Novelists From England

"All the same: in the village alehouses up and down England, they are blaming the king and Anne Boleyn for the weather: the concubine, the great whore. If the king would take back his lawful wife Katherine, the rain would stop. And indeed, who can doubt that everything would be different and better, if only England were ruled by village idiots and their drunken friends?"

"In March, Parliament knocks back his new poor law. It was too much for the Commons to digest, that rich men might have some duty to the poor; but if you get fat, as gentlemen of England do, on the wool trade, you have some responsibility to the men turned off the land, the labourers without labour, the sowers without a field. England needs roads, forts, harbours, bridges. Men need work. It’s a shame to see them begging their bread, when honest labour could keep the realm secure. Can we not put them together, the hands and the task? But Parliament cannot see how it is the state’s job to create work. Are not these matters in God’s hands, and is not poverty and dereliction part of his eternal order? To everything there is a season: a time to starve and a time to thieve. If rain falls for six months solid and rots the grain in the fields, there must be providence in it; for God knows his trade. It is an outrage to the rich and enterprising, to suggest that they should pay an income tax, only to put bread in the mouths of the workshy. And if Secretary Cromwell argues that famine provokes criminality: well, are there not hangmen enough?"

"“I have never understood where the line is drawn, between sacrifice and self-slaughter.” “Christ drew it.” “You don’t see anything wrong with the comparison?”"

"Seven years she schemed to be queen, and God protect us from answered prayers."

"Henry stirs into life. “Do I retain you for what is easy? Jesus pity my simplicity, I have promoted you to a place in this kingdom that no one, no one of your breeding has ever held in the whole of the history of this realm.” He drops his voice. “Do you think it is for your personal beauty? The charm of your presence? I keep you, Master Cromwell, because you are as cunning as a bag of serpents. But do not be a viper in my bosom. You know my decision. Execute it.”"

"He thinks, if I had my way I would free them all to lead a different life. They claim they’re living the vita apostolica; but you didn’t find the apostles feeling each other’s bollocks. Those who want to go, let them go. Those monks who are ordained priest can be given benefices, do useful work in the parishes. Those under twenty-four, men and women both, can be sent back into the world. They are too young to bind themselves for life with vows."

"He says, this silence of More’s, it was never really silence, was it? It was loud with his treason; it was quibbling as far as quibbles would serve him, it was demurs and cavils, suave ambiguities. It was fear of plain words, or the assertion that plain words pervert themselves; More’s dictionary, against our dictionary. You can have a silence full of words. A lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has played. The viol, in its strings, holds a concord. A shriveled petal can hold its scent, a prayer can rattle with curses; an empty house, when the owners have gone out, can still be loud with ghosts."

"He had said to More, prophecy didn’t make her rich. He makes a memorandum to himself: “Dame Elizabeth Barton to have money to fee the hangman.” She has five days to live. The last person she will see as she climbs the ladder is her executioner, holding out his paw. If she cannot pay her way at the last, she may suffer longer than she needs. She had imagined how long it takes to burn, but not how long it takes to choke at the end of a rope. In England there is no mercy for the poor. You pay for everything, even a broken neck."

"When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them. If your law exacts a penalty, you must be able to enforce it—on the rich as well as the poor, the people on the Scottish borders and the Welsh marches, the men of Cornwall as well as the men of Sussex and Kent."

"Of his cousin Anne he says, “You like to know where you are with a woman. Is she a harlot, or a lady? Anne wants you to treat her like the Virgin Mary, but she also wants you to put your cash on the table, do the business and get out.”"

"The all-consuming passion of Wolsey for Wolsey was hot enough to scorch all England."

"Sir Francis is intermittently pious, as conspicuous sinners tend to be."

"A lie is no less a lie because it is a thousand years old."

"In his student days he was known for a sharp slanderous tongue, for irreverence to his seniors, for drinking and gaming for high stakes. But who would hold up his head, if people judged us by what we were like at twenty?"

"Have you ever observed that when a man gets a son he takes all the credit, and when he gets a daughter he blames his wife? And if they do not breed at all, we say it is because her womb is barren. We do not say it is because his seed is bad."

"He sensed in Jane’s tone the peculiar cruelty of women. They fight with the poor weapons God has bestowed – spite, guile, skill in deceit – and it is likely that in conversations between themselves they trespass in places where a man would never trust his footing."

"I don’t suppose she would be a bad wife, for somebody who was prepared to keep her chained to the wall."

"But it is no use to justify yourself. It is no good to explain. It is weak to be anecdotal. It is wise to conceal the past even if there is nothing to conceal. A man’s power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face. It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires."

"“You see,” she says slowly, “I was always desired. But now I am valued. And that is a different thing, I find.”"

"When have I, when have I ever forced anyone to do anything, he starts to say: but Richard cuts in, “No, you don’t, I agree, it’s just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it’s quite difficult, sir to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in street and stamped on.”"

"“He is a good boy, Gregory. Not the most forward, but I can understand that. We’ll make him useful yet.” “You don’t intend him for the church?” Cranmer asks. “I said,” growls Rowland, “we’ll make him useful.”"

"The cardinal used to say, the English will forgive a king anything, until he tries to tax them."

