Elizabeth I

Queen Elizabeth I:
If you can't read my silence, you're nothing.

Queen Elizabeth I:
What in God's name do we have in common with the Dutch?

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester:
Our religion, ma'am!

Queen Elizabeth I:
The Dutch have no religion, they have cheese.

Queen Elizabeth I:
I know that I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a King! And a King of England, too!

Queen Elizabeth I:
A man can be a good Catholic and a good Englishman.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester:
Not at the same time, Ma'am.

William Cecil, Lord Burghley:
The bloody and deceitful man shall not live out half his days.

[last lines]

Queen Elizabeth I:
Fetch me a priest, girl. I'm minded to die.

[talking about Sir Francis Bacon]

Queen Elizabeth I:
Bacon, people who compliment me on my breasts, even in Latin, run the risk of being thought impertinent. [to Essex] We understand he's fond of the company of pretty youths. No wonder he's the Member for *Middlesex*!

Queen Elizabeth I:
I lack the assurance of youth. I question everything.

Sir Francis Walsingham:
I think the French make better acquaintances than friends.

[Elizabeth is visiting Mary Stuart secretly]

Mary Queen of Scots:
You were not announced.

Queen Elizabeth I:
I am not here.

Queen Elizabeth I:
Princes never cheat at cards. They simply have the rules altered to suit their needs.

William Cecil, Lord Burghley:
For 19 years, Your Majesty, this council has implored you to secure your succession by marriage. You have refused all suitors, but now...

Queen Elizabeth I:
I do not say I will not marry, Lord Burghley. The question before us is whom.

Queen Elizabeth I:
Oh Robin, I'm set about by enemies and I know not who to trust.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester:
Well not France, I beg you.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester:
[to Elizabeth] What do you imagine Monsieur will do with me after he has your hand?

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester:
[faking a French accent] Shall I be Catholic?

[stronger French accent]

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester:
Shall we all be Catholic?

Queen Elizabeth I:
[to Leicester] The only thing that will kiss in this affair are lawyers pens and lawyers papers.

Queen Elizabeth I:
Great things hang on a kiss, Robin, when princes are involved...

[Elizabeth is going to visit Mary Stuart at Fotheringay Castle]

Queen Elizabeth I:
I understand she's grown very fat. Well, she's had nothing to do but eat and sleep.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester:
And plot, Your Majesty.

Queen Elizabeth I:
Come ladies, we are going to watch the Earl of Essex at his favourite pastime, which is trying to kill people.

[Signing Mary's death-warrant]

Queen Elizabeth I:
I want to hear no more of this... but someone is to give me an account of it when it is done.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester:
Her favour changes with her moods, for she is a woman. But if you love her, love her constancy, for it is there.

Executioner:
Pardon me.

Mary Queen of Scots:
I hope that you shall make an end of all my troubles.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester:
This marriage will not go. Her heart will be broken. [to Burleigh] Not yours. [to Walsingham] Or his, if he had one!

Queen Elizabeth I:
I will die at a time of my own choosing, and not before.

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex:
How can I read when you look at me like that?

Queen Elizabeth I:
How do I look at you?

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex:
As if you are deciding whether to eat me.

Queen Elizabeth I:
The hardest thing to govern is the heart.

Queen Elizabeth I:
What I must not say is that I love you. The more I let you go the more I seem to have need of you. And it will not go away no matter how much I command it. Do you think the Queen is mistress of her feelings? Oh no, she's a fool for love. A hopeless fool.