Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1) QUOTES

1 " History is about longing and belonging. It is about the need for permanence and the perception of continuity. It concerns the atavistic desire to find deep sources of identity. We live again in the twelfth or in the fifteenth century, finding echoes and resonances of our own time; we may recognise that some things, such as piety and passion, are never lost; we may also conclude that the great general drama of the human spirit is ever fresh and ever renewed. That is why some of the greatest writers have preferred to see English history as dramatic or epic poetry, which is just as capable of expressing the power and movement of history as any prose narrative; it is a form of singing around a fire. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

2 " The ordinary routines of life are never chronicled by the historian, but they make up almost the whole of experience. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

3 " By the time of Athelstan the country was divided into shires, hundreds and vills or townships, precisely in order to expedite taxation. The shires of England were unique, their boundaries lasting for more than a thousand years until the administrative reorganization of 1974. The earliest of them date from the late seventh and early eighth centuries, but many of their borders lie further back in the shape of the Iron Age tribal kingdoms. So the essential continuity of England was assured. Hampshire is older than France. Other shires, like those in the midlands, were constructed later; but they are still very ancient. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

4 " The house of the Plantagenets, from Henry II to Richard III himself, was brimming with blood. In their lust for power the members of the family turned upon one another. King John murdered, or caused to be murdered, his nephew Arthur; Richard II despatched his uncle, Thomas of Gloucester; Richard II was in turn killed on the orders of his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke; Henry VI was killed in the Tower on the orders of his cousin, Edward IV; Edward IV murdered his brother, Clarence, just as his own two sons were murdered by their uncle. It is hard to imagine a family more steeped in slaughter and revenge, of which the Wars of the Roses were only one effusion. It might be thought that some curse had been laid upon the house of the Plantagenets, except of course that in the world of kings the palm of victory always goes to the most violent and the most ruthless. It could be said that the royal family was the begetter of organized crime. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

5 " A survivor, in another sense, was left alive. The king’s nephew, Stephen, count of Blois, was suffering from a severe bout of diarrhoea and declined to join the revelry aboard the White Ship. Since he would be crowned as king of England fifteen years later, it can plausibly be maintained that an attack of diarrhoea determined the fate of the nation. Statesmen may plot and plan. Learned men may calculate and conclude. Diplomats may debate and prevaricate. But chance rules the immediate affairs of humankind. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

6 " Less violent diversions can also be cited. An inspection of the pupils of Magdalen College, Oxford, in the very early years of the sixteenth century, revealed that ‘Stokes was unchaste with the wife of a tailor … Stokysley baptised a cat and practised witchcraft … Gregory climbed the great gate by the tower and brought a Stranger into College … Pots and cups are very seldom washed but are kept in such a dirty state that one shudders to drink out of them … Kyftyll played cards with the butler at Christmas time for money.’ Other students were accused of keeping as pets a ferret, a sparrowhawk and a weasel. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

7 " Sir it did not belong to me to examine the matter, since I knew full well that I should not be a judge of the matter for it belongs only to a judge to study illam Sacre Scripture clausam where Holy Job says “Causam quam nesciebam diligentissime investigabam”.’ So men were inclined, and able, to break into Latin when addressing one another. Latin was also used for the ruder moments. Of two men in close alliance it was written that singuli caccant uno ano or ‘they shit out of the same arse’. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

8 " Who can give more heat to the fire, or joy to heaven, or pain to hell? A ring upon a nun is like a ring in a sow’s nose. Your best friend is still alive. Who is that? You. The sun is none the worse for shining on a dunghill. He must needs swim that is borne up to the chin. An hour’s cold will suck out seven years of heat. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

9 " lord, decked with jewels, sitting at the head of a table. It is a poetry of assonance "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

10 " The names of the English have changed. Before the invasion of William I the common names were those such as Leofwine, Aelfwine, Siward and Morcar. After the Norman arrival these were slowly replaced by Robert, Walter, Henry and of course William. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

11 " It was a business that engaged a significant part of the nation; the wool was given to village women to comb and to spin before being sent to the weaver; to this day, an unmarried woman is known as a spinster. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

12 " When the first sarsen stone was raised in the circle of Stonehenge, the land we "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

13 " the writing of history is often another way of defining chaos. There is in fact a case for saying that human history, as it is generally described and understood, is the sum total of accident and unintended consequence. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

14 " History is about longing and belonging. It is about the need for permanence and the perception of continuity. It concerns the atavistic desire to find deep sources of identity. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

15 " Everything grows out of the soil of contingent circumstance. Convenience, rather than the shibboleth of progress of evolution, is the agent of change. Error and misjudgment therefore play a large part in what we are pleased to call the 'development' of institutions. A body of uses and misuses then takes on the carapace of custom and becomes part of a tradition. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

16 " The cure for tonsillitis was inspired. ‘Take a fat cat, skin it, draw out the guts and take the grease of a hedgehog and the fat of a bear … All this crumble small and stuff the cat, roast it whole and gather the grease and anoint the patient therewith. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

17 " The land was left vacant, and fewer men were available to defend it. So the Angles, and the Saxons, moved westward. Anglo-Saxon civilization was created by a pandemic. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

18 " In the end the natives would be so mixed and mingled with the new settlers that the term Saxon or Angle ceased to have any meaning. All would become English. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

19 " The financial penalties for murder, for example, were graded according to the ‘worth’ of the victim. It was a harsh and divisive society, only made possible by the continuous exploitation of the unfree. "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)

20 " name for Manchester was Mamucio, after the "

― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)