“... And in the half-century since his death, the royal roll-call has been further extended. Queen Elizabeth II is his great-great-niece, King Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden is his great-great-grandson, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark is one great-great-granddaughter, and the former Queen Anne-Marie of Greece is another. To describe him as well connected would be ...”

“... London crew, he got invited to country houses for weekends and was often to be found dining at the Elizabeth. In other words, although the Oxford of his fantasies had largely disappeared, he made a good show of pretending that it hadn’t. He was aware that the majority of Oxford undergraduates were ex-grammar school boys who had never read a word of Ancient ...”

“... far from orthodox, but it was widely influential on the later development of 19th-century poetry. Elizabeth Barrett Browning had little formal schooling, but her privately-garnered learning enabled her to announce her credentials as a serious poet with a translation of Prometheus Bound. Even Ruskin, in general no admirer of Classical tradition in his early ...”

“... as a cloth cap, reassuring them that it is smart to be philistine if you make smug jokes about it. Elizabeth Esteve-Coll, the Director, declares that the slogan is ‘absolutely magnificent’ because it is ‘targeted at a particular age group (18-35) and it certainly has increased the awareness of the museum in that age-group.’ Meanwhile, however, Charles ...”

“... enclosure riot was. Only seven out of 107 riots that found their way into Manning’s sources in Elizabeth I’s reign involved more than 30 people (which did not stop the vengeful queen from recommending the use of martial law as the quickest way of bringing such ‘incorrigible rogues’ to the gallows). The Queen’s bloodymindedness reflects a general ...”

“... though it is hard to imagine an occasion, but she would have let no one know, not even her sister. Elizabeth Bowen took a similarly tough view of friends as family, whereas the professional friend-seeker never tries to find one within the domestic circle. In The Death of the Heart the author muses that ‘we have no absent friends,’ and in The Little ...”

“... but with the best will in the world he could find only four, ‘and one of those was Queen Elizabeth.’ Another was Anne Askew, who says in a noble ballad ‘made and sang when she was in Newgate’: Not oft use I to write In prose nor yet in rhyme. A necessary note tells us that she was a Protestant martyr, tortured and burned in her 25th year for ...”

“... surprising that Liddell should be the author of a critical study of Miss Pym, and of a memoir of Elizabeth Taylor and Ivy Compton Burnett. When Elsa, ‘now every inch a stepmother’, finally destroys herself on a stage metaphorically littered with corpses, the boys survive. They have recognised her as one of Greek tragedy’s monstrous, deranged ...”

“... entry, which seems to have been commoner under Edward IV than it became again until late in Elizabeth’s reign, seems to fit Elizabeth Russell’s picture better than it fits Lawrence Stone’s. It was not until after 1600 that it became normal practice for Havering gentlemen to send their sons to university. One of ...”

“... it goes with the note to ‘The Dream of the Lion’, one of ‘Two Poems for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’, in which the Laureate mentions ‘my boyhood fanatic patriotism’. So everything is as it should be. What a happy coincidence, in its way, that a poet as good as Hughes should believe, and deeply and passionately, all the things ...”

“... attention from the Prince – who is not like Charles, although his mother is unmistakably Elizabeth II. Robina is now in the custody of her rich London uncle. He sponsors her debut into society, but has the ulterior motive of poncing for the lecherous (but physically under-endowed) Prince. Robina puts up another spirited defence of her maidenhood. The ...”

“... Girl’, probably the greatest image of blithe girlhood in European art, and the portrait of Elizabeth Salter, signed and dated 1744, formal and highly finished, but exquisitely relaxed. I have looked and looked but can find no colour-plate of lovely Mrs Salter in either book. I find that both biographers tend to fish out quaint arguments in defence of ...”

“... liberty. Private Papers makes the most responsible and unexpected use of Emily Brontë and of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. But it is Robert Browning who fails to furnish the one thing needed, and this is where the novel fails. The dramatic monologue, after all, grew out of the epistolary novel. Forster is writing essentially an epistolary novel for the age ...”

“... your heart and mind have been excited. I must leave that to you,’ Heger told them, as he told Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte’s first biographer, after Charlotte’s death. Heger encouraged the Brontës’ writing, but demanded that they pay attention to their craft. ‘Poet or not … study form,’ he once admonished Charlotte. He often returned their ...”

“... to stay at his house in London, where we learn all about the contents of larder and freezer, and Elizabeth Jane Howard’s ‘ethereal blanquette de veau, sublime risotto with wild mushrooms, juicy magret de canard, spicy Sicilian bouillabaisse’, but nothing at all of what people are saying. The next summer they go to Italy – Martin takes her to an ...”