Spring, 1549. Two years after the death of Henry VIII, England is sliding into chaos... The nominal king, Edward VI, is eleven years old. His uncle Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, rules as Protector. The extirpation of the old religion by radical Protestants is stirring discontent among the populace while the Protector's prolonged war with Scotland is proving a disastrous failure and threatens to involve France. Worst of all, the economy is in collapse, inflation rages and rebellion is stirring among the peasantry. Since the old King's death, Matthew Shardlake has been working as a lawyer in the service of Henry's younger daughter, the Lady Elizabeth. The gruesome murder of the wife of a distant Norfolk relation of Elizabeth's mother, John Boleyn - which could have political implications for Elizabeth - brings Shardlake and his assistant Nicholas Overton to the summer assizes at Norwich. There they are reunited with Shardlake's former assistant Jack Barak. The three find layers of mystery and danger surrounding the death of Edith Boleyn, as a second murder is committed. And then East Anglia explodes, as peasant rebellion breaks out across the country. The yeoman Robert Kett leads a force of thousands in overthrowing the landlords and establishing a vast camp outside Norwich. Soon the rebels have taken over the city, England's second largest. Barak throws in his lot with the rebels; Nicholas, opposed to them, becomes a prisoner in Norwich Castle; while Shardlake has to decide where his ultimate loyalties lie, as government forces in London prepare to march north and destroy the rebels. Meanwhile he discovers that the murder of Edith Boleyn may have connections reaching into both the heart of the rebel camp and of the Norfolk gentry...
The seismic events of the 1549 English rebellions are surprisingly little known; but
Some events, such as those concerning the gentleman prisoners in Part Six, and one incident that takes place in Chapter Seventy-five, may appear too far-fetched to be true, but they actually happened.
More detail is given in the Historical Note.
I did well in keeping in Kett’s camp and thought nothing but well of Kett. He trusted to see a new day for such men as I was.
I had been in my chambers at Lincoln’s Inn when the messenger came from Master Parry, asking me to attend him urgently. I wondered what might be afoot. He was the Lady Elizabeth’s Comptroller, head of the financial side of her household, and I had worked under him since I was recommended to Elizabeth by Queen Catherine Parr two years before, following King Henry’s death. The old king had left a huge income – £ 3000 a year – to each of his two daughters, with the intention that they should convert the income into landed property. Lord Protector Somerset had decided to let the Lady Mary have first choice of what was available on the market; though her religious conservatism was entirely at odds with his Protestant radicalism, as Henry’s elder daughter, Mary was heir to the throne should anything happen to young King Edward. Her welfare was also important to her cousin the Holy Roman Emperor Charles, with whom Somerset needed to keep on good terms. Elizabeth, on the other hand, counted for little. But Mary was settled now, the bulk of her estates in Norfolk, and Parry was starting to build up blocks of land for Elizabeth, mostly in Hertfordshire. Some juicy piece of ex-monastic land had probably come his way, and he was keen for me to secure it quickly.
I thought how much I owed to that dear lady, Catherine Parr. I had been distressed when, shortly after King Henry’s death, she had married Thomas Seymour, the Protector’s brother, a charming, handsome, unscrupulous and ruthlessly ambitious man. Lady Elizabeth had lived with them, but had left the house under a cloud the previous May, amidst rumours that Seymour had made advances to the then fourteen-year-old girl. And then, last September, Catherine Parr herself died giving birth to Seymour’s child. It had been a great shock, which still lay heavy on my heart.
Telling my clerk John Skelly I might be gone a while, I set out from Lincoln’s Inn to walk to Master Parry’s offices off Knightrider Street – he was not a lawyer, so not a member of the Inns. It was a cold, icy day; dirty snow still lay at the sides of the streets, and I watched my footing carefully among the busy Londoners. I shook my head at how many beggars there were now, crouched in doorways, muffled in whatever rags they had gathered against the cold.
The growing desperation of the poor was one of the many changes that had come to pass these last two years. Henry had left control of the country to a nominated Council until King Edward, now eleven, reached his majority. The Council, however, had quickly devolved power to Edward’s elder uncle, Edward Seymour, now Duke of Somerset, who ruled as a virtual king. Perhaps after sixty years of firm, centralized rule by Henry VII and Henry VIII, those in power could only conceive of government by a single man.
After five years of war with France and Scotland, Henry had left the kingdom at peace when he died. It was much needed; his wars had bankrupted the country, and had been paid for by the debasement of the coinage, adulterating silver with copper. These coins were no longer accepted at face value by traders, and prices were now almost double what they had been a decade ago. The effect on the poorer classes, especially, was catastrophic, for wages remained the same.
