The Conscience of the King: Henry Gresham and the Shakespeare Conspiracy by
Martin Stephen
hbk out September 03
Published by Little Brown
at £16.99
A thriller, chronicling the adventures of Henry Gresham, soldier and spy and set in the turbulent times of the Jacobean age. At the Globe theatre an understudy (standing in for actor William Shakespeare) is poisoned and dies on stage, the theatre’s guard has his throat cut and two Shakespeare plays are stolen. Machiavellian Robert Cecil, the King’s Secretary, summons Henry Gresham and sets him on a mission to try and recover damning love letters exchanged between King James and his favourite Robert Carr. The correspondence has been acquired by a Cambridge bookseller, who has also got hold of the Bard’s stolen manuscripts. Is there a link between the documents? Before long Gresham realises he is being used as bait to trap a man supposedly long-dead and whose actions threaten the stability of the Crown and the peace of the realm.
Rollicking good fun in this second Gresham yarn and Stephen gives us a moving romance and a satisfying, well-rounded account of daily life in among the boisterous action of the plot. Gresham, wife Jane and servant Mannion are characters to savour. Stephen, the High Master of Manchester Grammar School, is the author of fifteen titles on military history and English literature so he knows his milieu intimately. He adds with great relish to the controversy surrounding the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays and invents an alternate history for playwright Marlowe along the way.
Manchester Evening News 4.10.03
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries set on the mean streets of Manchester)
The Conscience of the King: Henry Gresham and the Shakespeare Conspiracy by
Martin Stephen
