# The Fifth Queen — Character guide

> Key figures in The Fifth Queen by Ford Madox Ford.

- [Katharine Howard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/katharine_howard.md): Katharine Howard arrives at court as a poor relation, honest to a fault and utterly alone in a beehive of self-interested schemers. Throckmorton warns her that her simplicity is both her charm and her peril, while Cromwe
- [Thomas Cromwell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/thomas_cromwell.md): Cromwell commands the machinery of state with cold precision, from his barge on the Thames to the eleven hundred dishes of his revels, yet he watches even his own agents for signs of drift. He takes Katharine Howard into
- [Nicholas Throckmorton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/nicholas_throckmorton.md): Throckmorton moves through the night world of the court, reading torchlights on the water and noting which informations Cromwell chooses to record. He warns Katharine that her simple nature will fail her in a throne-room
- [Lady Mary](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/lady_mary.md): Lady Mary is reported to plot with the Emperor, sending maps and plans of new castles, and Cromwell wants her channels discovered and stopped. She is also a pawn in the marriage market, with Duke Philip of Wittelsbach as
- [Thomas Culpepper](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/thomas_culpepper.md): Culpepper kneels beside Katharine's chair, muttering endearments and despair, oblivious to the King and the Duke of Norfolk standing over them. His fury and his devotion drive him to defy his uncle's orders and to ignore
- [Nicholas Udal](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/nicholas_udal.md): Udal swears to anyone who will listen that Katharine is the apple of the King's eye, and his loose talk reaches Bishop Gardiner's chaplain and ignites a counterplot. He is comic and contemptible, a man who sticks at noth
- [Margot Poins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/margot_poins.md): Margot Poins serves in Katharine Howard's chamber, a credulous girl of rising twenty who believes her mistress is the apple of the King's eye and that her own fortune is made by that service. Gruff-voiced and easily over
- [Hal Poins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/hal_poins.md): Hal Poins moves among the hangers-on of the Earl of Surrey's household, trading talk with young Marten Pewtress about the new Howard wench come to Court and his sister's place in her service. He and the magister have swo
- [Stephen Gardiner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/stephen_gardiner.md): Gardiner shares the Privy Seal's night barge toward Greenwich, bleating his fear of being called Lutheran while Cromwell notes down eel-fishers as threats to the realm. He is a man of the old faith and the old caution, v
- [Cicely Elliott](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/cicely_elliott.md): Cicely Elliott flouts Katharine one week and helps her the next, laughing like a magpie at the ceiling while old Crummock's name passes through the room. She is promised in marriage to the aged Sir Nicholas Rochford, who
- [Lady Rochford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/lady_rochford.md): Lady Rochford presides over seven ladies and seven dresses, wringing her hands when a gown cannot be found and recoiling in terror the moment Privy Seal is mentioned. Her woebegone, flaccid face turns drawn and she seems
- [Duke of Norfolk](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/duke_of_norfolk.md): Norfolk won Flodden Field and now stalks the yew walks with his furs fluttering like a crow's wings, digging his golden staff into the ground while Cromwell stands bare-headed and smiling beside the King. He is the great
- [Madam Howard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/madam_howard.md): She belongs to the Howard clan that half the court suspects of hiding a royal mistress, and she keeps Katharine locked behind bar and key while the palace roars over the new Queen's arrival. Her instinct is protective, b
- [Viridus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/viridus.md): A mysterious and learned man, possibly a scholar or alchemist at court.
- [Thomas Cranmer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/thomas_cranmer.md): The Archbishop of Canterbury, a reformer and cautious political figure.
- [Anne of Cleves](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/anne_of_cleves.md): The king's fourth wife, a foreign princess navigating the English court.
- [Sir Nicholas Rochford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/sir_nicholas_rochford.md): An elderly knight and relative of the Rochford family, a minor court presence.
- [John Badge](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/john_badge.md): A servant or minor functionary in the Howard household.
- [Goodman Gilmaw](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters/goodman_gilmaw.md): A poor or unfortunate man, possibly a tenant or petitioner.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_fifth_queen_se/characters