C J Sansom - Sovereign

review by Brian Lowen on show 21st April
An historical novel, set in the time of the Tudors. It probably helps if you enjoy history to fully appreciate this book as it goes into detail concern the succession to the throne from King Edward IV up to King Henry VIII and the story is whether or not Henry VIII was in fact legally entitled to the throne.

It is autumn,1541 and King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Progress to the North with all his court and followers together with his soldiers to attend an extravagant submission by his rebellious subjects in York, who have recently been put down following an uprising against the King who they believe should not be their monarch.

Already in the city are lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak. As well as legal work processing legal petitions to the King, Shardlake has reluctantly undertaken a special mission for Archbishop Cranmer – to ensure the welfare of an important but dangerous conspirator who is to be returned to London for interrogation in the Tower.

But the murder of a York glazier involves Shardlake in deeper mysteries, connected not only to the prisoner in York castle but to the royal family itself. And when Shardlake and Barak stumble upon a cache of secret documents which could threaten the Tudor throne, a chain of events unfolds that will lead to Shardlake facing the most terrifying event of the age.

Whilst the story is fiction it is based on the facts of what did happen during this Progress to the North by the King. It deals in great detail with what it must have been like to go on this journey which took several weeks over very poor roads with a vast encampment having to be set up each night when it stopped, with several thousand people needing feeding. It was a great feat of organisation.

Lawyer Shardlake is an improbable hero with whom we can sympathise. Being a hunchback he suffers all kinds of humiliation, even from the King, but he is a man of high principles and this sees him through in the end. The book is over 600 pages long but it keeps you enthralled all the time as we learn what it was like living in those times.
reviw by Brian