King’s Bishop by George Knox
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| John Seymour Lucas 1901, with thanks to the Orleans House Gallery |
Author: George Knox
Publisher: Johns and Fairfield
Source book: County Chronicle by Angela Thirkell (Barsetshire #19)
We first meet the irritatingly verbose George Knox in High Rising (the first of Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire series) which focuses on his friend, the gifted author Laura Morland and her exhausting son Tony. We meet George on and off, hear of him here and there, but I thought it was not until County Chronicle, the 19th in the series that one of George’s books is given a title.
King’s Bishop is about Cardinal Wolsey. The man who built Hampton Court Palace; the the man who organised the lavish Field of the Cloth of Gold (or Camp du Drap d’Or) meeting between King Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France; the man who tried and failed to obtain an anullment for Henry from his marriage to Catherine of Aragon but was thwarted by Pope Clement VII and Cardinal Campeggio; the man brought down by Ann Boleyn’s faction because he was seen to have delayed her marriage to the King. There was a book to be written about Cardinal Wolsey, and it seems George Knox was the man to do it.
George Knox has also written books about Edward VI, and Elizabeth I.
I was wrong about County Chronicle being the first source of a title for one of George Knox’s books. I went back to High Rising and found he had written a Life of Charles the Fifth, the Holy Roman Emperor And apparently Lord Stanhope, but which one? Perhaps the first?
According to Laura Morland, George is celebrated in the whole book world for his grasping ways: publishers fly at the sight of him. But this is just a joke between them that makes them laugh.
George’s daughter Sybil marries Adrian Coates, Mrs Morland’s publisher. She breeds dogs and plans to have several children.
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| Sampson Strong 16th Century |
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