“... of his short life. Henry VIII had restored the family fortunes. He had allowed Pole’s mother, Margaret, to succeed to the title of Countess of Salisbury, and had paid for Pole’s upbringing and education at Oxford and Padua. Pole spent the years 1521 to 1527 travelling and studying, making important intellectual and political contacts and impressing ...”

“... UK National Conservatism Conference, one fascinating sideshow was the brawl over the carcass of Margaret Thatcher. A few weeks before the event, Ryan Bourne, an economist at the libertarian Cato Institute, had warned those attending the conference against ‘importing the worst American narratives into British politics’ and in the process abandoning ...”

“... there, were left out. Torrance suggests that Lansbury’s exclusion was in deference to the king, who had been upset by his criticisms of the monarchy during the election campaign. MacDonald’s restoration as Labour leader in 1922 had relied on support from left-wing MPs, but he clearly did not feel indebted to them. Treating members of the cabinet as ...”

“... is margarita, leading many commentators to assume that the child’s name was Margery or Margaret). He can’t even bring himself to say that she was his daughter, just that she was closer ‘than aunt or niece’. He is obsessed with his loss and has come to visit her grave. ‘Allas! I leste hyr in on erbere [a grassy plot]/My privy perle withouten ...”

“... line in ex-boyfriends, including John Bindon, an actor-gangster who had holidayed with Princess Margaret and was tried for murder. The days of wine and roses for the pre-hyphenated Windsors left a few stains on the carpet, but the royals still acted as if they were beyond reproach.Mummy loved Andrew, and what Mummy loved, Mummy protected. By 1984, it seemed ...”

“... gave him a myth to demolish or re-create.Part of the problem with this myth is that it begins with King Sebastião, whose death in battle in 1578 led to the end of what is called Portugal’s Golden Age and the annexation of the country by Spain in 1580. It ends with the rise of António de Oliveira Salazar, who ruled Portugal from 1932 to 1968. The death of ...”

“... knew what to celebrate. At the start of the opening ceremony – a service in St Paul’s – the King praised the nation’s courage in the world wars; the official handbook declared categorically that ‘Britain is a Christian Community’; brightly coloured pavilions on the South Bank paid tribute to picturesque countryside, seaside holidays and an ...”

“... know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too’ – an odd slogan to get young girls to learn.11 In fact, it is quite likely that she never said anything of the sort. There is no script from her hand or that of her speech-writer, no ...”

“... as a follower first of the earls of Ulster and then of the earls of Chester, and finally of the King. He was a royalist captain I215-16 and rewarded by John with lands. Under Henry III he continued to prosper and became a baron. His son James (c.1220-77) was a royalist too in the Barons’ Wars and became Justiciar of Ireland in 1270. Two of his sons had ...”

“... about William Morris and Mariano Fortuny. She wrote about Cambridge, where she and her sister Margaret Drabble were educated in the 1950s, and about the landscape of Yorkshire, where they were raised. She wrote about the educational revolution of the 1960s and the purple goose-pimpled legs of English women in miniskirts. She wrote about air raids and ...”

“... Geoffrey Heald, the priest who introduced Olivier to acting at the choir school of All Saints Margaret Street, and played Petruchio to his 13-year-old Katharina in The Shrew, told him to read Dickens – as an actor, he would never want for characterisations. The early chapters of Olivier’s Confessions are written in Dickensian pastiche, even borrowing ...”

“... inevitable fixture that it can accommodate the most disparate material. Here is section 175: Old King Cole was a merry old soul and a merry old soul was Henry He called for his butts – he called for his bowl – he called for his fiddlers three in vain. Blank prose took hold of Henry’s soul considering all the deaths and considering. There is a little ...”

“... of the black African leaders, however, was the Kabaka of Buganda: ‘He regarded himself as a King and he regarded me as a hireling of the Queen. And he didn’t really think he ought to talk to me. He thought he ought to speak to the Queen ... I have dealt with some of the most stubborn trade union leaders in this country and ... some of the most ...”

“... and on the way down to the bankruptcy that broke him, and T. Boone Pickens, the greenmail king, so thrilled with his acquisition of the Mesa field (which he renamed after his wife, Beatrice) that he buzzed Balmoral Castle. Pickens talked like his name sounded, describing the head of the British National Oil Corporation (BNOC), Sir Frank Kearton, as ...”

“... spin doctor, as a political consultant to write hymns in praise of his once and future king in the leader columns. The paper was repeating a giddy pattern set in the autumn. On 28 October Matthew Parris, the politician turned journalist, said in passing to Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight that Mandelson was gay. He wasn’t breaking a confidence: the ...”