My first and greatest debt of gratitude is to Simon, Earl of Kerry, for his huge help in researching this book and for his thoughtful ideas that led to new discoveries.
I would also like to thank Robert Bard for his generosity in making available to me so much of his material about the earls of Essex, as well as Lord Essex himself; Nicola Cornick for all she told me about Cornelia Craven; Sir Christopher Cook for confirmation of the story of his great-great-grandfather’s marriage to Tennessee Claflin; Ian Curteis for his help on the Grantleys; Dr Elizabeth Kehoe for so generously making all her notes on the Jerome sisters available to me; David Donaldson and Sir William Molesworth for the Molesworth letters I was kindly allowed to see; Lord Grantley for letting me see the memoir of his great-grandfather the sixth Lord Grantley; Richard Jay Hutto for his wonderful photographs and great help over the Craven family; Sarah Lutyens for letting me see the privately printed Warren House Tales featuring her great-great-grandmother Minnie Stevens; Marge McNinch for her invaluable research into the letters of Anna Robinson in the Hagley Museum and Library, Delaware; Gill Neal (formerly of the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre) for her speed and helpfulness over the Lady de Grey correspondence; Christine Sapieha for her decipherings of some appalling handwriting; the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire for telling me about his grandmother Daisy Leiter; Sir Charles and Lady Wolseley for their kind permission in letting me use the letters of Anna Murphy; and of course the wonderful staff of The London Library, who seem able to find anything. I am also very grateful to the Royal Archives for letting me see the letters between Mary Leiter and Queen Alexandra. My thanks go to Paul Friedman of the New York Public Library who produced some wonderful stuff for me.
I would also like to say how much I owe to Bea Hemming, who was my editor for so much of this book, to thank Linden Lawson for her copy-editing skills; and to express my gratitude to Alan Samson for his help and kindnesses and to thank Holly Harley and everyone at Weidenfeld & Nicolson who worked on it, and of course, Isobel Dixon, my agent and friend.