17th Century Quotes

“As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler.”
― Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation

“Em resumo, há nos homens, quando eles se deixam guiar pelos olhos, uma tal credulidade da qual sua majestosa sabedoria não suspeita, fazendo que os mais avisados dentre eles sejam frequentemente enganados por nós.”
― John Cleland, Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“Everyone who has an interest in the History of Winchester, the Civil War In Hampshire and the 17th Century needs to read this - Desecration: Winchester 1642 by Charles Cordell”
― Warwick Louth

“The horse’s hooves crashed out on the stone floor, echoing in the arched entrance. Ahead, the nave stretched, vast, empty, bathed in colour; the winter sun streaming through stained glass between great arches. The horse snorted, its measured steps ringing out on the flagstones and tombs.”
― Charles Cordell, Desecration: Winchester 1642

“The gun stood on its platform, staring out over the breastwork of earth and timber, out across the steep valley to the hill beyond; a flat-topped hill, a great field of wheat laid over it, ripening and shimmering in the late afternoon sun; a cornfield filled with an army, a Cornish army, a superstitious, idolatrous army; an army of half-wild, barbarous heathens; a cornfield and an army to be cut down; a sacrifice to be reaped. 'For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”
― Charles Cordell, The Keys of Hell and Death

“Grenville's line of Cornishmen swayed and lurched, a low growl running through the ranks like a storm far out at sea, the boulders grinding as the waves built. And then it burst, men yelling, shaking their weapons in the air, the pikes clashing, thumping the ground, shouting, demanding, exclaiming, 'Kernow vedn keskerras!' Cornwall will march!”
― Charles Cordell, The Keys of Hell and Death

“But God knew how he missed the sea. He missed it in the sun, in the wind and the dark. He even missed the hiss of rain sweeping across it. He missed the dancing sunlight, its ever-shifting tint and hue, scudding cloud and shadow – dappled, ruffled, heaving, waves ridden by white horses, spume streaked, fierce and shrieking. He missed its limitless, open call, its ungoverned, unchecked freedom, the pull of the horizon, an unknown shore, clarity and unfathomable deep. Most of all he missed the 'mordroz': the sound of the sea, its soothing whisper, its pounding drum, its howling fury. For the sea called to him still; it was in his blood, wanted him back, sucked at his soul, clawing, smothering, dragging him down, a restless lover, a shining temptress that could never be sated.”
― Charles Cordell, The Keys of Hell and Death

“I have been waiting for this second novel - The Keys of Hell and Death - in Charles Cordell's series, and am not disappointed. Once more, he evokes the experience of the Civil War soldier, in every branch of arms, more vividly than ever before.”
― Professor Ronald Hutton

“ Charles Cordell, a former soldier, writes with bravura confidence.”
― The Times

“ The Keys of Hell and Death by Charles Cordell - plunges the reader into the very trenches, hedgerows, ridges and streets of the war.”
― Miranda Malins

“I have been waiting for this second novel - The Keys of Hell and Death by Charles Cordell - and am not disappointed. Once again he evokes the experience of the Civil War soldier more vividly than ever before.”
― Ronald Hutton

“The ground shudders from cavalry attack and cannon fire. You can smell the sweat of fear." - The Keys of Hell and Death by Charles Cordell”
― David Gilman

“Shit on the tyranny of privilege and oppression that enclosed common land.”
― Charles Cordell, God's Vindictive Wrath

“As one, they yelled the name of a princess butchered, a child locked in a barren convent, the last drifting snow of Glyndŵr. ‘Gwenllian!”
― Charles Cordell, God's Vindictive Wrath

“Spike, rake, sponge, charge, wad, shot, wad – the gun crews worked like automatons. There was something extraordinary in the way that every man performed his motions as a part of the action. Every movement was synchronised with the next. They were a perfect machine – each one a piece of the mechanism, like the wheels of the watch in his pocket. He could think of no other example of men working together with such precision. This was man, industry and science in unison. Was this the way of the future? It was a wondrous and near-perfect thing. But it was a perfection bent on destruction.”
― Charles Cordell, God's Vindictive Wrath

