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Tudors Quotes

Browse 31 quotes about Tudors.

Tudors Quotes

“The thing people don't understand about an army is its great, unpunctuated wastes of inaction: you have to scavenge for food, you are camped out somewhere with a rising water level because your mad capitaine says so, you are shifted abruptly in the middle of the night into some indefensible position, so you never really sleep, your equipment is defective, the gunners keep causing small unwanted explosions, the crossbowmen are either drunk or praying, the arrows are ordered up but not here yet, and your whole mind is occupied by a seething anxiety that things are going to go badly because il principe, or whatever little worshipfulness is in charge today, is not very good at the basic business of thinking. It didn't take him many winters to get out of fighting and into supply. In Italy, you could always fight in the summer, if you felt like it. If you wanted to go out.”

WarHistoryTudors
Author:Hilary Mantel
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“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.”

InjusticeInfidelityHistorical RomanceTudorsHenry ViiiRoyal RomanceAnne BoleynTudorTragic PoetryTudor England
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“It is often said that a secure childhood makes the best foundation for a happy life. In marked contrast to her cousin Elizabeth Tudor, Mary Stuart enjoyed an exceptionally cosseted youth. It is left to the judgement of history to decide whether it did, in fact, adequately prepare her for the extreme stresses with which the course of her later life confronted her.”

ChildhoodTudorsElizabeth IMary Queen Of ScotsQueenship
Book:Mary Queen of Scots
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“The defeat of the Armada in 1588 was Elizabeth's high point. Things went downhill after that. Militarily the triumph against Spain was rather undermined the following year when Elizabeth sent her own massive Armada, commanded by Sir Francis Drake, to Spain and Portugal. This was annihilated too. So maybe God was neutral. Or Muslim.”

DefeatTudorsElizabeth IElizabeth TudorArmadaSpanish ArmadaArmada Wars
Book:Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens
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“In a short six weeks, the “Northern Rebellion,” as it was called, was summarily put down by southern forces loyal to the English crown. Elizabeth exacted a terrible revenge by calling for (specifying the number) seven hundred executions of the common people, even though there had been no uprising of the general populace in support of the rebel earls of the North. (Her sister “Bloody” Mary had burned a total of 284 Protestants at the stake, including two babies; another 400 had died of starvation. So the sisters are somewhat even as to numbers of deaths directly attributable to their decisions, although Mary burned Protestants for reasons of religion, while Elizabeth hanged Catholics for reasons of state security. Mary’s executions still historically defined her half a century later as “Bloody Mary.” Elizabeth remained “Gloriana.”)”

HypocrisyTudorsElizabeth IBloody MaryElizabeth TudorCatholics Vs ProtestantsMary IMary TudorGloriana
Book:When Women Ruled the World: Making the Renaissance in Europe
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“Mary Stuart and Elizabeth both aimed at toleration in an intolerant age, in the same ways that Catherine de’ Medici, the mother-in-law of one and the almost mother-in-law of another English queen, labored her whole life to heal the rift between Catholic and Protestant in France. All three of these queens worked as diligently and as astutely as they might to restrain the fratricidal wars of Christian against Christian. What they had to hold up against that violent seismic shift in human sensibility was the orderly traditions of monarchy. If they did not ultimately succeed, they slowed and tempered the disorder and violence.”

RenaissanceReligious TolerationTudorsElizabeth IMary StuartElizabeth TudorMary Queen Of ScotsCatherine De Médici
Book:When Women Ruled the World: Making the Renaissance in Europe
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“Although these were not necessarily gifts Mary consciously gave to Elizabeth, as the first independent queen of England it was she who established a powerful rhetoric for female rule, which Elizabeth quite literally inherited. Mary’s claims include: (1) the idea the she was the virgin mother of her country; (2) the idea that England’s people were her children; (3) the idea that she was a virgin wedded to her kingdom, her coronation ring being, specifically, her wedding ring.”

TudorsElizabeth IElizabeth TudorMary IMary TudorThe Virgin Queen
Book:When Women Ruled the World: Making the Renaissance in Europe
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“Because [Michel de Castelnau] had been charged with making peace between [Mary Stuart] and her barons, he ignored Mary’s adamant insistence on how anti-monarchal she considered the rebel lords to be; he decided that hers was a profoundly immature political analysis. Yet Elizabeth’s own moral outrage at these same rebels’ affronts to monarchal principles, when, two years later, they refused to obey her commands to release their anointed queen from prison, suggests that Mary was simply being clear-sighted rather than naïve and saw earlier what Elizabeth learned only later. Mary was neither stupid nor ill-educated. She knew what she was talking about.”

