Quotes About Authority

The days of the moneylender have arrived, and the days of the swaggering privateer; banker sits down with banker, and kings are their waiting boys.

When Stephen comes into a room, the furnishings shrink from him. Chairs scuttle backwards. Joint-stools flatten themselves like pissing bitches. The woollen Bible figures in the king's tapestries lift their hands to cover their ears.

But Turkish princes have a dozen wives each, ' Jane says. 'If the king had been of their sect, he could have been married to the late queen, God rest her, and Katherine, God rest her, and at the same time to me, if he liked. For that matter, he could have been married to Mary Boleyn, and to Mary Shelton, and to Fitzroy's mother. And the Pope could not have troubled him about it.

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 the street and stamped on.

the wise prince is not always the most popular prince;

Nobody knows how long the arrests wil go on and who else will be taken. He feels even he does not know, and he is in charge of it.

There is only one penalty for high treason: for a man, to be hanged, cut down alive and eviscerated, or for a woman, to be burned. The king may vary the sentence to decapitation; only poisoners are boiled alive.

Once the queen's head is severed, he walks away.

but will also assuage the fears of the king, who distrusts novelty, and German novelty above all.

Then the patriots will have de facto control of the city.' Gabrielle: 'What does de facto mean?' 'It means they'll do it now and make it legal later,' Lucile

The poor labourer owns his sleep and his stool, and can sell his piss to the fuller, whereas the king's piss and stool is the property of all England...should his bowel be loose, its product is taken away in a bowl under an embroidered cloth. They can only judge what is within him, by what comes out: a pity he is not made of glass.

I will have no alien interfere with my rule, and I will allow no traitor to shelter behind the cross of Christ.

Every absent day he loses advantage. If kings do not see you they forget you. Even though nothing in the realm is done without you, kings think they do it all themselves.

What's ink in Whitehall is blood in the borderlands, what's a quibble in the law courts is a stabbing in the streets.

The cardinal, in his days as master of the realm, had spoken of God as if He were a distant policy adviser from whom he heard quarterly: gnomic in his pronouncements, sometimes forgetful, but worth a retainer on account of his experience. At times he sent Him special requests, which the less well-connected call prayers;

I want a job, Lady Carey. It isn't enough to be a councillor, I need an official place in the household." "I'll tell her." "I want a post in the Jewel House. Or the Exchequer." She nods. "She made Tom Wyatt a poet. She made Harry Percy a madman. I'm sure she has some ideas about what to make you.

Henry had sat up: 'I can do as it pleases me,' his monarch said. 'God would not allow my pleasure to be contrary to his design, nor my designs to be impeded by his will.' A shadow of cunning had crossed his face. 'And Gardiner himself said so.' Henry

was proud of what he did. He thought if you let the people read God's word for themselves, Christendom would fall apart. There would be no more government, no more justice.' 'He believed this? Truly?' 'That we needed the constraint of ignorance? Yes.' 'He did not give much credit to his fellow man.

I tell you, Cromwell, you've got face, coming here." "My lord — you sent for me." "Did I?" Norfolk looks alarmed. "It's come to that?

Now listen to me, Crumb. If I say I need to see the Tudor, no blacksmith's boy will say me nay." "He may weld you, my lord," Richard Riche says.

Listen, son, this is what I know: right is what you can get away with, and wrong is what they whip you for. As I'm sure life will instruct you, by and by

His displeasure! I am sure I have displeased him, he thinks. Look how he steamed and glared, that day I took a holiday. Look how he pawed the ground and rolled his eyes. This is what Henry does. He uses people up. He takes all they give him and more. When he is finished with them he is noisier and fatter and they are husks or corpses.

So many words,' Gregory says. 'So many words and oaths and deeds, that when folk read of them in time to come they will hardly believe such a man as Lord Cromwell walked the earth. You do everything. You have everything. You are everything. So I beg you, grant me an inch of your broad earth, Father, and leave my wife to me.

Once the king had grasped what he was being told, he had shouted at the top of his voice that the business should be kept quiet.