第1段

Charles Spencer’s latest book, , tells us the story of the hunt for King Charles II in the six weeks after his resounding defeat at the Battle of Worcester in September 1651. And what a story it is. After his father was executed by the Parliamentarians in 1649, the young Charles II sacrificed one of the very principles his father had died for and did a deal with the Scots, thereby accepting Presbyterianism* as the national religion in return for being crowned King of Scots. His arrival in Edinburgh prompted the English Parliamentary army to invade Scotland in a pre-emptive strike. This was followed by a Scottish invasion of England. The two sides finally faced one another at Worcester in the west of England in 1651. After being comprehensively defeated on the meadows outside the city by the Parliamentarian army, the 21-year-old king found himself the subject of a national manhunt, with a huge sum offered for his capture. Over the following six weeks he managed, through a series of heart-poundingly close escapes, to evade the Parliamentarians before seeking refuge in France. For the next nine years, the penniless and defeated Charles wandered around Europe with only a small group of loyal supporters.

第2段

Years later, after his restoration as king, the 50-year-old Charles II requested a meeting with the writer and diarist Samuel Pepys. His intention when asking Pepys to commit his story to paper was to ensure that this most extraordinary episode was never forgotten. Over two three-hour sittings, the king related to him in great detail his personal recollections of the six weeks he had spent as a fugitive. As the king and secretary settled down (a scene that is surely a gift for a future scriptwriter), Charles commenced his story: ‘After the battle was so absolutely lost as to be beyond hope of recovery, I began to think of the best way of saving myself.’

第3段

One of the joys of Spencer’s book, a result not least of its use of Charles II’s own narrative as well as those of his supporters, is just how close the reader gets to the action. The day-by-day retelling of the fugitives’ doings provides delicious details: the cutting of the king’s long hair with agricultural shears, the use of walnut leaves to dye his pale skin, and the day Charles spent lying on a branch of the great oak tree in Boscobel Wood as the Parliamentary soldiers scoured the forest floor below. Spencer draws out both the humour – such as the preposterous refusal of Charles’s friend Henry Wilmot to adopt disguise on the grounds that it was beneath his dignity – and the emotional tension when the secret of the king’s presence was cautiously revealed to his supporters.

第4段

Charles’s adventures after losing the Battle of Worcester hide the uncomfortable truth that whilst almost everyone in England had been appalled by the execution of his father, they had not welcomed the arrival of his son with the Scots army, but had instead firmly bolted their doors. This was partly because he rode at the head of what looked like a foreign invasion force and partly because, after almost a decade of civil war, people were desperate to avoid it beginning again. This makes it all the more interesting that Charles II himself loved the story so much ever after. As well as retelling it to anyone who would listen, causing eye-rolling among courtiers, he set in train a series of initiatives to memorialise it. There was to be a new order of chivalry, the Knights of the Royal Oak. A series of enormous oil paintings depicting the episode were produced, including a two-metre-wide canvas of Boscobel Wood and a set of six similarly enormous paintings of the king on the run. In 1660, Charles II commissioned the artist John Michael Wright to paint a flying squadron of cherubs carrying an oak tree to the heavens on the ceiling of his bedchamber. It is hard to imagine many other kings marking the lowest point in their life so enthusiastically, or indeed pulling off such an escape in the first place.

第5段

Charles Spencer is the perfect person to pass the story on to a new generation. His pacey, readable prose steers deftly clear of modern idioms and elegantly brings to life the details of the great tale. He has even-handed sympathy for both the fugitive king and the fierce republican regime that hunted him, and he succeeds in his desire to explore far more of the background of the story than previous books on the subject have done. Indeed, the opening third of the book is about how Charles II found himself at Worcester in the first place, which for some will be reason alone to read .

第6段

The tantalising question left, in the end, is that of what it all meant. Would Charles II have been a different king had these six weeks never happened? The days and nights spent in hiding must have affected him in some way. Did the need to assume disguises, to survive on wit and charm alone, to use trickery and subterfuge to escape from tight corners help form him? This is the one area where the book doesn’t quite hit the mark. Instead its depiction of Charles II in his final years as an ineffective, pleasure-loving monarch doesn’t do justice to the man (neither is it accurate), or to the complexity of his character. But this one niggle aside,  is an excellent read, and those who come to it knowing little of the famous tale will find they have a treat in store.

