The Sunne in Splendour Quotes

“We tend to forget at times that it is the little ones, the children, who do suffer the greatest hurt. If we cannot comprehend why certain sorrows are visited upon us, how on earth can they?”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Men are born to sin…What does matter most, is not that we err, it is that we do benefit from our mistakes, that we are capable of sincere repentance, of genuine contrition.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“I should like to freeze in time all those I do love, keep them somehow safe from the ravages of the passing years..."Rather like flowers pressed between the pages of a book!”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“I think the day might come, Bess, when all men will know of Dickon is what they were told by Tudor historians like Rous."
"Jesú, no!" Bess sounded both appalled and emphatic. "You mustn't think that. Whatever the lies being told about Dickon now, surely the truth will eventually win out. Scriptures does say that 'Great is truth and it prevails,' and I believe that, Grace."
Bess straightened up in the bed, shoved yet another pillow against her back. "I have to believe that," she said quietly. "Not just for Dickon's sake, but for us all. For when all is said and done, the truth be all we have.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Richard, might I ask you something? We've talked tonight of what you must do, of what you can do, of what you ought to do.But we've said nothing of what you want to do.Richard, do you want to be King?"
At first, she thought he wasn't going to answer her. But as she studied his face, she saw he was turning her question over in his mind, seeking to answer it as honestly as he could.
"Yes," he said at last. "Yes...I do.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Richard knew, of course, that his was thought to be an unlucky title; only twice before had a Richard ruled England, and both met violent ends.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“The art of governing, Dickon, is that of making use of talent wherever you do find it. Trust is too rare an attribute to make it your prime prerequisite for holding office. If I relied only upon those I truly do trust, we'd have a council of empty chairs!”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Edward was now expressing himself on the subject of the French King, drawing upon a vocabulary that a Southwark brothel-keeper might envy. Some of what he was saying was anatomically impossible, much of it was true and all of it envenomed.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“There's not a man alive who doesn't know fear, Dickon. The brave man is the one who has learned to hide it, that's all”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Francis stared down at the Duchess of York's letter. He swallowed, then read aloud in a husky voice, "It was showed by John Sponer that King Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us, was through great treason piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this City."
As Margaret listened, the embittered grey eyes had softened, misted with sudden tears.
"My brother may lie in an untended grave," she said, "but he does not lack for an epitaph.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“What shall we drink to, Ned? To England?"

"I've a better thought than that. It is not precisely the season for it, with Epiphany still four days hence, and I daresay our lady mother would never forgive me for saying it! But blasphemy or not, I think it fitting, nonetheless."

He touched his cup to the one Richard now held. "To the Resurrection," he said.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“What do you know of sacrifice? Need I tell you of York's dead . . . of Sandal Castle? My brother did survive the battle, his first. He was seventeen and he entreated them to spare his life. They cut his throat. Their heads were then impaled on York's Micklegate Bar to please the House of Lancaster, to please a harlot and a madman. She had my father's head crowned with straw and she left a spike between the two. . . . That one, she said, was for York's other son.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Messages continued to arrive from the Earl of Warwick, urging Londoners to hold firm for King Harry. Marguerite d'Anjou and her son were expected to land at any time, while from St Albans, Edward sent word that Harry of Lancaster was to be considered a prisoner of state. At that, John Stockton, the Mayor of London, contracted a diplomatic virus and took to his bed.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“I would see him, Edward.'
It was no request; he knew it to be an ultimatum. He shook his head violently, not trusting his voice. Time passed. She was staring at him, saying nothing, and on her face was a look of stunned disbelief, of anguished accusation he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life. But when she spoke, her voice held no hint of tears. It was not a voice to offer either understanding or absolution, spoke of no quarter given, of a lifetime of love denied.
'God may forgive you for this,' she said, very slowly and distinctly, 'but I never shall.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“What followed was for him a very entertaining spectacle, with one of Edward's brothers seemingly intent upon the most subtle of seductions and the other barely able to force malmsey past the gorge rising in his throat.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“I once came upon a definition of history as ‘the process by which complex truths are transformed into simplified falsehoods’. That is particularly true in the case of Richard III, where the normal medieval proclivity for moralizing and partisanship was further complicated by deliberate distortion to serve Tudor political needs.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne In Splendour

“You seem to forget, Dickon, that we are dealing with the Spider King. Louis realized, just as you have, that it would take more to mate dog to cat than a shared lust for the English crown.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“She opened her mouth, clamped it shut again. This was new, this sudden favor shown Gloucester, had been brought back with him from Burgundy like some malevolent foreign pox.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Removing his helmet, Edward knelt by the stream called Swillgate, a name that effectively quenched any desire to drink from its depths.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“She might be that most unfortunate of women, a barren queen,”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne In Splendour

“There was even a small groundswell of sympathy for George, confined mainly among those who’d had no personal contact with him.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne In Splendour

“For treason he knew to be the most contagious of afflictions and innocence no guarantee of immunity.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne In Splendour

“And what of those who didn’t know him? What happens, too, when all who knew him are dead, when people know only what they’ve been told? What truth will we be talking about, then?”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Ned never argued with their father, he was unfailingly polite and then nonchalantly went his own way; whereas, he, Edmund, deferred dutifully to his father's authority and then found himself resenting both his parent's austere discipline and his own reluctance to rebel.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“In three years, Edward will be sixteen. What then? What happens when he demands payment for Northampton?’ ‘It does not have to be that way. In three years, he could come to understand why I took the actions I did.’ ‘Yes, he could. But you do not expect that and neither do I. The Woodvilles have taught him too well. And even if Edward could learn to forgive, Elizabeth Woodville never will. Nor will her kin and, sooner or later, they’re going to have to be set free. They do hate you so, Richard, and now we know why. You’re the rightful heir of York; think you that they could live with that? ‘No, Richard, we’d best face it. Our future holds naught but grief. You’re not likely to live very long under your nephew’s reign, my love, and should evil befall you, what do you think will happen to our son? To me?”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne In Splendour

“As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly,”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne In Splendour

“Fear did make people cautious; rage such as this was dangerous, was all too apt to lead to disaster”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“She was dying and he was not, and that was a barrier not even love could breach.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne In Splendour