Pilgrims and swore an oath? Who rang the
Might be that marriage was not the death of a woman and the end of her true self, but the unfolding of her. It might be that a woman could be a wife without having to cut the pride and the spirit out...
All that I learn just teaches me that I know nothing.
You’ve always been one of many, she said brutally. There are dozens of us Howard girls, all with good breeding, all well taught, all pretty, all young, all fertile. They can throw one after another on...
You will not be a beautiful woman at court with nothing to do but make magic. The road you have chosen will mean that you have to spend your life scheming and fighting. Our task, as your family, is to...
You will be the mother of the next King of England, she declares. The red rose and the white, a rose without a thorn. You will have a son, and we will call him Arthur of England. She takes my hands. T...
You must use what you have,' he says, the advice of a good man to a whore for time immemorial. 'You must use what you are allowed.
You have to sit with your longing and know that you may not get what you want; you have to encounter the danger of longing for something without the expectation of getting your desire.
You can smile when your heart is breaking because you're a woman.
You can smile when your heart is breaking because you are a woman, and a courtier, and a Howard. That's three reasons for being the most deceitful creature on God's earth.
You are not Melusina, rising from a fountain to easy happiness. You will not be a beautiful woman at court with nothing to do but make magic. The road you have chosen will mean that you have to spend...
Yes, but either way, shamed or not, I shall be Queen of England, and this is the last time you will sit in my presence.
Wideacre faces due south and the sun shines all day on the yellow stone until it is warm and powdery to the touch. The sun travels from gable end to gable end so the front of the house is never in sha...
When he saw her, the water lapping on her scales, head down in the bath he had built especially for her, thinking that she would like to wash—not to revert to fish—he had that instant revulsion that s...
When I rose up the queen was looking toward me, not as if I were a rival, but as if I were still her favorite little maid in waiting who might bring her some comfort. She looked at me as if for a mome...
What's your family? he demanded through clenched teeth. Boleyn. What's your kin?Howard's.What's your home?Hever and Rochford.What's your kingdom?England.Who's your king?Henry.Then serve them. In that...
What was his coward's way out? when the doors of the church open, and I have to walk forwards and take the hand of my new husband, and stand before a priest and swear to be a wife. I feel his big hand...
What if I don’t want an unwilling bridegroom, a pretender to the crown, who won his throne through disloyalty and betrayal? What if I tell you that my heart is in an unmarked grave somewhere in Leices...
We’re in this together. This is for all of us: Boleyns and Howards. We all rise or fall on this. We’re all waiting and playing the long game. You have to lead the charge, Anne. But we’re all behind yo...
Well hear this,' she hissed in my ear. 'Hear this Mary. I am playing my own game and I don't want you interrupting. Nobody will know anything until I am ready to tell them, and then they will know eve...