Hilary Mantel

"“I hear you will bring in a law,” Kingston says. “It seems harsh, to make them commit a crime in retrospect.” They try to explain it to the constable. A prince cannot be impeded by temporal distinctions: past, present, future. Nor can he excuse the past, just for being over and done. He can’t say, ‘all water under the bridges;’ the past is always trickling under the soil, a slow leak you can’t trace. Often, meaning is only revealed retrospectively. The will of God, for instance, is brought to light these days by more skilful translators. As for the future, the king’s desires move swiftly and the law must run to keep up. Bear in mind his Majesty’s remarkable foresight, at the trial of the late queen. He knew the sentence before the verdict was in. “True,” Kingston says. “The executioner was already on the sea."

"King Henry offers his services as mediator, and declares he will remain neutral. “By which he means,” Chapuys says, he will go to the side that promises him most and cost him least. That is what he means by neutrality.” He says, “What prince would do anything else? He must seize his advantage. “But then,” Chapuys says, “Henry took so much of his honour.” “Oh,” he says, “they all do.”"

"You see how, my Lord, by the time my councillors proclaimed me, they had already started lying to me. As soon as you are king, nobody tells you the truth."

"“The burden of kingship,” he says, “no man can imagine it. All my life, to be a prince: to be observed to be a prince; all eyes to be set on me; to be an exemplar of virtue, of discretion, of excellence in learning; to have a mind young and vigorous yet as wise as Solomon; to take pleasure in what others have designed for my pleasure, or be thought ungrateful; to discipline all my appetites, to unmake myself as a man in order to make myself as a king; to waste not a minute list I be seen to waste it; for idleness, no excuses; always alert to prove, always to show, that I am worthy of the place God appointed me…”"

"Only a fool sees plots where there are none."

"When I was first in his service he thought of our Zürich friends as no more than blasphemers who eat sausage in Lent. And Luther, he believed he was the son of a demon, who foams at the mouth when Mass is said. But what you must remember about the king—he was brought up to heed priests and to ask forgiveness for everything he does. You may kick out the confessors and tell him he is justified, but he still has a priest in the head."

"“Their abbots will curse you.” “Curses with me have none effect, because I give them no credit. They may curse till they combust.”"

"Honour is a luxury, when someone is trying in earnest to kill you."

"Young men claim they want change, they want freedom, but the truth is, freedom just confuses them and change makes them quake. Set them on the open road with a purse and a fair wind, and before they’ve gone a mile they are crying for a master: they must be indentured, they must be in bond, they must have someone to obey."

"“The first news is always wrong,” he says."

"“Majesty, was it not an honest mistake?” “Women are the beginning of all mistakes. Read any of the divines, and they will tell you.”"

"The monks present themselves as having lived like beggars, in garments ragged and patched, and without firewood or food stores. They have sold the firewood, of course, they have sold the grain, and unless you are swift on their trail they will pawn or bury their treasures."

"The purpose of ghost stories is extortion, generally: to frighten poor folks into paying for prayers and charms to protect them."

"His word is just what a diplomat’s word should be: as clear as glass and as unstable as water."

"“Talk to Riche,” the king says, bored. “Riche?” Lord Lisle says. “There was never such a dip-pocket as he! He wants a shilling to say good morning to you!” “He’s a lawyer,” the king says, “how else do they make their shillings?”"

"The monks crammed the corpse in a stone coffin and buried it in haste. But they took care to mark the spot where Becket died. The miracles began after two days. Frozen arms jerked in their sockets. Cripples danced. Hot as a devil’s fart, word rattled around Europe that the knave was a martyr for our Holy Mother Church, whereas really he was a martyr for his own pride. Within two years the Pope made him a saint. The clamour for relics began. His blood, diluted so only the memory of it remained, was sold through the known world. The spot the monks had marked became his shrine. Even the lice from his hair shirt were sacred. Fifty years after his death his remains were placed inside a new and rich feretory, on a platform behind the high altar. Soon the faithful had plated the chest in gold and studded it with gemstones. The King of France give a ruby the size of a hen’s egg. Queen Katherine was often a pilgrim here. The Emperor Charles has prayed to the bones."

"“Summer is coming, but the king rains and shines like April. Men change their religion as they change their coats. The council makes a resolution and next minute forgets it. We write letters and the words expunge. We are playing chess in the dark.” “On a board made of jelly,” he says. “With chessmen of butter.”"

"“He is frightened of you, sir. You have outgrown him. You have gone beyond what any servant or subject should be.” It is the cardinal over again, he thinks. Wolsey was broken not for his failures, but for his successes; not for any error, but for grievances stored up, about how great he had become."

"He thinks, ten years I have had my soul flattened and pressed till it’s not the thickness of paper. Henry has ground and ground me in the mill of his desires, and now I am fined down to dust I am no more use to him, I am powder in the wind. Princes hate those to whom they have incurred debts."

"Treason can be construed from any scrap of paper, if the will is there. A syllable will do it. The power is in the hands of the reader, not the writer."

"But the law is not an instrument to find out truth. It is there to create a fiction that will help us move past atrocious acts and face our future. It seems there is no mercy in this world, but a kind of haphazard justice: men pay for crimes, but not necessarily their own."

"“You shouldn’t believe in ghosts,” he says uncertainly. “I don’t,” Martin says. “But who are they to care, if I believe in them or not?”"

"He would like Wolsey to come in so they could have a game of chess: though you should never play chess with a prelate, they always have a pawn in their sleeves."

"We are all dying, just at different speeds."

"He, Thomas, had paid for Masses for his soul. “Do you think it does any good?” he had said to the priest. “Don’t despair of him,” the fellow said. “He was rough but he wasn’t all bad.” “No,” he said, “I don’t mean, will prayers do Walter any good. I mean, do they do good for any dead person? God is watching us all our lives. Surely, if you live as long as Walter, God has formed a view. Unless he always knows.” “That sounds like heresy to me,” the priest said. “Of course it does. It hits your pocket. If God knows his mind, what becomes of your chantries and your rosaries and your fees for a thousand years of Masses?”"

"He had thought, if ever I need to disappear, Venice is where I will come."

"When he pictures Hell he can only think of a cold place, a wasteland, a wharf, a marsh, a landing stage; Walter distantly bawling, then the bawling coming nearer. That is how it will be—not pain itself, but the constant apprehension of pain; the constant apprehension of fault, the knowledge that you are going to be punished for something you couldn’t help and didn’t even know was wrong; and the discord in Hell will be constant, repeating for ever and ever, a violent argument being carried on in the next room."

"The guard make a wall, but Christophe’s arm snakes between them as if to touch him. One of the men raises his armoured fist. He hears a crack. He sees the boy’s face twist in shock and pain. Holding out his arm like a broken wing, his voice hoarse, his body convulsing, he speaks his curse: “Henry King of England! I, Christophe Cremuel, curse you. The Holy Ghost curses you. Your own mother curses you. I hope a leper spits on you. I hope your whore has the pox. I hope you go to sea in a boat with a hole in it. I hope the waters of your heart rise up and spout down your nose. May you fall under a cart. May rot rise up from your heels to your head, going slowly, so you take seven years to die. May God squash you. May Hell gape.”"