In other news, I am five out of six books in to the Lymond Chronicles, and still tripping over factual errors which really annoy me, because, y'know. If I can spot this stuff on a first casual reading, I who know so little actual history, then at some point in its long publishing history - these books have been around for forty years and more - someone must've pointed them out to publisher and/or author. Probably quite frequently. This degree of research is not exactly rocket science; indeed, it's not even research, it's just knowledge.
Today's factoid, since you ask? "Edward Courteney, Earl of Devonshire." Um, no. The Earls and then Dukes of Devonshire were and are the Cavendish family*. The Courteney in question was the Earl of Devon. Which anyone who knows anything about the British aristocracy should know is not the same thing: not by a long, long chalk.
*I have actually bumped into the current Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, Debo her own self. All too literally, alas, I nearly knocked her flying. With a baby. Ask me about it sometime, when I'm less grumpy. Something about losing parts of myself makes me uncharitable, I find. I have given away enough today; I am cutting no slack. At all.
Today's factoid, since you ask? "Edward Courteney, Earl of Devonshire." Um, no. The Earls and then Dukes of Devonshire were and are the Cavendish family*. The Courteney in question was the Earl of Devon. Which anyone who knows anything about the British aristocracy should know is not the same thing: not by a long, long chalk.
*I have actually bumped into the current Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, Debo her own self. All too literally, alas, I nearly knocked her flying. With a baby. Ask me about it sometime, when I'm less grumpy. Something about losing parts of myself makes me uncharitable, I find. I have given away enough today; I am cutting no slack. At all.