As late as 1930, when I was writing my biography of Queen Elizabeth, I was conscious that the title of professor was calculated to frighten people off a book; and it was this lack of interest in academic writing that led me to suppress all my footnotes—an act of self-denial which, in the climate of today, I would neither need, nor wish, to repeat.... Shortly after the publication of my Queen Elizabeth, Eileen Power—a historian who wrote with style and charm—was dining at one of the women's colleges at Oxford. My book came under discussion, particularly the lack of footnotes, and a history don remarked: `Neale has sold the pass.' `I don't know about selling the pass,' retorted Eileen Power, `but he has sold twenty thousand copies.'