The Tudors, Season 1

Queen Katherine:
Though I love Your Majesty and I'm loyal to you, in every way, I cannot disguise my distress and unhappiness.

King Henry VIII:
Well, you're going to have to.

King Henry:
Tell me about King Francis, Sir Thomas.

Thomas Boleyn:
He's 23 years old.

King Henry:
Is he tall?

Thomas Boleyn:
Yes. But ill proportioned.

King Henry:
What about his legs? Are his calves strong like mine?

Thomas Boleyn:
Your Majesty no one has calves like yours.

King Henry:
Is he handsome?

Thomas Boleyn:
Some people might think so. He certainly thinks so himself.

King Henry:
He's vain?!

Thomas Boleyn:
Your Majesty... he's French!

Thomas More:
As a humanist I have an abhorrence of war. It's an activity fit only for beasts yet practiced by no kind of beasts so constantly as by man.

King Henry:
As a humanist I share your opinion. As a King, I'm forced to disagree.

Thomas More:
Spoken like a lawyer.

King Henry:
You should know, you taught me.

Thomas More:
Not well enough it seems.

Thomas More:
Do you really think we should go to war?

Cardinal Wolsey:
I think we should try to do as the King wants us to do.

Thomas More:
What if the King doesn't know what's in his best interests?

Cardinal Wolsey:
Then we should help him decide.

King Henry:
[to Thomas More] Why is Henry V remembered? Because he endowed Universities? Built Alms houses for the destitute? No. He is remembered because he won the Battle of Agincourt. 3,000 English bowman against 60,000 French. The flower of French chivalry destroyed in 4 hours. That victory made him famous Thomas. It made him immortal!

Thomas Boleyn:
There's something deep and dangerous in you, Anne, those eyes of yours are like dark hooks for the soul.

Cardinal Wolsey:
Thomas, let me give you a little advice. If you want to keep the love of a prince, this is what you must do: You must be prepared to give him the thing you most care for, in all the world.

Thomas More:
The thing I care for most is my integrity.

Cardinal Wolsey:
What did Lord Buckingham say about the King?

Thomas Boleyn:
He told me he has a greater claim to the throne and that, as His Majesty has no male heir and will have none but he, Buckingham will succeed to the throne, but he also told me once that he has considered bringing that eventuality forward more quickly.

Cardinal Wolsey:
In what way?

Thomas Boleyn:
By assassinating His Majesty.

King Francis:
Do you see that young woman over there? Dressed in purple and gold?

King Henry VIII:
Yes.

King Francis:
Her name is Mary Boleyn, the daughter of your ambassador, with her sister Anne. I call Mary my English mare, because I ride her so often.

Henry has challenged King Francis to a wrestling match. Henry loses

King Henry VIII:
I will not sign! Tell Francis I will not sign the treaty!

Thomas More:
All right! If you want the world to know that the King of England is easily changeable, shallow, intemperate, incapable of keeping his word! Then of course I will go and tell them. After all, I am merely Your Majesty's humble servant!

Emperor Charles:
Together we shall invade France and bring to an end the adventures of that libertine monarch, King Francis.

King Henry VIII:
That would make me very happy.

Emperor Charles:
It will also make you King of France.

Thomas Wyatt:
Well, do you like it?

Anne Boleyn:
Should I like something that accuses me of being cruel?

Thomas Wyatt:
But you are cruel Mistress Anne.

Anne Boleyn:
Am I? You have no claim on me Master Wyatt.

Thomas Wyatt:
I have the same claim as every other lover to whom their heart has been freely given.

Anne Boleyn:
[to Master Wyatt] You are a poet as I am a woman. Poets and women are always free with their hearts, are they not?

Thomas Wyatt:
No

Thomas More:
There's only one way to reach the King's ear, and that is through the good offices of Cardinal Wolsey.

Spanish envoy:
We heard some rumors, Mr More, that the cardinal advocates the French interests.

Thomas More:
Only when he considers them to be in ours.

William Cornish:
[in a play] You give us no choice but to attack and breach your defenses!

