Pavane

In this version of history, Queen Elizabeth I is assassinated in 1588, just as the Spanish Armada draws near. Nobody is left to lead the defence, and Spain conquers England. Europe's politics and faith come under the Catholic Church, and the Reformation never takes place.

By the twentieth century the Church has held back technology on purpose, to protect its authority. Steam-driven road engines haul freight, and mechanical semaphore towers carry messages where electricity and the combustion engine would otherwise serve. The Dorset countryside looks closer to a feudal nineteenth century than to any modern postwar England.

The book is a cycle of linked stories, set mostly in Dorset. Its sections are called measures, followed by a closing coda, a nod to the slow, formal court dance named in the title. Each measure follows different people and families, and the span runs across several generations. As the chapters pass, quiet signs of resistance to Church rule begin to show.

This is alternate history, written in a restrained, literary style. The attention rests on ordinary lives within a believable changed world, not on how the history diverged. The pace is measured and the mood is subdued. It is a standalone novel, first published in 1968, by the British author Keith Roberts.