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“... did Cromwell think any better of the Petition of Right, the reprise of Magna Carta designed by Sir Edward Coke to recall Charles I to his constitutional duty: according to Coke’s grandson Roger, he called it ‘the Petition of Shite’. I can find scant mention of this menacing language and conduct in those biographies of Cromwell which have a soft spot for ...”

“... Much of the phenomenon must be ascribed to Geoffrey of Monmouth. Born some thirty years after the Norman Conquest, Geoffrey, with his Norman name and strong Welsh connections, was probably the child of a mixed marriage. His achievement was to inject old Celtic tradition into the mainstream of European literature, through ...”

“... on Palm Sunday, he took the throne from the weak, ineffectual Henry VI and was crowned King Edward IV.Usurpers were plentiful in the 15th century. Edward’s claim was by lineal descent from Edward III, and was a strong one if you ignored the deposition of Richard II in 1399. In the ...”

“... A new publication by Norman Gash is cause for excitement. His stature among living 19th-century English historians is rivalled only by that of Eric Hobsbawm, and since the two men’s writings have little in common except an elegantly plain and direct prose, Clio herself would find it difficult to award the palm to one or the other ...”

“... 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. On the two occasions when competent and ruthless kings rebuilt it (Edward III, then Henry V), infuriatingly self-indulgent kings lost it (Richard II, then Henry VI). The uselessness of the two latter monarchs had led to their murder by ambitious would-be replacements; nobility had been so unimpressed by the ...”

“... same time, they are almost inconceivably remote, bathed in the light of those lamps which, as Sir Edward Grey said in August 1914, were going out all over Europe, not to be lit again. Norman Stone is right to begin his Europe Transformed with this hackneyed but still troubling quotation, though he is wise enough to avoid ...”

“... a similar about-face in Paris. Then there are the many American intellectuals who followed Norman Podhoretz from the ranks of the liberal Left into reactionary self-bowdlerisation. For them American power is sacrosanct. In the 1960s V.S. Naipaul began, disquietingly, to systematise the revisionist view of empire. A disciple and wilful misreader of ...”

“... which in the early 1850s fired the imaginations of the Oxford undergraduates William Morris and Edward Burne Jones. But De Morgan was enrolled at University College, where there was no scope for picturesque medievalism. The spirit of place did not haunt Gower Street. Having failed to get a degree, De Morgan decided to become a painter. He made friends among ...”

“... nothing inevitable about a hard border. That came later, at the very end of the 13th century, when Edward I tried to conquer Scotland. Before then a relaxed, multi-layered approach to questions of suzerainty and allegiance prevailed. A single, French-dominated ‘religious and knightly culture’ had spread across what were now southern Scotland and northern ...”

“... overseas province by leftists (Guy Mollet/Harold Wilson) or weak-minded centrists (Pierre Pflimlin/Edward Heath), the military must ensure that the right sort of government came to power in the metropole. Operation Clockwork Orange was precisely this: an attempt to smear and undermine Labour leaders and Tory wets alike, the short-term aim being to prevent ...”

“... our comly kynge’ as the context of Robin’s pardon and entry into royal service, and since Edward II is known to have made such a tour in 1323, the pieces seemed to fit perfectly. But modern scholars are no longer convinced: for example, the name Robert Hood and its variants was not uncommon in the Wakefield area through the 13th and 14th ...”

“... of the London Library opposite the lift holds a collection of rare and beautiful editions of Edward FitzGerald’s poem, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Since its first publication in 1859, it has appeared in every size and shape, giant and toy, on vellum and silk, in fabulous bindings stamped with peacocks’ tails and nightingales’ eyes; it has been ...”

“... knew or half-knew that making such changes stick was likely to mean that at some point the battles Edward Heath had lost in 1972 and 1974 would have to be fought again and won. Jim Prior had been a ‘hawk’ in early 1974 and had wanted Heath to call a general election for the beginning of February; the delayed call and the half-hearted way the election was ...”

“... limited to elites, fame depended on oral performers.Canny men understood this principle well. Edward III knew that it wasn’t enough to host a round table linking his reign with the legend of King Arthur, as he did at Windsor in 1358. For maximum effect, he also sent heralds to announce the event abroad. Medieval public relations had to be managed just ...”

“... and Major have not been on speaking terms for six years now – to show where her favours lay. Norman Lamont, who served continuously at the Treasury from 1986 to 1993 – a period when first Lawson and then Major consistently argued for the ERM – tries hard to pretend that he was too busy dealing with the fairies at the bottom of the garden to notice ...”