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“... he selected at the outset was the great hoard of stale papers compiled by the Tudor statesman, Thomas Cromwell, and fortunately conserved as public property through the accident of Cromwell’s fall. Like Mallory’s Everest, the archive was there, but the circumstances which immersed Elton in it for more than twenty exceptionally fruitful years included ...”

“... that court life belongs to the realm of serious play (a theme studied to splendid effect by Thomas Greene). The world of the court is rich, splendid, noble; but it is also a hortus conclusus, confining its inhabitants to a narrow space. Early illustrations show the participants in these discussions stiffly lined up in a room of no great size. Court ...”

“... the Interregnum in 1660, Pericles was the first Shakespeare play to be performed, with a youthful Thomas Betterton, aged 25, celebrated in the title role at the Phoenix in Drury Lane. In fact Pericles was more than simply popular: the play became a byword for audience appeal and recognition. In The Hog Hath Lost His Pearl (c.1613-14), Robert Taylor ...”

“... of state George Schultz, the former secretaries of defence Bill Perry and Jim Mattis, and even Henry Kissinger, none of whom had any knowledge of haematology or phlebotomy, but all of whom could provide a gateway to lucrative Pentagon contracts. Theranos’s founder, Elizabeth Holmes, even courted Special Operations Command, but this potential liaison was ...”

“... passengers, who included the American tycoon Alfred Vanderbilt and the Welsh mining magnate D.A. Thomas. The German submarine U-20 had already torpedoed three British cargo vessels off the Irish coast. At lunchtime on 7 May its captain, Walther Schwieger, sighted a four-stack passenger liner, clearly British, and dived to intercept her. He fired a single ...”

“... dropped. The manual purports to have been written by the problem letter itself, alias the ‘Hon. Henry H.’ – though putting an unaspirated ‘Hon.’ in front of the name is hardly playing fair with uncertain readers, who might be tempted to aspirate it out of the deference accorded to rank. Having worked her way along the self-help shelf, Mugglestone ...”

“... By befriending (and from about 1583 employing) the notable mathematician and navigational theorist Thomas Harriot, Ralegh established himself as someone who had the capital, connections and theoretical expertise to exploit the wealth of the Americas. In 1584 he snapped up the patent to colonise ‘remote heathen and barbarous landes’ which had been granted ...”

“... despite the mysterious death of James’s heir, the bluff and patriotically Protestant Prince Henry, and the scandalous poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, a victim of the factional ambitions of the pro-Hispanic Howard faction. Tasty comestibles, stomach cramps, medical interventions and geopolitical strategy were, it ...”

“... couplets was an achievement unattempted by anyone before and unachieved by anyone since, including Thomas Creech in 1682. Lucy’s first children, twin sons, were born in 1639; she was last pregnant in 1662, so her children may have frequented the schoolroom for rather more than twenty years; her translation of Lucretius could have taken her as long. Though ...”

“... for sex) has declined, and in another of which (translated from a Latin epigram by Thomas More, one of Harington’s early Tudor heroes) he has to leave out a word in order to avoid telling his mother-in-law to eat shit. Lady Rogers, unsurprisingly enough, did not make her son-in-law the executor of her will, which led to violent disputes ...”

“... for missionary activity, which greatly intensified in the 17th century. Pioneers such as the Dutch Thomas Erpenius and Jacob Golius – with the help of native speakers, usually Arab-speaking Christians from North Africa – learned Arabic and produced the first usable grammars and dictionaries. In the generation that followed, an enormous amount of work was ...”

“... is not only a composite of three much older nations, but also fractured throughout by regionalism. Henry James is quoted to the effect that Warwickshire ‘is the core and centre of the English world ... unmitigated England’. Conversely, the gardens of Wallington in far Northumberland are Scottish in style. And Blickling in Norfolk is as culturally and ...”

“... capital. But the firm only took off with the acquisition a few years later of John Hotten’s, Henry Bohn’s and John Maxwell’s publishing properties. Macmillan absorbed the house of Bentley in 1898; Murray absorbed Smith, Elder in 1917; between the wars, according to Ian Norrie, Hutchinson ‘absorbed so many imprints that no complete record of them ...”

“... Frye’s Fearful Symmetry is a far better introduction than a book like King’s (‘Blake charged Thomas Butts’s son £26 5s Od per annum for engraving lessons’). Now that Frye is dead, Blake’s best living critic is Harold Bloom. If Blake’s mental forms had a life before 1757, they also had one after 1827. Arthur Symons saw this: he was interested not ...”

“... at the beginning of the century. Partly, this may be explained in the words once written by Keith Thomas: ‘if magic is to be defined as the employment of ineffective techniques to allay anxiety when effective ones are not available, then we must recognise that no society will ever be free from it.’ Democratic politicians have eyes bigger than their ...”