Tudor Crime Fiction
Corpus Chrsiti College Cambridge
Just under a year ago, as the pandemic was tightening its grip, I wrote a little piece for this blog about detective stories that I have enjoyed with musical themes. Now, here is a much-delayed sequel, one of several I plan to write about historical mystery books. Not being a very orderly soul, I am going to begin not with the Romans or the Medieval period, these will have to appear as 'prequels', but in medias res, with the age of the Tudors, Henry VIII and his offspring Edward VI, Mary (the original Bloody Mary), and Elizabeth I (Good Queen Bess). In future blog posts, I will progress to the Stuarts and the Restoration, the Georgians, and the Victorians. If all this sounds a bit too British, I hope subsequently to write about books set in foreign climes and perhaps in foreign languages.
Each era has a wide range of excellent books that are set in it, some make light reading while others are dark, dramatic, full of atmosphere. Some try harder than others to be historically accurate or at least plausible. As before, I do not aim to be comprehensive but simply to recommend books that I have actually read and enjoyed.
Crime fiction has always been my go-to genre whilst on the road. A mystery novel can keep me absorbed more or less anywhere: an airport, on a plane or a train, when stuck in a hotel on a rainy day, and between rehearsals. A good book can also act as an off-switch to keep me calm if a flight is delayed or cancelled because of storms, snow, or incompetence; also if turbulence is bouncing everyone about as if we were on a rollercoaster. But that, of course, was all BC (before Covid). Now that we have all been housebound for nearly a year, I find that these books can still transport me to places I cannot visit right now and take me back to ages past.
Henry VIII
Matthew Shardlake series by C. J. Sansom
These seven books are amongst the finest detective fiction that I have ever read. In the empyrean of the genre, Mr. Sansom will sit in the company of the greats. He is such a compelling writer; he really makes you feel as if you have been transported back to the last, turbulent years of Henry VIII's reign and the early ones of his son Edward. Religion and religious controversy run as constant undercurrents through every book, not surprisingly given that this is the age of the Reformation and the Dissolution of the monasteries. The protagonist, Matthew Shardlake, begins as an agent for ruthless Thomas Cromwell, the subject of Hilary Mantel's magnificent trilogy, but as the novels progress, we learn much more about his character. Because he is a hunchback, he is often taunted or shunned, and for him, romance is out of reach. But throughout, Shardlake maintains his sense of justice, his kindness and nobility of character. He also manages to stay alive! Mr. Sansom is the most marvellous creator of atmosphere and what it must really have been like to live in 16th century England. Whether the action takes place in London, York, Norwich, or the countryside, this is definitely not 'Merrie England'. He is also historically very accurate: if he says that it rained in London on a particular day, you can bet that it really did.
Two other authors whose works are set in the reign of Henry VIII are D K Wilson and Mary Lawrence. Mr. Wilson's books are based on real crimes from the Henrican period, while Ms. Lawrence's leading character is a lady who dabbles in alchemy. Both come highly recommended and I hope to add my thoughts once I have read their books. For those who prefer real rather than fictional crime, I can recommend James Moore's excellent book The Tudor Murder Files. Great stuff, if grisly!
Elizabethan Theatre
Moving into the second half of the century and the reign of Henry's daughter Elizabeth, we arrive at the age of Shakespeare and Marlowe; so it comes as no surprise that there are quite a few books that weave crime and the life of the theatre. Murder is murder whether it is on stage or off.
The Nicholas Bracewell Series by Edward Marston
There are 16 books in this series by one of the princes of British historical crime fiction. Mr. Marston is a doyen of historical crime fiction and his books will feature in almost every one of my future blog postings. He has written mysteries set in the medieval period up to the Edwardians. He is a terrific craftsman, a fine creator of characters, and has a good comic as well as dramatic streak. Nicholas Bracewell is the bookkeeper to an Elizabethan theatre troop, Lord Westfield's Men, and he seems to be practically the only one of them whose head is properly screwed on. The plots are all most engaging whether the company is performing at its London home, the Queen's Head, on tour in the country, or on a visit to Elsinore in Denmark. Whenever I am about to leave home for a few weeks, I always check to see if there is a Marston book that I haven't read.
Christopher Marlowe
Marlowe's life seems to have been perfectly designed to be the subject of crime and spy fiction. Even his own murder has been written about several times. Allison Epstein's A Tip for the Hangman is a wonderful book that I loved. Marlowe, the poet of genius, gay spy, and wild roisterer is brilliantly portrayed. Another super book about Marlowe and his life as a playwright and spy is Tamburlane Must Die by Louise Welsh.
