DISSOLUTION

By C.J Sansom

I have never been terribly keen on series of books as each one just becomes a slight variation on a theme. The Shardlake series by C.J.Sansom is one that I am not just reading but inhaling! Discovered at our last Book Club ( I still keep asking myself how I missed this) I am now finishing book 5! Dissolution is the first of the series.

The author’s knowledge of his period, the incredible detail and the ability to portray daily life in Tudor England is phenomenal. The power and wealth of the landed classes, the tradespeople, farmers, peasants and the poor (whole new level), village and city life, law, religion, medicine, the army and navy, food, clothing, transport, entertainment and last but not least Bedlam and the Tower! This series has it all including a likeable, honest main character who, by the way, is not your typical hero.

I highly recommend dipping your toes into Tudor life.

PS Also available on Audible with an excellent narrator.

Excerpt chosen by Lin Green

By the time I reached Westminster 

Palace the rain had become torrential, 

gusting against me in sheets. The few horsemen who passed were, like me, hunched inside their coats, and we exclaimed to each other at the drenching we were getting.

The king had abandoned Westminster for his great new palace at Whitehall some years before, and nowadays Westminster was used mainly to house the courts. Pepper’s Court of Augmentations was a new addition, set up to deal with the assets of the small religious houses dissolved the year before. Lord Cromwell and his burgeoning retinue of officials had their offices there too, so it was a crowded place.

Usually the courtyard was thronged with black clad lawyers debating over parchments and state officials arguing or plotting in quiet corners. But today the rain had driven all indoors and it was almost empty. Only a few bedraggled, poorly dressed men stood huddled, soaked, in the doorway of Augmentations: ex monks from the dissolved houses, come to plead for the lay parishes the Act had promised them. The official on duty must be away somewhere – perhaps it was Master Mintling. One proud faced old man was still dressed in the habit of a Cistercian, rain dripping from his cowl. Wearing that apparel around Lord Cromwell’s offices would do him little good.

Ex monks usually had a hangdog air, but this group were looking with horrified expressions overto where some carriers were unloading two large wagons and stacking the contents against the walls, cursing at the water dripping into their eyes and mouths. At first glance I thought they were bringing wood for the officials’ fires, but when I brought Chancery to a halt I saw they were unloading glass fronted caskets, wooden and plaster statues, and great wooden crosses, richly carved and decorated. These must be the relics and images from the dissolved monasteries, whose worship all of us who believed in Reform sought to end. Brought from their places of honour and piled up in the rain, they were at last stripped of power. I suppressed a stab of pity and nodded grimly at the little group of monks before steering Chancery through the inner arch.

In the stables I dried myself as best I could on a towel the ostler gave me, then entered the palace. I showed Lord Cromwell’s letter to a guard, who led me from the public area into the labyrinth of inner corridors, his brightly polished pike held aloft.

He took me through a large door where two more guards stood, and I found  myself in a long, narrow hall, brightly lit with candles. Once it had been a banqueting hall, but now it was filled from end to end with rows of desks at which black clad clerks sat sifting mountains of correspondence. A senior clerk, a short plump man with fingers black from years of ink, bustled across to me.

‘Master Shardlake? You are early.’ I wondered how he knew me and then realized he would have been told to expect a hunchback.

‘The weather was kind – until just now.’ I looked downat my soaked hose.

‘The vicar general told me to bring you in as soon as you arrived.’

He led me on down the hall, past the 

rustling clerks, the wind created by our passage making their candles flicker. I realized just how extensive was the web of control that my master had created. The church commissioners and the local magistracy, each with their own network of informers, were under orders to report all rumours of discontent or treason; each was investigated with the full rigour of the law, it’s penalties harsher every year. There had alreadybeen one 

rebellion against the religious changes; another might topple the realm.

The clerk halted before a large door at theend of the hall. He bade me stop, then knocked and entered, bowing low. ‘Master Shardlake, my lord.’

In contrast to the antechamber, Lord Cromwell’s room was gloomy, only one small sconce of candles by the desk lit against the dark afternoon. While most men in high office would have their walls adorned with the richest tapestries, his were lined from floor to ceiling with cupboards divided into hundreds of drawers. Tables and chests stood everywhere, covered with reports and lists. A great log fire roared in a wide grate.

At first I could not see him. Then I made out his stocky form, standing by a table at the far end of the room. He was holding up a casket and studying the contents with a contemptuous frown, his wide, narrow lipped mouth down turned above his lantern chin. His jaw held thus made me think of a great trap that at any moment might open and swallow one whole with a casual gulp. He glanced round at me and, with one of those mercurial changes of expression that    came so easily to him, smiled affably and  and raised a hand in welcome. I bowed as low as I could, wincing, for I was stiff after my long ride.

‘Matthew, come over here.’ The deep, harsh voice was welcoming. ‘You did well at Croydon; I am glad that Black Grange tangle is resolved.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’ As I approached, I noticed the shirt beneath his fur trimmed robe was black. He caught my glance.

‘You’ve heard the queen is dead?’

‘Yes, my lord. I am sorry.’ I knew that after Anne Boleyn’s execution Lord Cromwell had hitched his fortunes to those of Jane Seymour’s family.

He grunted. ‘The king is distracted.’

I looked down at the table. To my surprise it was piled high with caskets of various sizes. All seemed to be of gold and silver; many were studded with jewels. Through ancient spotted glass I could see pieces of cloth and bone lying on velvet I looked at the casket he still held and saw it contained a child’s skull. He held it up in both hands and shook it, so that some teeth that had come loose rattled inside. The vicar general smiled grimly.

‘These will interest you. Relics brought specially to myattention.’ He set the casket on the table and pointed to a Latin inscription on the front. ‘Look at that.’

‘Barbara sanctissima,’ I read. I peered at the skull. A few hairs still clung to the pate.

‘The skull of St Barbara,’ Cromwell said, slapping the casket with his palm. ‘A young virgin murdered by her pagan father in Roman times. From the Cluniac Priory of Leeds. A most holy relic.’ He bent and picked up a silvercasket set with what looked like opals. ‘And here – the skull of St Barbara, from Boxgrove nunnery in Lancashire.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘They say there are two headed dragons in the Indies. Well, we have two2 headed saints.’

‘By Jesu.’ I peered in at the skulls. ‘I wonder who they were?’

He gave another bark of laughter and clapped me soundly on the arm. ‘Ha, that’s my Matthew, always after an answer for everything. It’s that probing wit I need now…………

DAUNT’S BOOKS, Marylebone, London