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 pr… - Hilary Mantel

It may be that the whole phenomenon of monarchy is irrational, but that doesn't mean that when we look at it we should behave like spectators at Bedlam. Cheerful curiosity can easily become cruelty. It can easily become fatal. We don't cut off the heads of royal ladies these days, but we do sacrifice them, and we did memorably drive one to destruction a scant generation ago. History makes fools of us, makes puppets of us, often enough. But it doesn't have to repeat itself.

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

Rumors of the cardinal’s popularity don’t make him glad, they make him afraid. The king has given Wolsey a pardon. But if he was offended once, he can be offended again. If they could think up forty-four charges, then—if fantasy is unconstrained by truth—they can think up forty-four more.