Lady Unkindness:
No knight shall ever breach mine.

William Cornish:
Lady, Desire overcomes all.

King Henry VIII:
[to Wolsey] What we lack in men, we can more than make up for in ships. We are in an island race, Cardinal. We have the best and bravest sailors in the world. I will have the greatest navy.

Thomas Wolsey:
Ships are expensive, your Majesty.

Henry VIII:
My father was a clever man, your Eminence. A shrewd man. A businessman. He left me a great deal of money, your Eminence. I intend to spend it!

Charles Brandon:
Your highness must be looking forward with great anticipation to your wedding? I hear the king was a great horseman... in his time. And famous for his beautiful mistresses.

Princess Margaret:
Don't tease me. I don't like it.

Charles Brandon:
Will you like it when an old man tries to make love to you?

Princess Margaret:
Your grace goes too far. Already.

Charles Brandon:
Gospel says the truth will make you free.

Princess Margaret:
Now you are blasphemous!

Thomas Boleyn:
[to Norfolk] There will come a point when the King's belief in his minister will hang in the balance and then, Your Grace, we shall drop our truth into the scales... and the scales will fall.

King Henry VIII:
Mister Wyatt.

Thomas Wyatt:
Your Majesty.

King Henry:
I hear you're a poet.

Thomas Wyatt:
I write poems, I don't know how to be "a poet".

King Henry:
I've read some, I like them.

Thomas Wyatt:
My Lord, I don't know what to say.

King Henry:
[whispers in Wyatt's ear] Were you in love with Anne Boleyn?

Thomas Wyatt:
I...

King Henry:
Cardinal Wolsey tells me you were once engaged.

Thomas Wyatt:
No, that's not true.

King Henry:
Did you love her?

Thomas Wyatt:
Lady Anne is so beautiful, it is the duty of every man to love her. Of course I loved her, but from a distance. Personally, I have a wife.

Cardinal Wolsey:
We have a new visitor at court, Princess Marguerite of Nevarre. I was saying to myself yesterday, I found her a very beautiful young woman with a very sweet and yielding disposition, She confessed to great admiration for Your Majesty. Should I, arrange ...?

King Henry:
Yes! Yes, do it.

Cardinal Wolsey:
Well, at least our alliance with the emperor is popular, although sometimes I ask myself why that should be so.

King Henry:
Because he's not French!

Cardinal Wolsey:
Quite.

Cardinal Wolsey:
[regarding Henry's desired divorce] It is my considered opinion that we should apply to His Holiness, Pope Clement, for a ruling on this matter. Since he loves Your Majesty, I'm certain he will rule in your favour.

King Henry VIII:
Oh, I hope so. I certainly do hope so, for your sake.

King Henry:
How dare you look at me! I am your Lord and Master, not your brother! You are both banished from court. You will relinquish your London houses. You will remove yourself from my sight. Do you understand?

Princess Margaret:
Yes... Your Majesty.

King Henry:
And Margaret...

Princess Margaret:
What?

King Henry:
I have yet to decide whether to make your bedmate a head shorter.

Thomas More:
Katherine of Aragon is not only a great queen and the daughter of great kings, she is also immensely popular throughout the whole of the country. God forbid that the king should abandon her just to ease his own conscience. I don't think the English people would ever forgive him!

King Henry:
Anne, I want to say something to you. If it pleases you to be my true loyal mistress and friend, to give yourself up to me body and soul, I promise, I'll take you as my only mistress. I won't have a thought or an affection for anyone else.

King Henry VIII:
[about Brandon] Look, I don't mean he is banished forever. Just as long as he breathes.

Thomas Tallis:
I'm going away.

William Compton:
You're going away, why?

Thomas Tallis:
Cardinal Wolsey is going to France. He invited me to go with him. With other musicians.

William Compton:
Must you go?

Thomas Tallis:
You know very well that an invitation from a cardinal is like an invitation from a king. We little people must put our hands into the fire if invited to.

Anne Boleyn:
Forgive me, I spoke of things I should not.

