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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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cabal
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Word deriving from the Hebrew qabbalah (the oral tradition within Judaism), which was much used in the mid-17C as a name for any secret clique. It then happened that a group of five ministers of Charles II had names which could be arranged in a sequence to spell 'cabal' (Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, Lauderdale). Relatively little was made of the coincidence at the time, and it has endured largely as a memorable nugget of information in school history books.
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