England, 1535: an abbot wants the estate of a knight's daughter, and the dissolution of the monasteries is about to hand every argument to whoever moves first. Cicely is married in secret, widowed, robbed and declared a witch, and the King's commissioners are on the road. Haggard went to South Africa at nineteen; here he wrote Tudor England, and the land-grab under the religion is exactly right. Twenty-nine plates of knights, pilgrims and Tudor faces by painters from Cranach to Titian give the age of the Dissolution a face to match Haggard's tale.
