Act of Oblivion: A Novel
"A galloping adventure.” — The Wall Street Journal
From the bestselling author of Fatherland, The Ghostwriter, Munich, and Conclave comes this spellbinding historical novel that brilliantly imagines one of the greatest manhunts in history: the search for two Englishmen involved in the killing of King Charles I and the implacable foe on their trail—an epic journey into the wilds of seventeeth-century New England, and a chase like no other.
'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 England. General Edward Whalley and his son-in law Colonel William Goffe board a ship bound for the New World. They are on the run, wanted for the murder of King Charles I—a brazen execution that marked the culmination of the English Civil War, in which parliamentarians successfully battled royalists for control.
But now, ten years after Charles’ beheading, the royalists have returned to power. Under the provisions of the Act of Oblivion, the fifty-nine men who signed the king’s death warrant and participated in his execution have been found guilty in absentia of high treason. Some of the Roundheads, including Oliver Cromwell, are already dead. Others have been captured, hung, drawn, and quartered. A few are imprisoned for life. But two have escaped to America by boat.
In London, Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is charged with bringing the traitors to justice and he will stop at nothing to find them. A substantial bounty hangs over their heads for their capture—dead or alive. . . .
Robert Harris’s first historical novel set predominantly in America, Act of Oblivion is a novel with an urgent narrative, remarkable characters, and an epic true story to tell of religion, vengeance, and power—and the costs to those who wield it.
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Community Reviews
458 pages
What’s it about?
In 1660 The Oblivion and Indemnity Act was passed by the Parliament in England. This act was intended as a general pardon to all those that had committed crimes during the previous civil war and Commonwealth period. Exceptions were made for those involved in the arrest, trial, and murder of King Charles I. Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law Colonel William Goffe are two of the regicides who helped condemn Charles I. They realize immediately that in order to save their own lives they must board a ship to America and escape. Leaving behind all they know they make for the new world in hopes of finding a new life.
What did it make me think about?
What a brutal world it was in 1660.
Should I read it?
Robert Harris brings life in the 1600’s alive on the page- and may I say it does not always seem like a good life… It was a brutal, bleak, and punishing life from what I can see. This book follows real life regicides Ned Whalley and Will Goffe and speculates what life in America may have been like for them. This book may appeal especially to men, but is a good read for any lover of historical fiction.
Quote-
“He transferred his gaze to the opposite bank, to the settlement of wooden houses dominated by a much grander building. That must be Harvard College, where they produced the stern young sectaries who spread their dour religion across New England. A strange country this, he thought, where two such conflicting races and philosophies, heathen and fanatics, existed side by side. What good could ever come of it?”
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