King Henry VIII:
No, no, I give you leave that we may always speak freely with each other, honestly, openly and with a true heart. For me, that is the true definition of love.

Cardinal Wolsey:
Lady Anne, what are you doing here?

Anne Boleyn:
I have an audience with His Majesty?

Cardinal Wolsey:
What would a silly girl like you have to say to a king?

Dr. Knight's secret mission has been intercepted

Cardinal Wolsey:
Ah, Doctor Knight! Off to the Vatican, are you? And what have you here? Shows letters One is a letter requesting a nullification of the dispensation the King got to marry Queen Catherine. The other is a letter to His Holiness saying that if a divorce cannot be granted, that the King be allowed to take a second wife to father a son. Not only is the King challenging a papal bull, he is asking the Pope to sanction bigamy!

Norfolk:
Well, the King is plainly in love with you. Don't you see, niece... It makes a man, any man... extremely vulnerable.

Thomas Boleyn:
How do you like your charge, sweetheart?

Anne Boleyn:
I... At first, I confess, I did not like it so much. I did not care for the King, but now, I... Now I...

Norfolk:
Anne, it would be wise for you not to be fooled by your own masquerade. It is your duty to use his love to our advantage in supplanting Wolsey.

Thomas Boleyn:
The Cardinal stands between us... and everything. And it is now in your power to do him a great hurt, and we expect you to do so.

Cardinal Wolsey:
Let me know the moment the cardinals arrive.

Cardinal Wolsey is writing letters. Some time passes when King Francis comes to his chamber

Cardinal Wolsey:
Your Majesty.

King Francis:
You did not hear the news?

Cardinal Wolsey:
What news?

King Francis:
The cardinals are not coming.

Cardinal Wosley:
Why not?

King Francis:
The Emperor has decided to release the Pope from capitivity. Pope Clement ordered all cardinals back to Rome as the Vatican is once again in session. There is nothing I can do about; I am terribly sorry. They only take orders from His Holiness.

Cardinal Wolsey has been dealt a bad blow

King Francis{translated from French}:
The wheel turns my friend.

Cardinal Wolsey:
Why should the pope favour the emperor, who has caused him nothing but misery, over the king of England, who has never caused him any harm at all?

Edward Fox:
The trouble is, your Eminence, the swords of the king of England are much further away than the swords of the emperor. Diplomacy is nearly always settled by such proximity.

Cardinal Wolsey:
Spoken like a true lawyer.

Queen Katherine:
[about Anne Boleyn] And your fear of The Sweat is greater than your infatuation with your mistress?

King Henry VIII:
Katherine, she is not my mistress. I do not sleep with her. Not whilst you and I are still married.

King Henry:
Ah! Your Excellence, allow me to introduce...

French Ambassador:
Is this not Mademoiselle Anne? Enchanté. His Eminence, Cardinal Wolsey, has told me all about you, but he did not tell me how beautiful you are. For a Frenchman, that is almost a crime.

Anne Boleyn:
(smiles, answering in French) But Frenchmen always tell ladies that they are beautiful- it is a crime otherwise, is it not?

Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk:
Someone told me taking infusions was the worst thing.

King Henry:
Trust me. It will make you feel sick, but it's better than the sickness it prevents.

Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk:
Margaret, you and I must stay in the king's good graces or we are nothing. Let him marry who he wishes.

Princess Margaret:
That was always your philosophy, wasn't it Charles? So very cynical. Is that why you keep company with that devil Boleyn?

Charles Brandon:
You liked him enough once, when he helped us back to court... Or were you just being cynical?

Princess Margaret:
I didn't see all of his game. Now I do. I despise him.

Charles Brandon:
So do I. But I hate Wolsey more. It's a marriage of expedience.

Princess Margaret:
Rather like ours.

Charles Brandon:
No, I loved you.

Princess Margaret:
You don't know the meaning of the word, Charles. You can love, perhaps for a year, a month, a day, even for an hour. And in that hour I do believe you love as well and deeply... as any man. But after that hour, you love not! You love another, and then another. Your love is most generous where it is most hurtful.

