Black Harry

William Dickenson, man of business to the earl of Shrewsbury, knows that raising the rents on farmholds will ease his master's cash-flow problem. But Lord Shrewsbury imposes such huge increases on one manor, Glossopdale in the Derbyshire Peak District, that none of the tenants can pay. &quote;Black Harry&quote; Botham, of Storth Farm in the Glossopdale hamlet of Simmondley, knows the courts won't oppose those rent increases; Lord Shrewsbury is too powerful. So accompanied by a few followers he walks to London, determined to complain to the Queen's Privy Council.Will this desperate venture cost him his family, his freedom, his livelihood - even his life? Told partly by Tom &quote;Spiderlegs&quote; Booth, Harry's brother-in-law and close friend, and partly from William Dickenson's perspective, Black Harry recounts one of the most remarkable David and Goliath episodes in Elizabethan England.