I know what “Superdickery” thinks is funny about this: a couple of words in the title and the introduction - because of course writers in 1942 should have known how their secondary meaning would become the primary one in half a century and thus good for a giggle. See TVTropes “Have A Gay Old Time” for many, many more examples.
However, for me the facepalm bit is:
“Our story begins near the ancient castle of Connaught in County Ulster, Ireland…”
Because that shows some seriously lousy geography which could have been fixed by consulting a school-level atlas.
Castles have place-names, yes - Windsor Castle, Dublin Castle, Stirling Castle, Caernarvon Castle etc. - but they’re the names of the town or city where the castle was built.
Connaught isn’t and never was a town or city. It’s an ancient kingdom, 1/5 of an entire country, and the smaller names on this historic map are clan-lands within the kingdoms.
It’s now a modern province, ¼ of an entire country, still not a town or city, still without a castle, and though there actually is a “Connaught Castle”, it’s a hotel. And it’s in India.
(ETA: Or was - the link’s now an archive.)
Ulster isn’t a county either. It’s another province, and the smaller names on this modern map are the counties.
In terms of accuracy, then, “Our story begins near the ancient castle of Connecticut in County Massachusetts, America…”
Which would be an amusing way to start a story, now I think about it, with that level of un-research maintained throughout.
*****
Side-Note: I thought the prince looked familiar.
A character in that same pose appears here:
…and both originate with this still shot of Errol Flynn in “The Sea Hawk” (1940).
One more bit of trivia from The Mind Attic.
;->
