My life, when it is written, will read better than it lived. Henry Fitz-Empress, first...

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]