Cover image of "Death and the Chapman," the first book in a series of medieval mysteries

It’s 1522. An old peddler, known as a chapman in that era, reminisces about the first of the many mysteries he’d investigated over the years. Traveling a half-century into the past to Bristol, he muses about leaving the Benedictine monastery where he was a novice to become a chapman, having lost the certainty of his faith in Christianity. “It all began,” he notes, “with the case of the disappearance of Clement Weaver, a young man I’d neither seen nor heard of that May morning in the year of Our Lord 1471.” That disappearance is puzzling, and Roger the Chapman is good at solving puzzles. And so begins Kate Sedley’s inaugural entry in her 22-book series of medieval mysteries, Death and the Chapman.

You can’t tell the players without a program in the Wars of the Roses

In 1471 the Wars of the Roses are in full flower. Edward IV (1442-83) sits on England’s throne, having deposed King Henry VI and taken the throne a decade earlier. But he is constantly under attack, and briefly loses the throne, in a conspiracy between his brother George and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as the “Kingmaker.” But these bare facts don’t begin to describe the chaotic state of dynastic politics in England then. Sedley does her best to sketch in the background but manages only to confuse us. Suffice it to say that nobody, let alone an 18-year-old fresh from seclusion in a monastery, could have had a clue about what was really going on. For him, and for nearly all of England’s 2.2 million commoners, life is a daily struggle for the means to buy bread and ale to sustain life. Most couldn’t care less who was in and who was out at court. But okay. Death and the Chapman is a novel.

Death and the Chapman (Roger the Chapman #1 of 22) by Kate Sedley (1991) 226 pages ★★★★☆

Illustration of a chapman or peddler in the 15th century like the protagonist in this series of medieval mysteries
A peddler or chapman offers his wares for sale in 15th century England. Image: MeisterDrucke

Roger the Chapman’s first case

Clement Weaver is the beloved son of the powerful Alderman John Weaver of Bristol. He set out for London carrying a large purse last winter but never arrived at the inn where he was scheduled to lodge. Roger learns all this when Marjorie Dyer, the cook in Alderman Weaver’s house feeds him a meal he sorely needs. She makes him promise to look into the matter when he arrives in London. But that’s months away, with many stops in between to sell his wares from one town to another. And the weaver’s disappearance comes back to mind only when Roger eventually does arrive in the capital and spies the inn where he knowns the young man was scheduled to stay.

Something curious strikes Roger upon his arrival near that inn. It’s one of two on a single block, and it’s overshadowed by the much larger and more sumptuous house a few yards away. It seems obvious that Clement disappeared outside that larger inn. And his suspicion is redoubled when the proprietor refuses to answer questions. There’s something shady going on here. And that represents a puzzle Roger can’t overlook. He dives into the mystery headfirst. And it sets him on a course full of intrigue, suspense, and unpleasant shocks.

Painting of knights in combat in the decisive Battle of Bosworth Field, which took place during this series of medieval mysteries
In the Battle of Bosworth Field between the armies of King Richard III and Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, later King Henry VII, knights in full body armor faced each other in hand-to-hand combat. Image: akg-images/Osprey Publishing – Warfare History Network

The Wars of the Roses explained

For three decades from 1455 to 1487, the English countryside exploded in a bloody affair known as the Wars of the Roses. During those years four kings ruled England: Henry VI, Edward IV, Edward V, and Richard III. But two of them traded places, reigning two separate times each. All the while, some of the four and many of their supporters died often horrific deaths on the battlefield. As I’ve written elsewhere, this was, after all, a time when politics was a game played for keeps.

Plantagenets and Tudors

But don’t try to understand what all this was about unless you know 15th-century English history in excruciating detail. Few have that knowledge. Most accounts of the civil war term it a dynastic struggle between two rival branches of the Plantagenets—the French nobles who reigned in England from 1154 to 1485. After the Plantagenets murdered and exhausted one another, the upstart Tudor Dynasty came into power, founded by King Henry VIII’s father, Henry VII (r. 1485-1509).

Yorkists and Lancastrians

But okay. I need to cast a little more light on the period. In the Wars of the Roses, one of the two rival branches of the family was the House of York. Its symbol was the white rose. The other was the House of Lancaster, whose livery featured a red rose. Hence, of course, the Wars of the Roses. Simple, no? But it’s not. The war started when King Edward III‘s three sons, George, Clarence, and Richard, fought one another to succeed their father on the throne. But there were many other noble families in the mix as well. And both the brothers and many of their partisans changed sides, sometimes more than once. Unless your knowledge of the period runs deep, forget about sorting it out. The bottom line is that the whole bloody affair eventually ground to a halt, and everybody lost.

About the author

Kate Sedley was the pen name of Brenda Margaret Lilian Clarke (née Honeyman, 1926-2022). During the years from 1991 to 2013, she published a total of 22 mysteries featuring Roger the Chapman as a medieval detective-lookalike. Under other names, she wrote 33 other historical novels. Sedley was born in Bristol in 1926 and received a secondary school education. She married and had a son, a daughter, and three grandchildren.

For an outstanding historical mystery series set a century later in Tudor England, see The #1 top historical mystery series.

Some readers compare these novels to those set several centuries earlier during England’s first civil war. Here’s the first is that series of 20: A Morbid Taste for Bones (Brother Cadfael #1) by Ellis Peters (Reviewing the first book in the delightful Brother Cadfael series).

For an excellent popular history of the medieval era, see Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages by Dan Jones (Change in the Middle Ages came thick and fast).

And check out Good books about the Middle Ages for the context in which the Roger the Chapman series is set.

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