The Lion in Winter (1968)

Peter O'Toole: Henry II

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Quotes 

• Henry II : I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : I adored you. I still do.

  Henry II : Of all the lies you've told, that is the most terrible.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : I know. That's why I've saved it up until now.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : And when you die, which is regrettable but necessary, what will happen to frail Alais and her pruny prince? You can't think Richard's going to wait for your grotesque to grow.

  Henry II : You wouldn't let him do a thing like that.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Let him? I'd push him through the nursery door.

  Henry II : You're not that cruel.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Don't fret. We'll wait until you're dead to do it.

  Henry II : Eleanor, what do you want?

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Just what you want, a king for a son. You can make more, I can't. You think I want to disappear? One son is all I've got, and you can blot him out and call me cruel? For these ten years you've lived with everything I've lost, and loved another woman through it all, and I am cruel? I could peel you like a pear and God himself would call it justice!

• Henry II : Now hear me, boy...

  Philip II : I am a king - I am no man's "boy"!

  Henry II : A king? Because you put your ass on purple cushions?

• Henry II : Well, I'm off.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : To Rome?

  Henry II : That's where they keep the Pope!

• [last lines] 

  Henry II : [yelling to Eleanor as she sails away back to her prison]  I hope we never die.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : So do I.

  Henry II : Do you think there's any chance of it?

  [Henry laughs hysterically while Eleanor graciously waves goodbye to him] 

• Henry II : Well, what shall we hang... the holly, or each other?

• Henry II : There's no sense asking if the air is good if there's nothing else to breathe.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : What would you have me do? Give out? Give up? Give in?

  Henry II : Give me a little peace.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : A little? Why so modest? How about eternal peace? Now there's a thought.

  Henry II : If you oppose me, I'll strike you any way I can.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : Henry?

  Henry II : Hmmm?

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : I have a confession.

  Henry II : Yes?

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : I don't much like our children!

• Henry II : How was your crossing? Did the Channel part for you?

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : It went flat when I told it to. I didn't think to ask for more.

• Henry II : What is this? I'm not mouldering. My paint's not peeling off. I'm good for years.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : How many years? Suppose I hold you back for one. I can. It's possible. Suppose your first son dies, ours did. It's possible. Suppose you're daughtered next, we were. That too is possible. How old is daddy then? What kind of spindly, ricket-ridden, milky, wizened, dim-eyed, gammy-handed, limpy line of things will you beget?

• Henry II : It's heavy... Oh Eleanor, you've brought me my tombstone! You spoil me!

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : [after Henry tells Eleanor he wants their marriage annulled]  Out Eleanor... in Alais. Why?

  Henry II : A new wife, wife, will bear me sons.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : That is the single thing of which I would have thought you had enough.

• Henry II : I found out the way your mind works and the kind of man you are. I know your plans and expectations - you've burbled every bit of strategy you've got. I know exactly what you will do, and exactly what you won't, and I've told you exactly nothing. To these aged eyes, boy, that's what winning looks like!

• Henry II : I haven't kept the Great Bitch in the keep for ten years out of passionate attachment.

• Henry II : The day those stout hearts band together is the day that pigs get wings.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : There'll be pork in the treetops come morning.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : Henry.

  Henry II : Madam.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Did you ever love me?

  Henry II : No.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Good. That will make this pleasanter.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : Henry's bed is Henry's province. He can people it with sheep for all I care, which on occasion he has done.

  Henry II : Rosamund's been dead for seven years...

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : ...two months and eighteen days. I never liked her much.

  Henry II : You count the days?

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : I made the numbers up.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : How dear of you to let me out of jail.

  Henry II : It's only for the holidays.

• Henry II : We're in the cellar and you're going back to prison and my life is wasted and we've lost each other... and you're smiling.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : It's the way I register despair. There's everything in life but hope.

  Henry II : We're both alive... and for all I know that's what hope is.

• Henry II : I'm villifying you for God's sake - pay attention!

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : Oh Henry, we mangled every thing we touch.

