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“... Robin Fleming’s history is Volume II in the Penguin History of Britain, for which the general editor, David Cannadine, ‘laid down three inviolable rules’: no footnotes, no historiography (that is, no discussion of the ebb and flow of historical opinion), and make it accessible to everyone, general readers, students and professional historians alike (in other words, don’t just write for the trade ...”

“... front, chins thrust forward, as if on their way to a Royal Marine assault course. Next appears Robin Cook, who is led aside by Alastair Campbell and rehearsed in conspiratorial whispers about what he is to say to the reptiles waiting across the road. Cook, whom I’ve never met, gives me a quick, suspicious look. Alastair, whom I have, carefully ignores ...”

“... of a noisy fox hunt: ‘Jack Straw and his men/Never shouted half so shrill/When they would any Fleming kill.’ The Flemings were mostly weavers or other skilled artisans, and were sharp economic competitors, hence their unpopularity. The same is true of the victims of the Evil May Day riots of 1517. Again, many of them were Flemish weavers, but the ...”