Sharon Kay Penman Quotes

The Lancastrian army had been on the march for fully fifteen hours, had managed to cover twenty-four miles in that dash for the Severn. But Edward had done the impossible; in just twelve hours, he'd ridden an astonishing thirty-five miles.

Ranulf had spent much of his life watching those he loved wrestle with the seductive, lethal lure of kingship. It had proved the ruination of his cousin Stephen, a good man who had not made a good king. For his sister Maude, it had been an unrequited love affair, a passion she could neither capture nor renounce. For Hywel, it had been an illusion, a golden glow ever shimmering along the horizon. He believed that his nephew had come the closest to mastery of it, but at what cost?

You must try to understand, my dearest one. It was not treason, was but a dream bred before its time, that the King should not be accountable only to God. No mortal man ought to be entrusted with power such as that, for any king's son may be born a fool.

All that is missing is the dancing bear.

Hal and Richard show all the good will of Cain and Abel.

Yesterday I heard some of the castle servants talking about a funeral for one of the stable lads. He went skating last week on the pond in the village, but the ice was not thick enough and he drowned. I like to skate on the ice,too, Papa, have my own pair of bone skates. I could drown crossing the Channel as Uncle Robert fears ... or I could drown back in Angers, if I was unlucky like that stable lad." Geoffrey's mouth twitched. "God help me," he said, "I've sired a lawyer!

If disliking Richard be grounds for accusing a man of conspiracy, I daresay you could implicate half of Christendom in this so-called plot. Richard endears himself easiest to those who've yet to meet him.

Geoffrey looked startled to see both his great-uncles bearing down upon him with such haste; he hadn't realized men their age could move so fast.

What do you know of sacrifice? Need I tell you of York's dead ... of Sandal Castle? My brother did survive the battle, his first. He was seventeen and he entreated them to spare his life. They cut his throat. Their heads were then impaled on York's Micklegate Bar to please the House of Lancaster, to please a harlot and a madman. She had my father's head crowned with straw and she left a spike between the two ... That one, she said, was for York's other son.

They had gathered at Eastcheap to wait. At this time of day, the marketplace ought to have been thronged with people looking for bargains, moving from stall to stall, examining the fresh fish, choosing the plumpest hens, buying candles and pepper and needles. The stalls were open, but the fishmongers and cordwainers and butchers were doing no business, despite the growing crowd. The sun was hot, flies were thick, and the odors pungent; no one complained, though. They talked and gossiped among themselves, strangers soon becoming friends, for the normally fractious and outspoken Londoners had forgotten their differences, at least for a day, united in a common purpose and determined to revel in their triumph, for they were pragmatic enough to understand this might be their only one. Now they joked and swapped rumors and waited with uncommon patience, and at last they heard a cry, swiftly picked up and echoed across the marketplace: She is coming!

Richard, might I ask you something? We've talked tonight of what you must do, of what you can do, of what you ought to do.But we've said nothing of what you want to do.Richard, do you want to be King?"
At first, she thought he wasn't going to answer her. But as she studied his face, she saw he was turning her question over in his mind, seeking to answer it as honestly as he could.
"Yes," he said at last. "Yes ... I do.

His was a lonely, unorthodox conviction that war was man's ultimate failure.

It puzzled Maud that her male relatives could not see this. Was it that men could not believe a woman might share their ambitions, their need for power? Eleanor saw herself as more than Henry's queen, mother of his children. First and foremost, she was Duchess of Aquitaine, never doubting that she could have ruled as well as any man and better than most.

She might be that most unfortunate of women, a barren queen,

Men kill for many reasons, they steal but for one-greed.

All he wanted was enough time to consider all his options without being dragged into his household's petty squabbles or being nagged by his wife about that damnable pilgrimage. Was that so much to ask?
Apparently so, for he'd yet to find a peaceful moment at Caen, not with Marguerite sulking and Aimar lurking and Will acting put-upon and Geoff wanting to lay plans and Richard strutting around as if he were the incarnation of Roland and poor Tilda grieving over Maman's absence and his father refusing to heed any voice but his own.

