Merivel by Rose Tremain

Merivel: A Man of His Time; a Novel by Rose Tremain --- 373 pages

Twenty-four years after the publication of Restoration, Tremain has finally given us a conclusion to the life and times of Sir Robert Merivel, physician and friend of that rogue of a monarch, Charles II of Great Britain.

The novel is a picaresque tale of Merivel's adventures as he navigates the declining years of the king's reign. The three primary characters of the novel, Merivel, his servant Will Gates and the King, are all facing the end of their lives and pondering what, if anything, they have accomplished in their time.

The riotous and ribald stew of the seventeenth century is boiling over; there is an aftertaste of futility and resignation in part two of Merivel's tale, but there are also scenes as etched in comic acid as a Hogarth engraving, and delicate vignettes of  affections and loyalties honored even when they are not always reciprocated. Merivel may be foolish, impulsive and impractical but he is also a keen observer, tolerant of the follies and foibles of others, and open to new ideas and experiences.  

Rosie Pierpont, the one of his many lovers to whom he always returns, gives Merivel and his Time their epitaph: "The World is as it chooses to be, and he was one who knew it well."  If there is a weakness to Tremain's book, it is not in her fertile imagination, her lively writing or historical context, but in the melancholy at the heart of her tale.

Restoration by Rose Tremain

Restoration: A Novel of Seventeenth Century England by Rose Tremain --- 371 pages

Restoration, a picaresque novel by Rose Tremain, was published in 1989. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989 and was the Sunday Express Book of the Year.

Robert Merivel, a young physician, is the son of the King Charles II's glovemaker, and his father's ambition is to get his son a post at court.  Merivel's great opportunity comes when he saves the life of the King's favorite spaniel. He enjoys a life of pleasure at court, where his antics make him a favorite with the King. As a further mark of favor, Charles proposes to marry Merivel to his mistress, Celia Clemence. Of course this is to be a marriage of convenience --- the King's convenience. Once wed, the new Lady Merivel is installed in a house in Kew, where the king can visit her privately. In exchange for being a willing cuckold, Merivel is granted an estate called Bidnold in Norfolk.

Too late, Merivel realizes he has been effectively exiled from court. His days are aimless, his only solace the companionship he finds with his man servant, Will Gates. Then Celia is banished to Bidnold for importuning the King. Merivel makes the fatal mistake of becoming infatuated with his wife-in-name-only. Celia repulses him, and returns to London. Merivel has displeased the King, who withdraws his favor, and takes back all that he has bestowed.

Merivel finds refuge with an old friend from his student days. Pearce is one of a small group of Quakers --- a religious sect much maligned and persecuted by the established Church --- who are the Keepers of a refuge for the mentally afflicted near a remote village in Norfolk. They offer an alternative to the notorious Bedlam Hospital in London, where inmates are abused and exhibited like freaks. Merivel joins the Keepers, hoping to redeem himself. Good intentions however are not enough. Pearce contracts consumption (tuberculosis) and dies despite Merivel's efforts to cure him. Merivel succumbs to temptation again and gets one of his patients pregnant.

The other Keepers agree Merivel cannot stay. He and Katharine, the woman carrying his child, travel to London. It is the time of the Great Plague, and people are dying by the hundreds in the crowded and unsanitary streets of the city. Merivel establishes himself by selling nostrums to ward off the plague. Katharine dies in childbirth, leaving Merivel with a baby daughter. At last Merivel's heroic actions during the Great Fire of 1666 gain  him the king's forgiveness and favor once again.

The book was made into a film in 1995, starring Robert Downing Jr. as Merivel, Sam Neill as Charles II, Polly Walker as Celia, David Thewlis as Pearce, and Meg Ryan as Katharine. It won two Academy Awards.

Tremain published a sequel, Merivel, A Man of His Time, in 2013.