“... Speculation, Leon Edel remarks in his one-volume life of Henry James, is ‘the stock-in-trade of all biographers’. But if all biographers speculate, some do so more scrupulously and convincingly than others. Edel, for instance, is both meticulous and plausible. The same can hardly be said of Martin Seymour-Smith in his new critical biography of Kipling ...”

“... World War, the volatile and charismatic lawyer Edward Carson, together with his energetic deputy James Craig, mobilised Ulster Protestants of all classes to resist Home Rule. Carson, who had served as solicitor-general in Lord Salisbury’s Administration, colluded in the illegal shipment of 25,000 rifles and three million ...”

“... get so many laughs. When I saw the first of the two movies I thought I was watching a bit of the James Bond franchise mangled by Quentin Tarantino. But the memory of Jackson in Pulp Fiction was leading me astray. His performance in Kingsman is closer to us in time, and the disorderly presiding spirit is more like that of Mel Brooks. What else could turn ...”

“... Biafra through Kissinger in South Africa (HK to Vorster: ‘I’m only here for De Beers’) via James Goldsmith, Robert Maxwell, Rupert Murdoch, to Mugabe, Bush and Blair. For fans of a pensionable age, Verwoerd’s assassination (‘A Nation Mourns’, 17 September 1966) is a star cover. Younger readers may prefer a ghoulish photo of Norman Tebbit, the ...”

“... In December 1501 the Scottish poet William Dunbar received £5 from the Court of King James IV, a payment which was given to him, according to the Treasurer’s accounts, ‘eftir he com furth of Ingland’. It is not known for sure what he had been doing there. He may well have been in the entourage of the Scottish embassy which was conducting the negotiations with Henry VII that led to the marriage two years later of Princess Margaret Tudor to James IV ...”

“... chancellorship and later earned himself a place in a Nazi handbook on Britain (‘Tweedsmuir, Lord: Pro-Jewish activity’). All the same, Hannay and Buchan’s other characters continue to obsess uneasily about Jewishness. The books’ minor villains and disreputable bit-players are sometimes Jewish, but the subject often comes up in a way that’s ...”

“... he won’t be South Thanet’s next MP. He and his party are popular there. The latest poll by Lord Ashcroft gives Ukip the seat, with 33 per cent of the vote. It’s easy to see why Farage wants South Thanet. Less clear is what South Thanet wants from him. As an individual, he’s a celebrity: he’d put Ramsgate and Broadstairs on the map. But do voters ...”

“... follows directly from them and not from the line that precedes the cut: BISHOP: Fear not my lord. The power that made you king Hath power to keep you king in spite of all. The means that heavens yield must be embraced And not neglected; else heaven would, And we will not; heaven’s offer we refuse, The proffer’d means of succour and ...”

“... and Wise prefer not to use the term) as Jewish Christians. Their leader was in all likelihood James the Just, sometimes referred to as the brother of Jesus. Their arch-enemy was Paul – probably the Preacher of Lies of the Scrolls – who led the believers in Jesus beyond the pale of Jewish law and Jewish national identity. ‘Both movements used the ...”

“... in throughout Mackenzie’s writing career, many from unexpectedly distinguished sources. Henry James may well have been influenced by Mackenzie’s good looks. He had been so swept away by Rupert Brooke’s appearance that it had been quite a relief to be told he was not a very good poet. But about Mackenzie he was rhapsodic, considering him by far the ...”

“... though it plainly limited monarchy in ways intended to prevent future monarchs from acting as James II had done, was certainly not made by enemies of monarchy. Monarchy was thought of as indispensable: without a monarch there would be either anarchy or a dictator, such as Cromwell. Nor was the monarch meant to be a figurehead. It was his job to ...”

“... legacy of the years at Bushey was his encounter with two fellow students, the brother and sister James and Mabel Pryde. Having eloped with Mabel, Nicholson went into artistic partnership with James under the soubriquet of the Beggarstaffs, an old English name which they had noticed on a fodder sack in a stable and ...”

“... from the 16th century onwards, and the evolution of its empire overseas. And as early as 1907, Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, drew attention to the parallels between medieval and early modern Anglo-Scottish and Anglo-Welsh border conflicts, as well as the ‘ceaseless struggles’ in Ireland, and the challenges posed by more far-flung imperial ...”

“... of self-fashioning, he is an essentially Jacobean product. Sometime after the accession of King James in 1603, he gained entry to the court of the precocious young Prince of Wales. According to Bishop Fuller, ‘Prince Henry allowed him a pension and kept him for his servant. Sweetmeats and Coryate made up the last course on all court entertainments.’ In ...”

“... It was​ in a Quonset hut south of the Potomac that Peter Matthiessen met James Jesus Angleton, ‘a cadaverous, hawk-boned man with dark hair, large elfin ears and a lively intelligent face behind horn-rimmed glasses’, as Matthiessen later described him in an unpublished account of his recruitment to the CIA in the autumn of 1950 ...”