MonarchyTudorsElizabeth IMary StuartElizabeth TudorMary Queen Of ScotsAnti Monarchy
Book:When Women Ruled the World: Making the Renaissance in Europe
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“So Elizabeth behaved cautiously as usual and put Mary [Queen of Scots] in prison - nice prison, but she wasn't allowed out. And that's where she stayed for nineteen years. . . . She immediately became the focus of plots and rebellions. In 1569, there was a major Catholic rising in the north which aimed to free Mary, marry her to the Duke of Norfolk and put her on the throne. When it was defeated, Elizabeth had 600 rebels executed (so it wasn't just her sister who could be bloody).”

HypocrisyTudorsElizabeth IBloody MaryMary StuartElizabeth TudorMary Queen Of ScotsMary IMary Tudor
Book:Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens
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“Like Jane, Elizabeth was remarkably intelligent, and revelled in her educational pursuits and the praise in which she received as a result. A contemporary remarked that 'her intellect and understanding are wonderful', and that she excelled as a linguist. Elizabeth also shared similar religious views to Jane, and Jane would later praise her cousin for her devotion to God. But that was probably where the similarities between the two girls ended. No correspondence between the cousins survives, but Elizabeth's later treatment of Jane's sisters suggests that the relationship between them was never a close one. There may even have been some jealousy on the part of both girls over the other's academic abilities and relationship with the Queen Dowager [Katherine Parr]. However, if this was the case then for the most part it almost certainly stemmed primarily from the 'proud and haughty' Elizabeth's side. Jane's later comments about her cousin indicate not only an element of praise and respect, but perhaps also admiration and awe for a cousin who was slightly older than her. Roger Ascham, who may have met Jane before, but certainly became more familiarly acquainted with Jane while at Chelsea, later claimed that Jane's abilities were superior to those of his own pupil. If Elizabeth became aware of this then it understandably probably led to some resentment.”

TudorsElizabeth IElizabeth TudorJane GreyTudor History
Book:Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey
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“They set about reversing all the changes that had been made since the break with Rome . . . The only thing that wasn't put back was the monasteries - this was deemed unworkable as the aristocracy, catholic and Protestant alike, had bought those lands from the crown, were really enjoying them and, if it came down to it, gave much more of a shit about their vast new properties than they did about the difference between the mass and holy communion. Weird, isn't it? People were willing to die for these religious differences, but they wouldn't sacrifice real estate.”

GreedMartyrdomTudorsReligious HypocrisyCatholics Vs ProtestantsWars Of Religion
Book:Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens
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“These developments - a massive transfer of land by way of inheritance and purchase, an unprecedented rise in the profitability of land and increasing intermarriage between Celtic and English dynasties - helped to consolidate a new unitary ruling class in place of the more separate and specific landed establishments that had characterised England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland in the Tudor and Stuart eras.”

WayClassLandDevelopmentEnglandErasMassiveEstablishmentIrelandScotlandRulingInheritanceTransfersUnprecedentedWalesBritish HistoryCelticDynastyProfitabilityTudorsIntermarriage
Book:Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837
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“We spent the first night of our honeymoon in a country hotel, with Tudor architecture oak beams, and floors which sloped, of the Queen-Elizabeth-Slept-Here variety. There were old tennis-courts - the Tudor kind where Henry VIII was said to have played; and gardens filled with winter heather, jasmine and yellow chrysanthemums. [...] So that first night together was spent in the ancient bedroom with the tiny leaded paned windows, through which shafts of moonlight touched the room with a dreamlike radiance [...]”

FirstsKindSaidCountryTogetherNightRoomsGardenWindowCourtFilledWinterAncientArchitectureTinyVarietyQueensTennisTouchedHotelYellowBedroomMoonlightOaksBeamRadianceHoneymoonJasmineQueen ElizabethHeathersTennis CourtsTudorsHenry ViiiHenry VChrysanthemums
Author:Jean Plaidy
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“If grownups want to dress in Tudor costume, douse babies in water, intone over the dead and do strange things with wine and wafers, it is a free country. But for a Christian sect to claim ownership of the legal definition of a human relationship is way out of order.”

IfsWayWantHumansCountryChristianOrderWaterStrangeBabyClaimsDressesWineDefinitionsOwnershipCostumesHuman RelationsStrange ThingsHuman RelationshipsSectsGrownupsFree CountryTudors
Author:Simon Jenkins
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