Quotes from Antonia Fraser

For the King's distaste at the idea of a mistress, Marie Antoinette can hardly be blamed; yet somehow she was turned into the scapegoat of this upsetting of the natural order of things-as the French court saw it.

The fact that Catholic soldiers could die for a country which denied them the worship they wanted was constantly and rightly emphasized during the campaign for Emancipation.

Anti-Catholicism in England was certainly not eliminated in 1829, just as permanent peace was certainly not achieved in Ireland.

George IV remained unwilling to give his Royal Assent to the bill until the very end. He did so finally, 'with pain and regret'

None of this internecine combat affected the future of Catholicism quite so much as the dramatic, often horrifying events in France. In August 1792 a decree by the new French Legislative Assembly ordered all priests who refused the revolutionary oath to be expelled from the country. The King, Louis XVI, was put to death in January 1793 and in February France declared war on England.

It was the unhappy (Protestant) Huguenots, notably after the Massacre of St Bartholomew, who had sought to escape France and settle in England. Now the picture had changed. France was no longer a Catholic enemy, but an enemy representing Unbelief who was thus an enemy of Catholicism. It was a country in which nuns and priests were likely to be murdered, or imprisoned and executed during the Terror of 1792.

The Reformation, which had necessitated the flight of the convents and their treasured nun–teachers from England, was a positive disadvantage to the cause of girls' education – unless the girls could go abroad.

There was a significant reminder of the history they all shared: 'It is hoped that a difference in religious persuasion [Catholic as opposed to Protestant] will not shut the hearts of the English Public against their suffering brethren, the Christians of France.

ON 12 JANUARY 1829, a week before Anglesey's tragic, tearful and triumphant departure from Ireland, the Home Secretary, Robert Peel, wrote a long letter to Wellington. He told him that if his resignation would be an 'insuperable obstacle' to Emancipation, he would stay.

This came after the Archbishop of Canterbury and two of his fellow bishops had indicated to the Prime Minister that the attitude of the Church of England towards Catholic Emancipation, symbolized by their persistently hostile voting in the House of Lords, had not changed.

Peel now wrote to the Dean of Christ Church (his old college) to tell him that he intended to bring in a bill in favour of Emancipation and offering his resignation if it was required.

The 1798' – the Irish revolt of the United Irishmen against English domination, potentially backed by French forces – was led by the Protestant Wolfe Tone.

The pattern of Scottish politics was forming once more into the same shapes of family alliances and feuds, in which the power of one noble could not be allowed to grow unchecked, and in which English help was like the joker in the pack of cards.

Wolfe Tone proposed that Anti-Catholicism belonged to 'the dark ages of superstition', not 'the days of illumination, at the close of the eighteenth century'.

It can be a long gap between the emergence of fully researched historical biographies.

I have no plans for a future Jemima Shore mystery, but would write one tomorrow if a good idea came to me.

I realize that I had always in my heart of hearts planned to write a biography of Marie Antoinette.

That is my major concern: writers who are in prison for writing.

King Charles II liked women's company and well as making love to them.

I think there's a tremendous split between people who've been through a war and people who haven't.

I hate the only one of my book jackets when I was made up professionally, my hair made into a smooth bell.

Mary Queen of Scots was my first love, and that is always something special.

Normally I make myself swim, do exercises. For zest I like going to the cinema.

After Mary Queen of Scots, I turned to the farthest subject possible: Cromwell.