Simon said nothing, thinking of all the good men who'd died because this inept, faithless fool had been born a King's son.

I am not going to let him win, Guillaume. Not this time. I could not keep him from making my mother pay the price for our failed rebellion. Fifteen years she has been his prisoner, fifteen years! And she is his prisoner, for all that she no longer wants for a queen's comforts. I have had to submit to his demands and subject myself to his whims and endure the indignity of having him brandish the crown before me as he would tease a dog with a bone. But no more. I will not let him rob me of my birthright, and I will not let him keep me from honoring my vow to defend the Holy Land. I do think he is behind that very opportune rebellion in my duchy, and I would not put it past him to be conniving with the Count of Toulouse, either. And if by chance he did not, it is only because he did not think of it. No, a reckoning is long overdue, and we will have it at Bonsmoulins.

For whatever reasons - which had never interested him in his youth but which he sometimes pondered as an adult - the Angevin House had always taken Cain and Abel as role models.

Eleanor had followed Richard, marveling, as always, at the male inability to speak the language of the heart. "One day I hope to understand why men see sentiment as the ultimate enemy," she said dryly, "but I'll not be holding my breath until it happens.

In writing my historical novels, I have to rely upon my imagination to a great extent. I think of it as 'filling in the blanks.' Medieval chroniclers could be callously indifferent to the needs of future novelists. But I think there is a great difference between filling in the blanks and distorting known facts.

Richard knew, of course, that his was thought to be an unlucky title; only twice before had a Richard ruled England, and both met violent ends.

She knew she'd wounded him when he'd least expected it, and her satisfaction lasted until the door had closed behind him. Once he was gone, it ebbed away along with her anger, leaving her with naught but the ashes and embers of a dying hearth fire.

Women did not have as many options as men, and I need to reflect that reality in my mysteries.

The art of governing, Dickon, is that of making use of talent wherever you do find it. Trust is too rare an attribute to make it your prime prerequisite for holding office. If I relied only upon those I truly do trust, we'd have a council of empty chairs!

Richard grinned, very pleased with himself for having found a way to honor his mother, thwart his father, and serve God, while having a grand adventure at the same time.

Twilight was laying claim to the cité, and the sky was a deepening shade of lavender, spangled with stars and fleecy clouds the colour of plums.

Apparently too much candour can become tedious, or so Lady Emma tells me.

Messages continued to arrive from the Earl of Warwick, urging Londoners to hold firm for King Harry. Marguerite d'Anjou and her son were expected to land at any time, while from St Albans, Edward sent word that Harry of Lancaster was to be considered a prisoner of state. At that, John Stockton, the Mayor of London, contracted a diplomatic virus and took to his bed.

More than men had died at Lincoln. It seemed to Stephen that reality was a casualty, too, for nothing made sense anymore. What was he doing here in the solar of Lincoln Castle, bleeding all over the Earl of Chester's wife?

What is a thing worth, if it comes with no risk?

Abigail Adams could become my favorite historical sleuth.

Hell and furies!" Eleanor had begun to pace, her skirts swirling about her ankles. "What was he thinking?"
"When does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wine cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.

Whilst stupidity may indeed be a sin, it is also possible to be too clever. I sometimes fear, John, that you are too clever by half.

As they lay entwined together afterwards, they both were sure their future was blessed, and it would never have occurred to them that Henry and Eleanor had once believed that, too.

Why is it honesty when a man speaks his mind and madness when a woman does?

When people want to insult a man, they cast slurs upon his courage. But the worst they can say about a woman is to impugn her chastity.

There's not a man alive who doesn't know fear, Dickon. The brave man is the one who has learned to hide it, that's all

In a contest of wills between John and his mother, he did not think John would prevail, indeed he hoped he would not. But he did not care to be a witness to their confrontation; he suspected Eleanor's methods would be neither maternal nor merciful.

Life without sinning was like food without salt, pure but tasteless.

My father and brother were slain at Sandal Castle because they engaged a far superior force. It was daring, heroic, foolhardy ... and fatal. I'll not make the same mistake.

