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“... protagonist’s consciousness. Louis is initially seen as the leader of the Apostles, a boys’ secret society, and his behaviour throughout the novel is a byword for furtiveness. Where the nuns at his boarding-school have an elaborate Book of Rules, the Apostles collect Forbidden Books which have been placed on the Vatican Index thanks to their quotient of ...”

“... forms of passive aggression towards her only child. She disinherits Patrick, now a hard-up barrister, in favour of a twinkly, acquisitive Irish shaman who wants to turn the family home in France into his Transpersonal Foundation, and even asks him to do the legal work involved. She then begs him to organise her own euthanasia, and when Patrick, after ...”

“... his head to forces beyond his control. Most absurdly, because of Robert Bolt’s screenplay, this barrister of Catholic repression is widely envisioned as modernity’s diapason: the clear, strong note of individual conscience, sounding against the authoritarian intolerance of the Early Modern state. Thomas More died in defence of an authoritarian intolerance ...”

“... by the courts on the grounds that it would be a breach of Parliamentary privilege to examine the secret financial relationships of MPs. Summoning his allies, including Lady Thatcher and Lord Archer in the House of Lords, Hamilton inspired an amendment to the Defamation Act then going through Parliament. The amendment, which was drummed through both Houses by ...”

“... and of Scott, who come alive on the page in a way that Mr Thorpe does not. If Mr Thorpe has had a secret life, it was presumably a social and political one, and it is not to be found here. His dazzling success in Society, and the difficulties he met in leading the Liberal Party, are dealt with accurately but cursorily, and without any hint of access to ...”

“... tipster who also haunted Victoria Station, where he once congratulated my father, a commuting barrister, on his new bowler). And then there were the mauve-faced bookies in loud waistcoats, standing on their boxes, bellowing odds and then deleting them from the blackboard with a fat, wet thumb, while their wizened associates in flat caps and white gloves ...”

“... at a time when speechmaking still mattered. A large number of these speeches were those of a barrister defending his clients: Pro Cluentio in defence of a man accused of murdering his stepfather, Pro Roscio in defence of a man accused of murdering his father, Pro Caelio in defence of a man wrongly accused of the attempted murder of his ex-mistress, Pro ...”

“... him with a seat in Parliament. But he was short of money and had expensive tastes. He became a barrister at Gray’s Inn, rising rapidly to become a highly successful advocate and legal adviser to the crown. He attached himself to Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, the dashing royal favourite, who championed his cause and urged the queen to make him ...”

“... he was jailed for the first time in 1934, for fraud, Ronnie befriended not only the prosecuting barrister but the prison governor. His family lived the life of ‘millionaire paupers’, inhabiting lavish houses in the Home Counties, holidaying in St Moritz and keeping racehorses with personalised livery – for as long as the creditors were kept at ...”

“... probably draw the line. The difficulty, of course, is that both Albert and Sylvia Bernstein had a secret that they desperately wanted to preserve. Some time between 1940 and 1942 – even their son cannot be specific about dates – they had joined the Communist Party: and, having refused to admit to that before a Congressional Investigating Committee (one of ...”

“... some ‘little brick dairies’) and had a go at amateur farming. He flew planes. He trained as a barrister. Trying to cross the Solent to the Isle of Wight in his steam yacht Violet, Billing ended up somewhere near Le Havre. In photographs this dark genius has the leanness and meticulous parting of T.S. Eliot, the milky eyes of Enoch Powell, and a monocle ...”

“... most in this respect was that, although himself rather Germanic, he disliked Germany, and made no secret of the fact. Much more obviously un-Oxonian was his education. It became a permanent annoyance to him, especially after securing a fellowship and a fine set of rooms at Christ Church, that he couldn’t sport one of the few approved old school ties. His ...”

“... residents. She considered writing about Helena Normanton, the first woman to practise as a barrister in England and the first married woman to have a passport in her maiden name. Lorna Garman nearly supplemented the many romances in the book: when her lover Laurie Lee went to fight in the Spanish Civil War, she sent him pound notes soaked in Chanel ...”

“... proposal of marriage, when Vera declines it, is followed by a punch in the face. Vera takes up secret residence in the closed-down hotel, alone with the confusion of her thoughts. ‘All her life she had wanted to do something in her hometown without being judged.’ The idea occurs to her, as it must, only when she realises its impossibility. The small ...”

“... every unpaid chairmanship in England’, and running a successful practice as a solicitor, is a secret Lord Goodman refrains from revealing. Energy and physical strength (despite the obesity he makes several jokes about) were obvious preconditions of his style of life. A generous desire to help his suppliants, at the cost of his own peace, was ...”