"Anne says, “I am Jezebel. You, Thomas Cromwell, are the priests of Baal.” Her eyes are alight. “As I am a woman, I am the means by which sin enters this world. I am the devil’s gateway, the cursed ingress. I am the means by which Satan attacks the man, whom he was not bold enough to attack, except through me. Well, that is their view of the situation. My view is that there are too many priests with scant learning and smaller occupation. And I wish the Pope and the Emperor and all Spaniards were in the sea and drowned.”"

"One tradesman the same as the next? Not in the real world. Any man with a steady hand and a cleaver can call himself a butcher: but without the smith, where does he get that cleaver? Without the man who works in metal, where are your hammers, your scythes, your sickles, scissors and planes? Your arms and armor, your arrowheads, your pikes and your guns? Where are your ships at sea and their anchors? Where are your grappling hooks, your nails, latches, hinges, pokers and tongs? Where are your spits, kettles, trivets, your harness rings, buckles and bits? Where are your knives?"

"“But I need a new husband. To stop them calling me names. Can the cardinal get husbands?” “The cardinal can do anything. What kind of husband would you like?” She considers. “One who will take care of my children. One who can stand up to my family. One who doesn’t die.”"

"Katherine finds him too intimate with his co-legate; anyone who has spent much time with Wolsey, she thinks, no longer knows what honesty is."

"What was England, before Wolsey? A little offshore island, poor and cold."

"The king turns, he looks at him, astonished. “You are not of Thomas More’s opinion, are you?” He waits. He cannot imagine what the king is going to say. “La chasse. He thinks it barbaric.” “Oh, I see. No, Your Majesty, I favor any sport that’s cheaper than battle.”"

"There cannot be new things in England. There can be old things freshly presented or new things that pretend to be old."

"He says, “No ruler in the history of the world has ever been able to afford a war. They’re not affordable things. No prince ever says, ‘This is my budget, so this is the kind of war I can have.’ You enter into one and it uses up all the money you’ve got, and then it breaks you and bankrupts you.”"

"More pats his arm. “Have you no plans to marry again, Thomas? No? Perhaps wise. My father always says, choosing a wife is like putting your hand into a bag full of writhing creatures, with one eel to six snakes. What are the chances you will pull out the eel?”"

"The ladies of Italy, seemingly carefree, wore constructions of iron beneath their silks. It took infinite patience, not just in negotiation, to get them out of their clothes."

"We don’t have to invite pain in, he thinks. It’s waiting for us: sooner rather than later."

"Unreliable, is the word that comes to mind. If all the old stories are to be believed, and some people, let us remember, do believe them, then our king is one part bastard archer, one part hidden serpent, one part Welsh, and all of him in debt to the Italian banks…"

"News comes from France of the cardinal’s triumphs, parades, public Masses and extempore Latin orations. It seems that, once disembarked, he has stood on every high altar in Picardy and granted the worshippers remission of their sins. That’s a few thousand Frenchman free to start all over again."

"Thomas More says that the imperial troops, for their enjoyment, are roasting live babies on spits. Oh, he would! says Thomas Cromwell. Listen, soldiers don’t do that. They’re too busy carrying away everything they can turn into ready money."

"Lent saps the spirits, as of course it is designed to do."

"Norfolk approaches him. He stands far too close. His eyes are bloodshot. Every sinew is jumping. He says, “Substitute nothing, you misbegotten—” The duke stabs a forefinger into his shoulder. “You…person,” he says; and again, “you nobody from Hell, you whore-spawn, you cluster of evil, you lawyer.”"

"It is a sure sign of troubled minds, the habit of quotation."

"And I suppose the cardinal might send him a present for his trouble. Some money, I mean. Our aunt Mercy says that the pope does nothing except on cash terms."

"Beneath every history, another history."

"The trouble with England, he thinks, is that it’s so poor in gesture. We shall have to develop a hand signal for “Back off, our prince is fucking this man’s daughter.” He is surprised that the Italians have not done it. Though perhaps they have, and he just never caught on."

"It will be the usual tense gathering, everyone cross and hungry: for even a rich Italian with an ingenious kitchen cannot find a hundred ways with smoked eel or salt cod. The merchants in Lent miss their mutton and malmsey, their nightly grunt in a featherbed with wife or mistress; from now to Good Friday their knives will be out for some cutthroat intelligence, some mean commercial advantage."

"It’s not easy to speak of nonexistence, even if you’ve already commissioned your tomb."

"A part of the art of ruling, I suppose, is to know when to shut your ears."

"Wherever he goes he is cheered by the people. “The people?” Norfolk says. They’d cheer a Barbary ape. Who cares what they cheer? Hang ’em all.” “But then who will you tax?” he says, and Norfolk looks at him fearfully, unsure if he’s made a joke."

"Leases, writs, statutes, all are written to be read and each person reads them by the light of self-interest."

"“She is selling herself by the inch. The gentlemen all say you are advising her. She wants a present in cash for every advance above her knee.” “Not like you, Mary. One push backward and, good girl, here’s your fourpence.” “Well. You know. If kings are doing the pushing.” She laughs. “Anne has very long legs. By the time he comes to her secret part he will be bankrupt. The French wars will be cheap, in comparison.”"

"Why do I feel I have heard this story before? She has a flock of monks and priests about her, who directed the people’s eyes heavenward while picking their pockets."

"All our lives and fortunes depend now on that lady, and as well as being mutable she is mortal, and the whole history of the king’s marriage tells us a child in the womb is not an heir in the cradle."