His knowledge of medieval clothing and armor is, if anything, even more impressive, perhaps even daunting. The unfamiliar words flow by on page after page: maniple, chausable, dalamtic, stoles, alb (but no tunic, Ned observes), on a bishop’s effigy; jupon, genouilliиres, jambs, sollerets, on the effigy of Tiphaine du Guesclin, widow of Jean V de Beaumanoir, which exhibits a rare combination of fifteenth-century haute couture and armor—Ned meticulously counts the twenty-two round buttons on her jupon, notes that her spurs have rowels, and describes her face and hairstyle in detail. These letters seem very serious and almost self-consciously erudite, as if Ned was already practicing to write essays for his tutor, or to write his thesis, which would also be on the subject of medieval military architecture, with plans, drawings, and photographs by himself.

One letter, addressed to one of his younger brothers, Will, in reply to Will’s letter describing his rather tentative exploration of a Roman or Celtic camp and possible burial mound at home, is very much du haut en bas, full of detailed suggestions and warnings, and ends with a reminder that digging is good exercise. It is not exactly supercilious in tone, but close to it. Another, to his older brother Bob, also deals with Will’s excavations, but in a bossier way—nothing more is to be done until Ned comes home, and until Woolley, an assistant keeper of the Ashmolean, with whom Ned is already on close terms, has been consulted. Ned also notes that he has received a letter from Scroggs informing him that he has received “a first with distinction in Scripture & English” in the Oxford Local Examinations, but with no other results. A fuller letter describinghis results arrived from his mother a few days later. “The result is on the whole not as good as I had hoped,” he replied, “although I am quite satisfied with the Eng.” He does not seem to have been much disturbed.

As Jeremy Wilson notes in his authorized biography of T. E. Lawrence, Ned “had been placed in the First Class; of 4,645 candidates, only twelve had achieved a higher total.” His worst results were in algebra and geometry, and for a future translator of The Odyssey he did rather poorly in Greek and Latin, but one might guess that the examiners of schoolboys were more interested in grammar—not one of Ned’s strong points in any language—than in fluency, style, and literary knowledge.

It is usually difficult to read much into the letters home of eighteen-year-olds, but as in so many other things, T. E. Lawrence is an exception. The later T. E. Lawrence is perfectly apparent in these letters written in 1906: the urge to push himself as hard as he could physically; the astonishing accumulation of knowledge, and the mastery of every detail of any subject that interested him; the curious combination of extreme aesthetic sensibility and a fascination with the art of warfare; the fear that his mother’s will, stronger even than his own, will prevail over him unless he keeps his guard up at all times; the determination to win his father’s approval, as well as to beat him at those things Thomas cares most about; the instinctive position of leadership he takes toward his brothers, even Bob, the firstborn. All these traits would remain true of T. E. Lawrence for the rest of his life. Not only was the child (as Wordsworth put it) “father of the Man"; he was the man.

Ned’s “First” did not guarantee him entry to the Oxford college of his choice. With the aid of a private tutor (called a crammer in England), L. Cecil Jane, who was to become an admirer and friend throughout Ned’s years at Oxford, and for many years beyond, he prepared to take the examination for a scholarship at St. John’s College, his older brother Bob’s college, in December 1906, but he was unsuccessful.

A month later, in January 1907, further crammed by the indefatigable Jane, Ned tried, this time successfully, for a scholarship at Jesus College,where his birth in Wales would work to his advantage. The college’s founder, Hugh Price (or Aprice), who lived during the reign of Elizabeth I, was a Welshman, and over the centuries the college had developed strong links to Wales. Considering that Lawrence would later claim to be Irish, it is ironic to note that his birth in Wales secured him not only a place at Jesus but a scholarship of Ј50 a year. Ned was, of course, no more Welsh than Irish, but the fact apparently passed unnoticed at Jesus. Perhaps with this in mind, Ned went on a cycling tour of Welsh castles over the Easter vacation, and found the Welsh “rather inquisitive,” but apparently honest. Once again he tested his limit in terms of speed and endurance on a bicycle, and sent home long, detailed, but curiously impersonal letters about castle architecture.

In the autumn of 1907 Ned would “go up” to Jesus College at the age of nineteen, for three years—years which, in many ways, would be the most influential of his life. In later life he would complain—rather unfairly, one would judge—about his school days, which he described as “miserable sweated years of unwilling work,” but about Oxford he had no such feelings. He remarked in a letter to Liddell Hart, “When … I suddenly went to Oxford, the new freedom felt like Heaven.”

* Sir Alec Douglas-home would take advantage of the change in the law to renounce his place in the peerage as the fourteenth earl of home and become prime minister the same year.

† Although they had been revealed in a French biography of Lawrence as early as 1941.

* in fact, William died in 1870 without issue, and Sir Benjamin would die in 1914, also without issue, at which point Thomas succeeded to the title.

* They may have been an exception to the famous first line of tolstoy’s Anna Karenina: “happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The Lawrences constituted a very happy family, but one that hardly resembled anyone else’s.

* This is t. e. Lawrence’s estimate, but Jeremy Wilson, the author of The Authorized Biography of T. E. Lawrence, estimates that it was, including interest from capital at his disposal, more like Ј1,000 per year, which would be equivalent to about $125,000 a year today.

* This was an unlikely friendship, but t. e. Lawrence and Lady Astor got along famously. Forceful and vivacious, she bullied and protected him like a mother hen, and so far as is known she was the only woman he ever allowed to ride pillion on his motorcycle. Nancy Astor, whose birth name was Langehorne, was a native of Danville, Virginia; she was married to the enormously wealthy Viscount Astor, and was the first woman ever elected to a seat in Parliament. in later life, she was an appeaser, and the Astors’ great country house Cliveden was the social and spiritual center of those who sought peace with Germany and conciliation with hitler. She once told Winston Churchill, “if i were your wife, i’d put poison in your coffee,” to which he replied, “And if i were your husband, i’d drink it.”

* Three doctors–Maurice Carter, MD; Avodah offit, MD; and Thomas Murray, MD– have expressed strong doubt that a broken bone in an otherwise healthy boy could possibly halt or impede growth. in any case, there is considerable controversy about t. e. Lawrence’s adult height. his American biographer Lowell Thomas puts his height at five feet five and a half inches; one of his British biographers, the poet robert Graves, puts it at five feet six inches; some people put it as low as five feet three inches; Lawrence’s medical records during his service in the rAF put it at five feet five inches. At the time the average height of an englishman of his age was five feet six inches. height was then something of a class matter–the upper classes, given a better diet, tended to be taller than the “working class,” so Lawrence was certainly short for somebody of his class, though not very much shorter than, say, the Prince of Wales (the future King edward Viii, afterward the duke of Windsor), or Winston Churchill.