NOTICE
Because of the national rail strike that is planned for Saturday 8 October, Robert Harris is unable to travel to Buckingham that day and therefore has had to withdraw from this year’s Festival. Those patrons who have purchased tickets for his event will be provided with a full refund. Saturday’s Festival programme will now conclude, instead, with a wine reception in the Vinson Building foyer, free for all ticket-holders attending talks that day, from 6.00 to 7.00 pm.

Speaker: Robert Harris

Topic: Act of Oblivion: the Greatest Manhunt of the Seventeenth Century

Venue: Vinson Lecture Theatre

Time: 19:00-20:00 Saturday 8 October

Talk Summary:

It is the year 1660 and Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, Colonel William Goffe, have crossed the Atlantic in order to escape the vengeance of the newly restored Charles II. Whalley and Goffe, under the provisions of the Act of Oblivion, have been found guilty in absentia of high treason for their role in the trial and execution of Charles I. Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is the man responsible for tracking them down. Robert Harris, master of the historical novel, turns his attention to one of the most dramatic periods in British and American history to tell the gripping tale of the ‘greatest manhunt of the seventeenth century’.