Henry Viii Quotes

• I learned an invaluable lesson from a kid in Argentina when we were playing Buenos Aires in 2002. I came out of the hotel and this 16-year-old-boy asked me to sign his copy of my Six Wives of Henry VIII album. As I was signing it I asked him 'what does a 16 year-old like about this old music?' and he looked at me, quite hurt, and said, 'it might be old to you, Mr Wakeman, but I only heard it for the first time last week. When you hear something for the first time, it's new.' I've never forgotten that.

  Rick Wakeman

  Hurt, Kids, Boys

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• Villains are usually the worst casuists, and rush into crimes to avoid less. Henry VIII. committed murder to avoid the imputation of adultery; and in our times, those who commit the latter crime attempt to wash off the stain of seducing the wife by signifying their readiness to shoot the husband.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Husband, Wife, Adultery

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.83

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• King Henry VIII, who said to his lawyer, Forget the alimony, I've got a better idea. Never got a dinner!

  Red Buttons

  Kings, Ideas, Dinner

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• I would put forward a modest proposition that we were very much better governed by Henry VIII than we are by King Gordon.

  David Starkey

  Kings, Henry V, Modest

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• Admit that the press transferred the pontificate of Rome to Henry VIII-Admit that the press demolished in some sort the feudal system, and set the serfs and villains free; admit that the press demolished the monasteries, nunneries, and religious houses; into whose hands did all these alienated baronies, monasteries, and religious houses and lands fall? Into the hands of the democracy? Into the hands of serfs and villains? Serfs and villains were the only real democracy in those time. No. They fell into the hands of other aristocrats. . . .

  John Adams

  Religious, Time, Real

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• Henry VIII had so many wives because his dynastic sense was very strong whenever he saw a maid of honour.

  Will Cuppy

  Marriage, Strong, Wife

  Will Cuppy (1950). “The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody”

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• An ugly woman, married to King Henry VIII, would have defied the axe and daunted her husband's infidelities.

  Honore de Balzac

  Kings, Husband, Wife

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• There are a lot of parallels between the historical Henry VIII and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. There's an oscillation and extremity of emotion throughout his repertoire that lends itself beautifully to the nature of Henry VIII, definitely. He will push things to the limit, and yet remain in emotional control.

  Natalie Dormer

  Emotional, Historical, Limits

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• The civil jury is the most effective form of sovereignty of the people. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During the reigns of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and Elizabeth I (1158-1603), the civil jury did in reality save the liberties of England.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Reality, Men, Law

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• We spent the first night of our honeymoon in a country hotel, with Tudor architecture oak beams, and floors which sloped, of the Queen-Elizabeth-Slept-Here variety. There were old tennis-courts - the Tudor kind where Henry VIII was said to have played; and gardens filled with winter heather, jasmine and yellow chrysanthemums. [...] So that first night together was spent in the ancient bedroom with the tiny leaded paned windows, through which shafts of moonlight touched the room with a dreamlike radiance [...]

  Jean Plaidy

  Country, Queens, Winter

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• You end up with this succession of periods when everything was marvellous - from King Arthur to the medieval times, Ivanhoe, chivalry, Henry VIII, Merry England, the Blitz

  Ian Hislop

  Kings, England, Chivalry

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• I love horses. I think I may have been one of Henry VIII’s knights in another life, riding through a great forest.

  Madonna Ciccone

  Horse, Thinking, Knights

  "The wit and wisdom of Madonna" by Alex Fletcher, www.digitalspy.com. August 15, 2008.

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