House of Shadows

THE PROGRAMME

Prologue – In which Bernard Knight lays the foundation for the ghoulish tales that follow.

Act One – In which Bernard Knight tells how Crowner John arrives at the priory of Bermondsey to investigate murder most foul.

Act Two – In which Ian Morson’s William Falconer uncovers dark deeds during an eclipse of the moon.

Act Three – In which Michael Jecks’ Keeper Sir Baldwin and Bailiff Puttock uncovers a treasonous plot.

Act Four – In which Philip Gooden relates how the poet Chaucer becomes embroiled in the priory’s dark history.

Act Five – In which Susanna Gregory’s Thomas Chaloner, spy for the Lord Chancellor of England, avenges a violent death.

Epilogue – In which Bernard Knight exposes the final secret.

HISTORICAL NOTE

Bermondsey lies on the south bank of the Thames, near where Tower Bridge now stands. A priory was established there as early as 1089 and became one of the richest in England due to numerous gifts of land and money. Originally founded by four Cluniac monks from France, who built on ground donated by a rich London merchant, the priory became a Benedictine abbey in 1399, surviving until Henry VIII dissolved all monasteries in the sixteenth century. It was then built over repeatedly, though the gatehouse survived until the nineteenth century.

Though this famous monastery had a very real existence for hundreds of years, the stories in this book are works of fiction. In the early years of the twenty-first century, extensive excavations were carried out by archaeologists, prior to a huge commerical complex being built over the site. The events described in the Epilogue are similarly fictitious.