Everything we know about the morality and behaviour of Tudor times suggests that we would find the character of many of the people then — certainly those battling their way in the cutthroat world of the royal court — unattractive. Yet CJ Samson, in creating his detective character, the hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake, has found a way around this problem. The man whose deformity is often openly mocked and even causes superstitious fear — the credible genuinely believe that seeing a person so deformed will cause bad luck — is sensitive to other's pain. He also cannot react to difficult and dangerous situations by whipping out his sword, as your average Tudor man would have done - in fact is believably a lot more like us than almost any other Tudor character might be.
Master Shardlake makes his third appearance in a novel simply entitled Sovereign - appropriately enough, since while the massive figure of Henry VIII hovered menacingly in the background in the first two novels, here he is centre stage, dominating the thoughts of everyone, even in his absence, as he leads the great Progress of the North of 1541. Still seeking to avoid becoming entangled in the intrigues of the court, Master Shardlake is lured into a delicate mission by Archbishop Cranmer. He is to protect a valuable prisoner, who knows secrets that could shake the foundations of the throne, until that prisoner can be taken to London for the hideous but calculated ministrations of the professional torturers in the Tower of London.
A man who can't even face watching a bear-baiting, Master Shardlake is troubled by this, as he also tries to deal with the recent death of his father. Sansom develops the lawyer's character beautifully, although he's less sure in his handling of female characters. Here Tamasin, a young woman of the court, an orphan having to look out for herself, is central to the plot - becoming entangled, it seems to the point of marriage, with Master Shardlake's rough clerk and oft-time bodyguard, Barak. The lawyer is understandable uncertain about her, but as we only ever see her from his point of view, she never really develops.
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Article comments
1 - lionel french
I would like to comment on the books written by Dr. Sansom. I have read Dissolution and Dark Fire and now I am a little way through Sovereign.
Had I not been impressed with Dissolution I would not have progressed to Dark Fire and, from there, to the current reading material - Sovereign. The fiction aside, if I am to take seriously that aspect of his books relating to life in this country during the the reign of Henry VIII and specifically the period of the change from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism, then I wonder how this country could ever have been tagged Christian. Sansom writes of the burnings at stakes as being a 'casual' event - to which all were invited. As for the story element, first class - unputdownable. He really does lead the way in the 'whodunnits' of the 16th century.
2 - mrs p young
I have read all four books starting with Dissolution ,and just finised Revelation .what do I think Brilliant Moor please
3 - stiggyliggy
you must read a lot.....you spelt more wrong