Cardinal Campeggio:
I have received a petition from the dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk and Lord Boleyn, saying the divorce has an overwhelming support of the people of England.

Thomas More:
As Your Eminence would quickly discover if he stepped outside these doors and saw the people, that is a manifest lie. On the contrary, the people love their queen and they have every reason to do so.

Cardinal Wolsey:
Your Majesty, I beg that you yield to the King's will.

Queen Katherine:
And what is his will?

Cardinal Wolsey:
As His Eminence proposes, that you join a religious community of your choosing and take a vow of perpetual chastity.

Queen Katherine:
You speak to me of chastity. Have you not a mistress and two children, Your Eminence?

King Henry VIII:
For a while, I shall have to share Katherine's table, and sometimes her bed.

Anne Boleyn:
Her bed!

King Henry:
It's nothing. My lawyers have just advised me that to do otherwise might risk counter-suits. I could be seen to be acting against her conjugal rights.

Anne Boleyn:
You think it's nothing, to go back to bed with your wife?

King Henry:
What do you think is going to happen?

Anne Boleyn:
What usually happens.

Cardinal Wolsey:
[to Cardinal Campeggio] Let me make certain things plain to you. If you do not grant the King his divorce, papal authority in England will be annihilated. You should remember, the greater part of Germany has already become estranged from Rome, the same thing could happen here. It would mean the total ruin of the kingdom.

Queen Katherine:
(kneels to the King) My lord, (Henry tries to force her to rise, but she remains on her knees) sir, I beseech you, for all the love that has been between us, let me have justice, and right. Give me some pity and compassion for I am a poor woman and a stranger, born out of your dominion. I have no friend here, and little council. I flee to you, as head of justice in this realm. I call God and all the world to witness that I have been to you a true, humble and obedient wife, ever comfortable to your will and pleasure. I have loved all those who you have loved for your sake, whether or not I had cause, whether they be my friends or enemies. By me you have had many children, although it has pleased God to call them from this world. But when you had me at first, I take God as my judge, I was a true maid without touch of man. And whether or not it be true, I put it to your conscience. (She rises, curtsies to the King, and departs the court)

King Henry VIII:
I hear you've been unwell? Is it true?

Cardinal Wolsey:
Majesty, when was I ever unwell enough not to serve you?

King Henry:
That's what I thought.

Queen Katherine:
Have you no kind things to say?

King Henry:
Kind?

Queen Katherine:
To your wife, the mother of your child. You treat me so unkindly and in public neglect me.

King Henry:
Katherine, you must accept the inevitable. The weight of academic opinion is against us. We were never legally man and wife. And the court will decide in my favour and if the court does not decide in my favour, I shall denounce the pope as a heretic and marry whom I please.

Cardinal Wolsey:
Try to discover by subtle means, through his agents, if the emperor is prepared to support his aunt by use of force.

Thomas More:
You think he might invade England in support of the queen?

Cardinal Wolsey:
I don't think anything, but I imagine everything.

King Henry:
Wolsey promises me I will have a divorce by summer.

Anne Boleyn:
Promises are easy.

Queen Katherine:
I know also your malice against my nephew, the Emperor. You hate him like a scorpion. And why? Because he would not satisfy your ambition and make you pope by force.

Cardinal Wolsey:
Madam, you should never presume...

Queen Katherine:
My only satisfaction is that in frustrating you I hasten your fall from the King's good graces, an outcome I desire above all others.

Cardinal Wolsey:
Francis has betrayed me!

Thomas More:
Francis saw the futility of war. He recognised the need for tradition!

[Wolsey, ignoring everything More has said, looks up and glares at him]

Cardinal Wolsey:
[hatefully] And you, Thomas...you have destroyed me!

Anne Boleyn:
You know I sometimes wish that all Spaniards were at the bottom of the sea.

Lady in Waiting:
Mistress Boleyn, you should not abuse the Queen's honor with such language!

