"You should see things through the eyes of common people, but your kind never will. Do you think I would care for any Church after what I have seen of it all.?'
--Alice Fewterer, servant, talking to Matthew Shardake in Dissolution (Penguin, 2003)
It is the year 1537 in England and lawyer Matthew Shardake is commissioned by vicar general Thomas Cromwell to investigate a murder in a monastery in southern England. Monks are being pensioned off as Henry VIII gradually replaces the Roman Catholic Church with the Church of England. Shardake is a diligent investigator, with the help of his protégé Mark Poer, but his investigation leads to his own disillusionment with the court and its use of fraud and torture to accomplish what they want, including the confiscation of land for their own benefit.
Sansome does an excellent job with the details of 16th century life and language, not only in the monasteries but also in the towns and villages. I could do without the Agatha-Christie-style of murder investigation itself but Sansom successfully delineates the role and character of each of the monks in the Scarnsea monastery as well as the class conflicts within the town, as the monks get pensions, the nobility gets land and the lay servants, after many years of duty and loyalty, get nothing.
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