David Starkey > Quotes

“Elizabeth for the whole of Edward's reign, never wore the rich jewels and clothes left her by her father. Instead, she offered a more virtuous example than the writing of Saints Peter and Paul, her maidenly apparel making the ladies of the court ashamed to be dressed and painted like peacocks.”
― David Starkey, Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne

“We tend to think of the Norman Conquest as the turning point in the history of England. But the Saxon Conquest was even more important, since it created both the reality and the idea of England itself.”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy

“Britannia became the land of the Angles or Ængla Land.”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy

“Their homeland lay in the north German plains between the River Elbe to the east and the River Ems to the west in a region still known today as Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony).”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy

“In the midst of prosperity the mind is elated, and in prosperity a man forgets himself; in hardship he is forced to reflect on himself, even though he be unwilling.”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy

“Wulfnoth,”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy

“The result was that, throughout the continental provinces of the Empire, a hybrid sub-Roman society continued to propagate Roman and Christian ideas of politics under the rule of Germanic kings;”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy

“lugubrious”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy

“he ended his short note with a riddle: v. n. A. 1. de A. o. na. v. e. r. Historians have found it hard enough to transcribe the letters accurately, let alone to understand them. And full interpretation remains elusive.”
― David Starkey, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII

“mater regis (‘queen mother’),”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy

“Augustus” (from the verb augeo “to make to grow or to increase”)”
― David Starkey, Magna Carta: The True Story Behind the Charter

“Latin – if increasingly debased and diluted – continued to be the spoken and written language, used by the invaders and the native populations alike.”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy

“The background was the peculiarly egalitarian nature of Germanic social structure and political values which the Anglo-Saxons brought with them to Britain.”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy

“As so often, Henry had been too clever by half–and too devious.”
― David Starkey, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII

“Bede invented the idea of England, or at least the idea of the English as a single people.”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy

“Most importantly, perhaps, they would invent a new politics which depended on participation and consent, rather than on the top-down autocracy of Rome.”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy

“But in Britannia it was a different story. Here the fall of”
― David Starkey, Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy