Product Description

Now back in print, Ford's highly acclaimed portrait of Henry VIII's controversial fifth Queen

This masterful performance of historical fiction centers on Katharine Howard--clever, beautiful, and outspoken--who catches the jaded eye of Henry VIII and becomes his fifth Queen. Corruption and fear pervade the King's court, and the dimly lit corridors vibrate with the intrigues of unscrupulous courtiers hungry for power. Soon Katharine is locked in a vicious battle with Thomas Cromwell, the Lord Privy Seal, as she fights for political and religious change.

Ford saw the past as an integral part of the present experience and understanding, and his sharply etched vision of the court of Henry VIII--first published in 1908--echoes aspects of Edwardian England as it explores the pervading influence of power, lies, fear, and anxiety on people's lives.

"The Fifth Queen is a magnificent bravura piece." --Graham Greene

"The best historical romance of this century." --The Times Literary Supplement

"A noble conception--the swan song of historical romance." --Joseph Conrad

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #590010 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

About the Author
Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) was born Ford Madox Hueffer in Kent, England. Best known for his novel The Good Soldier (1915), Ford also founded the Transatlantic Review, and published Parade's End, a retrospective war novel, and several volumes of auto-biography and criticism.

A. S. Byatt's books include Possession, Angels and Insects and The Matisse Stories.

Customer Reviews

A Parable
Ford Madox Ford's "The Fifth Queen" - actually a collection of three separate novels - is a fictionalized account of the fifth wife of England's Henry VIII, Katharine Howard. As A.S. Byatt explains in her Introduction, "This figure bears little relation to what we have about the real Katharine . . ." and thus the reader should be conscious that Ford's Katharine - a young, pretty, pious woman who yearns for a return to Catholicism after Henry's split with Rome - is strictly fictional. That said, the only real failure of this work is that Katharine is the least appealing, least interesting character; we first meet her as a dispossessed ingenue seeking entrance to Henry's court around the time of his disasterous fourth marriage to Anne of Cleves, and it is this description which will follow her throughout the book. Even as she becomes Queen, it is almost by accident, surviving the machinations of Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal and the recklessness of her devoted cousin Culpepper. She is Queen by default. She constantly protests that all she seeks is a Catholic England - the "old ways" - and yet throughout she resigns herself to letting events happen to her, as if she cannot control the consequences of her own life. Indeed, her final speech to Henry where she confesses to an adultery which did not occur, becomes her last fatal act of passivity, for which she pays with her life. She cannot see that there are those who wish to help her and that her naive, narcissistic piety does not have to be her ruin. What holds these novels together is the rich supporting cast: the aforementioned Cromwell, who has his own sovereign Protestant image of England, free from the entanglements of Rome. There is the brooding Princess Mary, Henry's daughter by his first wife, who knows how to carry a grudge for her mother's divorce, the super-spy Throckmorton, the lecherous Magister Udal and more. Ford uses Katharine to show that the blind commitment to an ideal - any ideal - will only result in failure, that this world is more than ideas and faiths, but of people who are imperfect, people who will fail. It is a world five hundred years in the past, but it is also our own.

Intrigue and romance in the court of Henry VIII
Intrigue and romance in the court of Henry VIII
Katherine Howard, armed only with education, wit and honesty, becomes the Fifth Queen, Henry VIII's fifth wife in this amazing historical trilogy. The plot-ridden court comes to vivid life as everyone high and low maneuvers for advantage. Everyone except Katherine Howard, whose unwillingness to scheme will make her queen and defenseless at the same moment. Even knowing the general story this is a fascinating and occasionally shocking novel, with a stunning ending...

A New Spin on an Old Queen!
Fans of Tudor history will enjoy this meaty volume which delivers a very different take on the life of Queen Katherine Howard...she is hardly the hysterical and promiscuous girl so often depicted. Especially interesting characterizations of "Bloody" Mary Tudor and Henry VIII, as well. Strictly for fans of the subject, however, or otherwise tedious reading.