Shakespeare is ordered by Sir Edward Coke to right a play about Henry VIII but as he is feeling guilty about the hatchet job that he done on Richard III under Elizabeth he decides that in secret he is going to write one about Henry VII and redress the balance.
Knowing that this play will never be performed and that if he is caught it will be off to the tower, he starts to suspect everyone of his friends of being in league with the crown and plotting against him. The problem for me is that I didn't care if any of his friends were plotting against him or if they got caught, Shakespeare seemed to believe that because he was Shakespeare he could do whatever he wanted to.
I don't know if the anti-scottish feeling towards James VI was Shakespeare's own feelings or if that is how the writer feels, Shakespeare in this book seems to believe that James is out to destroy England in revenge for the murder of his mother. While I won't argue that James was a weak, spoilt and ineffectual king the idea that he was plotting anything credits him with more brains than he actually had. ( )

* In this fascinating and thrilling novel, Robert Winder brilliantly imagines the writing of Shakespeare's missing royal play, Henry VII, and creates a suspenseful page-turner as well as a literary tour de force