My first career ambitions involved turning into a boy; I intended to be either a railway guard or a knight errant.

History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.

I think if the monarchy were removed tomorrow, it wouldn't have a huge effect on the national mind-set.

You don't get on by being original. You don't get on by being bright. You don't get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook.

I think I would have been a reasonably good lawyer. I have a faculty for making sense of mountains of information.

Hindsight is the historian's necessary vice.

One of the frustrations of someone like Thomas Cromwell is that, before they step into the light of history, and become extremely well documented, they are not known. A king might be well documented but not everyone.