Restoration - Alexander Larman

 

In his recent study of post-Soviet Russia, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, Peter Pomerantsev described the way in which ordinary people respond to abrupt changes in official ideology. In Pomerantsev’s account, people did not suddenly lose faith in the Soviet system, or wake up one morning with an overwhelming desire for Western democracy: ‘the great drama of Russia is not the ‘transition’ between communism and capitalism, between one fervently held set of beliefs and another, but that during the final decades of the USSR no-one believed in Communism and yet continued living as if they did, and now they can only create a society of simulations’. The psychological flexibility that living in such a system requires is akin to multiple personality disorder: ‘you speak several languages at the same time, all the time. There’s like several ‘you’s’.

The people of Seventeenth Century England had a similarly jarring experience; the Civil War which ended with the execution of Charles I was followed by a period of hardline religious government under Cromwell, which swiftly lost public support. However, following the initial enthusiasm for the Restoration, by 1666 it was becoming clear that finding a synthesis between the traditions of British monarchy and the religious and social issues which had driven the country to civil war was not going to be easy to find. Charles himself had contributed to the impasse; although he had initially promised an amnesty, the so-called regicides were viciously persecuted upon the King’s return. Charles embodied the dualism which characterised the age; behind his charming, louche exterior, there was a steeliness shaped by his years of exile. The new king was 'implacable when it came to dealing with his enemies,' with 'a dedication to settling old scores that would put a pagan god to shame'. 
  
Alexander Larman’s account of the crucial year of Charles’s reign highlights the duality of an age in which men like Boyle and Newton could be both magician and scientist, an age of licentiousness and brutal punishments. As in post-Soviet Russia, The Civil War, Republic and Restoration had taught the people to be malleable in their outward behaviours, changing to suit the prevailing wind, and the King embodied this perfectly. Charles’s court, and the Kingdom as a whole, was both glorious and squalid, sacred and profane.
Although our view of the Restoration is generally dominated by charismatic, decadent aristocrats, Larman looks beyond the so-called 'masculine' history of great men and events to write engagingly about the domestic and everyday. His major primary sources, alongside Pepys, include the French physician Samuel de Sorbiere, who offered a cutting commentary which sparked a diplomatic incident on publication, Roger Lowe, a Lancastrian tradesman (who at one point during the year shared a five litre bottle of ale with a merchant  to celebrate a business deal, and then continued his binge with the local vicar), and Alice Thornton, who in 1666 survived a bout of plague, but who suffered tragedy when her nephew was murdered later in the year.



The Fifth Monarchy Men, who led a rebellion against Charles in 1661, believed that the world would end in 1666, a prediction which must have seemed plausible at times. The great plague of 1665 encouraged a carpe diem spirit amongst the fortunate survivors, leading to a frenzied excess at court which was characterised by the rise of the dissolute poet and wit John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester. However, exuberance was to be short-lived. Looking back on the tumultuous events of 1666, Samuel Pepys described a 'year of public wonder and mischief... generally wished by all people to have an end'. Sober men were said to be 'fearful of the ruin of the whole kingdom this next year'. John Evelyn concurred, calling it 'a year of nothing but prodigies in this nation: plague, war, fire, rains, tempests, comets'. The devastating effects of plague compounded the disastrous war with Holland, which emptied the  nation's coffers. 


Most dramatic of all, and the event which Larman’s account builds towards, is of course the fire of London. Contemporary accounts saw the fire as a judgement on Charles’ reign: Larman shows this is appropriate, in the sense of it being facilitated by corruption and incompetence. The toleration of inadequate and unsafe housing and the failure to manage an effective political response to the emergency all contributed to the extent of the disaster. As the fire spreads, Larman dramatizes the public reaction: there were outbreaks of looting and lynching throughout the capital, as well as a search for scapegoats. A man was killed in Moorfields, when the tennis balls he was carrying were mistaken for 'flaming spheres', proving that the English public is only ever one crisis away from attacking a paediatrician. In the aftermath, a number of Frenchmen were hanged for their part in a spurious conspiracy to start the fire: like modern conspiracy theorists, Restoration crowds were only too happy to see dark motives behind catastrophic events. In the aftermath of the fire, villages around the country held collections and donated funds towards the rebuilding of London. This was largely symbolic, but was striking for a modern reader, accustomed to the huge financial power of the capital. 


Larman takes a wide view of his period, with detailed accounts of religious debate, science, entertainments, fashion and political developments, and this helps him to draw out the dualistic nature of Restoration society. This is a less in-depth history than his account of Rochester’s life and work, but there is plenty of interest. Larman has an obvious affinity with his era, and provides an intelligent and illuminating commentary. It would be interesting to see him embark on a longer study of Charles himself, and the strange duality that characterised him and his court. The liveliness of Larman's writing would certainly make for a great mix of author and subject.