Antonia Fraser > Quotes

“I have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all." - Marie Antoinette”
― Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey

“As long as you persecute people, you will actually throw up terrorism.”
― Antonia Fraser

“[In 16th century European society] Marriage was the triumphal arch through which women, almost without exception, had to pass in order to reach the public eye. And after marriage followed, in theory, the total self-abnegation of the woman.”
― Antonia Fraser, The Wives of Henry VIII

“As the Dauphine stepped out of her carriage on to the ceremonial carpet that had been laid down, it was the Duc de Choiseul who was given the privilege of the first salute. Presented with the Duc by Prince Starhemberg, Marie Antoinette exclaimed: 'I shall never forget that you are responsible for my happiness!”
― Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey

“It was a fact generally acknowledged by all but the most contumacious spirits at the beginning of the seventeenth century that woman was the weaker vessel; weaker than man, that is. ... That was the way God had arranged Creation, sanctified in the words of the Apostle. ... Under the common law of England at the accession of King James I, no female had any rights at all (if some were allowed by custom). As an unmarried woman her rights were swallowed up in her father's, and she was his to dispose of in marriage at will. Once she was married her property became absolutely that of her husband. What of those who did not marry? Common law met that problem blandly by not recognizing it. In the words of The Lawes Resolutions [the leading 17th century compendium on women's legal status]: 'All of them are understood either married or to be married.' In 1603 England, in short, still lived in a world governed by feudal law, where a wife passed from the guardianship of her father to her husband; her husband also stood in relation to her as a feudal lord.”
― Antonia Fraser, The Weaker Vessel

“It lies in humanity's infinite capacity for self-deception where some perceived (and in this case long-desired) advantage is at stake”
― Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey

“Darnley, who, like Banquo's ghost, seemed to play a much more effective part in Scottish politics once he was dead than when he was alive.”
― Antonia Fraser, Mary Queen of Scots

“Mignon' said the King, 'soon you are going to be a great king'. But he also told Anjou, in a memorable phrase
'Try to remain at peace with your neighbors: I have loved war too much...”
― Antonia Fraser, Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King

“The real work of destruction had been done long before by satire, libel and rumour; Marie Antoinette had become dehumanized. The actual assault by a body of people inspiring each other with their bloodthirsty frenzy was the culmination of the process, not the start of it.”
― Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey

“A frequent charge made against “Antoinette” was that she was bathed in the blood of the French people; the truth of it was, of course, exactly the other way round.”
― Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey

“Like her marriage, Marie Antoinette’s death was a political decision.”
― Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey

“She might be furious at such things, jealous too on a purely human level; but she would never consider that the position of mistress could or would be converted into that of wife. That to Isabella – or her daughter – was quite unthinkable.”
― Antonia Fraser, The Six Wives Of Henry VIII

“...the deep division that exists in the human race, regardless of any other more obvious distinction, between those for whom books are an obsession, and those who are prepared, good-humouredly enough, to tolerate their existence.”
― Antonia Fraser

“Her imperturbable self-confidence (Duchesse de Maine) caused Madame de Stael to write that the Duchesse believed in herself the same way she believed in God, without explanation or discussion.”
― Antonia Fraser

“Though Charles II both craved and enjoyed female companionship till the end of his life, there is no question that by the cold, rainy autumn of 1682 his physical appetites had diminshed considerably. The Duchess of Portsmouth was, after all, more than twenty years his junior; and there comes a time in nearly every such relationship when the male partner is simply unable to fully accommodate the female partner. Or as Samuel Pepys tartly noted in his diary, "the king yawns much in council, it is thought he spends himself overmuch in the arms of Madame Louise, who far from being wearied, seems fresher than ever after sporting with the king.”
― Antonia Fraser, Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration

“Kings who become prisoners are not far from death.”
― Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey

“Was Charles I too stubborn to listen to reason? Could Civil War have been averted if the king had been more willing to negotiate? His great enemy Cromwell always maintained that the king had been swayed at the last moment by his queen, the beautiful Henrietta Maria. We can believe Cromwell's claim that the queen told her husband to be firm. But the wicked, spiteful, altogether irresistable quote often attributed to her by Puritan writers of the time is almost certainly false.

"Oh my love, if you cannot remain firm in the bedchamber, at least try to remain firm with your subjects!”
― Antonia Fraser, Cromwell

“It is a fact that, being a quick reader, apart from enabling a person to study good books such as Macaulay and Gibbon, enables a person to read a lot of bad books as well.”
― Antonia Fraser, My History: A Memoir of Growing Up

“sunken to that of an old woman in the harsh disguise”
― Antonia Fraser, Mary Queen of Scots

“Looking without passion is always a good plan where history is concerned. But is it really possible with regard to the career and character of Marie Antoinette?”
― Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey

“She saw that supreme dignity - and love - lay in tolerance.”
― Antonia Fraser, King Charles II

“A modern definition of terrorism: 'the weapon of the weak, pretending to be strong'.”
― Antonia Fraser, The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605

“It was the unhappy (Protestant) Huguenots, notably after the Massacre of St Bartholomew, who had sought to escape France and settle in England. Now the picture had changed. France was no longer a Catholic enemy, but an enemy representing Unbelief who was thus an enemy of Catholicism. It was a country in which nuns and priests were likely to be murdered, or imprisoned and executed during the Terror of 1792.”
― Antonia Fraser, The King and the Catholics: England, Ireland, and the Fight for Religious Freedom, 1780-1829

“As ever in a crisis, Marie Antoinette showed herself the forceful one who nonetheless could not bring herself finally to impose her will.”
― Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey

“It is in misfortune that you realize your true nature.”
― Antonia Fraser quoting Marie Antoinette

“* Certainly, it is impossible to understand the course of the Powder Treason from now on unless one takes into account the magnetism of Robert Catesby.”
― Antonia Fraser, The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605

“This time the Empress was supposed to have asked the celebrated healer and pretender to miraculous powers, John Joseph Gassner: “Will my daughter be happy?” His reply was suitably gnomic: “There are crosses for all shoulders.” 3”
― Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey

“very last answer which Paulet and Buckhurst were prepared to”
― Antonia Fraser, Mary Queen of Scots

“People cannot help their predilections, although they may conceal them.”
― Antonia Fraser, King Charles II

“but there had been nothing equal to it since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. (In 1685 Louis XIV had removed that freedom granted to the Huguenots by Henry IV to practise their own religion; it led to persecution followed by widespread emigration.) It was an odd comparison since the Revocation removed a liberty and Catholic Emancipation granted it.”
― Antonia Fraser, The King and the Catholics: England, Ireland, and the Fight for Religious Freedom, 1780-1829