Thanks go to Sophie Bradshaw, Naomi Reynolds and the team at The History Press for their encouragement and support, but to Sophie in particular for encouraging me to write this book and for being flexible when I overran my deadline. I have been particularly blessed to have some wonderful friends: thank you to Jonathan Howell, Magdalen Pitt, Anne Marie Bouchard, Neville Brett, Tim Byard-Jones, Geanine Teramani-Cruz, Sharon Bennett Connolly, Kyra Kramer, Karen Stone and Harry and Sara Basnett for keeping me sane during the writing of this book. There have been others. Thanks also to all my family, to my husband Tom for his love and support, to Paul Fairbrass and also the Hunts – for Sue’s generosity and John’s supply of interesting and unusual books. Most of all, thanks to my mother for her invaluable proofreading skills and to my father for his enthusiasm and open mind: this is the result of the books they read me, the museums they took me to as a child, and the love and imagination with which they encouraged me.