Friday, February 3, 2023

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris 2022 448pg

 This  is a work of fiction but explains the period very well and I researched events mentioned.   3/2/23

1642 to 1651 English Civil War 
1651 till 1658 Cromwell became Lord Protector of England.
 1660 to 1685  Charles II 
This starts in 1660 in Boston when Daniel Gookin arrived back home from England with 2 regicides Colonel Edward Whalley and Colonel William Goffe. They wanted shelter as the Charles 11 who had given amnesty to the soldiers in the Roundhead army but wanted everyone who had signed his fathers death warrant executed.
Colonel Hackers wife had been forced to hand over this death warrant certificate. It goes back to describe the Execution of Charles1 that he was brought out of the window of Banqueting house Whitehall onto a platform that had (no ladder  or access to it from below) where he was decapitated.
1549 The Book of Common  Prayer was the first English prayer book for the Anglican church during the reformation.
Richard Nayler had a grudge against these 2 regicides as they had arrested him when his wife was ready to give birth and when he came out of Newgate prison found that his wife and baby had died of premature birth due to shock.
1650 Battle of Dunbar was a decisive victory for Cromwell and 3000 prisoners were sent off to the colonies as indentured servants.  The rest of Charles I family had fled.
Reports came to London from Boston by a ships captain that he had seen the 2 regicides sheltered by the Massachusetts governor.
1660 By this time many of the regicides were had already died, 10 caught was hung, drawn and quartered in public view at Charring Cross, this was 11 years after Charles I execution.
1661 The body of Cromwell was exhumed and it was treated the same as the living regicides, and then chase in New England takes place. Puritans were translating the bible into Wampanoag the language of the Massachusetts tribe.
New Haven Connecticut was an independent colony then. 1620 The governor here had gone to the Hague and been  ejected from the church there because of his strict baptism rules. The regicides were busy training the local militia and thought perhaps they would build up and army against the king. They could escape to New Amsterdam under Peter Stuyvesant the Dutch governor(he had lost a leg in the battle against the Spanish in the indies and had a wooden leg) and ask for sanctuary. 
The one regicide was writing his memoir of his childhood friendship to Oliver Cromwell. The whole of New England had a Christian population of 30,000 while London had a million, perhaps it is easier to hide in London.
"The sole authority in New Haven is God"
An informer told them which houses to search for the regicides. The informers  wife could not fall pregnant and was accused of being a witch, this drove her to her death. The informer had been whipped by the New Haven governor for being drunk. The chance to see their wives again lured 3 people to Netherlands where they were caught and taken by ship  to England. The English could not get to those in Germany. Out of 59 regicides 11 had died of natural causes by the time Charles II came to power only 5 were alive still, the public had seen enough killing and the rest must be assassinator. A team was sent to Lausanne, they assassinated someone in broad daylight ran and got to their horses and fled the country. 
The Puritans had demolished the Globe rounded up hundred of prostitutes and exiled many to America, maypoles were taken down and merriment of Shrove (absolve, the day before the period of Lent )Tuesday were stopped.

In Cambridge the wanted to take the gold and silver plate and vandalized St Mary's at St. Peterborough Cathedral the destroyed everything from the idols , library and achieves.
1643 Gainsborough first battle of  the civil war attacking a Royalist base resulting in many Royalists fleeing and drowning in the Lincolnshire fens.
1944 Marston Moore about 4000 Royalist killed for only 300 Roundheads, the largest battle ever fought on English soil and Cromwell now controlled the whole north.
1945Nasby first battle fought with New Model Army, started at Leicester and the Royalist were outnumbered 2 to 1 led by Prince Rupert of the Rhine. Over 100 women of the Royalist were hacked to death accused of being  papist, whores and witches and were buried in a common grave. After Cromwell had beaten the Welsh at Pembroke and the Scots at Preston the Roundheads converged on London. The army now excluded all MPs that wanted a settlement with the king
The Royalist army had been destroyed but they still had to siege pockets of resistance at Bridgewater Sherburne Bristol, Dartmouth, Banbury, Exeter, Oxford Worcester  even 2 years after Naseby. 
1648 Siege of Colchester the Royalists held out for 11 weeks inside the city walls.  The king tried to escape to France but no ship was waiting for him instead he fled to the Isle of Wight where is stayed in Carisbrooke Castle and the governor sent a message to Cromwell. Cromwell had a riding accident and never recovered from that.
British expedition  troops arrived and New Netherland now no longer existed and New Amsterdam was New York named after the kings brother. These troops were sent to look for the regicides who had moved secretly from New Haven to Hadley , Connecticut. There would now be a war between England and the Netherlands.
1666 The English navy suffered a defeat  by the Dutch at Paternoster, the bubonic plague broke out, followed by the great fire of London. 1666 was meant to be the year of the Second Coming instead the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse - war, plague, famine, death as mentioned in Revelations. 1 in 4 Londoners died and 87 churches were destroyed.
1665 to 1667 The second Anglo Dutch war lasted 2 years. The war ended up with the sighning of the Treaty of Breda. Manhattan was left under English rules and the Dutch were left Isle Run  all the spice Island of the Dutch East Indies.

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