“... which supplied a different answer to Elton’s question of 1954 (I wrote about it in the LRB of 22 June 2006). It was, Bernard argued, all down to Henry VIII, who always knew what he wanted, and got it, having no need of Cromwell to tell him how to disentangle himself from his marriage and make himself not only Supreme Head of the English Church but the ...”

“... it seems useful to glance at some other modern horror stories. At 2.15 p.m. on the afternoon of 10 June 1944, a company of the 2nd SS panzer division, ‘Das Reich’, entered the small French town of Oradour-sur-Glane, herded most of its population, swollen by refugees, into barns and garages, the women and children into the church, then killed them with ...”

“... of African descent had been enslaved in America. Sinclair worked as a financial secretary at Howard University, had degrees in theology and medicine and greatly admired Queen Victoria, the British Empire and Rudyard Kipling. He believed that the ‘blighting evils’ of his time, ‘mobs that torture human beings and roast them alive without trial; mobs ...”

“... Yul Brynner with dark wavy hair (Brynner was born in Vladivostok). Philby, more the tweedy Trevor Howard type, was also reckoned a handsome man. Their appeal to women, however, depended on more than looks. Their disabilities (Sorge’s limp and Philby’s pronounced stammer) made them vulnerable, which no doubt helped; above all, vitality, cheerfulness and ...”

“... Forest? The long-haired freak who shoots up Coca-Cola in ‘Come Together’ is, of course, Howard Hughes. And did you ever notice that the famous Abbey Road cover shot is centred around a vanishing point?Again, it’s hard to think of anything comparable involving the Stones. There is a certain amount of minor-key keening around the ...”

“... now it seems he has artistic urges And intellectual proclivities. At speaking English he is Leslie Howard: At playing the piano, Noel Coward. There’s consolation in a fairy-tale, But none when Lech Walesa is released – Surely the final proof that he must fail. In back rooms as a species of lay priest He might say mass but only in a pale Reflection of ...”

“... Serge Daney, wrote in 1992, recalling a formative influence on his criticism. In the Cahiers of June 1961, Jacques Rivette – yet to attain his eminence as a leading director of the Nouvelle Vague – reviewed Kapò, a film by Gillo Pontecorvo about the concentration camps. Rivette took exception to a tracking shot in the film, showing a woman who had ...”

“... with political ambitions. Their daughter Rachel (almost immediately known as Ray) was born on 4 June 1887, and her sister, Karin, two years later. They moved to London, and lived in Westminster – closer to Millbank Prison than to Parliament – where Frank worked all hours for the fledgling London County Council while Mary stayed at home with the ...”

“... could say that Shepherd took up too much cultural space. When a retired geography teacher, Roy Howard, published a history of the village, she didn’t even warrant a mention. It’s been quite a transformation, not just since her death in 1981, but since the quiet decades that followed it. The Living Mountain, her lyrical celebration of the Cairngorms, is ...”

“... Walter Raleigh. Arundel House, the most gorgeous palace of them all, was acquired by Alethea Howard and her husband, the earl of Arundel. These patrons of the arts exposed their ‘jewells of art to publicke view’ – these ‘jewells’ being a peerless library, Greek and Roman sculptures, seventeen Raphaels and a garden designed by Inigo ...”

“... few years, the country’s largest police force has experienced a series of major scandals. In June 2021, an official report into the Met’s failure to solve the 1987 murder of a private investigator called Daniel Morgan accused the force of ‘institutional corruption’. Morgan was found with an axe in his head in the car park of a South London pub ...”

“... for its various failings in housing asylum seekers, its contract was renewed by the Home Office in June.) The women were demanding an end to the indefinite detention of asylum seekers, minors, pregnant women, and survivors of torture, rape and trafficking, a practice that is sanctioned in no European country apart from the UK; in the US, it was introduced ...”

“... short volume is not so much a biography of Crossman – that is to be provided by Anthony Howard – as a portrait of someone he clearly loved. But it is a long way from being the misty-eyed picture of a faultless hero. Black Tam o’the Binns has a reputation to maintain as a man who puts truth and objectivity before mere friendship. Faithfully, he ...”

“... to his lack of assiduity in his attendance beneath the portrait of Queen Anne’ into ‘Michael Howard didn’t think Norman Stone did enough lecturing’? Nearly every page would have profited from half a dozen footnotes. As it is we’re confronted with sentences such as ‘I have since moved to Vespasiennes & to Gwyn Williams (but am not responsible for ...”

“... her subjects. Their fluctuating satins, the swags of laurel-green curtain behind them and the late June evening clouds all rise and fall to an inner rhythm that is unmistakeably amorous. To view this painting is to get tossed up in that convulsion, but it’s also to recognise that its wellsprings do not belong to you. Love such as this is reserved for higher ...”