Thomas B. Costain > Quotes

“History pays no heed to the unspectacular citizen who worked hard all day and walked at night to a humble home with dust on his tunic and his flat cap. But in the end the builders have had the better of it. The miracles they accomplished in stone are still standing and still beautiful, even with the disintegration of so many centuries on them, but the battlefields where great warriors died are so encroached upon by modern villas and so befouled by the rotting remains of motorcars and the staves of oil barrels that they do not always repay a visit.”
― Thomas B. Costain

“It is well to pray when the troubles perch and your pillow is cheated of sleep. It is well at all times, even when there are no troubles and no petitions to be made.”
― Thomas B. Costain

“Adam was snoring vigorously, Luke with dignity and serenity, the servants like a full orchestra..”
― Thomas B. Costain

“You have the chance of a lifetime and your ready to throw it away because their's a crack in your skull.”
― Thomas B. Costain

“Do you agree that we should order them back into the house and then scatter these watchers an send them home? If they refuse to obey there will be trouble. We will have to slit throats. I confess to you, Eleazer , that I do not like slitting throats at a wedding.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Silver Chalice

“When is this old moneybags doing to give up and die as any decent man would do? I am tired of standing at his door.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Silver Chalice

“feeble and so I lay this command on you, that you finish your task as soon as possible.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Silver Chalice

“He divided the inhabitants of the world into two groups, into those who had loved and those who had not.”
― Thomas B. Costain, More Stories to Remember

“One question must arise in every mind in considering the state of things in England at this point: if Duke John had so many enemies, why did he possess such great power? Could not those who feared and hated him, which included most of the nobility, many of the bishops, and the citizens of London to a man, combine to thwart him in his ambitious schemes? The answer to these questions consisted largely of one word—Wealth.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“In spite of poor government and the strife it produced, England was merrie.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Magnificent Century

“an issue, based on idealistic reasoning, cannot hold men together for any great length of time. Few are capable of holding to a faith without any concern for personal satisfaction or gain. A certain proportion of every mass recruited to demand a change or to further a cause will seize the opportunity offered for looting and thievery.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“The counts of Anjou and their lovely, but wicked wives gained such an unsavory reputation over the centuries that the people of England were appalled when they found that one of them was to be King of England. This was young Henry, the grandson of Henry I and of the Count of Anjou, and there was much angry muttering and shaking of heads.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Conquering Family

“That Richard III was the most notorious whipping boy in history is a theory which is now being widely held.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“The years from 1400 to 1485, which intervened between the deaths of Richard II and Richard III, were filled with the color and cruelties of civil war, with stories of deep villainy and vile conspiracy and with some slight imprints of the genius of an emerging imagination.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“with outward cordiality, and”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Magnificent Century

“The Wars of the Roses could be called the Wars of No Quarter. There is always a special ferocity in civil conflict, but the wearers of the Red and the Snow Roses were particularly revengeful. Margaret of Anjou is given credit for introducing much of the acrimony, but Edward IV, that handsome gladiatorial figure, carried it on by wholesome decapitations after the battles he won. Richard was as ambitious as any member of his family and did not scruple to use the sharp medicine of the headman’s axe against him. But a similar cause, which won admiration for Edward because he succeeded with it, was condemned in the cause of the younger and less spectacular brother because he failed. Enmity was built up against him.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“MUCH of the story of Richard’s twenty-two-year reign is based on insufficient evidence and it has generally been told without any effort to be impartial. When a king is deposed, the story of what happened is written with an eye to the favor of the new incumbent. The boy king has been treated harshly in the chronicles of the Lancastrian period and much of what has been published since follows that lead.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“All tyrants, no matter how powerful they conceive themselves to be, live in fear.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“Morton, conniving servant of a sly master, became so unpopular that his methods have remained an unpleasant legend in English history. Being more expert in the use of his legal fork than in the wielding of a scholarly pen, it was less likely that the story of Richard’s reign would be believed if it came from him. This, however, is a matter of relatively small importance, for it is agreed that the information on which the History is based was supplied by Morton. The work in question is no more than a fragment, a matter of, roughly, 25,000 words. It is in no sense a history of the reign of Richard,”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“he again expressed his belief that the equality of man was what God had planned and that all feudal laws must some day be abolished.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“Murders can be committed successfully sometimes, but the disposal of the body is always a difficult matter.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“Historians have never made the mistake of underestimating Henry VII, not even those who like him little.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“Invention, after lying fallow for centuries, was to bloom again with the suddenness which can turn a desert into a riot of lupine overnight.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Magnificent Century

“After several years of struggle to bring the country to subjection, during which Henry had to keep armies in the field at ruinous cost, his rosy dreams of affluence changed to despair. He was close to the brink of bankruptcy when he gave in finally and allowed the terms which the moderates had advised in the beginning.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Magnificent Century

“Edward’s end came suddenly and it proved a disconcerting matter to the sharp-eyed Woodvilles. It had been expected that the heir to the throne would be left in his mother’s care. Through her they could control the kingdom even more completely than they had done while the sodden king lived. A household for the young Prince of Wales had been set up under the control of Lord Rivers with the title of governor. A council had been appointed to assist in the boy’s education and training.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“THE war between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists could possibly have been brought to a quick conclusion after the victory of the White Rose at St. Albans, as Henry IV had done after the capture of Richard. If Richard of York had overcome his scruples about removing his cousin and had declared his own claim to the throne, he would have found little organized resistance at this point.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“Public memory is short and public taste sups avidly on sentiment.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Magnificent Century

“Morton, conniving servant of a sly master, became so unpopular that his methods have remained an unpleasant legend in English history. Being more expert in the use of his legal fork than in the wielding of a scholarly pen, it was less likely that the story of Richard’s reign would be believed if it came from him. This, however, is a matter of relatively small importance, for it is agreed that the information on which the History is based was supplied by Morton.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“THERE are only two sources of any value for the story which charges Richard with the murder of the two princes in the Tower of London. The first in importance, The History of King Richard III, is generally ascribed to Sir Thomas More. The second is Anglica Historia by Polydore Vergil, an Italian author who was hired by Henry VII to write a history of England. The Vergil version follows that of More in most respects but departs from it in many important omissions. The histories which were published later during the Tudor period, with few exceptions, did not deviate from what More had set down,”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Last Plantagenets

“The demands for vengeance, short of death, however, were so insistent that the wise counsels of Edward, the giver of victory, were swept aside. His brother, Edmund, who had played no part in the fighting, clamoured for the utmost severity, being rewarded himself with the earldom of Leicester and the state offices of the dead holder. Nothing in the way of punishment and confiscation was sweeping enough for the rapacious Mortimer, the demanding Gifford of Bath, the King’s Men and the Queen’s Men, who returned with outstretched palms for a share of the spoils. Henry himself was in favor of wholesale confiscation, which would relieve his debt. His hands itched for the feel, if not of the throat of London, at least its pockets.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Magnificent Century