Elizabeth
1998
Sir Robert Dudley: Remember who you are. Do not be afraid of them.
Sussex: Princess Elizabeth. You are accused of conspiring with Sir Thomas Wyatt and others against her sovereign majesty. I have been commanded to take you hence from this place... to the tower.
(Offering Elizabeth his coat before putting her in the tower) Arundel: Madam, you are cold. Elizabeth: I do not need your pity. Arundel: Accept it then for my sake. Elizabeth: Thank you. I shall not forget this kindness.
Queen Mary: Why will you not confess your crimes against me? Elizabeth: Because, your majesty, I have committed none. Queen Mary: You speak with such sincerity. I see you are still a consummate actress. My husband is gone. They have poisoned my child. (Moans in pain) They say it is a tumor. Elizabeth: Madam, you are not well. Queen Mary: They say this cancer will make you queen, but they are wrong. Look there, that is your death warrant, all I need do is sign it. Elizabeth: Mary, if you sign that paper you will be murdering your own sister.
Queen Mary: When I look are you I see nothing of the king, only that whore, your mother. My father never did anything so good as to cut off her head. Elizabeth: Your majesty forgets he was also my father.
Sir Francis Walsingham: All Norfolk need do is sign that paper and treason will have been committed... Elizabeth: Then let him sign it, and let it all be done.
Norfolk: I must do nothing by your order. I am Norfolk. Sir Francis Walsingham: You were Norfolk. The dead have no titles.
Elizabeth: I have rid England of her enemies. What do I do now?
Elizabeth: Aye, but marry who, your grace? Would you give me some suggestion? For some say France and others Spain, and some cannot abide foreigners at all. So I am not sure how best to please you unless I married one of each.
Elizabeth: This is the Lord's doing. And it is marvelous in our eyes.
Elizabeth: When I am queen, I promise... to act as my conscience dictates. Queen Mary: Then you are not to be queen at all.
Sir Robert Dudley: For God's sake, you are still my Elizabeth. Elizabeth: I am not your Elizabeth. I am no man's Elizabeth. And if you think to rule here, you are mistaken. (to all) I will have one mistress here... and no master.
Elizabeth: I am my father's daughter. I'm not afraid of anything.
Elizabeth: I have become a virgin.
De la Quadra: What would a man not do for love?
Elizabeth: Tonight I think I die.
Elizabeth: Observe, Lord Burghley, I am married... to England.
Elizabeth: (last line, to William Cecil) Observe, Lord Burleigh; I am married to England now.
Sir Robert Dudley: Marry me. Elizabeth: On a night such as this, could any woman say no? Sir Robert Dudley: On a night such as this, could a queen say no? Elizabeth: Does not a queen sit under the same stars as any other woman?
Elizabeth: When I am queen, I promise... to act as my conscience dictates. Queen Mary: Then do not think to be queen at all.
Norfolk: Cut off my head, and make me a martyr. The people will always remember it. Walsingham: No... they will forget.
Walsingham: You were the most powerful man in England. And you could have been greater still, but you had not the courage to be loyal, only the conviction of your own vanity.
(after being told not to make fun of the sanctity of marriage) Elizabeth: I do not think you should lecture on that my lord, since you yourself have been twice divorced. And are now upon your third wife.
Sir Francis Walsingham: There is so little beauty in this world, and so much suffering. Do you suppose that is what God had in mind? That is to say if there is a god at all. Perhaps there is nothing in this universe but ourselves. And our thoughts."
(speaking to a priest he is having tortured) Sir Francis Walsingham: Tell me, what is God to you? Has he abandoned you? Is he such a worldly god that he must play at politics in the filth of conspiracy? Is he not divine? Tell me, as surely as if you were face to face with him now... I'm a patient man, Father.
Elizabeth: You will be kept alive to always remind me of how close I came to danger.
Walsingham: All men need something greater than them to look up to and worship. They must be able to touch the divine here on earth.
Elizabeth: There will be no more talk of marriage.
Elizabeth: Just tell me why. Sir Robert Dudley: Why? Madam, is it not perfectly plain to you? It is no easy thing to be loved by the queen. It would corrupt the soul of any man.
(on the Virgin Mary) Elizabeth: She has such power over men's hearts. They would die for her. Sir Francis Walsingham: They have found nothing to replace her.
Sir Francis Walsingham: Madam, if I may. A prince should never flinch from being blamed for acts of ruthlessness which are necessary for safe guarding the state and their own person. You must take these things so much to heart that you do not fear to strike. Even the very nearest that you have if they be implicated.
Elizabeth: I do not like wars. They have uncertain outcomes.
Elizabeth: Invite the Duke of Anjou. We shall see him in flesh. (She runs after Lord Robert, who is not happy with the news) Monsieur de Foix: The Duke will not take kindly to a rival in his suit. Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley: He is a traitor and his father before him. Lord Robert's head will end up on a spike, not on the pillow of the Queen.
(about Elizabeth) Norfolk: She is just a child and yet still you piss yourselves!
(regarding Elizabeth's impending reign) Unseen Gentleman: Your Grace, Protestants are already returning from abroad. Norfolk: Yes. And have made plans to massacre every Catholic in England. There would be butchery indeed if such a plan were even conceivable. Norfolk's Man: They say Walsingham will return from France. Norfolk: Walsingham is nothing! (aside to Norfolk's Man as he is leaving the room) Norfolk: Be sure he does not.
(Mary, on her deathbed, is refusing to sign a warrant for Elizabeth's execution) Norfolk: Will you leave your kingdom to a heretic?
Arundel: War is a sin but, sometimes, a necessary one.
Sir Robert Dudley: When you are Queen - Elizabeth: I am not Queen yet! Sir Robert Dudley: But you will be. Elizabeth, Queen of England. There will be poems written in your honor, songs revering your beauty, a court to worship you, and they will mean nothing to you. I will mean nothing to you. Elizabeth: (Elizabeth laughs gaily) Oh, how could you ever be nothing to me? Robert, you know you are everything to me.
Sir Robert Dudley: You blush, my lady. Are you in love? Lady in Waiting: No, my lord. Sir Robert Dudley: Then you should be, or waste all that beauty. (the ladies-in-waiting giggle)