Royal Escape - Georgette Heyer

I've always known that Georgette Heyer wrote historical novels as opposed to her historical & Regency romances. She wrote several novels about real historical figures - William the Conqueror, John, Duke of Bedford - and this one, Royal Escape, about Charles II & his flight into exile after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. I also knew that Heyer's research for her novels was prodigious & extensive. I was still surprised when I read the relevant chapter in Antonia Fraser's biography of Charles, after reading the novel, just how accurate she was. Names, places, incidents, all taken direct from the historical record & recreated as very exciting fiction. I listened to Royal Escape on audio, read by Cornelius Garrett who did an excellent job. Garrett is one of my favourite narrators. I remember his reading of Anne Perry's WWI series some years ago. I loved it so much that I would wait for the library to get the audio book rather than read the stories myself.

Royal Escape begins in the aftermath of the Battle of Worcester. The Civil War is all but over. Charles I has been executed two years earlier & his son, now King Charles II, has made an attempt, with the help of the Scots, to regain his throne from the Parliament forces. Unfortunately Charles's experiences among the Presbyterian Scots did not endear him to them & his potential English supporters disapproved of a Scots army invading England. At Worcester, the Scots failed to rally & the Royalists were defeated. Charles is now a marked man & must try to get to France where there are many Royalist exiles & he will find support at the court of Louis XIV.

Charles decides to travel with just one companion, his great friend, Lord Wilmot. Harry is an older man (& father to the Restoration poet, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester which I didn't realise until after I'd finished the book), absolutely devoted to Charles but almost comically unfit for the disguises & stratagems of a fugitive. The only concession he will make to a disguise is to ride with a hawk on his wrist as though he were just out for a day's hunting & he insists on his manservant accompanying him. Charles, on the other hand, a young man of only 20, is far more easygoing & is prepared to wear rough clothing, cut his hair, have walnut juice rubbed on his face, be lead about the countryside by the poorest of his subjects & obey their directions meekly & with a good grace.

The tale of Charles's flight is such a good story, with so many near misses, comical incidents & instances of great bravery & loyalty that it seems like a fairytale. It was one of Charles's favourite stories when he came to the throne & he apparently bored his courtiers by telling it so often. Charles certainly never forgot the many people who helped him & it's remarkable that he was never betrayed when it's estimated that more than 60 people knew of his whereabouts during the six weeks he was on the run. By good luck, he found himself among the Catholic families of the West Country & was impressed by their loyalty & faith, especially after the rude, harsh religion of the Scots Covenanters. It's been speculated that his later inclination towards Catholicism may have had more to do with this experience than with his French mother's teaching.

He famously spent a day hiding in an oak tree, hid in priest's holes in country houses & impersonated a servant (quite badly) when traveling with Jane Lane & her sister. He rode through troops of Parliamentary soldiers & ate in servant halls, often drinking a toast to his own health without his companions knowing who he was. Charles was touched by the loyalty shown him & repaid it with good humour & an awareness of the risks taken by the Penderels, Lanes, Giffards, Wyndhams & Gunters in aiding him. Eventually the King boarded a ship at Shoreham & made his escape to France.

Royal Escape is a story of great charm. Charles himself is a very sympathetic character, although his wicked sense of humour almost betrays him several times. Harry Wilmot provides the comic relief but his obvious love for Charles redeems him from being just a figure of fun. Cromwell & his New Model Army may have won the war but they had a long way to go in winning the hearts & minds of the English people. Charles, with his easy charm & sincere gratitude for the help he received, did more for the Royalist cause on his flight than he could have known.The legends that grew up about his escape kept the memory of the Stuarts alive over the long nine years before the Restoration.

Anglophile Books not only has a copy of the book but also the audio book (on cassette) of Royal Escape.

Montrose - C V Wedgwood

I'm always interested in the comments that readers of the blog leave. Sometimes a post attracts no comments at all, even though quite a few people have looked at it. Sometimes a post gets lots of comments & the comments lead me on to other books. Last week's Sunday poem was by James Graham, Marquis of Montrose. I knew a little bit about him, mostly because I vaguely remembered reading Margaret Irwin's novel, the Proud Servant, many years ago (It's now available again as part of the wonderful Bloomsbury Reader publishing initiative). George left a comment recommending John Buchan's historical novel, Witch Wood, so I've downloaded the Canongate edition of that & I also remembered that I had C V Wedgwood's biography of Montrose on the tbr shelves.

