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

I was born to be your rival,' she [Anne] said simply. 'And you mine. We're sisters, aren't we?

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.

Jane," I said quietly.
She opened her eyes, she had been far away in prayer.
"Yes, Mary? Forgive me, I was praying."
"If you go on flirting with the king with those sickly little smiles, one of us Boleyns is going to scratch your eyes out.

I shall be dark and French and fashionable and difficult. And you shall be sweet and open and English and fair. What a pair we shall be! What man can resist us?

When it's done, it's done. And no one will know until it's done.