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.

One’s lover is one’s partner in observing and understanding the world. Marriage is a place where joint narratives are composed. If the lover is a liar then all your joint observations are unreliable. You will have to start all over again.

Take care with your words, Jacquetta, especially in cursing. Only say the things you mean, make sure you lay your curse on the right man. For be very sure that when you put such words out in the world they can overshoot-like an arrow, a curse can go beyond your target and harm another. A wise woman curses very sparingly.

Before anything else I was a woman who was capable of passion and who had a great need and a great desire for love.

If it means something, take it to heart. If it means nothing, it's nothing. Let it go.

He may well speak French and Latin and half a dozen languages, but since he has nothing to say – what good are they?

Only fools wait when their enemies are coming, to see if they may prove to be friends.