  Henry II : Deny us what you will, we have done that. Do you remember when we met?

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Down to the hour and color of your stockings.

  Henry II : I could hardly see you for the sunlight.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : It was raining, but no matter.

• Henry II : Oh God, but I do love being king!

• Henry II : I've snapped and plotted all my life. There's no other way to be alive, king, and fifty all at once.

• Henry II : In my time I've known contessas, milkmaids, courtesans and novices, whores, gypsies, jades, and little boys, but nowhere in God's western world have I found anyone to love but you.

• Henry II : I have an offer for you, my dear.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : A deal? A deal? I give the richest province on the continent to John for what? You tell me, mastermind, for what?

  Henry II : Your freedom.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : [softly]  Oh.

  Henry II : Once Johnny gets the Aquitaine, you're free, I'll let you out. Think. On the loose in London, winters in Provence, impromptu trips to visit Richard anywhere he's killing people. All that for a signature.

• Henry II : My life, when it is written, will read better than it lived. Henry Fitz-Empress, first Plantagenet, a king at twenty-one, the ablest soldier of an able time. He led men well, he cared for justice when he could and ruled, for thirty years, a state as great as Charlemagne's. He married out of love, a woman out of legend. Not in Alexandria, or Rome, or Camelot has there been such a queen. She bore him many children. But no sons. King Henry had no sons. He had three whiskered things but he disowned them.

  [to his sons] 

  Henry II : You're not mine! We're not connected! I deny you! None of you will get my crown, I leave you nothing and I wish you plague! May all your children breach and die!

  [storms out the corridor, turns and looks back] 

  Henry II : My boys are gone.

  [he starts unsteadily down the corridor] 

  Henry II : I've lost my boys.

  [he stops, glares towards the Deity] 

  Henry II : You dare to damn me, do You? Well, I damn you back.

  [like a biblical figure, shaking his fist to the sky] 

  Henry II : GODDAMN YOU!

  [moving blindly down the corridor again] 

  Henry II : My boys are gone. I've lost my boys. Oh, Jesus, all my boys...

  [collapses, weeping on the stairs] 

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : You don't dare go!

  Henry II : Say that again at noon, you'll say it to my horse's ass! Lamb, I'll be rid of you by Easter: you can count your reign in days!

• Henry II : [Henry brings candles into the dungeon]  What we do in dungeons needs the shades of day. I stole the candles from the chapel. Jesus won't begrudge them and the chaplain works for me.

• Henry II : The sky is pocked with stars. What eyes the wise men must have had to see a new one in so many.

• Henry II : The Vexin's mine.

  Philip II : By what authority?

  Henry II : It's got my troops all over it; that makes it mine.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : And that's to be the king.

  Geoffrey : And I'm to be his Chancellor. Has he told you? John will rule the country, while I run it. That is to say he gets to spend the taxes that I raise.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : How nice for you.

  Geoffrey : It's not as nice as being king.

  Henry II : We've made you Duke of Brittany, is that so little?

  Geoffrey : No one ever thinks of crown and mentions Geoff, why is that?

  Henry II : Isn't being chancellor power enough?

  Geoffrey : It's not the power I feel deprived of; it's the mention I miss. There's no affection for me here; you wouldn't think I'd want that, would you?

• Henry II : My finest angle. It's on all the coins.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : I adored you.

  Henry II : Never!

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : I still do.

• Henry II : I'm 50 now. Good God, boy, I'm the oldest man I know! I've got a decade on the pope!

• Henry II : I want no women in my life.

  Alais : You're tired.

  Henry II : I could have conquered Europe - all of it - but I had women in my life.

• Henry II : When I bellow, bellow back.

• Henry II : You've got your enigmatic face on. What's your mood, I wonder?

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Pure delight. I'm locked up with my sons. What mother does not dream of that?

• Philip II : A king like you has policy prepared on everything. well, what's the official line on sodomy? How stands the Crown on boys who do with boys?

