Kate Williams Quotes

Colour is really important to me when buying clothes. I wear a lot of fitted jackets, and because I'm small, I avoid long skirts and coats. And I hate wearing hats.

Visit any bookshop in Europe, and the shelves are filled with English novels and non-fiction books in translation - while British bookshops stock mainly English and American works.

I've written extensively on Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth and seen up close how those women, who were born when the country hoped for a male heir, made their way as leaders.

Indeed, throughout much of history and in many cultures, redheads have been viewed with suspicion and fear - and even killed - because of their hair.

As the weather improved, the bobms got worse. The newspapers said that the Kaiser was aiming to knock London down (although avoiding Buckingham Palace, so as not to hit his relations).

Now I would go to London's Pudding Lane on 2 September 1666 and put out that little fire. I'd love to investigate the histories of a few of the buildings that burned for Restoration Home.

Are we really so far from the Victorians? Much of what our society holds important was shaped in the 19th century.

I've always considered myself to look like a rather plain-and-exhausted bluestocking, so it's rather odd to read Tweets commenting on my appearance.

Queens perhaps perform better in the role of monarch because they never take their position for granted. Many kings have failed because they believed that the public would love them whatever they did. Queens knew better.

As an older child, I was a huge 'Anne Of Green Gables' fan.

Eighteenth-century matrons would have never have dreamed of appointing a redhaired wet nurse for their precious offspring - redheads passed on their horrible characters through their milk.

Usually, historical revelations come from days of legwork, ploughing through piles of letters and papers in archives or even private homes, looking for the telling phrase or letter that someone else has missed.

I am part of a team organising an Emma Hamilton exhibition for the National Maritime Museum for 2016, and the amount of planning is a revelation - borrowing from museums and collections all over the world.

I used to hate reading my old work, but now I'm rather fond of it. I quite like going through it in the hope of making it better.

People are not happy with women in actual power, yet we seem to be happy to take women on as figureheads, objects, like queens. It's a powerful yet politically powerless role.

Redheads were particularly persecuted during the European witch trials of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The colour was associated with the devil, and the pale skin which most redheads have was thought unnatural and deathly.

Anglo-Saxon kings often used to favour their sister's son to their own - for at least you could guarantee there was your own blood in your sister's son!

It is calculated that George III had an astonishing fifty-six grandchildren. He did not have one legitimate heir. The vision of Charlotte had sustained the people through the direst years of the regency. Without her, all hope seemed gone.

From "Becoming Queen Victoria

I chose my house because I loved the fact that there was a really busy road with lots of things to stare at.

Between 1945 and 1965, the number of colonial people ruled by the British monarch plunged from 700 million to five million. In 1956, just three years after the coronation, the Suez canal crisis and Anthony Eden's humiliation ended all notions that Britain was a world superpower.

It's the 21st century. It's untenable to suggest that women had no significance and no interest and that just because they didn't vote they had no relevance to the course of our history.

I wouldn't mind an original letter from Napoleon to Josephine - in the early days, his letters arrived torn to pieces because he was overwhelmed by his passion for her.

As historians, we spend days in archives, gazing at account books. We train would-be historians in the arts of deciphering letters and documents, early Latin, scribal handwriting, medieval French.

The 19th century became the age of the museum. Objects were scrambled for, specimens seized, and friezes and antiques grasped.

Women's stories have been neglected for so long - unless they were queens. Exploring the history of women is a way of redressing that imbalance.

Victoria liked music full of high passion and drama. "I am a terribly modern person," she decided.

I am more English than the English.- Rudolf de Vitt

When I was a child, one of my first games was a time machine which I made for my brother - a big box covered in silver and bits of cellophane. I'd close him up in it and joggle him and say, 'We're in Victorian times now ... and now we're in Egyptian times, and I can see all these pyramids and pharaohs.'

I receive many letters from people hoping to research their own houses.

Britain's passion for Christmas and huge white weddings dates from Victorian times - both were low-key celebrations before Victoria and her PR machine.

One of Britain's big problems throughout history has been that we lust after consumer goods from elsewhere, but our friends overseas have been less enthusiastic about buying things we produce.

The centuries-old habit of privileging the male heir arose because monarchs were supposed to lead their country in battle, and only men were thought strong enough to do so.

Precise historical reasons are difficult to pinpoint, but red hair, it seems, bestows a sense of otherness. Red is the colour of blood and danger.

Throughout the 19th century, Britain bought cheaply from the countries of the empire and compelled subject countries to buy our goods at high prices.

Still often interventionist, convinced of our importance in the world, even those of us born long after 1900 live in a country that is much more Victorian than we think.

There were strange noises in the room, great bellowing sobs that did not sound like anything human. They bounced off the wals, echoing in her ears. Stop! she wanted to cry at the person who was making the noise. Then she realised that it was her.

Albert liked to play the stoic, and he embraced the opportunity to do over the negotiations about the marriage. He insisted that Uncle Leopold know what a great sacrifice he was making for the Saxe-Coburg family and Germany. As he gloomily lectured his uncle, 'troubles are inseparable from all human positions and…therefore if one must be subject to plagues and annoyances, it is better to be so for some great or worthy object than for trifles or miseries.'

Unfortunately for Albert, Leopold was deaf to self-pitying emotional blackmail and remained determined on his course.

While you are waiting to die, you have to live.

One child is never enough for a monarch.

I really enjoy watching TV; it offers an amazing window, and its an incredible way of presenting history to young people in particular.

British passion for Chinese tea was unstoppable, but the Chinese had no desire for our offerings, however much we tried to sell them woolen clothes or cutlery.