I. Later leader of the Conservative Party (1963–65) and Prime Minister (1963–64).
II. Quite interestingly, the two terms are linked. The gay community in 1920s and 1930s New York organised parties in the era of early ballroom culture, where they used the language of the contemporary debutante season to celebrate a new gay person’s arrival or acceptance into the ballroom demi-monde. Hence how “coming out” came to be associated with gay people, long after the debutante season had faded into oblivion.
III. A military officer who assists members of the royal family with official functions.
IV. The British stereotype of referring to an Australian woman as a “Sheila” stemmed from Sheila Chisholm’s fame in British newspapers in the 1920s and 1930s.
V. Years later, Bertie and Elizabeth’s youngest daughter, Princess Margaret, said that she was extremely glad of this change in custom because, had she lived a century earlier, she would have been married off to a minor German prince in a triple-barrelled territory that nobody had ever heard of. This was true. That she made this remark in conversation with a minor German princess was somewhat less tactful, however.
VI. The Serbian royal family became the royal house of the new state of Yugoslavia when their former kingdom unified with Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina to form Yugoslavia after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
VII. It is now generally believed that the room traditionally described as Anne Boleyn’s Bedroom was too small and that she slept in the much larger room next door, where two of her prayer books are now kept on permanent display.
VIII. The two queens have also each been played by the same actress—Helena Bonham Carter played Anne in the 2003 British television mini-series Henry VIII and Elizabeth in the Oscar-winning movie The King’s Speech (2011), while Natalie Dormer played Anne in the first two seasons of The Tudors (2007–2009) and Elizabeth in the 2012 movie W./E., about the life of Wallis, Duchess of Windsor.
IX. Along with “loyalist,” supporters of Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK.
X. Along with “republican,” meaning those in favour of an all-Ireland republic.
XI. My friend Paul, who gamely tried the batches I cobbled together at a Christmas party while writing this book, has since nicknamed them the “Dubonnet and Clyde,” because they robbed him of an entire day of his life as he grappled with the hangover they inflicted upon him.