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“... magic’ of medieval days. During the Gordon Riots of 1780 it was the holy refuge on which Lord Mansfield, deputising for the Lord Chancellor, at last subsided after being manhandled by the mob in ‘a sudden flare-up of the old Eurosceptic anti-Catholic mania’. There he sat, the ...”

“... Hebrew words relating to these various messages from the god as ‘oracles’, although the King James Version avoids the term, except in one or two special instances. Prophets such as Samuel, Elijah and Elisha seem to belong to groups or schools, like the Iamids. Some seem to have lain in the dust, like the seers of the pediment at Olympia. Some, like ...”

“... James Pope-Hennessy, who was murdered in 1974 when he was 58, will be remembered for several of his books, among them London Fabric, an architectural study made in the nick of time in 1939, a young man’s book which has worn well; the two volumes of his life of Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton; Verandah of 1964, with its autobiographical element added to family and colonial history; and the excellent Queen Mary (1959), an unusually sympathetic study ...”

“... as —”’ was how the Marquess’s offending calling-card appeared in the Evening Standard. Lord Queensberry’s ‘Somdomite’ was displaying his characteristic ineffability by causing the tongue to stumble and producing gaps in public discourse. In recent years, some would argue, those gaps have been filled to overflowing. Lesbian articles, queer ...”

“... was a bare three years since the first Jacobite Rising had attempted to place the Old Pretender, James Edward Stuart, on the throne, and although the Murrays were well-known Jacobites, the family was well enough connected to ensure that, when he reached London, William was able to enter Westminster School and then Christ Church, Oxford, at both of which he ...”

“... Cannadine and Cannadine had given us an encouragingly comical puff for his book, Robert Rhodes James reminded us that Lloyd George, despite doing so much to reduce the Upper House to impotence and discredit, had ended his days as Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor, and then led us off down miles of corridors to a cellar under St Stephen’s Hall where we were ...”

“... Two months after the suspension of Stormont in 1972, Belfast’s retiring Lord Mayor, Sir Joseph Cairns, delivered a farewell speech in which he reflected on the political situation. Ulster, he said, had been cynically betrayed by Britain’s policies: policies that had relegated it to ‘the status of a Fuzzy Wuzzy colony ...”

“... a great deal, but in 1603 the skilful diplomacy of her chief minister, Robert Cecil, escorted James VI, King of Scots, to the thrones of England and Ireland, with far less fuss than everyone had feared. The entire archipelago was for the first time in its history united under a single monarch, and moreover under the ruler of the neighbouring kingdom which ...”

“... hopes and fantasies about their eventual place in the world. The story of Dick Whittington, fabled Lord Mayor of London, has for centuries helped underpin a belief that extreme social mobility always remains a strong possibility for everyone, however illusory the idea may often be in practice. Later, 19th-century adventure novels set in the past, such as ...”

“... 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. But now the Lord my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is ...”

“... party; he was 45 and she was 25. Cavendish was the daughter of the Duke of Devonshire, a cousin of Lord David Cecil, et cetera, and became a lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret – the next best thing, perhaps, to Betjeman bagging a royal. His relationship with Cavendish was clearly one of the most important in his life, but the reader is left to infer from ...”

“... Hannay is acute and sensitive on Lady Holland and Lady Blessington in the early 19th century. Lord Egremont’s essay on Lady Desborough and ‘the Souls’ is delightful. Victoria Glendinning’s study of ‘Speranza’, Oscar Wilde’s mother, is a tour de force. But the talk itself, conversation as an art to be cultivated and passed on, eludes us. If ...”

“... So and So (in Ralegh’s case probably his half-brother Humphrey), who might talk to his good Lord Such and Such, who might get you a moment with the even more elevated Lady Herself, who might if you were lucky be a gentlewoman of the queen’s bedchamber, and who might see about your petition for the reversion of an office or talk to the master of the ...”

“... collision of ancient and modern’. The story​ begins in the early months of 1596. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men had been formed less than two years previously (they would become the King’s Men after the accession of James I in 1603). They were already the most popular troupe in town, with their leading actor ...”

“... Put briefly, his theme runs thus. The city fathers, defenders of monarchy, not Parliament, under James I, and again allied to the Crown from the autumn of 1641, were nevertheless temporarily ‘alienated’ from their natural ally during the 1630s. The City was estranged as a result of Royal attacks on municipal and corporate privileges which have long ...”