The Last Abbot of Glastonbury: A Tale of the Dissolution of the Monasteries

In the winter of 1524, a desperate mother flees into the killing cold of the Somerset forest, her infant pressed against her chest. She will not survive the night, but her final act sends her son Cuthbert into a world about to crack apart. Fourteen years later, that boy serves within the most powerful abbey in England while above him, the ground shifts. Henry VIII has turned his hunger onto the monasteries, and Glastonbury, with its ancient stones and unbroken tradition of worship, stands directly in the path of ruin. At the center of the storm stands Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, a man of learning and faith now facing the impossible choice between his conscience and his life. This is the story of how one of the greatest religious houses in England met its end, told through the eyes of those who loved it and those who were sent to destroy it. It is a novel about the violence done in the name of progress, the silence that follows when old gods fall, and the quiet courage of men who refuse to bow.