The King's Evil
by Andrew Taylor
(HarperCollins, 2019)
Scrofula, the disease which blighted so many lives, and which was popularly known as the King’s Evil, because the King’s healing hands had the power to cure it.
Page 4.
Charles II was a shrewd man who knew the importance of reminding his subjects of the divine right of kings. What better way of demonstrating that God had anointed him to rule over them than by the miracle of the royal touch?
Page 7.
People sauntered in the New Exchange: to hurry was to draw attention.
Page 14.
Mangot was equipped with a pass signed by a magistrate, which permitted them to travel on a Sunday.
Page 33.
“God has granted the King the ability to heal, as a token of his divinely ordained right to rule over us.”
Page 38.
Until recently he had been held in the Tower: it had been alleged by his enemies that he had commissioned ab astrologer to cast the King’ horoscope, which was a form of treason which was a form of treason since predicting the King’s future inevitably imagined the possibility of his death.
Page 46.
“After God, our duty is to serve the King.”
Page 49.
Death had made Alderley look ridiculous, as death is apt to do.
Page 58.
Death makes a man small as well as making him ridiculous.
Page 67.
There was a tannery nearby, and nothing made a neighbourhood stink worse than tanning leather.
Page 78.
Four swords hung form a wood ped which had been hammered into a crack I the wall - why would any man need more than one?
Page 81.
Since the Fire, all the remaining property in London had increased in value.
Page 82.
A good servant learned to hide his feelings.
Page 113.
It wasn’t cheap to be a prisoner. If you wanted to be reasonably clothed, fed and housed in this place, you had to pay for it.
Pages 118-119.
One must face one’s devils or they grow stronger.
Page 129.
The ability to indulge your sense of humour in the presence of your inferiors was a sign of your power over them.
Pages 167-168.
“Anyone with eyes sees the man within, not the scars without.”
Page 181.
In vino veritas, they say - when a man is drunk, you discover the truth of him; you see him as he really is, stripped of caution and calculation.
Pages 186-187.
After the Fire, the camps around London had housed the refugees in their tens of thousands.
Page 194.
If I was to negotiate a safe path through this thicket if intrigue, I must first establish the truth.
Page 204.
The best place to hide is under the light.
Page 212.
God save us from the scruples of scholars.
Page 254.
Miracles are relative to circumstances; they depend on the context in which they occur.
Pages 261-262.
The trouble with this underhand business, I thought as I went back into the inn, was that it made you suspicious of everything and everyone.
Page 269.
She was a woman, I suspected, for whom secrecy was a habit of mind; perhaps it had become its own justification.
Page 273.
“Many a true word is spoken in jest.”
Page 289.
Even when we reach man’s estate, we never quite escape our childish selves.
Page 290.
“Africans are not as we are, sir. The rational faculty is not as developed, and there’s some debate as to whether in fact they have souls as we do, or are closer to the horse or the dog in that respect. One thing is certain, they are in thrall to ungodly superstitions.”
Page 297.
Even the most respectable and wealthy of them had an impermanent air, like gypsies and beggars and other men who lack a settled home. The Fire had left its mark on the inhabitants of London, as well as on its buildings.
Page 310.
The spell was broken. But there was an absence within me. Nothing filled the place where she had been.
Page 310.
Waiting was the principal activity of Whitehall.
Page 324.
“No man is so happy in his work that he would not better himself if he could.”
Page 331.
The promise of a distant heaven was little consolation for poverty on earth.
Page 349.
For many Londoners, a body - especially a murdered one - was a form of entertainment, the cause of ghoulish fascination.
Page 350.
Religion brought poison into politics.
Page 369.
Lust blinds a man to everything that dos not feed it.
Page 378.
“These lawyers - they can’t bring themselves to destroy documents. Scraps of paper are meat and drink to them.”
Page 401.
Unfinished business leaves a sour taste.
Page 407.
Gratitude is not an easy emotion.
Page 413.
It is one thing to desire a woman, I thought, another to love her, and yet a third to like her.
Page 423.
A wise man makes a friend of a foe, because if one keeps an enemy close he has less room to cause harm.
Page 424.
His strange desires ran through him like knots in a plank of wood, as much part of him a his courage and his courtesy.
Page 428.
Words were dangerous. So were memories.
Page 435.
A ritual is a ritual, I thought, and it must be followed in every particular or it will not work. The form was as important as the substance, perhaps more so. The truth or otherwise of the ritual was a different question.
Page 451.