8 The churches in St Jean de Luz were something of an embarrassment. There was no reason whatsoever to move them. The fact of the matter was that one Sunday morning Strange was drinking brandy for breakfast at a hotel in St Jean de Luz with three Captains and two lieutenants of the 16th Light Dragoons. He was explaining to these gentlemen the theory behind the magical transportation of various objects. It was an entirely futile undertaking: they would not have understood him very well had they been sober and neither they nor Strange had been entirely sober for two days. By way of an illustration Strange swapped the positions of the two churches with the congregations still inside them. He fully intended to change them round again before the people came out, but shortly afterwards he was called away to a game of billiards and never thought of it again. Indeed despite Strange’s many assurances he never found the time or inclination to replace river, wood, city, or indeed any thing at all in its original position.

9 The British Government made Lord Wellington a Duke. At the same time there was a great deal of talk of ennobling Strange. “A baronetcy is the least he will expect,” said Lord Liverpool to Sir Walter, “and we would be perfectly justified in doing something more – what would you say to a viscountcy?” The reason that none of this ever happened was because, as Sir Walter pointed out, it was entirely impossible to bestow a title on Strange without doing something for Norrell and somehow no one in the Government liked Norrell well enough to wish to do it. The thought of having to address Mr Norrell as “Sir Gilbert” or “my lord” was somehow rather depressing.

32 The King

1 In The Life of Jonathan Strange, John Segundus discusses other ways in which he believes Strange’s later actions were influenced by the Duke of Wellington.

2 The likelihood was that neither did Ormskirk. He had simply written down a spell that someone else had told him or that he had found in another book. This is a perennial problem with the writings of the Argentine magicians. In their anxiety to preserve any scrap of magical knowledge, they were often obliged to set down what they themselves did not understand.

3 This pool and the line of trees were all that remained of a vast ornamental garden planned by King William III which had been begun, but never completed. It had been abandoned when the cost proved far too great. The land had been allowed to return to its former state of Park and meadow.

33 Place the moon at my eyes

1 Charles James Fox, a radical politician who had died some eight years before. This remark proves how far the King’s wits were deranged: Mr Fox was a celebrated atheist who would never upon any inducement have entered a church.

2 When Strange reviewed the morning’s events afterwards he could only suppose that the flute-player had made no attempt to deceive him by his sense of taste.