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At the end of April, 2024, sitting in a tea room in Cambridge, I was impressed by an article in the "Daily Telegraph" praising an historical crime fiction series set in Tudor Times, written by C.J. Sansom and featuring a hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake. This article had been prompted by the author's sad death a few days earlier. I still had the Telegraph obituary at home and read it later. Anyway, in Cambridge, I thought I would give the series a go, and about an hour later, by pure good fortune, I found the first 3 books in the series in a charity shop, each priced at 95p.
Christopher John Sansom was an award winning writer whose books have sold in millions. He was born in Edinburgh in 1952, an only child, the son of an English father and a Scottish mother. He had a poor experience of early education in Edinburgh at George Watson's College. He was bullied, and he left with no qualifications. Later he made amends at Birmingham University getting first a BA degree, and then a Ph.D in History. He later trained as a solicitor and practised in Sussex. Helped by an inheritance when his dad died, Sansom took a year off to write, and happily the early success of his Shardlake series allowed him to become a full time writer. This series featured Matthew Shardlake, a hunchback lawyer. It was set in Tudor times, in the 16th century reign of Henry VIII. How appropriate for a practising solicitor with a PhD. in history.
Sansom was diagnosed with a treatable bone marrow cancer in 2012. He eventually died at the age of 71. This was in a hospice near Brighton, in April, 2024. He had never married.
The House of Tudor comprised 5 monarchs, 6 including Lady Jane Grey (9 days):
Henry VII 1485-1509
Henry VIII 1509-1547
Edward VI 1547-1553
Lady Jane Grey 1553-1553 (9 days)
Mary I 1553-1558
Elizabeth I 1558-1603
Following the Black Death of 1348, the population of England roughly doubled in Tudor times from about 2 million to 4 million. This helped economic growth in agriculture, the production and export of the wool trade, and the growth of London. It was a period of social upheaval with the gap between the rich and the poor widening, and the enclosure of manorial land previously village lands open to all.
In 1500, England was devoutly Catholic. The Reformation changed the religion from Catholic to Protestant mostly through widespread dissatisfaction and disgust at the corruption of the established Church, it's wealth was not used for charitable purposes, their heirarchies lived off the fat of the land, they worshiped preposterous relics, and all the deceits galore were abhorrent . Reformers included John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, and John Calvin.
Henry VII became King after defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485), thus ending the Wars of the Roses .
King Henry VIII is the most famous of the Tudors, excluding Elizabeth I. He married 6 times in an effort to produce a male heir :
1 Catherine of Aragon - 1509 to 1533, annuled, died 1536, was the mother of Queen Mary I
2 Anne Bolyn - 1533 to 1536, beheaded in the Tower of London, was the mother of Elizabeth I.
3 Jane Seymour - 1536 to 1537, died in childbirth, was the mother of King Edward VI
4 Anne of Cleeves - 1540 to 1540, annuled, died 1557.
5 Catherine Howard - 1540 to 1542, beheaded in the Tower of London.
6 Catherine Parr - 1543 to 1547, died in 1548. She had remarried to Thomas Seymour, brother of Queen Jane Seymour.
Henry VIII ruthlessly executed many top officials and aristocrats. When the Pope refused to annul his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry broke from Rome and installed himself as Head of the Church. National sovereignty required the absolure supremacy of the King. Parliament supported this, with little dissent. Decisions were taken by the King himself, or by top aids such as Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell. The decisive move was the Act of Supremacy of 1534. Some opposition came from Bishop Fisher and Thomas More, but both were executed. Monasteries were siezed, monks and nuns pensioned off, and Church valuable lands sold to the King's friends. However there was little change to the Church theology and ritual - this was not Lutherism.
Henry organised the navy as a permanent force, and built and launched many new ships. Between 1515 and 1529 Cardinal Wolsey was the most powerful man in the land, but for the King. Wolsey did much good, but eventually he conspired with Henry's enemies. He died of natural causes before he could be beheaded. Thomas Cromwell (1485 -1540) was then the King's chief minister from 1532 to 1540, and instigated many far reaching reforms. However he picked the wrong bride for the King, and was beheaded in 1540 for treason. These were indeed savage times !
The Dissolution of the Monasteries took place 1536 to 1545. The King desperately needed money. His annual income was about £100k, but the Church revenues were about £300k. Taking ownership of Church lands and selling them off cheaply brought the King over £1 million. The huge influx of money had to be managed by Cromwell. He set up the Court of Augmentation, later incorporateed into the Exchequer in 1554.
Henry's health deteriorated in his fifties, and he died in 1547. His successor was a 9 year old boy Edward VI. Somerset, elder brother of the late Queen Jane Seymour was Edward's uncle and became Lord Protector, ruling from 1547 to 1549. However his wars were costly, and he was overthrown by his former ally John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland whose top aid was William Cecil. The King died suddenly in 1553. Dudley tried to make his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey Queen, but this attempt failed after 9 days when Queen Mary I took over the throne, had Dudley beheaded, and Jane Grey too, after a period of imprisonment.
Mary I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, his first wife. Mary tried to restore Catholicism, but this was later reversed by her younger sister and successor, Elizabeth I. On the continent the Jesuits lead the Catholic Counter Reformation, but Mary's chief religious advisor Cardinal Pole refused to allow the Jesuits into England. Mary's marriage to King Philip II of Spain was deeply unpopular. They had no children.
Elizabeth I ruled 1558 to 1603. She returned the country to become Protestant once again. Her half sister Mary, Queen of Scots 1542 to 1587, was a devout Catholic and was next in line to the English throne. Mary had many troubles and dalliances, and was forced to abdicate the Scottish throne in favour of her infant son James VI . Mary fled to England where she was held in captivity for the next 19 years. She was involved in many plots to assassinate Elizabeth. Enough was enough, and Mary was eventually executed in 1587. Elizabeth had no children, and the Stuarts inherited the English throne on her death in 1603.
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I read this book in May, 2024.
" Of late, I have been writing these reviews under three headings - Characters , Personal Lives and Main Plots .
Characters .
Private Lives :
The Main Plots :
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