Tudor Watch Quotes

Once more, I am watching the most powerful men in the kingdom bring their power to bear on a woman who has done nothing worse than live to the beat of her own heart, see with her own eyes; but this is not their tempo nor their vision and they cannot tolerate any other.

De-abia plecaseşi. Te-am rugat să pleci. Te urmăream de-a lungul molatecii poteci, Pân-ai pierit, la capăt, prin trifoi. Nu te-ai uitat o dată înapoi! Ţi-as fi făcut un semn, după plecare, Dar ce-i un semn din umbră-n depărtare? Voiam să pleci, voiam şi să rămâi. Ai ascultat de gândul ce-l dintâi. Nu te oprise gândul fără glas. De ce-ai plecat? De ce-ai mai fi rămas? www youtube com/watch?v=Mv8lW_NY5ek

Pope Pius II, watching England from afar, would later describe Henry in this phase of his life as “a man more timorous than a woman, utterly devoid of wit or spirit, who left everything in his wife’s hands.”2

The two women look at each other and in both faces there is a glimpse of the girls that they were. A little smile warms Margaret’s face and Jacquetta’s eyes are filled with love. It is as if the years are no more than the mists of Barnet or the snows at Towton: they are gone, it is hard to believe they were ever there. Margaret puts out her hand, not to touch her friend but to make a gesture, a secret shared gesture, and, as we watch, Jacquetta mirrors the movement. Eyes fixed on each other they both raise their index finger and trace a circle in the air – that’s all they do. Then they smile to each other as if life itself is a joke, a jest that means nothing and a wise woman can laugh at it; then, without a word, Margaret passes silently into the darkness of the tower. "What was that?" Isabel exclaims. "It was the sign for the wheel of fortune," I whisper. ‘The wheel of fortune which put Margaret of Anjou on the throne of England, heiress to the kingdoms of Europe, and then threw her down to this. Jacquetta warned her of this long ago – they knew. The two of them knew long ago that fortune throws you up to greatness and down to disaster and all you can do is endure.

A magpie carks above, making an awful racket.

To assure someone that if enough nuns sing enough Masses then her dead child will go to heaven is trickery as low as passing a false coin as good. To buy a pardon from the pope, to force the pope to annul a marriage, to make him set aside kinship laws, to watch as he fleeces his cardinals, who charge the bishops, who rent to the priests, who seek their tithes from the poor – all these abuses would have to fall away if we agreed that a soul can come to God without any intervention. The crucifixion is the work of God. The church is the work of man.

She's ice and ambition and she would see you on the gallows before surrendering her ambition. Anne has dazzled him, and dazzled the court, and dazzled even you.' 'Not me.' George said gently. 'Uncle likes her best,' I said resentfully. 'He likes nobody, but he wonders how far she might go.' 'We all wonder that. And what price she's prepared to pay. Especially if it's me that pays it.' 'It's not an easy dance she's leading.' George admitted. 'I hate her,' I said simple. 'I could happily watch her die for her ambition.

I looked over to Anne. She was untying her mask and watching me with a long calculating look, the Boleyn look, the Howard look that says: what has happened here, and how may I turn it to my advantage? It was as if under her golden mask was another beautiful mask of skin, and only beneath that was the real woman.

....One dark night, my Tudor Ford climbed the hill's skull; I watched for love-cars. Lights turned down, they lay together, hull to hull, where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . . My mind's not right. A car radio bleats, "Love, O careless Love. . . ." I hear my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell, as if my hand were at its throat. . . . I myself am hell; nobody's here-- only skunks, that search in the moonlight for a bite to eat. They march on their soles up Main Street: white stripes, moonstruck eyes' red fire under the chalk-dry and spar spire of the Trinitarian Church. I stand on top of our back steps and breathe the rich air-- a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage pail. She jabs her wedge-head in a cup of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail, and will not scare.

I cannot catch courage from his smile. I have to do this all entirely alone, with thousands of strangers watching my every movement. Nothing is to detract from my rise from gentry woman to Queen of England, from mortal to a being divine: next to God. When they crown me and anoint me with the holy oil, I become a new being, one above mortals, only one step below angels, beloved, and the elect of heaven.

The Birth of the Prince and the Pauper In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the name of Canty, who did not want him. On the same day another English child was born to a rich family of the name of Tudor, who did want him. All England wanted him too. England had so longed for him, and hoped for him, and prayed God for him, that, now that he was really come, the people went nearly mad for joy. Mere acquaintances hugged and kissed each other and cried. Everybody took a holiday, and high and low, rich and poor, feasted and danced and sang, and got very mellow; and they kept this up for days and nights together. By day, London was a sight to see, with gay banners waving from every balcony and house-top, and splendid pageants marching along. By night, it was again a sight to see, with its great bonfires at every corner, and its troops of revelers making merry around them. There was no talk in all England but of the new baby, Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales, who lay lapped in silks and satins, unconscious of all this fuss, and not knowing that great lords and ladies were tending him and watching over him—and not caring, either. But there was no talk about the other baby, Tom Canty, lapped in his poor rags, except among the family of paupers whom he had just come to trouble with his presence.

