1953 historical fiction for young people. Simon Carey the son of a
successful farmer, and Amias Hannaford the son of the doctor, grow up
the best of friends. But then the King raises his standard, and their
friendship is split by the Civil War…
Now this is what I want historical fiction to be. If I want to
read about how this general moved an army here and that one responded,
there are encyclopaedias and histories. But what I get here is a view
from the ground: all right, Simon, enlisted as a cornet, does speak
with Fairfax several times. But what we get from those meetings is an
image of Fairfax the man as seen by his soldiers; and similarly with
the Battle of Naseby, where the feeling is much more of shock,
exhaustion and confusion than of a great victory.
And, of course, one gets a picture of the sort of people who live in
this world, from the religious reformers to the farmers who just want
to get back to growing things and feeding people. And how does one
react to the tension between personal and institutional loyalty? Both
Simon (with Amias) and his corporal Zeal-for-the-Lord Relf (with a
business partner who did him wrong) face this; both end up making the
decision to let the personal come first; but they do it in different
ways and with different results.
And all this is set against one of the first attempts (at least in
England) to make a recognisably modern army, where everyone on your
side is subject to the same discipline as you; where you obey the
order to keep formation and hold your position rather than hare off
after loot. So there's even less scope for letting discipline slide,
now when the idea of a single standard for everyone is being invented,
than usual.
Sutcliff's sympathy is clearly with Parliament, and since the book is
told from Simon's viewpoint that's what we see; but this is not a
simplistic tale of saints against devils. Good men can do good things
for a bad cause, and bad men do bad things for a good one. That may
not seem like much, but it's the minimal level of sophistication that
I tend to hope for these days, and Sutcliff does it superbly.