In my love affair for both Historical Murder Mysteries and series whose books get progressively more brick-like the longer they go on, I tackled Sovereign, the third in the Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery series. And I don’t really regret that I did.
Set this time in York during the great Progress Henry VIII took after the near civil war of 1541, York truly comes alive, with the Minster and St. Mary’s Church shown particular love. Sansom paints a pretty good picture of how as much as the citizens of York may have viewed the Scots as barbarians (an opinion shared by Southern English about the Northern English), they on the whole agreed with them about the dislike for Henry and the Reformer Movement.
C.J. Sansom sets his usual eye with an attention to detail upon the court under Henry and his fifth wife Katherine Howard (aka the 2nd of the 3 Katherines, aka the unfaithful one). And don’t you just love that out of his six wives, Jane Seymour was the only odd name out?
I also hadn’t remembered until this book that Katherine was a teenager when she married Henry, and not even twenty when she was beheaded. Sansom shows his disdain for Henry here; he is portrayed as a disgusting, selfish, vindictive bullying tyrant. The court politics also really come through here, with all the machinations, bribery and backstabbing on full display. And yet he was known as God’s representative on Earth and the Protector of the Faith of England, two titles still held by the Royals to this day. Sansom also brings into the plot an old theory about the Royal lineage that I hadn’t heard before, yet I’m curious to read more about. Thankfully Sansom lists a partial bibliography in the back so you can fill in any gaps in your knowledge that you may desire.
I will admit that Shardlake is slowly getting a little irritating; he’s getting prone to self-pity and being very slow to forgive slights both real and imagined, and yet expecting people to allow him to treat them as he desires. He’s still a likable character, just a little harder to read. Barak is still the thug turned semi-gentleman that he was in Dark Fire, and it is interesting to see how he plays off of Shardlake. You also get to meet Tamsin, servant in the Queen’s household, catcher of Barak’s eye, and causer of my realization of how long the nickname “Tammy” has been in use.
I’m looking forward to the next book Revelation, where Katherine Parr is going to make her appearance. Also more of Archbishop Cranmer, who I am curious to see if Sansom portrays him as Hilary Mantel did. Which I hope he doesn’t; I’d like to believe that Mantel got very little right about Tudor England.