Everyone around you is just doing their best to make it through today. Because tomorrow will come, and you have to repeat the same day over and over again.  As a kid, you go into the grocery store, and it feels like a never-ending castle filled with different rooms. You feel like every time you enter, there’s always something new to discover. But as an adult, you’ll start to get mad when they change the aisles around because now you can't find the damn oranges!  I never imagined that I would one day be employed in the magical grocery store my family and I went to every Saturday. I never imagined that the place I swore I’d never end up, would soon become the place where I was stuck. Emotionally and physically. As I watch customers trickle in and out, I create stories for each of them. The guy holding flowers and staring at his watch is probably late for a date. The young woman reading the get well soon greeting cards might have had someone close to her get hurt—or maybe they're sick.  All the stories I create for these people make me happy. They’re out in the world. They’re living whereas I’m only existing. I have nobody to share my oranges with. I have nobody to blow out candles in front of. I’m directionless and alone. This big magical place I once thought of is now holding me hostage. I had love once. I had people around me once. I had someone to grocery shop with on the weekends and laugh with when our groceries dropped through the bag. I once had someone to argue with over who was allowed to push the cart. I once had someone who would peel my oranges for me when we got home. Now, my oranges sit and rot in the bowl on my small kitchen table. I have to throw them away most of the time. Yet, I still buy them because it reminds me of something I once had. Is that all life is?

I watch her walk back down the driveway and disappear around the corner. Holding on, I think. Letting go. Sometimes, they’re one and the same.

There’s something in waiting, not knowing how things are going to turn out. Actually watching the images develop. It’s more satisfying than taking endless pictures on a phone and then leaving them sitting on a computer and never looking at them again.

The reality is that from an early age we were watching, scrutinising, logging and mimicking in order to apply the best way of manipulating you.

However, it is my skill at impersonating emotions that is where my brilliance lies. You see, I know that you want to believe everything I say and do. It is a very human trait. The need to believe. That is why Karl Marx declared that religion is the opium of the masses. I am your opium. Utterly addictive. You want to believe in me. You therefore make it easy for me to feign how I feel. I watch and I learn and I copy. Since you are desperate to believe you do not analyse my mimicry to any great degree and accordingly I get away with it. I create a false environment. This world is one where I promise you the earth (but never deliver) and if you try and challenge me about my promises I will pretend I never said them. You cannot prove it can you? Thus I maintain control by causing you to be anxious. Everything I do with you is false. The way I drew you in, the façade I maintain, the games I play. They are all designed to create something, which is not real purely to serve my purposes. Some of you eventually realise this, although only when it is too far late. For others, you never grasp that I am the great pretender and thus you consign yourself to a lifetime of despair and misery.

If women could only have more,” I said longingly. “If we could have more in our own right. Being a woman at court is like forever watching a pastrycook at work in the kitchen. All those good things, and you can have nothing.

Let’s dance for the Queen of the May!” Henry said, and swept a girl into a set and they danced before me, and I, seated on the queen’s throne, watching her husband dance, and flirt prettily with his partner, knew that I wore her tolerant mask-like smile on my own face. ♦

It was a dance like no other, a dance of seduction. Henry did not take his blue eyes off my face, he danced toward me, stamped his foot and clapped his hands as if he would strip me naked then and there before the whole court. I banished the thought of the watching queen from my mind. I kept my head up and my eyes fixed on the king, and I danced toward him, the sly tripping steps, with a sway of my hips and a turn of my head. We faced one another and he snatched me up in the air and held me, there was a ripple of applause, he lowered me gently to my feet and I felt my cheeks burning with a potent combination of self-consciousness, triumph, and desire. We parted to the beat of the tabor and then came back as the dance turned our steps toward each other again. Once again he threw me up in the air and this time slid me down, so that my body was pressed against his. I felt him down every inch of my body: his chest, his hose, his legs. We paused, our faces so close that if he had leaned forward he could have kissed me. I felt his breath on my face and then he said very quietly: “My chamber. Come at once.” ♦

He likes to think well of himself,” I explained, watching the turn of Anne’s head and hearing her ripple of low laughter. “He could not bring himself to turn off a woman just because she’s become old. He has to find a way to see that it is God’s will that he leaves her. He has to find a greater authority than his own desires.

She never showed Henry the strain she suffered. She remained for him the fascinating woman she had always been. She would show him her temper if he crossed her, quick enough. But she never showed him her fear. She never showed her fear to anyone but to George and me. Henry had her sweetness and her charm and her flirtatiousness. Even eight months with child Anne could flick her eyes sideways in a way which would make a man catch his breath. I used to watch her talking with Henry, and see that every gesture, every inch of her was devoted to delighting him. No

Athelinda had long ago realized that the mind, human or vampyr, was not designed to endure long periods of absolute reality. It was why we dreamed, of course. But also, why we made up stories, read books, watched plays and films.

Dagglebelt almost snatched the held-out pumpkin in his eagerness. His big chance had come. "Now just watch me a minute,"he pleaded. He planted his feet in an open fourth. He threw up one pumpkin. He threw up another. He threw up the third. "Juggler, "explained the Master of the Revels. Breathing heavily Dagglebelt caught the first pumpkin. He clutched at the second. He missed the third. "A bad juggler," said Burghley disappointed. "It was an accident," said Dagglebelt. He picked up the pumpkins. He tried again. "Dolt," cried a raw voice from an upper storey. "Run away and practice while you still have hands to do it with." Dagglebelt gave one glance. He abandoned his pumpkins. He ran. Elizabeth of England withdrew from the window. She was smiling.

His is a rule of terror. He makes us afraid of imaginary enemies so we don’t guard ourselves against him and against our government. We are so busy watching for foreigners that we forget to watch our friends.

Once more, I am watching the most powerful men in the kingdom bring their power to bear on a woman who has done nothing worse than live to the beat of her own heart, see with her own eyes; but this is not their tempo nor their vision, and they cannot tolerate any other.

At the age of ten I was threatened by a switchblade-wielding lad who is today the president of a prestigious local bank. At the age of nineteen I watched a gang of Kansas City’s most privileged, in their uniform madras shorts and polo shirts, snort cocaine at a party in some local grandee’s sprawling Tudor-baronial pile. Growing up here teaches the indelible lesson that wealth has some secret bond with crime—also with drug use, bullying, lying, adultery, and thundering, world-class megalomania.