Cries and whispers

C. J. Sansom’s Shardlake series concerns the activities of a hunchback lawyer struggling to make a living in the increasingly dangerous setting of Henry VIII’s reign. The first three novels have been deservedly successful, not least because of Matthew Shardlake himself, a man of intelligence and integrity who has managed to survive with his essential decency intact. He had a particularly harrowing time in the previous book in the series, Sovereign, when he narrowly averted a rebellion, survived torture in the Tower and was publicly humiliated by the bloated and paranoid tyrant on the throne of England.

Now, 18 months later, things are about to get even worse. It’s 1543, and the King, having disposed of his previous wife, is sizing up the recently widowed Catherine Parr for his sixth queen. Archbishop Cranmer and other leading Protestants are broadly in favour, since she is known to support their Reformist ideas but adherents to the old religion are still numerous, and they have other views.