Cardinal Richelieu is dead, a victim of poison. The throne of France, which he has long protected, is once more unstable as rival factions vie for power. But the Cardinal has appointed two heirs: one to his religious position, and one to head the elite spy ring that has maintained France's fragile political balance. Francoise Marguerite de Palis, the Cardinal's lovely but low born niece, is devastated by her uncle's murder and vows revenge, which she sets out after immediately. Though the task is daunting, she at least has some formidable tools at her command. Not only is she now the head of the Cardinal's Eyes, but is arguably the most powerful Sorciere in all France. Shapeshifting into her character Biscarrat, notorious swordsman, she sets out to find her uncle's murderer. But with an unexpected ally. Handsome and dashing Jean de Treville, head of the King's Musketeers, is saddened to learn of the Cardinal's death, though both headed groups not generally fond of one another. Sadness turns to stunned amazement, however, when he learns who has been appointed to lead the Cardinal's spy ring and who is also, in fact, the swordsman who has bested him on numerous occasions. Not to mention the beautiful, and untouchable, wife of Court favorite, Antoine de Palis. But just as there is more, much more, to the enchanting Francoise, so is there more than simple murder afoot. Side by side, Francoise and Jean descend into a maelstrom of magic as they battle another powerful Sorcier, and enter a bloody race to obtain a fabulous jewel. And the throne of France hangs in the balance, supported only by the magic and mastery of the cardinal's heir.

"Armand Jean du Plessis, cardinal-duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac; 9 September 1585? 4 December 1642) was a French clergyman, noble and statesman. Consecrated as a bishop in 1608, he later entered politics, becoming a Secretary of State in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a Cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, whose career he had fostered."--Wikipedia.

"In the heart of her book Hallman performs an amazing feat: patiently tracing the acquisition, trading, subdividing, leasing, and renting of pieces of property that also happened in most cases to carry with them the cure of souls. She does so without losing the reader in a mass of detail by combining quantitative generalizations with examination of aptly chosen individual cases. . . . In short, she demonstrates that the sixteenth-century Italian Church, to alter slightly the epithet used by Ginzburg's Menocchio, was increasingly "a prelates' business." This is a very important book. Not only will it serve those scholars in various disciplines who wich to trace the patronage networks of individual Italian cardinals. As I have indicated, it will also stimulate those interested in reformulating existing paradigms and periodization schemes in early modern European history." --Anne Jacobson Schutte, Lawrence University, in Renaissance Quarterly, Volume 40, Number 2, Summer, 1987.

A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal is the first comprehensive overview of its subject in English or any language. Cardinals are best known as the pope’s electors, but in the centuries from 1400 to 1800 they were so much more: pastors, inquisitors, diplomats, bureaucrats, statesmen, saints; entrepreneurs and investors; patrons of the arts, of music, literature, and science. Thirty-five essays explain their social background, positions and roles in Rome and beyond, and what they meant for wider society. This volume shows the impact which those men who took up the purple had in their respective fields and how their tenure of office shaped the entangled histories of Rome and the Catholic Church from a European and global perspective.

'To shoot a man on the spur of the moment in the presence of the king and his court, not to mention the cardinal and his household, that took a boldness ... Or utter despair.' - Hampton Court, 1522 Lawyer Hugh Mac Egan has arrived from Ireland to draw up the marriage contract between James Butler, son of his employer the Earl of Ormond, and Anne Boleyn – a dynastic alliance that will resolve an age-old inheritance dispute. But Anne, it seems, has other ideas. Her heart is set on Harry Percy, heir to the magnificent earldom of Northumberland, sparking rivalry between the two young men. When a member of Cardinal Wolsey's palace staff is found shot dead with an arrow, Percy is quick to give evidence that implicates Butler. And with Percy's testimony backed up by Butler's artful bride-to-be, things start to look bleak for the young Irishman. In Tudor England, the accused is guilty until proven innocent. Against the backdrop of the Lenten festivities, Mac Egan sets out to exonerate his patron's heir and find the real killer, uncovering as he does so the many factions and intrigues that lie beneath the surface at the cardinal's court.