  Henry II : Richard finds his way into so many legends; let's hear yours and see how it compares.

  Philip II : Well, he found me first when I was 15. We were hunting; it was nearly dark; my horse fell; I was thrown. I woke to Richard touching me. He asked me if I loved him: 'Philip, do you love me?' And I told him yes. Do you know why I told him yes? So that one day I could tell you all about it. You cannot imagine what that 'yes' cost. Imagine snuggling to a chancred whore, and bending back your lips into something like a smile saying, 'Yes, I love you, and I find you...

  [pause] 

  Philip II : ...beautiful.' I don't know how I did it.

• Henry II : We're off to Rome to see the Pope.

  Alais : He's excommunicated you again?

  Henry II : No, he's going to set me free.

• Henry II : Up! Up! When the king is off his ass, nobody sleeps! Up! Up!

• Henry II : Geoffrey: there's a masterpiece. He isn't flesh: he's a device. He's wheels and gears. And Johnny: was his latest treason your idea? I've caught him lying, and I've said, "he's young." I've found him cheating, and I've said, "he's just a boy." I've watched him steal and whore and whip his servants, and he's not a child - he's the man we made him.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Don't share John with me. He's your accomplishment.

  Henry II : And Richard's yours. How could you send him off to deal with Philip?

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : I was tired. I was busy. They were friends.

  Henry II : Eleanor, he was the best, and from the cradle on you cradled him. I never had a chance.

• Henry II : I want to reach a settlement. I left you with too little earlier,

  Philip II : Yes, nothing is too little.

• Henry II : More brandywine? They were boiling it in Ireland before the snakes left!

• Henry II : Where's a priest? Somebody fetch me a priest! YOU! Fetch me a bishop!

• Geoffrey : You don't think of me much.

  Henry II : Much? I don't think of you at all

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : Go on!

  [Henry has a knife to John's throat and freezes. A terrified Eleanor looks on but speaks...] 

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Execute him. They're assassins aren't they? This was treason, wasn't it? You gave them life, you take it.

  [Henry lets John go and throws down the knife] 

  Henry II : Who's to say this is monstrous. I'm the king, I call it just.

  [Henry draws his sword and brandishes it over his sons] 

  Henry II : And therefore, I, Henry, by the grace of God, king of the English, Lord of Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Count Anjou, Brittany, Poitou, Anjou and Normandy, Maine, Gascony and Aquitaine. Sentence you death, done this Christmas day in Chinon in God's year, 1183.

  [Henry raises the sword above and unflinching Richard. He brings it down, flat side strikes Richard's shoulder, leaving him unharmed. Drops the sword] 

  Henry II : Surely that's not what I intended. Children, children... we're all we have. Go on, I'm done. I'm finished with you. You and I are finished.

  [Geoffrey and John run out, Richard follows slowly] 

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : You spare the rod you'll spoil those boys.

  Henry II : I couldn't do it, Eleanor.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Nobody thought you could.

• Henry II : I want a son.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Whatever for? Why, we could populate a country town with country girls who've borne your sons. How many is it? Help me count the bastards.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : You'll let me out for Easter?

  Henry II : Come the Resurrection, you can strike me down again.

• Alais : Henry, I can't be your mistress if I'm married to your son.

  Henry II : Why can't you? Johnny wouldn't mind.

  Alais : I do not like your Johnny.

  Henry II : He's a good boy.

  Alais : He's got pimples, and he smells of compost.

  Henry II : He's just sixteen! He can't help the pimples.

  Alais : He could have a bath!

• Henry II : Nothing in life has any business being perfect.

• Henry II : Time hasn't done a thing but wrinkle you.

• Henry II : We open Christmas presents at noon. Till then.

  Philip II : You can't be finished with me.

  Henry II : Oh, but I am. It's been most satisfactory.

  Philip II : What's so satisfactory?

  Henry II : Winning is. I did just win. Surely you noticed.

• Henry II : I've come to you to offer peace.

  Philip II : Piss on your peace.

  Henry II : Your father would have wept.