Tonight," he said, "we shall get quietly and thoroughly drunk ... in memory of all that was lost. And on the morrow, I begin the struggle to win it back.

Men are born to sin ... What does matter most, is not that we err, it is that we do benefit from our mistakes, that we are capable of sincere repentance, of genuine contrition.

Forget the threat of Hell's infernal flames. The true torture would condemn a man to wait and wait and wait - for an eternity

You might as well face it. You're not going to be able to fight for the crown. You'll just have to grit your teeth and let us hand it over to you at the bargaining table.

As was his way, once he acknowledged the problem, he set about finding a means to resolve it

... she remembered watching a summer sunset from this very spot. Not so long ago; just a lifetime.

The last time Ranulf had run into Sulien, the older man had called him a misbegotten English Judas and spat onto the ground at his feet. Yet now that same man was approaching the bed with a jovial smile, so apparently pleased to see the Judas again that Ranulf half-expected him to announce that a fatted calf had been killed in his honor.

Francis stared down at the Duchess of York's letter. He swallowed, then read aloud in a husky voice, "It was showed by John Sponer that King Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us, was through great treason piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this City."
As Margaret listened, the embittered grey eyes had softened, misted with sudden tears.
"My brother may lie in an untended grave," she said, "but he does not lack for an epitaph.

A scar signifies past pain, a wound that did not heal as it ought. But it testifies, too, to survival ... (Here be Dragons)

I inhale hope with every breath I take.

It was just like him, she thought; with him, a happy ending was always a foregone conclusion. But such was the power of his faith that when she was with him; she found herself believing in happy endings, too.

Here I was, rushing off to save my little brother from pirates, only to find that he fancies being a pirate himself!

My novels about medieval Wales were set in unexplored terrain; my readers did not know what lay around every bend in the road.

He could not change his nature, could not help being cautious, deliberate, introspective, not traits to be scorned by any means, but traits that seemed dull, bland - even to him - when compared with Davydd's hell-for-leather dazzle.

When I moved to Wales more than twenty years ago and began to research 'Here Be Dragons,' I was fascinated from the first by the Welsh medieval laws, by the discovery that women enjoyed a greater status in Wales than elsewhere in Europe.

And it is not in any of our interests to have the balance of power turned on its head like this. An overly mighty French king is no improvement over an overly mighty English one.

Eleanor would have been indifferent to the immorality of her adultery, but would never have forgiven the stupidity of it.

A pity you were not born a woman in this life, Little King of Lesser Land, for you seek only to please and to be admired by all.

He would never be able to emulate Richard's last gesture of defiance
gallant, glorious, and quite mad.

There are secret sins and found-out sins, and it is foolish to worry about the first until it becomes the second.

In my life, I've been both the besieged and the besieged, and I know damned well which I prefer!

Eleanor's greatest grievance was not a simpering lass with flaxen hair and smooth skin. It was Aquitaine, always Aquitaine.

He looked upon this verdant, blossoming spring, a spring Joanna would never see, he looked upon a field of brilliant blue flowers- the bluebells Joanna had so loved- and at that moment he'd willingly have bartered all his tomorrows for but one yesterday.

Richard forced him from his sickbed, broke his power, his pride. But you, John, you broke his heart. I truly wonder which be the greater sin.

John, watching in dismay, saw his great chance slipping through his fingers, and he swung around to demand of his father, "Papa, does this mean Richard has bested you and Aquitaine is lost?" Eleanor winced, Geoffrey rolled his eyes, and Henry gave his youngest a look John had never gotten from him before. "My life would have been much more peaceful if I'd had only daughters," he snapped. "As for Aquitaine, it is yours if you can take it.

May I offer you some advice?"
"I'd rather you offered me a fast horse and a head start," Richard said with a tight smile. "But I'll take the advice, too.

In the past few months, life had lost its sweetness and he'd lost his way. But no longer. Death was once again the enemy, his indifference and apathy drowned in a Cheshire pond.

Respect can be as elusive as the unicorn. I know something of this because I write books that are set in the Middle Ages, and the historical novel is often seen as the unwanted stepchild in the fictional family. I know even more about respect - or the lack thereof - because I live in New Jersey.

