Synopsis: Autumn 1541A giant cavalcade a mile long is wending its way through the Vale of York. Following the uncovering of a plot against the throne in Yorkshire, King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Progress to the North to overawe his rebellious subjects there. Accompanied by a thousand soldiers, the cream of the nobility and his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, the King is to attend an extravagant submission of the local gentry at York, the climax of the greatest Progress of Tudor times.
Also travelling to York at the behest of Archbishop Cranmer are lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak. As well as assisting with legal work processing petitions to the King, Shardlake has reluctantly undertaken a special mission for Cranmer - to ensure the welfare of an important but dangerous conspirator who is to be returned to London for interrogation.
But the murder of a York glazier involves Shardlake in deeper mysteries, connected not only to the prisoner in York Castle but also to the royal family itself. As the Great Progress arrives in the city, Shardlake and Barak stumble upon a cache of secret documents which could shake the Tudor throne, and a chain of events unfolds that will leave Shardlake facing the most terrifying fate of the age...
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