The Other Queen

When a woman thinks her husband is a fool, her marriage is over. They may part in one year or ten; they may live together until death. But if she thinks he is a fool, she will not love him again.

A woman has to change her nature if she is to be a wife. She has to learn to curb her tongue, to suppress her desires, to moderate her thoughts and to spend her days putting another first. She has to put him first even when she longs to serve herself or her children. She has to put him first even if she longs to judge for herself. She has to put him first even when she knows best. To be a good wife is to be a woman with a will of iron that you yourself have forged into a bridle to curb your own abilities. To be a good wife is to enslave yourself to a lesser person. To be a good wife is to amputate your own power as surely as the parents of beggars hack off their children's feet for the greater benefit of the family.

For most of my life i have been adored by fools and hated by people of good sense, and they all make up stories about me in which I am either a saint or a whore. But I am above these judgments, I am a Queen.

Wealth means nothing at all if you do not know, to the last penny, what your fortune is. You might as well be poor if you do not know what you have.

En Ma Fin Est Ma Commencement - In my end is my beginning.

People always make up stories about princesses. It comes to us with the crown. We have to carry it as lightly as we can.

Every woman should marry for her own advantage since her husband will represent her, as visible as her front door, for the rest of his life. If she chooses a wastrel she will be avoided by all her neighbors as a poor woman; catch a duke and she will be Your Grace, and everyone will be her friend. She can be pious, she can be learned,she cane be witty and wise and beautiful, but if she is married to a fool she will be "that poor Mrs. Fool" until the day he dies.

She can be pious, she can be learned, she can be witty and wise and beautiful, but if she is married to a fool she will be “that poor Mrs. Fool” until the day he dies.

on what he wants to say. I step back. So it is just as his wife fears, and she was

the greater the noise the less the deeds. And grand announcements do not mean great doings. Let

I feel very strongly that history has mostly been written by men, and even when it is not prejudiced against women it is dominated by a male perspective and male morality. Some of my heroines have been considered simply unimportant—like Mary Boleyn or Katherine Howard—and some of them have been stereotyped—like Anne of Cleves and Katherine of Aragon. I don’t start with a determination of putting the record straight, but when I read terribly prejudiced misjudgments of women I cannot help but consider what they would really have been like—and writing them back into the history.