I've never been so hungry that I was willing to lick honey off thorns.

What an unfair advantage the dead had over the living, for there could be no rebuttal, no denial, nothing but the accusing silence of the grave.

She wanted to order him clapped in irons, as he so deserved. But she was stopped by what she saw in the faces of the watching men: disapproval, instinctive and involuntary, but disapproval, nonetheless. They were not comfortable when power was wielded by a woman, not at a man's expense, a man who had just acquitted himself so spectacularly at Lincoln, winning their reluctant respect in a way she knew she never could.

Poor Wales. So far from Heaven, so close to England.

There is nothing worse than an enemy with imagination.

When does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wind cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.", Chapter 7

Barbed banter was the coin of their realm and heartfelt admissions of affection were rejected out of hand as counterfeit.

We've schemed and fought and loved until we are so entangled in hearts and minds that there is no way to set us free. God help us both, Harry, for we will never be rid of each other. Not even death will do that.

Outside, the sky was clear, stars gleaming in its ebony vastness like celestial fireflies. It was bitterly cold, and Hywel's every breath trailed after him in pale puffs of smoke. The glazed snow crackled underfoot as he started towards the great hall.

I was actually born in New York City, but my family moved to Atlantic City when I was five, this being my dad's home town, so I think that qualifies me as a Jersey resident if not a bona fide native.

Edward was now expressing himself on the subject of the French King, drawing upon a vocabulary that a Southwark brothel-keeper might envy. Some of what he was saying was anatomically impossible, much of it was true and all of it envenomed.

How fragile life was, how fleeting their days on earth, and how fickle was Death, claiming the young as often as the old, the healthy as often as the ailing, cruelly stealing away a baby's first breath, a mother's fading heartbeat.

Ned never argued with their father, he was unfailingly polite and then nonchalantly went his own way; whereas, he, Edmund, deferred dutifully to his father's authority and then found himself resenting both his parent's austere discipline and his own reluctance to rebel.

Whenever I've had to tamper with history for plot purposes, I make sure to mention that in my author's note, and I try to keep such tampering to a bare minimum. I also attempt to keep my characters true to their historical counterparts. This is not always possible, of course.

That may be infidel wisdom, but it is wisdom all the same.

Well, dearest, what would you tell a farmer who had an over-abundant harvest? To plant less, of course!" ...
"I am not complaining about the frequency of the planting," she said. "I'd just rather not reap a crop every year.

I feel that historical novelists owe it to our readers to try to be as historically accurate as we can with the known facts. Obviously, we have to fill in the blanks. And then in the final analysis, we're drawing upon our own imaginations. But I think that readers need to be able to trust an author.

When a man fell into a deep hole, it was usually a good idea to stop digging.

It is not easy to be stranded between two worlds, the sad truth is that we can never feel completely comfortable in either world

I'll admit that my garden now grows hope in lavish profusion, leaving little room for anything else. I suppose it has squeezed out more practical plants like caution and common sense. Still, though, hope does not flourish in every garden, and I feel thankful it has taken root in mine.

Brother Euddogwy did not know how to respond to that, for only the Angevins would see a rebellion as an opportunity for brotherly bonding.

If that's how you'd rather remember it. But I did not mean that as a reproach. I do not, in truth, think less of you for having the common sense to abandon a ship once waves began to break over the bow. Nor, after sixteen years shut away from the sun, am I likely to find tears to spare for Henry Plantagenet.

Yes, there were good memories, too, thirty-seven years of good and bad. Quarrels and reconciliations. Eight cradles and too many gravestones and Rosamund Clifford and power that rivalled Caesar's, an empire that stretched from the Scots border to the Mediterranean Sea.

I know you do not care much for such revelries, but trust me - this one you will enjoy, Harry. You and I will sit at the high table, eating porpoise and swan, whilst we watch my male kinfolk eating humble pie!

It usually takes me about three years to research and write one of my historical sagas; this is one reason why I take medieval mystery breaks, for they can be completed in only a year.