- Prince Edward: [muttering to Tom about Uncle Ned, who rules while Edward is King as a minor] I wish he'd die.
- Thomas Seymour: What? What was that?
- Prince Edward: I said, I wish he'd die. D-Y-E.
- Thomas Seymour: It's the wrong spelling.
- Prince Edward: [nonchalant] Oh, is it?
- Ned Seymour: What is Your Majesty talking about?
- Prince Edward: Spelling. Nobody knows for certain how to spell the King's English.
- Ned Seymour: The spelling is not important, so long as the word carries the right meaning.
- Thomas Seymour: The word His Majesty had *exactly* the right meaning.
- Ann Seymour: Don't try to befuddle me by using words beyond my understanding.
- Young Bess: I'm sorry, madam, but they are difficult to avoid.
- Thomas Seymour: If you were Queen of England, what would you do, eh? Would you give your Admiral the opportunity to do great deeds?
- Young Bess: I'd give him the opportunities he never dared to dream about. I'd send him around the globe as the Portuguese do. I'd send him to the New World to let the Spaniards know that they are no longer masters of it.
- Thomas Seymour: That won't be easy. We're a small country, Bess.
- Young Bess: That can be remedied, Tom. It *can* be remedied!
- Young Bess: Take care, madam, I'm warning you.
- Ann Seymour: Who are you - to warn the Protector's wife?
- Young Bess: My mother's daughter!
- Anne Boleyn: [referring to her involvement in little Elizabeth's birth] But Henry, didn't I have a hand in it?
- King Henry VIII: Of course.
- [smiles wickedly at Anne]
- King Henry VIII: But I gave you the idea.
- [laughter from Anne and the courtiers]
- Mrs. Ashley: Do you remember the last little drink we had together?
- Mr. Parry: Yes. It got us into trouble.
- Mrs. Ashley: We must not overdo it this time.
- Thomas Seymour: The King's daughter! And yet, there's something else in your face. Very interesting. I've seen it before. Her eyes. The same slim nose. Do you know there's not another nose like this in England? I'd know it in a thousand. But where's her smile? Do you know she turned men's heads with that smile of hers? Oh, I know. They made your childhood very unhappy. But I think that some day you're going to be as beautiful as she was, and everyone will fall for you. And that, You Highness, will save you from ever being lonely, as you are now.
- Mr. Parry: It's been a stormy passage.
- Mrs. Ashley: Like the song of the seesaw.
- [singing]
- Mrs. Ashley: Here we go up, up, up, Up to the sky so high
- Mr. Parry: Here we go down, down, down, Bumpety-bump, goodbye.
- Mrs. Ashley: I have just left my Lady Elizabeth. An hour ago she received a message from London. Her Highness' stepsister, Queen Mary, is very, very ill. Oh, it's cruel to lose one's only sister.
- Mr. Parry: You mean - Bloody Mary is dying?
- King Henry VIII: Anne Boleyn's brat, I'll put you in the Tower if you don't talk! You dare defy me? Yes, you dare. I'm beginning to like you.
- Catherine Parr: I'm so glad to have you with me. Your tutors tell me you have brains to match your looks.
- Young Bess: It is a very poor compliment to my brains, Your Majesty.
- Catherine Parr: Nonsense. You're going to be beautiful, my dear. And what's much better, a charming companion for me.
- King Henry VIII: Pretty business when when become clerics, find comfort to me in my old age to be taught from my wife! Do you know how heresy is punished here in this country? Do you know what the law obliges me to do to you, even though I like you? You know I like you very much. You know you are a very pretty woman. I like you very much.
- King Henry VIII: Haven't your tutors told you the world is round?
- Young Bess: They must be wrong and the world is flat!
- King Henry VIII: So, it's flat! You shape the world as it suits you!
- Young Bess: Why not? Didn't you?
- King Henry VIII: [pause, laughs] So I did! You're my daughter!
- King Henry VIII: You're a cold fish. People don't like that. They like a man to laugh and drink with them. A man of courage.
- King Henry VIII: Pray for my soul to release it from purgatory.
- Ned Seymour: You have abolished purgatory.
- King Henry VIII: Don't argue, Ned.
- King Henry VIII: You saw the French coming. What will you do when they come again?
- Young Bess: England has never been invaded.
- King Henry VIII: Not by the Normans?
- Young Bess: Yes, but, they were us or they couldn't have done it.
- King Henry VIII: Hey, did you all hear what she said? Ned, Tom, did you hear what she said? Oh, oh, I wish she were a boy. Watch her grow up, Tom. And you keep an eye on her. Ned, you wait and see, she'll make you jump. She'll twist your tail for it. Oh, I wish I were there to see the fun.
- Thomas Seymour: Excellent! Maturity, that's the secret. In wine as in women, my dear Ann.
- Ann Seymour: Thank you, Tom. I thought you liked them so young.
- Thomas Seymour: Not at all! Young wine goes straight to the head.
- Ann Seymour: This is a matter of character.
- Young Bess: What do you know of my character. I knew your mother.
- Ann Seymour: I knew your mother.
- Young Bess: Well, leave my mother out of it, if you please.
- Ann Seymour: I do not please! Like mother, like daughter. And we know what she was.
- Young Bess: I must talk to you.
- Thomas Seymour: At this hour? And in my room? And you in your bedgown? Use your head and allow me to keep mine on my shoulders.
- Ann Seymour: Sorry, Tom, that we had to separate you from your lady love.
- Thomas Seymour: My dear Ann, if I wanted to have a love affair, what makes you think I should look for it in a nursery.
- Thomas Seymour: Cathy. Don't move, sweetheart. Don't move. Beautiful. Beautiful! I wish that Italian fellow were still alive. Leonardo. He knew how to paint a woman like you.
- Ann Seymour: The Princess Elizabeth, here at Whitehall? Where are they?
- Barnaby: On the lawn, playing shuttlecock.
- Young Bess: I love you, Tom. I've always loved you. Long before you married her. I didn't want to. It should never have happened, but I can't stop loving you, Tom. I just couldn't bear it anymore. I wanted to hurt you. I was lonesome and desperate for you. Only you! I love you, Tom. I love you.
- Young Bess: I think I danced with almost everyone this evening. I haven't stopped for hours. Even though my shoe pinched me.
- Barnaby: Let me do that.
- [removes Bess' shoes]
- Thomas Seymour: Bess! Bess, forgive me. I was besides myself. I didn't know what I was doing.
- Young Bess: You couldn't help it. You either had to kiss me or - and I think it was better that you slapped me.
- Prince Edward: Do you think it's true that Danes put meat under their saddles and bounce on it until it's tender?
- Thomas Seymour: No, that's the Hungarians, Your Majesty.
- Young Bess: It's been a glorious night, don't you think so? Something to remember. Something to talk about on a long, winter Danish night.
- Barnaby: Don't leave us! Don't leave England. On the lonely plains of Denmark, the snows of Sweden, that's not for you. You're so - exquisite!