For the love of a queen

AND so to Agincourt. I have never visited ye ancient battlefield before but I did enough research to know that the French regard the battle merely as one setback in their victorious campaign which eventually drove the English out of France. You don't find that in English school books.

SOBERING to discover that Agincourt was the last significant British victory on the continent of Europe until Blenheim, nearly 300 years later.

BY chance, before heading off on this battlefield tour to Agincourt, we looked in at Kenilworth Castle which has just unveiled its new viewing platforms. For the first time in 300 years you can stand 100 feet high in the tower and look out on the view once enjoyed by Queen Elizabeth I. Poor old Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, wasted years of his life and a large chunk of his fortune in trying to persuade the Virgin Queen to abandon her adjective and marry him. The Queen liked Dudley well enough but took the view that she was already married to her country. Dudley built new rooms and a magnificent garden and laid on endless entertainment for his beloved monarch, to no avail. He dreamed of becoming king but everyone else in Kenilworth Castle, from dukes to dairymaids, from grooms to gardeners, must have known it wasn't going to happen. I had a mental image of the forlorn Dudley gazing out from his ruinously expensive tower and seeing the spring flowers coming up in his garden, spelling out the words: "She's just not that into you, Bob."

COOL, confident, emotional, amusing, unruffled. Why can't Gordon Brown talk like that south of the border?

THREE days to go. I worry that Alex Salmond's legacy will be not a proud new nation of Scotland but a land torn apart by old quarrels which were stifled for centuries and then unleashed. Scotland is a divided society, split between Highlands and Lowlands, islands and mainland, east and west, Catholic and Protestant and, now, between Yes and No voters. Whichever way Thursday's vote goes, I foresee an unhappy and angry Scotland for a long time to come.

HAS any tongue ever been thrust quite so deeply in the cheek as that of the Downing Street spokesman who said that the idea of sending Cameron, Clegg and Miliband on separate campaigning tours of Scotland was to "spread the magic around." If that was a magic act, you'd demand your money back.

FAREWELL, old friend. Just before setting off on this trip to France, I stood on the bathroom scales and there was a low, sinister perdoing! sort of noise. We got those scales as a wedding present 40 years ago and they have served us well. Like a kindly old chum, they have been supportive and accommodating, their mechanism gradually easing and relaxing and producing some most flattering readings. A few years ago we were given some new scales which added at least 3lbs to everybody's weight. This infernal newcomer, with its stark, sneering accuracy, was banished to the back of the wardrobe but it looks as though we will have to use it again. I may park the car on it for a while, just to ease it into the new job.

I COMPLAINED recently that the dazzling little yellow bird officially known as the grey wagtail deserves a brighter name. A reader points out that there is already a yellow wagtail. The hunt goes on.