C V Wedgwood is one of my favourite historians. She specialised in the 17th century & her books, The King's Peace, the King's War & The Trial of Charles I are the most accessible, beautifully-written accounts of the English Civil War I've read. I also have her biography of The Earl of Strafford on the tbr shelves, just waiting for inspiration. I picked up her short (150pp) biography of Montrose & read half of it in one sitting.

James Graham was a golden boy. Born into a wealthy family, he was handsome, charming, privileged but his wealth & advantages hadn't made him superior or arrogant. His great strength was as a leader of men & it was his personal qualities of honesty & integrity in his dealings with both friends & enemies that made him so loved & admired in his day. Unfortunately he was an honest man in a time of great dissemblers & he gave his loyalty to a man, Charles I, who didn't keep his side of the bargain.

Charles I was King of Scotland but rarely visited his Northern kingdom. As a consequence, he didn't know the Scottish nobles &, always lacking in judgement, fell under the influence of the Duke of Hamilton, a wily politician & no friend to Montrose. Montrose's relationship with Charles never really recovered from the bad impression of him that Charles received from Hamilton. Montrose initially joined the Covenanters in the religious struggles over the use of the Anglican prayer book in Scotland. Basically, Charles wanted the Scots to use the Anglican form of worship & the Presbyterians refused. There were violent scenes in churches as the clergy tried to enforce the new rules & eventually, Charles sent an army north to suppress the rebels. Montrose joined the Covenanting army &, although they were successful in pushing Charles's army back over the border, Montrose realised that there were plenty of men on his side with no idea of fair play & loyalty to a cause.

Although Montrose had opposed Charles over the Covenant, he was a loyal subject & when the Civil War broke out, was determined to fight for his King. Charles was suspicious & initially reluctant to accept Montrose's offer of service but was forced to reconsider as his fortunes in Scotland grew more disorganised. The Covenanters, of course, regarded Montrose as a traitor to their cause & were determined to defeat his army & see him dead.

All Montrose's actions during the Civil War show him to be an exceptional leader, without the need for personal aggrandizement & totally committed to the King's cause. He raised troops throughout Scotland, relying on the ties of family & kinship to command loyalty as well as his personal qualities. The Covenanting army soon gave chase & Montrose's troops kept one step ahead through a series of brilliant feints & manoeuvres that kept them one step ahead of the enemy. When they had to turn & fight, Montrose's grasp of strategy & knowledge of the terrain made him a formidable & almost unbeaten opponent. Time & again Montrose looked to be trapped & he led his men out of danger & turned the tables on his enemy. Unfortunately all this was largely unsupported by Charles who had too many calls on his purse & left Montrose to his own devices.

By 1646 Montrose had won some great victories & was preparing for the spring campaign when he heard that Charles had surrendered to the Scots army that had invaded England. Charles was forced to repudiate Montrose & order him to disband his army. Montrose went into exile where he continued to try to raise money & troops for Charles. He was shocked by the news of Charles's execution & vowed to revenge the murder, convincing the new king, Charles II, to appoint him Lieutenant-Governor of Scotland. He immediately planned an invasion of Scotland to restore Charles to the throne. Unfortunately the inexperienced young king was indecisive & when he received the Scots ministers, rumours spread that he would abandon Montrose as his father had done. Privately Charles encouraged Montrose but publicly, the Scots declared him a traitor & soon he was on the run. He was captured days later at Ardvreck Castle amid rumours of treachery.

Montrose was brought to Edinburgh where he was sentenced by the Scots parliament to a shameful death - hanged, his head set on the Tolbooth & his quartered body to be set on the town gates of Stirling, Glasgow, Perth & Aberdeen. For a nobleman, this was a shameful death, but the parliament were determined to destroy his fame & his cause. Montrose's progress through the streets of Edinburgh became a triumph as the people were impressed by his youth & bearing & maybe ashamed at the shabby treatment he was receiving from their leaders.

C V Wedgwood sums Montrose up so beautifully in the final pages of her biography that I'll leave you with her words.

His single year of victory earned him a place in local legend, in Gaelic song and Scottish ballad, but it was his death which made him, to all posterity, the Great Marquess; for it was in that last month that the greatness of his nature, responding to the awful challenge, turned the squalid prose of life into a poetic tragedy which few could watch unmoved. It was then that the hero and the poet in him triumphed at once over his weaknesses as a man and the baseness of his enemies. He earned his place in history and legend not for what he did, but for what he was. The quality of the human soul matters more than the political causes for which men fight and die. Good and evil in politics change from age to age but good and evil in themselves are unchanging. The life and character of Montrose, rightly studied, throw a steady shaft of light on this eternal problem.