    查尔斯·斯宾塞的最新著作《抓捕国王》，讲述了1651年9月伍斯特战役惨败后，人们追捕查理二世的故事。这是一个多么精彩的故事啊。1649年，查理二世的父亲在议会派处决后，这位年轻的查理二世放弃了他父亲为之献身的一项原则，并与苏格兰人达成协议，接受长老会派作为国教，以换取被加冕为苏格兰国王。他抵达爱丁堡后，引发了英国议会军队进行先发制人的入侵苏格兰。随后苏格兰人入侵英格兰。双方最终在1651年在英格兰西部的伍斯特相遇。在城外的草地上被议会军队彻底击败后，这位21岁的国王成为了全国追捕的对象，悬赏捉拿他的金额巨大。在接下来的六个星期里，通过一系列引人心跳的逃脱，他设法避开了议会军队，最终逃往法国寻求庇护。接下来的九年里，贫困而战败的查理二世带着一小群忠实支持者在欧洲各地流浪。

多年后，在复位为国王之后，50岁的查理二世请求与作家兼日记作者塞缪尔·佩普斯会面。他要求佩普斯把他的故事记录下来，以确保这段非同寻常的经历永远不被遗忘。在两次三小时的交谈中，国王详细讲述了他作为逃亡者度过的六个星期的个人回忆。当国王和秘书安顿下来时（这幅场景无疑是未来剧作家的恩赐），查理开始讲述他的故事：“在战斗彻底失去希望能够挽回之后，我开始考虑拯救自己的最佳方式。”

斯宾塞这本书的一个乐趣是读者如何亲身参与其中，这主要得益于其使用了查理二世自己的叙述以及他的支持者的叙述。对逃亡者一天天的行动进行详细叙述提供了美妙的细节：用农业剪刀剪掉国王的长发，用核桃叶染色他苍白的皮肤，查理在伯斯科贝尔森林的一棵大橡树枝上躺了一整天，同时议会军队在森林下面搜寻。斯宾塞揭示了一些幽默的细节，比如查理的朋友亨利·威尔莫特拒绝伪装的荒谬行为，理由是那样做有损他的尊严，以及当国王的隐匿被谨慎地透露给他的支持者时所产生的情感紧张。

查理在战败伍斯特战役后的冒险掩盖了一个不舒服的事实，即尽管英格兰几乎所有人都对他父亲的处决感到愤慨，但他作为苏格兰军队的首领的到来并没有受到欢迎，相反，人们紧紧闭住了他们的门。这部分原因是因为他带领着看起来像是外国入侵军队的队伍，部分原因是经历了将近十年的内战，人们迫切希望避免再次开始。这使得查理二世自己更加喜欢这个故事变得更有趣。他不仅向任何愿意听的人讲述这个故事，也引发了一系列活动来纪念它。他设立了一个新的骑士团，皇家橡树骑士团。还制作了一系列巨大的油画描绘这一事件，包括一幅宽两米的伯斯科贝尔森林画作，以及一套六幅同样巨大的国王逃亡画作。在1660年，查理二世委托艺术家约翰·迈克尔·赖特在他卧室的天花板上绘制一幅飞行中的小天使们抬着一棵橡树升入天堂的画作。很难想象还有多少其他国王会如此热衷地纪念他们生命中最低谷的时刻，或者在首次逃跑时就能成功脱逃。

查尔斯·斯宾塞是将这个故事传给新一代的完美人选。他流畅易读的文字巧妙地避开了现代习语，优雅地再现了这个伟大故事的细节。他既对逃亡国王心怀同情，又对追捕他的激进共和主义政权保持公正。他成功地实现了对故事背景的探索，超过了以往的相关书籍。事实上，该书的前三分之一讲述了查理二世如何陷入伍斯特的背景，这对一些人来说就足够读完这本书的理由。

最后，令人着迷的问题是这一切意味着什么。如果这六个星期从未发生，查理二世会成为一个不同的国王吗？藏匿期间白天和黑夜的经历一定在某种程度上影响了他。需要扮演其他角色，凭智慧和魅力生存，使用诡计和伪装来逃离困境是否帮助塑造了他的性格？这是这本书唯一没有完全达到预期的地方。相反，它描绘的查理二世在晚年的无效、纵欲的君主形象对这位国王（也不准确）及其复杂性没有恰当的评估。但是除了这一点小瑕疵外，《抓捕国王》是一本优秀的读物，对于那些对这个著名故事知之甚少的人来说，这将是一份美好的礼物。