'Shardlake' is a Rootin' Tudor-in' Good Time

You don’t hear much about the dissolution of the monasteries these days, but you certainly do hear about Anthony Boyle. Co-starring in his third stylish television project of 2024, the Irish actor may have turned more heads in Masters of the Air and Manhunt, but his supporting role as an upstart agent of Thomas Cromwell during Henry VIII’s aggressive protestant refurbishment of England cements him as an actor of charm and presence, especially in historical productions.

But Boyle isn’t the main focus in Shardlake, a 4-part Hulu adaptation of Dissolution, the first book in the late C.J. Sansom’s Shardlake Tudor mystery series – his character Jack Barak doesn’t even turn up til the second book. He’s been retrofitted here because his sparky, sparring dynamic with the titular lawyer and Cromwellian investigator Matthew Shardlake (Arthur Hughes) offered more compelling conflict for a series that, we assume, intends to adapt Sansom’s entire series in compressed, 4-hour chunks. Think of Shardlake as the Tudor version of Slow Horses, with a bit less forced humor and endearing characters, but just as much clunky thriller plotting, and you’ll have a good time.

But back to the dissolution of the monasteries: from 1536, Henry VIII’s Church of England began to disband, dissolve, and liquidate all Catholic church bodies, including monasteries, convents, or anywhere where Catholic believers could hoard land, wealth, or power. Like a lot of religious reforms, this was hugely motivated by a desire to lay claim to the church’s vast influence; while the Catholic Church of the 16th century was just as awful as you’d expect it to be, its suppression across England in the Tudor era couldn’t reasonably be described as altruistic. Between Shardlake and Shōgun, Hulu is this year’s home of anti-papist media.