 Like Blunt, Maskell is connected to the royal family and the book carries portraits of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and less directly of Elizabeth II (usually referred to as 'Mrs W.').Maskell indicates that he suspects the presence of a concealed or perhaps sublimated homosexuality in the life and personality of George VI.Blunt himself was a cousin of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (Queen Elizabeth, later 'the Queen Mother'), and this is something that as 'Maskell' he refers to several times in the novel.