The Queen’s Fool

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This book is ideal to read as a class text and perfect for hot-seating and discussing empathy in upper KS2. Jane was a well-liked jester at the court of Catherine Parr, where she is mentioned by name as "Jane Foole" in 1543. I was amazed at how accessible you make the complex politics and religious changes that wracked England during the time frame of this novel.

THE QUEEN’S FOOL - Chicken House Books - Home THE QUEEN’S FOOL - Chicken House Books - Home

The history of the Tudors has always fascinated me and I spent many years reading various biographies of the principle players of the era. She enjoys historical romance/fiction best, likes contemporaries, action- adventure and mysteries, will read suspense if there's no TSTL characters and is currently reading more fantasy and SciFi.Another long time reader who read romance novels in her teens, then took a long break before started back again about 25 years ago. Having read and loved “The Other Boleyn Girl,” I hurried out and bought “The Queen’s Fool” when it was first released three years ago. Hired as a fool but working as a spy; promised in wedlock but in love with her master; endangered by the laws against heresy, treason, and witchcraft, Hannah must choose between the safe life of a commoner and the dangerous intrigues of the royal family that are inextricably bound up in her own yearnings and desires. Mary gave gilt silver salts as rewards to two women who looked after her, a Mistress Ayer and a woman from Bury St Edmunds who healed her.

The Queen’s Fool | Ally Sherrick The Queen’s Fool | Ally Sherrick

I never felt lost, never had to back up and reread a passage to remember who somebody was or what they had done…truly it was wonderfully done. I have more sympathy for her than I did yet her actions in trying to force one religion on the country reinforce my belief that Church and State definitely need to be separate. Henry the Eighth and His Family (1545); the man at the far-right background is jester Will Somers, and it has been suggested that the woman at the far left is Jane Foole. Hannah is adopted by the glamorous Robert Dudley, the charismatic son of King Edward’s protector, who brings her to court as a “holy fool” for Queen Mary and, ultimately, Queen Elizabeth. Queen Mary is so often presented as little more than a place holder before the glittering reign of her younger sister Elizabeth.When history talks about her it’s usually as a religious fanatic who turned most of England once and for all away from Catholicism. She’s young (even though most girls of her age were often already married by age 14) and in the throws of a first love but after that, what she did often made little sense to me. She apparently had a favoured position with Mary and was given a valuable wardrobe and an unusually large number of shoes.

The Queen’s Fool by Philippa Gregory - Dear Author REVIEW: The Queen’s Fool by Philippa Gregory - Dear Author

That I can speak freely and not fear being hauled away in the night to torture and interrogation before being burned alive — all in the effort to “save my soul. The last 150 pages of the story were fine but wading through her early teenage foolishness, given the baggage you loaded her with, was sometimes a trial. I also like the fact that since the story is told from the POV of a servant, we get a total picture of life in Tudor England and English Calais before it was retaken by the French. A young woman caught in the rivalry between Queen Mary and her half sister, Elizabeth, must find her true destiny amid treason, poisonous rivalries, loss of faith, and unrequited love.

She is constantly in danger, is told to keep her head low to avoid attracting the wrong sort of notice, knows that if she is discovered as a Jew or even thought of as a heretic Protestant Christian once the fires begin to burn at Smithfield she could bring death to her father, her betrothed and his family. She may have been depicted in the painting of Henry the Eighth and His Family (1545), in which the man on the far right is identified as her colleague, court jester William Sommers. I absolutely LOVE Hannah and I think writing her as a Jewish girl instead of a Protestant was very clever.