Robert Harris: Act of Oblivion (1660)

We start our sixth season with Robert Harris, one of Britain's great contemporary novelists. He takes us back to a tremendously important year in English (and world) history. 1660.

In England the mid seventeenth century was a dramatic and bloody time. It was a age when important questions about the nature of power were posed and the traditions of monarchy were challenged. In 1649 this led to the execution of King Charles I on a cold January day in Whitehall. Almost a century and a half before the French removed Louis XVI, England pioneered a new form of republican society.

This was not destined to last. Oliver Cromwell’s death in September 1658 left the country with a power vacuum. After various alternatives were tested, the decision was finally taken to invite the dead king’s eldest surviving son, Charles, back from Europe to regain the throne for the Stuart family.

Charles II’s entry into London on his birthday, 29 May 1660, was a emotional occasion. But for all the excitement and all the glamour of the year John Evelyn called an ‘Annus Miribilis’, some knotty questions remained. One of the greatest of these was what should be done with the surviving ‘regicides’ – the scores of people who had signed the death warrant of the new king’s father.

This history forms the background to Robert Harris’s exhilarating new novel. In Act of Oblivion he tells the story of a transatlantic manhunt for two of the regicides: the colonels Edward Whalley and William Goffe.

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris is available now.

Show notes

Scene One: 29 May 1660. Charles II returns to London after being exiled and is proclaimed lawful monarch.

Scene Two: 29 August 1660. The Act of Oblivion is passed in Parliament.

Scene Three: 27 July 1660. Colonels Edward Whalley and William Goffe, two regicides, arrive in Boston

Memento: Charles I’s death warrant

People/Social

Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Robert Harris

Production: Maria Nolan

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

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