Anne Boleyn:
I care nothing for Katherine. I would rather see her hanged than acknowledge her as my mistress!

Charles Brandon:
Your Majesty must forgive me...

Henry VIII:
[angrily] Yes I must forgive you, I must always forgive you, BUT I GROW TIRED OF FORGIVING YOU! I HAVE GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO CALL YOURSELF "PRINCE"!

Knivert:
Aren't you supposed to be running the country?

Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk:
I leave that to Norfolk. He's had more practice. And in any case, meetings with ambassadors - infinitely tedious. They're all liars, hypocrites and middle-aged men.

Knivert:
Would you prefer them to be women?

Charles Brandon:
My friend, if all ambassadors were beautiful women I'd be serving my country day and night.

Duke of Norfolk:
The King has made contact with Wolsey. He had a painting of himself delivered to Wolsey at York.

Brandon:
His Majesty is merely trying to ameliorate Wolsey's dismay through a token of goodwill.

Duke of Norfolk:
Yes, but when the King sends his portrait to someone it is often a sign of his establishing friendship with them.

Brandon:
Look at it this way, when Satan fell from Heaven, he was never welcomed back by God. Has anyone ever been welcomed back to court?

Brandon leaves to join festivities

Duke of Norfolk{talking to himself}:
You were.

King Henry VIII:
Have I made you unhappy?

Anne Boleyn:
No, I would only be unhappy if you ever stopped loving me.

King Henry:
London would have to melt into the Thames first.

Queen Katherine:
I had always fancied that the King, after pursuing his course for some time, would turn away, would hear to his conscience and change his purpose, as he has done so often before. I believed with all my heart that he would return to reason, but now, I ...

Ambassador Chapuys:
Madame, I pray you, don't give way.

Queen Katherine:
No excellency, I shall never give way.

King Henry:
The need for reformation in the Church is manifest. The Emperor has a duty to promote it, as do I in my own domain. I'm glad we've had this opportunity to exchange opinions.

Ambassador Chapuys:
Your Majesty.

Cardinal Wolsey:
Lord we have not, spoken as long or as often as we should. I've often been about other buisness. If I wanted forgivness, I should ask for it but... For all that I have done, for all that I am yet to do, there can be no forgivness. And yet I think I am... I am not an evil man. No, evil man pray loud and seek penance and think themselves closer to heaven than I am. I shall not see its gates Lord. Nor hear your sweet words of salvation. I know myself for what I am and I throw my poor soul upon your forgivness in the full knowledge that I deserve none at your loving hands.

Thomas Cromwell:
Sir Thomas, I notice you allow yourself none of the trappings of your great office.

Thomas More:
I'm not so vain as to display its power, Master Cromwell, but I'll tell you this, I fully intend to use it.

Thomas More:
[Talking to Bishop John Fisher] I am reminded of something Wolsey once told me, that I should only tell the King what he ought to do, never what he could..."For if the lion knows his own strength, no one could control him"

King Henry:
Perhaps you don't understand. But i can't sleep. I can hardly breathe, for thinking of you. Your image is before my eyes every waking second. I almost believe that I would sacrifice my kingdom for an hour in your arms... I beg you, name some place that we can meet, and when... where I an show you truly an affection which is beyond a common affection. Written with the hand of your servant, Henry.

Thomas Cromwell:
(smiles) Lady Anne.

Anne Boleyn:
Master Cromwell. Do you... do you have a message from the King?

Thomas Cromwell:
...I think we understand each other. A mutual friend- a Mr. Fish, now living in exile in Holland- has sent me a gift for you. (hands her a book)

Anne Boleyn:
What is it, Master Cromwell?

Thomas Cromwell:
"The Obedience of the Christian Man"... by William Tyndale. It contains many good criticisms of the Papacy; you'll find it most illuminating. But, always and ever, be cautious as to whom you show this. You must know it would be accounted heresy even to possess it. And, Wolsey is still keen enough to prosecute heretics, as we are called... who embrace the true religion.

Anne Boleyn:
I will. And God bless you, Master Cromwell.