Philippa Gregory

I felt his hardness and I suddenly understood-an older girl would have understood long before-that this was the currency of desire. He was my betrothed. he desired me. I desired him. All I had to do was tell him the truth.

There was a magic: and the name of it was love.

Men command the world that they know . Everything that men know they make their own. Everything that they learn, they claim for themselves. They are like the alchemists who took for the laws that govern the world, and then want to own them and keep them secret. Everything they discover,they hug to themselves: they shape knowledge into their own selfish image. What is left to us women but the realms of the unknown?

I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't do anything but think about him. At night I dream of him, all day I wait to see him, and when I do see him my heart turns over and I think I will faint with desire.

Say yes,_ he whispers. __arry me.__ hesitate. I open my eyes. __ou will get my fortune,_ I remark. __hen I marry you, everything I have becomes yours. Just as George has everything that belongs to Isabel.___hat__ why you can trust me to win it for you,_ he says simply. __hen your interests and mine are the same, you can be certain that I will care for you as for myself. You will be my own. You will find that I care for my own.___ou will be true to me?___oyalty is my motto. When I give my word, you can trust me.

I feel no peace, I feel nothing. I think I will feel nothing forever.

He promised her that he would give her everything, everything she wanted, as men in love always do. And she trusted him despite herself, as women in love always do.

I will stand up and speak in my own voice and no man will ever silence me again.

If a woman is interested in her own struggle into identity and power, then she will be interested in other women. The lives of these, and other women, show me what a woman can do even without formal power, education, or rights, in a world dominated by men. They are inspirational examples of the strength of the female spirit.

Katherine of Aragon was speaking out for the women of the country, for the good wives who should not be put aside just because their husbands had taken a fancy to another, for the women who walked the hard road between kitchen, bedroom, church and childbirth. For the women who deserved more than their husband's whim.

He is my brother," I said. "I cannot desert him.""You can go to your own death," William said. "Or you can survive this, bring up your children, and guard Anne's little girl who will be shamed and bastardized and motherless by the end of this week. You can wait out this reign and see what comes next. See what the future holds for the Princess Elizabeth, defend our son Henry against those who will want to set him up as the king's heir or even worse-flaunt him as a pretender. You owe it to your children to protect them.

This is George, my beloved George. D'you think I want to go to my grave knowing that at the moment of his trial he looked around and saw no one lift a finger for him? If it is the death of me, I shall go to him.""Go then," he said. "Kiss our baby good-bye before you go, and Henry. I shall tell Catherine that you left your blessing for her. And kiss me farewell. For if you go into that courtroom you will never come out alive.

Perhaps we will not be great people, chosen by God, but just happy.

The truth is the last thing that matters,' she said. 'And you can believe one thing of the truth and me: I keep it well hidden, inside my heart.

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.

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.

Your son is heir to an enormous fortune and name. Someone would be bound to bid for you him and take him as his ward.

Do you not think that God will protect us?___o,_ he said flatly. __y experience is that He rarely attends to the obvious.