The Spanish Princess (TV Series)

All is Lost (2019)

Harriet Walter: Margaret Beaufort

Quotes 

• Margaret Beaufort : Princess Mary. Well, now, don't we look fine? Dido awaiting her Aeneas. I was about your age when I was wed, so there's nothing to fear.

  [to ladies] 

  Margaret Beaufort : Don't be profligate with trim. In Spain, they may treat it as a gaudy spectacle, but in England, marriage is to serve God, king and country.

• Margaret Beaufort : Dudley.

  Sir Edmund Dudley : My Lady. I bring you the contributions of Essex. People of Kent proved more resistant, but their dues to the Crown will flow. I promise.

  Margaret Beaufort : You look like a cat bringing a dead mouse to its owner. Please don't make a parade of treasury affairs.

• Catherine of Aragon : I was told I could see the King.

  Margaret Beaufort : The King? Do you suppose he idles here? He has weddings to arrange.

  Catherine of Aragon : Then I wish to see Prince Harry.

  Margaret Beaufort : Prince Harry is no longer here. He's gone to get ready for his wedding to your niece, Princess Eleanor. Did your sister not tell you? It was arranged before she left.

  Catherine of Aragon : Harry will not marry Eleanor. No, he is betrothed to me. The King oversaw our blessing by the bishop.

  Margaret Beaufort : Do not presume to lecture me in the law. A bended knee is not a contract. A Prince of Wales has repudiated you.

  Catherine of Aragon : It isn't true. He would not abandon me.

  Edward Stafford : Alas, my lady, a young man's gaze can be inconstant, fickle.

  Margaret Beaufort : Prince Harry is in Spain for his wedding to your niece. She's already fertile, so she will bear him heirs when the marriage is concluded. Prince Harry and his sister, Mary, will double-stitch our alliance with your country, and you will have no part in it.

  Catherine of Aragon : Where is the King?

  Margaret Beaufort : My dear girl, something you should learn, there is a time for dignity for admitting one has lost and being gracious in defeat. There's no place for you now here in England.

  Catherine of Aragon : I...

  Margaret Beaufort : No. Close that ruby mouth. The audience is over.

  Edward Stafford : If you care for him at all, you'll set sail for Spain. There's nothing for you here.

• Margaret Beaufort : Who allowed you to return?

  King Henry Tudor : I agreed to speak with her, but now she will take her leave.

  Catherine of Aragon : Your Grace.

  King Henry Tudor : Make sure she leaves the palace grounds, and do not readmit her.

  Guard : Yes, my lady.

  King Henry Tudor : Escort her... as a princess.

  [Catherine leaves] 

  King Henry Tudor : I think her heart is broken.

  Margaret Beaufort : Good. She may send it to her sister as a warning. There's still no word on Edmund de la Pole's return to us. He'd best be sent back soon, or perhaps we'll think again about who our friends are.

• Margaret Beaufort : You evoke the torments of Christ in the wilderness. You're troubled. Harry, it becomes you that you wish to hold your course in matters of the heart.

  Prince Harry Tudor : My father has already told me of the double-stitched alliance that Queen Joanna has demanded of us.

  Margaret Beaufort : She has a daughter whom she wishes to see wed well, and what better husband could there be in Christendom?

  Prince Harry Tudor : I have prayed on king and country, peace and duty, as I was tasked to do.

  Margaret Beaufort : A king must choose his reason and his strength to choose a path which is right for England's future.

  Prince Harry Tudor : What of Catherine? Where is she in this?

  Margaret Beaufort : She'll return to Spain. She's comely. She'll find another suitor. Her sister will help her, and I think you'll find her heart recovers quickly at the sight of Spanish gold. Without this second match, the whole alliance could be forfeit.

  Prince Harry Tudor : I will tell you when I have decided. I will pray on it further.

• Thomas Wolsey : Your Grace, the dowager princess brings an urgent message.

  Margaret Beaufort : No. Out.

  King Henry Tudor : Now, let her speak.

  Catherine of Aragon : The queen's consort, Philip, Archduke of the House of Habsburg, is dead. My sister's grief has caused her health to fail, and her son and heir, Prince Charles, who is betrothed to your Princess Mary, is only eight and is too young to rule. My father has declared himself the king of Spain again, and I am named ambassador to England.

  Margaret Beaufort : Ambassador? That is a position for a man.

  Catherine of Aragon : I sat at my mother's feet in the Alhambra palace. I listened to my father in the golden hall of the ambassadors. Statecraft has always been my family business.

  Margaret Beaufort : I see this for what it is. You cannot block the weddings we have brokered.

  Catherine of Aragon : My father can. My niece and nephew are in his keeping now.

  Margaret Beaufort : Your father wants this alliance as much as we do.

  Catherine of Aragon : Yet he offered me my dowry. You were right, My Lady, when you said my father is as tricky as a fox, but you need him now to save yourselves from France. I am his proxy in this court, so unless you wish to cross him, I will take Senor de Fuensalida's quarters for the moment, and my lady will lodge with me.

  King Henry Tudor : But Catherine... my son... I know you will seek to find him, probably scour this palace from top to toe. But he is gone.

  Catherine of Aragon : Your Grace.