Ford Madox Ford was a prolific English novelist and poet in the early 20th century. Ford wrote the best-selling novel „The Good Soldier", as well as the „Parade's End" series. „Privy Seal" is the second novel in the well-known „Fifth Queen" trilogy that recreates Tudor England in a masterful story of court intrigue, romance, and betrayal. Here Ford focuses on the figure of Thomas Cromwell, a powerful advisor to the King who comes to see Katharine as a rival whose good nature threatens his ambitious political agenda.