Kathryn in the Court of Six Queens

Kathryn: "The Howards are just getting used to the changes wrought by Grandfather's death. Surrey - Uncle Thomas - is Duke of Norfolk now his father has died. He is very close to the king. He takes all affronts to the crown personally, you would think he was the king's mother! I loathe his little boy, Henry, who is the Earl of Surrey now...."

Dad: "Remember your great-grandfather Jack being warned at Bosworth that the king was betrayed and fighting to the death for him anyway. And your grandfather was there, attaindered and clapped in the Tower, but within ten years he was a peer again and free, made Earl of Surrey and Lord High Treasurer. Commander of the field at Flodden and finally getting the Norfolk titles and lands reinstated...."(pg. 146-147)

"I never think of it as Whitbourne House. It is Vamplate Manor to me."

"Do you know what a vamplate is, Niece?"

"I have armored three men in my day; yes, I know. It is a jousting shield with a notch in it so that the lance protrudes without exposing the fighter's heart, as it would if the lance stuck out over it. Whitbourne House is my vamplate against the world, my one little protective notch..." (p. 239)

He was forty now; all of his bows were strictly formal and a certain wariness never left his mouth even when he smiled, which was seldom. Any lingering youth or capriciousness had been beaten out of him by ambassadorial service. He could now smile through any news, no matter how unpleasant, and hold his temper through events that would have made him erupt ten years earlier." (p. 223)