“I have given my word that only death will take me from you.”

“Good Evening , Sir John. I hope that you will accept a little gift from me.'I should be honored, Your Majesty.'I want to give you a little carved stool from my privy chambers. A pretty little piece from France. I hope you will like it.'I should be grateful.'It is for your daughter. For Jane. To sit on. She seems not to have a seat of her own but she must borrow mine.”

“Take care with your words, Jacquetta, especially in cursing. Only say the things you mean, make sure you lay your curse on the right man. For be very sure that when you put such words out in the world they can overshoot-like an arrow, a curse can go beyond your target and harm another. A wise woman curses very sparingly.”

“I want to take you for pleasure, and hold you in my arms for desire. I want you to know that it is your kiss that I want, not another heir to the throne. You can know that I love you, quite for yourself, when I come to your bed, and not as the York’s broodmare.”I tilt back my head and look at him under my eyelashes. “You think to bed me for love and not for children? Isn’t that sin?”His arm comes around my waist and his palm cups my breast. “I shall make sure that it feels richly sinful.”

“Good Christian people, I am come hither to die, for according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that, whereof I am accused and condemned to die, but I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never: and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord. And if any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me. O Lord have mercy on me, to God I commend my soul.'After being blindfolded and kneeling at the block, she repeated several times:To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesu receive my soul.”

“The stewards, and then the bailiffs, and then finally the lawyers meet. They wrangle, they agree, and we are to be married in June. It is no little decision for me - for the first time in my life I have my own lands in my own hands as a widow; once I become a wife everything becomes Lord Stanley's property. I have to struggle to reserve what I can from the law that rules that a wife has no rights, and I keep what I can, but I know that I am choosing my master.”

“Daniel, I did not knowwhat I wanted when I was agirl. And then I was a fool in every sense of the word. And now that I am a woman grown, I know that I love you and I want this son of yours, and our children who will come. I have seen a woman break her heart for love: my Queen Mary. I have seen another break her soul to avoid it: my Princess Elizabeth. I don't want to be Mary or Elizabeth, I want to be me: Hannah Verde Carpenter.""And we shall live somewhere that we can follow our belifs without danger," he insisted."Yes," I said, "in the England that Elizabeth will make.”