‘Woodstock’ by Sir Walter Scott

I picked this up because I have, I think, only ever read one Walter Scott novel before – many years ago – and because it was published exactly 200 years ago this month, in April 1826. Benjamin Disraeli also published a novel that month, albeit anonymously, called ‘Vivian Grey’. Time constraints required that a choice be made, and I am not sure I made the right one.

‘Woodstock’ is interesting because it is one of Scott’s Waverley novels in which he was developing the genre of historical fiction, blending real events, people and places with others that are imagined, including people’s thoughts and conversations with one another. This one is set over a few days in the autumn of 1651 when the future King Charles II, having seen his army routed at Worcester, was on the run, a big bounty on his head and summary execution waiting him if he was to be caught. He turns up as a character in the story, as do Oliver Cromwell and various other leading Republican figures.

It is all quite slow moving to start with, as Scott focuses mainly on conveying the atmosphere of the time, families split between those with passionate Royalist sympathies and others equally committed to the republic. Religious divisions and intolerance pervade everything and violence is meted out pretty casually.

The title of the book refers to its setting, which is almost entirely Woodstock in Oxfordshire and the former royal hunting lodge which stood where Blenheim Palace now stands in the middle of its vast estate:

But the fact was undeniable, that in raising the fabric some Norman architect had exerted the utmost of the complicated art, which they have often shown elsewhere, in creating secret passages, and chambers of retreat and concealment. There were stairs, which were ascended merely, as it seemed, for the purpose of descending again – passages which, after turning and winding for a considerable way, returned to the place whence they set out – there were trap-doors and hatchways, sliding panels and portcullises.

Gradually as the novel proceeds – and it is quite a long one – the plotting gets tighter and it turns into quite a compelling thriller of sorts as Oliver Cromwell and his supporters close in on the fugitive Charles. It is cleverly done because Scott keeps the tension building even though we know from history that Charles is going to get away successfully to France. He does this by creating jeopardy for the other characters he creates who are assisting ‘the King’ in his journey to safety.

There are some quite amusing subsidiary characters, particularly a rather opinionated servant called Wildrake who is a royalist serving a republican master who has to take great care. I has an interesting line in swearwords that are, I understand, genuine seventeenth century exclamations: ‘Gazooks!’ is his favourite, but there is also ‘Zounds!’, ‘Gramercy!’, ‘What the foul fiend…’ and ‘Odds bodikins!’ that I enjoyed.

The problem with the book – aside from its great length – is that he situation is in fact wholly invented. The future King Charles II never went anywhere near Woodstock during the six weeks he sent on the run, and in any event by that time Woodstock Lodge had become an uninhabited ruin. Sir Henry Lee, who features here as its owner, was in fact a sixteenth century figure who was long dead by the time of the English Civil War. So there is much more fiction here than there is history.

It took quite a bit of perseverance through mildly interesting chapters setting the situation up, but once the fugitive king makes his appearance – initially disguised as a woman - the interest picks up. Scott’s sympathies clearly lie with the royalist side and he can perhaps be criticised at times for making the roundheads look more ridiculous, cowardly and credulous than they were. They may have been religious fanatics whose project was ultimately doomed, but they certainly did not lack courage or moral seriousness.

I understand that Scott wrote this book very rapidly at a time when a financial collapse had left him as guarantor of a publishing company which folded, in a lot of debt – £100,000. That was colossal in 1826, being equivalent to over £10 million today. But instead of accepting bankruptcy, he decided to write himself out of trouble, and this was the first of the books he published for that purpose. Like most of his work it was a big commercial success in its day. Not so accessible today as are novels by some of his contemporaries like Jane Austen or Mary Shelley, but not hard to read. It just takes some patience early on then engages and interests much more.