* Well over fifty-four thousand pounds in today’s money.

 

* Just under half a million pounds in today’s terms.

 

* As a member of the Irish peerage, Curzon had been (then) entitled to sit in the House of Commons.

 

* A highly infectious disease of cattle, which could be carried from one field to another by horses’ hoofs, hence the ban on hunting.

 

* After his wartime injury, Mosley suffered from recurrent phlebitis, particularly in the affected leg.

 

* Later to become ambassador to Berlin from 1937 until the outbreak of war.

 

* A decree absolute was not granted until six months after a decree nisi. An official called the king’s proctor kept an eye on petitioners and if there was any hint of collusion the decree nisi could be overturned.

 

* A great friend and confidant of George VI.

 

* Twenty-four thousand pounds in 2000 currency.

 

* “We are thinking of you with great affection on this your wedding day and send you every wish for your future happiness much love Elizabeth and Bertie.”

 

* An Urdu word roughly translatable as “jamboree.”

 

* Bedaux was indicted on a charge of treason (he had been engaged in laying a pipe across the North African desert to bring peanut oil to the Nazis). On the night of his indictment he committed suicide.

 

* Immediately after his conversation with the duke, Monckton told Sir Alexander Hardinge, now the King’s private secretary, of his former master’s decision; Hardinge’s response was: “The King’s plane can’t be sent unless they are coming themselves.”

 

* This was the method used to send royal letters home from mid-Atlantic when the king and queen had visited the U.S. the previous year.

 

* Victor Cazalet was British liaison officer to the Polish government-in-exile.

 

* When the U.S. ambassador to France had asked the duchess when they were leaving for the Bahamas, she had replied: “We sail for our St. Helena tomorrow.”

 

* Five battleships and fourteen smaller ships were sunk or seriously damaged as well as two hundred aircraft, and over two thousand, four hundred people killed.

 

* A well-known make of lavatory paper called Bromox.

 

* Rommel had just launched a devastating offensive; less than three weeks later Tobruk fell, with twenty-five thousand Allied troops taken prisoner.

 

* The fighter pilot Richard Hillary had just written The Last Enemy. Later, after insisting on flying again, he was again shot down and this time killed.

 

* The famous air squadron of Americans who had joined Britain in her fight before their own country had declared war.

 

* The general, as commander-in-chief of the Polish army as well as Polish prime minister in London, was flying to the Middle East to inspect Polish forces there.

 

* The first death camps had been found in Poland on July 27, a discovery soon followed by others equally hideous.