Alan Judd's A Fine Madness was well-reviewed in the UK recently but it is not yet available in the USA. I eagerly look forward to it. Marlowe also appears in Anna Castle's Now and then Stab in which Francis Bacon must find out how Marlowe met his violent end in a Deptford tavern in 1593, supposedly after a dispute over the bill. As Shakespeare described it in As You Like It 'A great reckoning in a little room'.
Pictured at top, Christopher Marlowe’s portrait discovered under some rubble in the Old Master's Lodge of Corpus Christi College Cambridge in 1953. Above, looking eastwards, my rooms were on the second (UK first) floor on the left of the east wall, behind the three large windows, while the old Master's Lodge is on the right and on part of the south wall towards the large window of the old hall.
I have been fascinated by Marlowe since I was a teenager. One of my few appearances on stage was as a very minor character in a school performance of Dr. Faustus and then I studied at the same college as he almost four hundred years after him. The famous portrait that is thought to be his likeness was discovered under some rubble in the Old Master's Lodge of Corpus Christi College Cambridge in 1953. No one knows for certain if this fine portrait is actually Marlowe. Could he have afforded such fancy clothes, for example? However, the sitter's age is given as 21 which is about right. The Latin motto somehow seems very apt given Marlowe's personality. Translated is says 'That which nourishes me destroys me'. Nearly twenty years later after the painting's discovery, I lived about forty feet away from where it was found. My rooms were already over two hundred years old when Marlowe attended the college and had magnificent medieval wall paintings hidden behind later wooden panelling. In the photo which is looking eastwards, my rooms were on the second (UK first) floor on the left of the east wall, behind the three large windows, while the old Master's Lodge is on the right and on part of the south wall towards the large window of the old hall.
Shakespeare
The Bard himself features in one mystery that I have read but two of his brothers appear in other books. The Spy of Venice is a nice book by Benet Brandreth and he has followed it up with The Assassin of Verona, which is on my list.
Bernard Cornwell is rightly famous for his sometimes swashbuckling, often bloody historical novels which are always superbly written and well researched. No author I know can write so forcefully about battles. Fools and Mortals is an altogether different work but just as enjoyable. The story surrounds the first production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and it is Shakespeare's elder brother, Richard, who is the protagonist. At present, this is a stand-alone novel unlike most of Mr. Cornwell's output which are substantial series. So, I hope that he will find the time to add some more to this enthralling opener.
Shakespeare's younger brother Jonathan takes the lead role in a tremendous series of six books by Rory Clements. These are fine works, rich in detail and involving a good deal of cloak and dagger action. Like Mr. Sansom's Shardlake series, I would place these very high on my list. He has terrific characters and he really gives one a sense of what it must have been like to live back then. It is clear that one had to be tough to survive and preferably always wear a sword and dagger when on the street.
A fine series with a Shakespearean link is the work of Peter Tonkin. A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet provide the backdrops for two of his books featuring Tom Musgrave. His most recent one, A Stage for Murder, centres around the Chamberlain's Men, the company associated with Shakespeare.
Spies
The Elizabethan Era was a great one for spies and political intrigue. England was at war with Spain, Protestants were out to get Catholics and vice versa, followers of Mary Queen of Scots plotted to murder Queen Elizabeth. It was ubiquitous to be mugged or murdered in a dark alley and no one, absolutely no one, could be trusted. James Forrester's trilogy, beginning with Sacred Treason, is a very exciting series of which I have only read the first one so far. Also, I can recommend the half a dozen books by S. J. Parris featuring Giordano Bruno, a real-life travelling scholar who visited England in the 1580s. He genuinely lived the kind of life that is the subject of so many of these works of fiction.
Finally, I must mention the books by Patricia Finney, a prolific author who uses several noms de plume. There are nine books featuring Sir Robert Carey written under the name of P. J. Chisholm, as well as the James Enys series and a trilogy aptly titled Elizabethan Noir, both written under her own name. She has also collaborated with another author on a series in diary form as if written by Lady Grace Cavendish at the court of the Virgin Queen. I must confess that I have not yet read any of these.
We all hope that in the months to come, we will be able to travel again, that those of us who perform will be able to do so, and that audiences will gather to hear us. In the meantime, I hope that we will all be able to pass some time in the company of these fine writers who can transport us to the world of long-ago, a time when life was as rife with danger and uncertainty as perhaps ours feels right now.
Sword fighting from Giacomo di Grassi, True Arte of Defence, 1594