  Philip II : My father was a weeper.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : I wonder, Henry, if I care for anything. I wonder if I'm hungry out of habit.

  Henry II : I could listen to you lie for hours. So your lust is rusty. Gorgeous!

• Henry II : Whatever are you giving me?

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : You're such a child. You always ask.

  Henry II : "To Henry." Heavy. It's my tombstone! Eleanor, you spoil me.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : I never could deny you anything.

  Henry II : [to Alais]  Don't go. It nettles her to see how much I need you.

  Alais : You need me, Henry, like a tailor needs a tinker's dam. Oh, I know that look. He's going to say he loves me.

  Henry II : Like my life.

  Henry II : [after Alais leaves]  I talk that way to keep her spirits up.

• Henry II : The new Medusa, my good wife.

  Alais : How is your queen?

  Henry II : Decaying, I suppose. No, don't be jealous of the gorgon. She is *not* among the things I love. How many husbands do you know who dungeon up their wives?

• Henry II : On this Christmas, I have all the enemies I need.

  Alais : You have more than you think.

  Henry II : Are you one? Has my willow turned to poison oak?

  Alais : If I decided to be trouble, Henry, how much trouble could I be?

  Henry II : Not much.

• Henry II : It's an odd thing, Eleanor. I've fought and bargained all these years, as if the only thing I had to live for was what happened after I was dead.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : My, what a greedy little trinity you are: king, king, king. Two of you must learn to live with disappointment.

  Henry II : Ah, but which two?

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Let's deny them all and live forever.

• Henry II : What's your count? Let's have a tally of the bedspreads you've spread out on.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Thomas Beckett's.

• Henry II : I'm sorry you're not fonder of me, lad. Your father always said, "be fond of stronger men."

  Philip II : No wonder he loved everyone.

• Henry II : Fight me and you'll lose.

  Philip II : I can't lose, Henry. I have time. Just look at you. Great heavy arms. But each year they get a little heavier. The sand goes pit-pat in the glass. I'm in no hurry, Henry. I've got time.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : What happens to me now?

  Henry II : That's lively curiosity from such a dead cat. If you want to know my plans, just ask me.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Conquer China, sack the Vatican, or take the veil. I'm not among the ones who give a damn.

• Alais : If she doesn't stop us, Richard will.

  Henry II : Not anymore, I've corked him up. He's in the cellar with his brothers and the wine. The royal boys are aging with the royal port.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : Your sons are part of you.

  Henry II : Like warts and goiters, and I'm having them removed.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : You look dreadful.

  Henry II : So do you.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine : I want to die.

  Henry II : You will, you know, someday. Just wait long enough, and it'll happen.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : So it will.

• [first lines] 

  Henry II : [yelling to his sword fight opponent]  Come for me!

• Henry II : Good God, woman, face the facts.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine : Which ones? We have so many.

  Henry II : Power is the only fact.

• Henry II : If I say you and I are done, we're done. If I say marry John, it's John. I'll have you by me, and I'll use you as I like.

• Alais : Have you found religion, Henry? Will you look down from heaven and see who's sitting on your throne?

  Henry II : I must know before I die. There's a legend of a king called Lear, with whom I have a lot in common. Both of us have kingdoms and three children we adore, and both of us are old, but there it ends. He cuts his kingdom into bits. I can't do that. I've built an empire, and I must know it's going to last. All of Britain, half of France. I'm the greatest power in a thousand years and after me comes John.

• Henry II : You think I'd ever give him up when I've mothered him and fathered him and babied him? He's all I've got!

• Richard : I'll have the crown.

  Henry II : You'll have what Daddy gives you.

• Henry II : Boy, don't ever call a king a liar to his face.

  Philip II : I'm not a boy, to you or anyone!

  Henry II : Boy, you came here asking for a wedding or the Vexin back. By God, you don't get either.

• Henry II : I think you think you mean it.

• Alais : Can you do it, Henry?

  Henry II : I shall have to, shan't I?