To Play the King. Michael Dobbs

      

      MICHAEL DOBBS

      TO PLAY THE KING

       Copyright

      This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

      HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperColl‌insPublishers 1992

      Copyright © Michael Dobbs 1992, 2014

      Michael Dobbs asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      Cover design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2015

      Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content or written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9780006471646

      Ebook Edition © APRIL 2015 © ISBN: 9780007397617

      Version: 2018-10-08

      Praise for To Play the King:

      ‘With a friend like Michael Dobbs, who on earth needs enemies? Gloriously cheeky. Dobbs’ books grab because of their authenticity’

       The Times

      ‘Highly readable…a model of its kind and impeccably timed’

       Daily Mail

      Lucy and Andrei

      For Medford 1971. For Fiskardon 1981.

      For Villars 1991.

      For Everything.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Praise

       Dedication

       Introduction

       Prologue

       PART ONE

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

      

       Chapter Ten

      

       Chapter Eleven

      

       Chapter Twelve

      

       Chapter Thirteen

      

       Chapter Fourteen

      

       Chapter Fifteen

      

       Chapter Sixteen

      

       Chapter Seventeen

      

       Chapter Eighteen

      

       PART TWO

      

       Chapter Nineteen

      

       Chapter