In this new biography, the story of James VI and I is laid bare, and a welter of scurrilous assumptions penned by his political opponents put to rest. What emerges is a portrait of James as his contemporaries knew him: a gregarious, idealistic man obsessed with the idea of family, whose personal and political goals could never match up to reality.

Spring, 1523. The King’s chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, prepares to open Parliament at Blackfriars, but all is not well in Wolsey’s household. A visiting critic of the Cardinal is found brutally slain whilst awaiting an audience at Richmond Palace. Anthony Blanke, trumpeter and groom, is once again called upon to unmask a murderer.

At the court of Henry VIII a historian charged with proving the king’s descent from King Arthur is found murdered, his body posed in a gruesome tableau. A reluctant Anthony Blanke is charged with investigating the crime, and his mission takes him through ancient monastic libraries and the back streets of London.