King's Fool: A Notorious King, His Six Wives, and the One Man Who Knew All Their Secrets

322 Pages·2009·3.47 MB·English

by  Margaret Campbell Barnes

“An absorbing picture
A Remarkably Intimate Tale of the Intrigue, of King Henry VIII
Ruthlessness, and Majesty of and his court.”
—BOOKLIST
Henry VIII’s Court
King’s ool
F
A Notorious King,His Six Wives,andthe
One Man Who Knew All Their Secrets
/
MARGARET CAMPBELL BARNES
NewYorkTimes
bestsellingauthor
Praise for King’s Fool
“…The author presents an absorbing picture of King Henry
VIII and his court… Through [Somers’] shrewd and observing
eyes the reader gains not only an intimate view of each of the
monarch’s six wives but also a remarkably honest and human
portrait of Henry.”
—Booklist
“All should be warned that, despite the title, they will not
encounter the traditional fool.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Using the bright threads of historical fact, Margaret Campbell
Barnes, one of the abler practitioners of the costume novel, has
woven a regal tapestry of pomp and circumstance.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
“For anyone who thinks of Henry VIII as a violent and tempes-
tuous king, this novel opens another side. The violence is there,
but it is tempered by an almost pitiful tenderness which only those
closest to him ever found.”
—Free Press (Winnipeg, Canada)
“Margaret Campbell Barnes has written a novel in which
warmth of feeling and imaginative perception have been skillfully
blended with historical research.”
—Gazette Montreal
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kings’ fool
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kings’ fool
A Notorious King, His Six Wives, and the
One Man Who Knew All Their Secrets
/
Margaret Campbell Barnes
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Copyright © 1959, 2009 by Margaret Campbell Barnes
Cover and internal design © 2009 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover photo © Portrait of Catherine Parr (1512-48), 1545 (coloured
engraving) by Master John (fl.1544) (after)
Private Collection/ The Stapleton Collection/ The Bridgeman Art Library
Nationality / copyright status: English / out of copyright
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks,
Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or
by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and
retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in crit-
ical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher,
Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used ficti-
tiously. Apart from well-known historical figures, any similarity to real persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567–4410
(630) 961–3900
Fax: [phone]
www.sourcebooks.com
Originally published in 1959 by Macdonald & Co.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barnes, Margaret Campbell.
King’s fool : a notorious king, his six wives, and the one man who knew all
their secrets / Margaret Campbell Barnes.
p. cm.
1. Henry VIII, King of England, 1491-1547—Fiction. 2. Courts and court-
iers—Fiction. 3. Great Britain—History—Henry VIII, 1509-1547—Fiction.
I. Title.
PR6003.A72K56 2008
823’.912—dc22
2008038834
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Also by Margaret Campbell Barnes
Brief Gaudy Hour
My Lady of Cleves
The Tudor Rose
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In grateful memory
of my parents,
CHARLES and EMILY WOOD
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