“... corpulent and sagging, takes in the spectacle, flanked by his bride, dark-eyed Herodias. The king’s rheumy gaze is fixed on his stepdaughter’s nakedness. In the corner, a kneeling servant proffers Salome’s reward, chosen at her mother’s behest: the severed head of John the Baptist, gory and ragged, already halfway to bone. But Salome, still ...”

“... Christine, as she was baptised in Vienna in 1717, did not expect to become queen – or ‘female king’ (rex femina) as she was known in several of her many lands. After observing the ravages of the War of the Spanish Succession, Charles VI issued the Pragmatic Sanction, an edict which aimed to ensure that his (as yet unborn) children – even his daughters ...”

“... expense of the social and intellectual milieu. All this is an old story. Now that works such as Francis Haskell’s Patrons and Painters (first published in 1963) and Michael Levey’s Painting at Court (1971) have made the social history of art respectable, it is becoming quite difficult to remember the time when it was virtually restricted, or ...”

“... In the​ First Book of Kings (5:1-5) Hiram, King of Tyre, sends servants to Solomon, ‘for he had heard, that they had anointed him king in the room of his father,’ David: For Hiram was ever a lover of David. And Solomon sent to Hiram, saying: thou knowest how that David my father could not build an house unto the name of the Lord his God, for the wars which were about him on every side, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet ...”

“... not looking his best. Torr himself saw Garibaldi processing through London As well as a sultan, a king and two French elder statesmen, But not half as plain as the devil who hid in the bracken Beside Yarner Wood, or a group of the spiritual men (As they used to call ghosts on the moors), or a stranger Seen taking a little-known path to the top of a tor. Never ...”

“... snobbish about its Dutch origins and its tulip festival, and named after our least successful king, James II, when he was Duke of York and Albany. One year, when I told friends in Manhattan that I was going to Albany to hear the hippy, marijuana-influenced poems of a Londoner who was living with another poet, half-Negro and half-Cherokee, the New York ...”

“... sold into slavery, going from the Ethiopia of Prester John to the Japan of the Daimyos and St Francis Xavier? Some say that he was a prodigy, as well as one of the great Portuguese classics, the prose equivalent of Camoens; others say that he was a liar. Rebecca Catz says that he was a satirist, that his whole immense book is a subtle, disguised ...”

“... were ‘All is well with the general.’ William Oughtred’s first words were ‘Are you sure the King is restored?’ Elvis Presley’s first words were ‘I hope you have not been bored.’ General Alfredo Quijano’s first words were ‘Still a little closer.’ Maximilien de Robespierre’s first words were ‘Thank you, sir.’ Gertrude Stein’s first ...”

“... behind the arras. Bayley pays particular attention to those who ‘draw’ ale, like the hapless Francis at the Boar’s Head Tavern, torn between glamorous Prince Hal, who is detaining him with idle chatter, and Poins, who is calling again and again for more drink. This is boys’ play, too, and Francis hovers, crying ...”

“... his femur, an ear almost torn off, a fractured skull, fifteen years’ worth of headaches – Dick Francis devotes two chapters of his biography to injuries alone. It was no doubt a marketing man’s dream to bring Piggott and Francis together for the official version. Each king in his own ...”

“... such as Robert Graves’s I, Claudius, or Danny Hill: Memoirs of a Prominent Gentleman (edited by Francis King) and Margaret Forster’s ‘edition’ of Thackeray’s Memoirs of a Victorian Gentleman, the book mingled respected literary figures still alive in Britain with private characters who, if not invented, were surely concealed like the author ...”

“... the right kinds of disturbance in suitable forest and hope it appears. In Japan, the matsutake is king of mushrooms. As in Oregon, though centuries earlier, it appeared in the wake of deforestation and thrived in woodland used by peasants and villagers, disappearing again when the forests were left undisturbed. Its unique smell has been recognised in Japanese ...”

“... That perverse distinction has of course been conferred on Coke’s would-be nemesis, Francis Bacon, of whom the historian A.L. Morton wrote in The English Utopia:There is perhaps no great English writer whose personality is less attractive than Bacon’s, and all the elaborate apologias of his many admirers and the power and magnificence of his ...”

“... The quatercentenary commemorative King James Bible (KJB) sits on my desk as I write: a satisfying artefact in its chocolate livery enriched by opulently gilded top, tail and fore edges, with stout chocolate slipcase to match, impressive in its folio bulk, though not nearly as bulky as the originals of 1611, which needed a sturdy lectern to bear them, announcing their presence with a swagger equal to the most majestic of England’s medieval church buildings ...”

“... In his normal voice, he continued: ‘Right – well, we will most certainly sample your King Prawn Curry, for a start.’ ‘As a starter, sir?’ ‘No, no, not as a starter – for a start.’ ‘How many, sir?’ ‘Two. And I seem to remember finding the Rogan Josh rather tasty, so bring us two of that as well, if you would. Now, Manfred, dear ...”