Judi Dench credited as playing...
Queen Elizabeth
- Queen Elizabeth: I know something of a woman in a man's profession. Yes, by God, I do know about that.
- Lord Wessex: How is this to end?
- Queen Elizabeth: As stories must when love's denied: with tears and a journey.
- Queen Elizabeth: [after inspecting Viola] Have her then, but you're a lordly fool. She's been plucked since I saw her last, and not by you... it takes a woman to know it.
- Lord Wessex: [angrily] Marlowe!
- Queen Elizabeth: Playwrights teach us nothing about love. They make it pretty, they make it comical, or they make it lust, but they cannot make it true.
- Viola De Lesseps: Oh, but they can!
- Queen Elizabeth: You are an eager boy. Did you like the play?
- John Webster: I liked it when she stabbed herself, Your Majesty.
- Queen Elizabeth: [to Lord Wessex, about Viola] Have her, then, but you are a lordly fool. She's been plucked since I saw her last, and not by you.
- Queen Elizabeth: Fifty pounds! A very worthy sum on a very worthy question. Can a play show us the very truth and nature of love? I bear witness to the wager, and will be the judge of it as occasion arises. I have not seen anything to settle it yet.
- Queen Elizabeth: The Queen of England does not attend exhibitions of public lewdness. So, something is out of joint.
- Viola De Lesseps: I love theater. To have stories acted for me by a company of fellows is in deed...
- Queen Elizabeth: They're not acted for you, they're acted for me. And?
- Viola De Lesseps: And I love poetry above all.
- Queen Elizabeth: Above Lord Wessex?
- Queen Elizabeth: [to Wessex] My Lord, when you cannot find your wife, you better look for her at the Playhouse.