The Fifth Queen

Ford Madox Ford
THE FIFTH QUEEN

Ford Madox Ford was born Ford Hermann Hueffer in England in 1873. In 1919 he changed his name to Ford Madox Ford in honour of his grandfather, the Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown, whose biography he had written. Ford was well-known for both his fiction and his criticism. He founded two influential journals, The English Review in 1908 and The Transatlantic Review in 1924, in which he championed many of the leading modernist writers of the day. His most famous novels include the tetralogy Parade’s End and The Good Soldier, which are still ranked among the greatest literary works of the twentieth century. Ford died in 1939, at age sixty-five, in France.

A. S. Byatt is the author of numerous novels, including the quartet The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower, and A Whistling Woman; The Biographer’s Tale; and Possession, which was awarded the Booker Prize. She has also written two novellas, published together as Angels & Insects; five collections of shorter works, including The Matisse Stories and Little Black Book of Stories; and several works of nonfiction. A distinguished critic as well as a novelist, she lives in London.

ALSO BY FORD MADOX FORD
AVAILABLE IN VINTAGE CLASSICS

The Good Soldier

FIRST VINTAGE CLASSICS EDITION, OCTOBER 2011

Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division
of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by
Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Classics
and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The introduction to this work was first published in 1984 by
Oxford University Press, London, as part of The Fifth Queen and
is reprinted here by permission of A. S. Byatt.

The three works which comprise this trilogy were originally
published separately as The Fifth Queen (1906), Privy Seal (1907), and
The Fifth Queen Crowned (1908).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ford, Ford Madox, 1873–1939.
The fifth queen / by Ford Madox Ford ; with an introduction by
A. S. Byatt. —1st Vintage classics ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-74492-0
1. Catharine Howard, Queen, consort of Henry VIII, King of England,
d. 1542—Fiction. 2. Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex, 1485?–1540—Fiction.
3. Queens—Great Britain—Fiction. I. Byatt, A. S. (Antonia Susan), 1936–
II. Title.
PR6011.O53F49 2011
823’.912—dc23
2011023521

www.vintagebooks.com

v3.1

Cover

About the Author

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Introduction: A.