, based on the prophecies of the book of Revelation. How the events of the Plague, the Great Fire of London, and the war with the Dutch must have confirmed those beliefs! 

The other thing that I had no concept of the impact of the Restoration on the colonies in North America. I thought for example, that the colony of New Haven had simply "failed", but the author shows how it was punished for not giving up the regicides.

The pictures drawn of Cromwell,  Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York, who eventually became James II, were also fascinating.

An excellent read.

My rating: 4.8

I've also read

5.0, CONCLAVE
4.8, IMPERIUM
4.6, LUSTRUM
4.5, DICTATOR
4.8, THE GHOST
4.5, FATHERLAND
4.4, THE SECOND SLEEP