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“I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.

My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.”
― Elizabeth I, Her Life in Letters

“There are women that men marry and there are women that men don't," Anne pronouned. "And you are the sort of mistress a man doesn't bother to marry. Sons or no sons."



"Yes," Mary said. "I expect your right. But there clearly is a third sort and that is the woman that men neither marry or take as their mistress. Woman that go home ...alone for Xmas. And thats seems to be you my dear sister. Good day.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl

“This was dangerous talk—in these enlightened times, a wise woman would never be too clever. The accusation of witchcraft had rid many men of an ugly wife and yet more women of an attractive rival.”
― Joss Alexander, Tainted Innocence

“I die a Queen, but I would rather die the wife of Culpepper”
― Katherine "Kitty" Howard

“I did not worry about what a man or woman personally believed, but the nation's official religion should be outwardly practiced by all its citizens. A religion was a political statement. Being a Calvinist, a papist, a Presbyterian, an Anglican labeled a person's philosophy on education, taxes, poor relief, and other secular things. The nation needed an accepted position on such concerns. Hence the fines for not outwardly conforming to the national church.”
― Margaret George, Elizabeth I

“The English Church, it was claimed, was Catholicism purified and reformed. And what was the nature of this reform? The truth was that nobody, least of all Henry himself, had much idea.”
― Edward Rutherfurd, The Princes of Ireland

“Modern writers usually don't know what it was like to live in the past, but Rushworth-Brown has done this with great skill in this accomplished, atmospheric and thoughtful novel.â€� â€� US National Times”
― Paul Rushworth-Brown

“The whore or the saint: these seemed to be the prototypes set up by the Church's historic misogyny. But was there no alternative model to follow?

Yes, for Anne had seen for herself that it was possible to be an independent thinker, set free from the pattern of sinful Eve or patient Griselda. She had been in the company of clever, strong-willed women like the Regent Margaret of Austria and Margaret of Navarre. The influence of evangelism had enabled women of character to take an alternative path, one that offered Anne Boleyn a different future.”
― Joanna Denny, Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen

“To make a tarte of strawberyes," wrote Margaret Parker in 1551, "take and strayne theym with the yolkes of four eggs, and a little whyte breade grated, then season it up with suger and swete butter and so bake it." And Jess, who had spent the past year struggling with Kant's Critiques, now luxuriated in language so concrete. Tudor cookbooks did not theorize, nor did they provide separate ingredient lists, or scientific cooking times or temperatures. Recipes were called receipts, and tallied materials and techniques together. Art and alchemy were their themes, instinct and invention. The grandest performed occult transformations: flora into fauna, where, for example, cooks crushed blanched almonds and beat them with sugar, milk, and rose water into a paste to "cast Rabbets, Pigeons, or any other little bird or beast." Or flour into gold, gilding marchpane and festive tarts. Or mutton into venison, or fish to meat, or pig to fawn, one species prepared to stand in for another.”
― Allegra Goodman, The Cookbook Collector

“Outside, a cry fell through the night like a dying star.”
― Joss Alexander, Tainted Innocence

“Let’s attribute the other half to Gypsy magic.”
― Josie Riviera, Seeking Catherine

“Di che natura è il limite fra la verità e la menzogna? È permeabile e sfocato, poiché è disseminato di voci, dicerie, malintesi e storie alterate. La verità può buttare giù i cancelli, può urlare per strada; se però non è piacevole, gradita e facile da accettare, è condannata a piagnucolare davanti alla porta di servizio.”
― Hilary Mantel , Bring Up the Bodies

“Il re si siede e comincia a parlare, a sproloquiare. In quegli ultimi dieci anni e più Anna lo ha preso per mano e lo ha portato nella foresta. Lì, al margine del bosco, dove la luce del giorno si frantuma e filtra tra il verde, lui ha perso il senno, l'innocenza. Anna si è fatta rincorrere tutto il giorno, finché lui tremava sfinito, eppure non riusciva a fermarsi neanche per riprendere fiato, non poteva tornare indietro, aveva perso la strada. L'ha inseguita fino al tramonto, l'ha cercata alla luce delle torce. Poi lei gli si è scagliata contro, ha spento le torce e l'ha lasciato da solo nel buio.”
― Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies

“For a moment our eyes meet, but we exchange nothing except a grim determination to get this parting over, to get this exile underway, to keep this precious boy safe. I suppose that Jasper is the only man that I have loved, perhaps he is the only man that I will ever love. But there has never been time for words of love between us, we have spent most of our time saying goodbye.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Red Queen

“Dagglebelt almost snatched the held-out pumpkin in his eagerness. His big chance had come.
"Now just watch me a minute,"he pleaded.
He planted his feet in an open fourth. He threw up one pumpkin. He threw up another. He threw up the third.
"Juggler, "explained the Master of the Revels.
Breathing heavily Dagglebelt caught the first pumpkin. He clutched at the second. He missed the third.
"A bad juggler," said Burghley disappointed.
"It was an accident," said Dagglebelt. He picked up the pumpkins. He tried again.
"Dolt," cried a raw voice from an upper storey. "Run away and practice while you still have hands to do it with."
Dagglebelt gave one glance. He abandoned his pumpkins. He ran.
Elizabeth of England withdrew from the window. She was smiling.”
― Caryl Brahms, No Bed for Bacon

“Always, I sensed the difference between others and myself in the power of my emotions, and felt ashamed that I was less calm than Mary, and less able than George to view matters with level-headedness. It was so difficult for me. I was too easily carried away and wished to hide this, for expression of feelings always drew frowns or gasps, and was generally viewed as something base and common, as well as inappropriate. I prayed often that God might make me good.”
― Nell Gavin, Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn

“One noble died of treason, but there was always another who would continue plotting. Treason remains on the statute book, enshrined in law today, though not an oft used law. When we think of treason and tyrannical monarchs, Henry VIII is usually pretty high on the list. He redefined treason to be what he wanted it to be and, as a result, opened the doors to multitudes of treason trials and the depletion of the English nobility.”
― Helene Harrison, Tudor Executions: From Nobility to the Block

“The White Falcon by Stewart Stafford

Trampled pomegranate underfoot,
Fervent ascent of anatine steps,
To the alabaster falcon's chamber,
Viperine slither as a king's retinue.

Roman breakage for a concubine,
Stillbirths piled on a spiral staircase,
Skewered tongues spitting smears,
Spurious sparks fanned to an inferno.

Denounced in the toxic public mind,
Cast into a wolf pit by kangaroo court,
Blood money to the Gallic executioner,
Her headless ghost in a centuries' limbo.

© Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford