Highwayman

The Highwayman trilogy is set in 1655–1656, after Parliament’s victory and the establishment of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate. Major Samson Lyle is a former Roundhead officer whose disgust at the Irish campaign and conflict with the military regime have made him an outlaw. As the Ironside Highwayman, he attacks officials and agents of the government that killed his wife and now rules England through Major-Generals.

Lyle travels with his young ward Bella and the former smuggler Eustace Grumm while Colonel John Maddocks pursues them on behalf of the state. The first two novellas focus on rescue, revenge and an attempt to disrupt the Protectorate’s army; War’s End adds a stolen Bible, mercenary sailors and a hostage crisis. The trilogy examines how civil war continues through policing, exile and private vengeance after the main armies have left the field.