“An exciting minute-by-minute story of the English Civil War … from the soldier’s point of view … the historical accuracy is fantastic … the storyline and writing style tremendously exciting." - God's Vindictive Wrath by Charles Cordell”
― Historical Novel Society

“Straight into the action, fast-paced and authentic. This story captures all the confusion, fear and excitement of battle. It will appeal to anyone who enjoys historical adventure novels." - God's Vindictive Wrath by Charles Cordell”
― Michael Arnold

“Do not miss this evocative account of the English Civil War, and the ordinary men caught up in it." - God's Vindictive Wrath by Charles Cordell”
― Ben Kane

“A so-called antimony war had been waged between French [Galenist] physicians and [alchemical, Paracelsian] iatrochemists since the beginning of the seventeenth century. What it lacked in bloodletting, this war made up for in bile.”
― Philip Ball, The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science

“...the disease killed eight thousand...between its first appearance in October 1635 and its eventual disappearance in July 1637...The appalling impact of the plague had two significant consequences. One was that it created a shortage of labor and thus resulted in a rise in wages as employers competed for man-power.”
― Mike Dash, Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

“Las penas anticipadas dicen que matan dos veces.”
― Lope de Vega, El caballero de Olmedo

“Es tan bella que el mismo sol la envidia.”
― Lope de Vega, El caballero de Olmedo

“Such command and honesty! Your figures are full of emotion, for instance, here – points at the panel – the figure of Judas on his knees, wringing his hands in self-hatred and pleading for forgiveness… Who would have thought that someone your age, a miller at that, could put so much into a figure!”
― Sarah Emily Miano, Van Rijn

“I left the house and headed for the Lauriergracht, where Van Hoogstraten had taken up residence since leaving Vienna and his post as court painter specializing in optical deceits. He currently made peepshow boxes constructed of wood, with one missing side that allowed light to enter as if through a shuttered window, and two small holes for viewing the painted panels of scenes inside. I had never seen one of these peepshows personally, and hoped he would have at least one to show me.”
― Sarah Emily Miano, Van Rijn

“Across the whole of the Americas, the introduction of infectious diseases from Europe resulted in a 90 percent fall in the population, from about 60.5 million in 1500 to 6 million a century later.”
― Jonathan Kennedy, Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues

“An exciting minute-by-minute story of the English Civil War … from the soldier’s point of view … the historical accuracy is fantastic … the storyline and writing style tremendously exciting.”
― Historical Novels Review

“Charles Cordell, a former soldier, writes with bravura confidence.”
― The Times

“But such is the nature of the concept of tolerance. It evolves. Every generation puts its own limitations on it, and the clashes that define a given generation seem in many respects to be over the question of who and what that generation tolerates.”
― Russel Shorto

“The rivalry was so intense that English pamphleteers competed with one another to come up with ever more lurid headlines about the Dutch. (My favourite of these: "The Dutch-mens Pedigree; Or, A Relation Shewing How They Were First Bred and Descended froma Horse-Turd Which Was Enclosed in a Butter-Box.)”
― Russel Shorto

“Ralph’s horse shifted under him. It sensed the danger, the fear, the icy sweat that ran down his back. He laid a calming hand on the animal’s thick veined neck. Breda had carried him across the battlefield of Edgehill, got him safe away at Aylesbury, Brentford and Turnham. Could they make it back behind Winchester’s walls? The great charger stepped backward. Along their short line, other horses were backing up, tossing their heads, whinnying.
‘As you were!’ Smith held them in check. ‘On my order. Keep close. Together.’ He looked at them. Looked again at the enemy about them. ‘Now! Ride for the gate!”
― Charles Cordell, Desecration: Winchester 1642