Tracy Borman > Quotes

“Just as Anne had hoped, this child would one day bring England to such glory and power that its name would echo down the centuries as one of the greatest monarchs who ever lived.”
― Tracy Borman, Elizabeth's Women: Friends, Rivals, and Foes Who Shaped the Virgin Queen

“St Paul taught that the celibate cared for the things of the Lord while the married cared for the things of the world. This was endorsed (in theory at least) by the 500-year-old legacy of communal celibacy within the hundreds of monasteries that dominated the English countryside. At”
― Tracy Borman, The Private Lives of the Tudors: Uncovering the Secrets of Britain’s Greatest Dynasty

“A woman with a good education was compared to a madman with a sword: she would be a danger to herself and to others.”
― Tracy Borman, Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant

“For a queen who loved words as much as Elizabeth, Shakespeare’s plays were a stimulating delight. The playwright made up thousands of new words, more than 1,700 of which are still in common usage. They include: ‘bedroom’, ‘moonbeam’, ‘hobnob’, ‘lacklustre’ and ‘submerge’. His genius for inventing pithy phrases such as ‘all of a sudden’, ‘a foregone conclusion’ and ‘dead as a doornail’ also greatly enriched the language not just of the court, but of all levels of society. Repeating words and phrases heard in the latest Shakespeare comedy or tragedy began as an in-joke for those who had attended, but rapidly spread into common parlance.”
― Tracy Borman, The Private Lives of the Tudors: Uncovering the Secrets of Britain’s Greatest Dynasty

“Thomas Elyot’s celebrated treatise, The Castle of Health, which he had written for the old queen’s father. Even though the author was not an authority on the plants and herbs that were the bedrock of Frances’s art, she had learned a great deal about the healing properties of various foods, and of the importance of regular and prolonged sleep. She was only too glad to surrender to that now. Stretching luxuriously, she felt the soft grass brush against the soles of her feet. Her red leather pantofles lay discarded some distance away, along with her linen coif. She had unpinned her hair from the intricately braided bun that Ellen had spent some considerable time on that morning, expertly weaving the”
― Tracy Borman, The King's Witch

“There is no mystery in illness. Every sickness betrays an outward sign – often more than one. The clues are there for you to observe. The closer you watch, the more likely you are to find a cure.”
― Tracy Borman, The King's Witch

“He took a few swaying paces before collapsing against a wall and sliding down it, his head lolling forward, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.”
― Tracy Borman, The Devil's Slave

“The bodices of rich ladies were fastened with buttons rather than laces, and they took to wearing felt hats rather than hoods or veils. This outraged the more conservative members of society, who complained that it was becoming increasingly difficult to tell the two sexes apart.”
― Tracy Borman, The Private Lives of the Tudors: Uncovering the Secrets of Britain’s Greatest Dynasty

“His first Christmas speech was written for him by Rudyard Kipling”
― Tracy Borman, Crown & Sceptre: A New History of the British Monarchy, from Willam the Conqueror to Elizabeth II

“Elizabeth has often been hailed as a feminist icon. In fact, she shared the general belief in the inferiority of women and saw herself as a shining exception.”
― Tracy Borman, Crown & Sceptre: A New History of the British Monarchy, from Willam the Conqueror to Elizabeth II

“He was the first of Henry’s men to realise – and exploit – the fact that the young king could be quite easily manipulated.”
― Tracy Borman, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him

“rumbustious”
― Tracy Borman, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him

“They believed that the body consisted of four humours: choler (yellow bile), phlegm, black bile and blood – each of which needed to be kept in balance.”
― Tracy Borman, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him

“But for the time being, everything was set fair for Katherine Howard’s male”
― Tracy Borman, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him

“Moreover, there were rumours that he kept a concubine and, like Wolsey, he had at least one illegitimate child.”
― Tracy Borman, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him

“Under Elizabeth, women’s clothes also began to incorporate elements that had until now been the strict preserve of men. The bodices of rich ladies were fastened with buttons rather than laces, and they took to wearing felt hats rather than hoods or veils. This outraged the more conservative members of society, who complained that it was becoming increasingly difficult to tell the two sexes apart.”
― Tracy Borman, The Private Lives of the Tudors: Uncovering the Secrets of Britain’s Greatest Dynasty

“This was an anthology of historical texts, many of which were drawn from Arthurian legend, which proved that the king, not the Pope, had the right to exercise supreme authority over all aspects of his realm.”
― Tracy Borman, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him

“Cromwell explained that the single most useful art of the politician was to see through the disguise that sovereigns tend to throw over their true desires, and to devise the best way to satisfy these desires without upsetting morality or religion.”
― Tracy Borman, Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant

“Cnut of Denmark”
― Tracy Borman, Queen of the Conqueror: The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I

“The apparent ease with which he was able to instantly move on from someone he had been close to – whether minister, wife or confidant – bordered on the pathological.”
― Tracy Borman, Crown & Sceptre: A New History of the British Monarchy, from Willam the Conqueror to Elizabeth II

“apposite”
― Tracy Borman, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him

“The outer chambers of court would be hung with tapestries made from wool alone; the middle chambers with wool and silk, and only the king’s private apartments would be decorated with tapestries woven from gold thread. This served to reinforce the strict order of precedence at court, which was also reflected by the architecture of the palaces themselves. The king’s private chapel required another suite of bespoke fabrics, such as vestments and napery.”
― Tracy Borman, The Private Lives of the Tudors: Uncovering the Secrets of Britain’s Greatest Dynasty

“73. Cromwell’s love of all things Italian was highly unusual for a Londoner. Andreas Franciscius had been aghast to discover on his visit to the capital that its inhabitants ‘not only despise the way in which Italians live, but actually curse them with uncontrolled hatred’. This was corroborated by another Italian visitor of the period: ‘The English are great lovers of themselves, and of everything belonging to them; they think that there are no other men than themselves, and no other world than England; and whenever they see a handsome foreigner they say that “he looks like an Englishman” … They have a great antipathy to foreigners, and imagine that they never come into their island, but to make themselves master of it, and to usurp their goods.”
― Tracy Borman, Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant

“Had Victoria been on the throne, instead of George III, or if we had postponed our rebellion until Queen Victoria resigned, it would not have been necessary,’ remarked the American secretary of state, William M. Evarts, in 1878.”
― Tracy Borman, Crown & Sceptre: A New History of the British Monarchy, from Willam the Conqueror to Elizabeth II

“A yard of cloth of gold would cost six months’ wages for a labourer, and he would need to work for three years to afford a fine cloak.20”
― Tracy Borman, The Private Lives of the Tudors: Uncovering the Secrets of Britain’s Greatest Dynasty

“An evill name once gotten will not lightly be put away.”
― Tracy Borman, Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant

“Upholding royal tradition, Henry did not attend his father’s funeral, but remained at the Tower.”
― Tracy Borman, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him

“Throughout the world if it were sought, Fair words enough a man shall find; They be good cheap, they cost right nought, Their substance is but only wind; But well to say and so to mean, That sweet accord is seldom seen.”
― Tracy Borman, Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant

“the ambition which the Queen has by her nature to govern absolutely without any partner.’ As if to corroborate this, when provoked by increasing pressure from her council to marry, Elizabeth angrily retorted: ‘I will have but one mistress here, and no master!’7”
― Tracy Borman, The Private Lives of the Tudors: Uncovering the Secrets of Britain’s Greatest Dynasty

“Edward once flew into a rage and tore a living falcon into four pieces in front of his tutors.”
― Tracy Borman, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him