Ian Richardson

Urquhart's plans to undermine Collingridge reach their conclusion. But Mattie Storin continues to investigate the story, and Urquhart must decide how to stop her.

"I am, in fact, extremely angry with His Majesty, and I intend to do him harm." The antagonism between King and Prime Minister develops into full confrontation as Urquhart accuses the King of trying to organize a bloodless coup against the Government.

When charming Chief Whip Francis Urquhart is passed over for promotion by a new party leader, he hatches a dastardly plot to wreak revenge on each and every one of his colleagues.

The King is insisting that politicians should have the interests of the populace more at heart. For appearances sake, Urquhart pretends to take a more temperate stance towards the King's attack on his policies.

Ditched by Makepeace, Claire tells Maria that Urquhart cannot help her trace her uncles' graves and suggests that she go to Makepeace for help. Meanwhile, Makepeace attacks Urquhart in the House about the cover-up on the Cyprus war graves.

Urquhart promises to help a young Greek Cypriot girl locate the war graves of her murdered uncles. After announcing her affair with Tom, Claire becomes Urquhart's Parliamentary Private Secretary. The arbitration judge makes a bold decision.

Ian Richardson returns as conspirator extraordinaire, Francis Urquhart, and takes up the story exactly where House of Cards left off. Urquhart is pitched into Government with a fantastically slim majority and a hatred of his King who is far too liberal to survive the new Government. But the King fights back.

From the book:

KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,

Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs,

And then grace us in the disgrace of death;

When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,

Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy

That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,

And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors- for so you are

That war against your own affections

And the huge army of the

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THE PRINCE (Italian: Il Principe) is a 16th-century political treatise by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From correspondence a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, De Principatibus (About Principalities). However, the printed version was not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. This was done with the permission of the Medici pope Clement VII, but "long before...

From the imagination of best-selling novelist Terry Pratchett comes a deliriously twisted take on the holiday season. In the parallel universe of Discworld, it's the night before Hogswatch, that special time when the Hogfather delivers presents to the kiddies at the mid-winter festival in the medieval melting pot of Ankh-Morpork. But when the Hogfather is kidnapped by a cadre of villains called the Auditors, the inspiring belief in Hogswatch could...