England, My England (1995)

Simon Callow: Charles II

Quotes 

• Tony Palmer : You know what this country has become? Once we had a church built upon a rock. Now the rock has been bulldozed and with it our faith. What we're left with is a crawling underside of expediency and dishonour beholden to Brussels wherein the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain. England, my England, is shuffling about like an old tramp begging for a pair of boots at the tradesmen's entrances of Europe.

• Charles II : Do excuse me for taking such a long time in dying.

• Charles II : Doomsday, my lord Shaftesbury, we shall see whose ass is blackest.

• Charles II : I do believe the devil shits Dutchmen.

• Charles II : For love has more power and less mercy than fate.

• Barbara Palmer (Lady Castlemaine) : [about the play Palmer is writing]  Anything in it for me?

  Tony Palmer : I wouldn't think so. It's about genius.

• Charles II : How much?

  Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon : 11 pounds, 2 shillings, and ten pence, the total in the exchequer, your majesty. And the national debt, in excess of... 3 million, your majesty.

  Charles II : [thinking of his musicians]  I cannot pay them. Why they do it, I cannot think. Why they play on, sing on, they do. I cannot pay my sailors. I cannot pay my guard, but they are rogues, they pay themselves. But the players, the singers, the dancers. We must find a way Edward to pay them. Chapel Royale...

  Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon : Bankers were a tribe grew up in Cromwell's time. Never were heard of before.

  Charles II : They've come to stay, I fear.

• Charles II : [upon returning to England from exile]  Kind Heaven, make us Englishmen again.

• Charles II : 40,000 or so... or so... Yes, let's say £40,000, Master Kiffin, is the sum which, were you to offer in loan would make us so grateful it should advance ye... .

  Kiffen : Majesty, uttter honour, sire, Death, I swear it! But rather I would give ye this day... give ye... £10,000, give ye!

  Charles II : And you shall, Master Kiffin, for Love hath greater power and less mercy than Fate.

  Kiffen : [walking away from the King]  Joy! I am saved 30,000. Saved 30,000!

• Tony Palmer : Once, our native language was refined and free, like the old liturgy ofthe Anglican Church, or Pepys, Dryden, Purcell, each of whom tried to find a vibrant language in which it was possible only to tell the truth.