The Blanket of the Dark

The Blanket of the Dark is a compelling story. A young clerk, Peter Pentecost, find that he is a descendent of Henry of Buckingham and has a claim to the throne. Buchan spins a beautifully woven tale of intrigue around the king, where 'under the blanket of the dark all men are alike and all are nameless'. Henry VIII is portrayed as an ogre, his description of the monarch is vivid and persuasive. Buchan takes us into the world in which the people of the early sixteenth-century England lived, under perhaps the most repellant figure to sit on the English throne.