"If only they would all just leave me alone with my books and my letters, I would be content to let life, and the world pass me by"
- Alison Weir
"His handsome face is suffused with rage. He stands before me shaking, then to my disgust, bursts into noisy tears; "I shall tell my mother of you!" he sobs and crashes out of the chamber"
"News of the death of James V on 14 December gave even further cause for rejoicing, because his heir was a week-old girl, the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. Scotland would be subject to yet another weake..."
"In this martial world dominated by men, women had little place. The Church's teachings might underpin feudal morality, yet when it came to the practicalities of life, a ruthless pragmatism often came ..."
"Court life for a queen of France at that time was, however, stultifyingly routine. Eleanor found that she was expected to be no more than a decorative asset to her husband, the mother of his heirs and..."
"They inhabited a lost world of splendour and brutality, a world dominated by religious change, in which there were few saints."
"Arthur managed to speak to his grandmother [Queen Eleanor of England], demanding that she evacuate the castle with all her possessions and then go peaceably wherever she wished, for he wanted to show ..."
"Until quite recently women's histories were largely overlooked but in the wake of feminism there has been increasing interest in retrieving them."
"Often, little brother, there is no smoke without fire."
"If silences could be pregnant, then this one went to full term."