Queen Catherine's Court Quotes

“Pale-complexioned and perturbed-looking, Castelo Melhor was ostensibly taking the part of her son, King Afonso, convincing the young monarch that his mother was trying to steal his throne. To be fair, she was.”
― Sophie Shorland, Queen Catherine's Court: Power and Rebellion in Restoration England

“She threatened to return to her beloved Portugal if she had to acknowledge Charles’s mistress. She was intensely patriotic, referring to Portugal alternately as her ‘native land’ and ‘fatherland’. Anyone who talked about Portugal positively found favour with her, and anyone who insulted it was instantly in her black books.”
― Sophie Shorland, Queen Catherine's Court: Power and Rebellion in Restoration England

“On arriving to take possession, the English complained that the former occupants had taken everything with them, including what was nailed down, ‘the very fflooers, the Windowes and the Dores’, leaving Tangier ‘very little better than a ruin of walls and full of spoile, scarsity and want as to all such materials and utensils as could have given assistance to English souldiers’.”
― Sophie Shorland, Queen Catherine's Court: Power and Rebellion in Restoration England

“To put it crassly, Charles II was most interested in his new bride’s money.”
― Sophie Shorland, Queen Catherine's Court: Power and Rebellion in Restoration England

“To ensure that Catherine would settle into her new role as queen, letters were dispatched, with Charles addressing her as ‘my wife and lady’ and declaring that ‘for me, the signing of the marriage has been great happiness’, as though no thought of backing out in favour of an unspecified voluptuous Italian had ever occurred to him.”
― Sophie Shorland, Queen Catherine's Court: Power and Rebellion in Restoration England