Tudor Quotes

“Similarly, while the Tudors are often recalled in terms of a historical enmity with Spain, this too is history written with hindsight: the Armada did not take place until a generation after Elizabeth became queen.”
― Leanda de Lisle, Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England's Most Notorious Royal Family

“The absence of portraits of Margaret Beaufort as an attractive young woman to counterbalance the images of her in old age have helped give credit to the sinister reputation she has gained. But the face that stands out from her story is not that of the widow with the hooded eyes, praying amidst the riches of a royal chapel and seen in her portraits, but a young girl, riding in the biting wet of a Welsh winter, to Pembroke Castle where she must deliver her child. Now it was for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren to continue the Tudor story.”
― Leanda de Lisle, Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England's Most Notorious Royal Family

“There is a strong idea in the world that a woman cannot live unless she is married, or at all events that if she refrains from marriage she does so for some bad reason.”
― Leanda de Lisle, Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England's Most Notorious Royal Family

“After a farcical trial for treason Clarence was executed in the Tower. The hard-drinking king may have thought the method a kindly one – he had Clarence drowned in a vat of Malmsey wine.5”
― Leanda de Lisle, Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England's Most Notorious Royal Family

“The tension in the room had reached breaking point when at last he swung his axe. It smashed into Mary’s head. Some thought they heard a cry. A second stroke almost severed the neck. The axe was then used like a cleaver on a chicken wing to cut it free. As the head fell the executioner raised it up, with the shout ‘God save the queen’, only to have it drop out of his hand leaving him clutching her chestnut wig. It had been severed from its moorings by the botched strike of the axe. As Shrewsbury wept, the executioners began to tear the dead queen’s stockings from her corpse. In was a perk of the job to be allowed to keep or sell their victim’s clothes. Their action disturbed her little dog, hidden under her skirts. Covered with blood, it rushed up and down the body, howling plaintively.16”
― Leanda de Lisle, Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England's Most Notorious Royal Family

“But as Shakespeare’s Richard II boasts, ‘Not all the water in the rough rude sea/Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.”
― Leanda de Lisle, Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England's Most Notorious Royal Family