The Red Queen

Yes, but either way, shamed or not, I shall be Queen of England, and this is the last time you will sit in my presence.

I will learn to smile at my enemies.

Yes, Your Grace," I correct her. "I am My Lady, the King's Mother, now, and you shall curtsey to me, as low as to a queen of royal blood. This was my destiny: to put my son on the throne of England, and those who laughed at my visions and doubted my vocation will call me My Lady, the King's Mother, and I shall sign myself Margaret Regina: Margaret R.

Do you really think that God in his heaven with all the angels, there from the beginning of time and looking towards the day of judgement day, really looks down on all the world and see's you and little harry and says 'whatever you choose to do is my will?' "Yes i do." she says uncertainly.

Some of us are born to a solitary life.

I have to say that I am much less impressed by crucifixion now that I am in childbirth. It is really not possible that anything could hurt more than this. I grieve for the suffering of Our Lord, of course. But if He had tried a bad birth He would know what pain is.

I am old enough to be married twice. I am old enough to be bedded without tenderness or consideration. I am old enough to face death in the confinement room and be told that my own mother--my own mother--has commanded them to save the child and not me! I think I am a woman now. I have a babe in arms, and I have been married and widowed and now bethrothed again. I am like a draper's parcel to be sent about like cloth and cut to the pattern that people wish. My mother told me that my father died by his own hand and that we are an unlucky family. I think I am a woman now! I am treated as a woman grown when it suits you all, you can hardly make me a child again.

Insane", he says simply. "Hopeless. The king is a saint and cannot rule, and his son his a devil and should not.

My mother? My own mother told my lady governess that if the baby and I were in danger then they should save the baby.

He must desire the scent of the smoke of their sacrifice.

A troubadour to a distant mistress.

Another husband, another new house, another new country, but I never belong anywhere and I never own anything in my own right.

Mother, before God," I say, my voice shaking with tears, "I swear that I have to believe that there is more for me in life than being wife to one man after another, and hoping not to die in childbirth!

A parcel--taken from one place to another, handed from one owner to another, unwrapped and bundled up at will--is all that I am. A vessel, for the bearing of sons, for one nobleman or another: it hardly matters who.

We will have to cut our coats to suit our cloth, and wait and see.

How can I bless you when you are cursed in your choice?

I will go to war should there ever be a cause I think worth dying for--and not before.

Be a wife of whom he can make no complaint, Margaret. That is the best advice I can give to you. You will be his wife; that is to be his servant, his possession. He will be your master. You had better please him.

The castle will seem very quiet and strange without you here. The stone stairs and the chapel will miss your footstep, the gateway will will miss your laughter, and the wall will miss your shadow.

It matters not at all that I do not want to marry, that I am afraid of the wedding, afraid of consummating the marriage, afraid of childbirth, afraid of everything about being a wife. Nobody even asks if I have lost my childhood sense of vocation, if I still want to be a nun. Nobody cares what I think at all. They treat me like an ordinary young woman, bred for wedding and bedding, and since they do not ask me what I think, nor observe what I feel, there is nothing that gives them pause at all.

I would not care whether people thought I was special, if my life was truly special. It would not mater to me that people could see me as pious, if I could truly live as a woman scholar of piety. I want to be what I seem to be. I act as if I am specially holy, a special girl; but this is what I really want to be. I really do.

I say nothing, not one word, from beginning to end, and neither does he. If it were lawful for a woman to hate her husband, I would hate him as a rapist.

The common people only see weakness where there is greatness of spirit.

I don't think your God has ever advised you otherwise. You hear only what you want. He only ever commands your preferences.

Her confidence is extraordinary, her impertinence unforgivable, her words terribly true.

I think it is unkind of me to stand there with my hands by my sides and a frown on my face. But I let him go without a blown kiss, without a blessing, without a command to come back safely. I let him go without a word or a gesture of love, for he is going out to fight for my enemy and so he is my enemy now.