Elizabeth Tudor as Virgo-Astraea

In Greek mythology, Astræa or Astrea (English translation: "star-maiden") was a daughter of Zeus and Themis or of Eos and Astræus. She and her mother were both personifications of justice, though Astræa was also associated with innocence and purity.
Astræa, the celestial virgin, was the last of the immortals to live with humans during the Iron Age, the final stage in the world's disintegration from the utopian Golden Age. Fleeing from the new wickedness of humanity, she ascended to heaven to become the constellation Virgo; the scales of justice she carried became the nearby constellation Libra, reflected in her symbolic association with Justitia in Latin culture.
Astræa's hoped-for return (that is, the return of the utopian Golden Age of which she was the ambassador) was referred to in a phrase from Virgil's Eclogue IV: "Iam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia Regna" (The Virgin and the Days of Old return).

Contemplatively vague

"... he hoped he discerned the large, contemplatively vague figure of Dr Frances Yates..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Yates

Literary Matriarch

"There was Lady Longford, biographer of Queen Victoria..."

From The Times
October 24, 2002

Elizabeth Longford was matriarch of the most powerful and well-connected literary dynasty in the land — that of the Pakenhams, Frasers, Pinters and Billingtons — and her life was spent among intellectuals for whom the production of books of all kinds was at least as natural as the production of children. Her own historical writings combined erudition and thorough research with wide appeal. As Countess of Longford, wife of the 7th Earl (Frank Pakenham), she was a notable crusader in society and in Labour politics.

In 1964 Longford published the book that made her name, Victoria RI, a superbly sympathetic yet realistic portrait. There had not been a substantial life of the Queen for many years, and it is not too much to say that she was the first biographer to make Victoria into a living and understandable human being.

Among her children are the historians Antonia Fraser and Thomas Pakenham, the novelist Rachel Billington and the poet Judith Kazantzis.

benignly severe

"There was Dame Helen Gardner, head up, face benignly severe ..."

Professor Dame Helen Louise Gardner DBE (1908-1986) was an English literary academic and critic. A fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford from 1942, she became Merton Professor of Renaissance literature in the University of Oxford in 1966.

Her specialist areas were T. S. Eliot, the Metaphysical poets, Milton and religious poetry, with many essays published on the subjects, as well as on literary criticism itself.
Her 1949 collection of essays, The Art of T.S. Eliot, is regarded as a seminal work on the poet. In particular, she challenged the notion that Eliot was only accessible to those well-versed in his many allusions:

It is better, in reading poetry of this kind, to trouble too little about the ‘meaning’ than to trouble too much. If there are passages whose meaning seems elusive, where we feel we are ‘missing the point,’ we should read on, preferably aloud... We must find the meaning in the reading...

Idolater?

"...from Dr Roy Strong, at that time Director of the Gallery, and an iconographer, possibly even an idolater, of the Virgin Queen."

Sir Roy Colin Strong FRSL (born 23 August 1935) is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer.

He became assistant keeper of the National Portrait Gallery in 1959, and was its director 1967-73: Sir Roy came to prominence at age 32 when he became the youngest director of the National Portrait Gallery. He set about transforming its conservative image with a series of extrovert shows, including "600 Cecil Beaton portraits 1928-1968."

A different kind of people

"Alexander amused himself by counting powerful women: there was Dame Sybil Thorndike, graciously accepting a throne-like chair ..."

Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike CH DBE (24 October 1882 – 9 June 1976) was a British actress.
In 1908 Sybil was spotted by the playwright George Bernard Shaw when she understudied the leading role of Candida in a tour directed by Shaw himself. There she also met her future husband, Lewis Casson. She played the title role of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan in 1924, which had been written with her specifically in mind. The production was a huge success, and was revived repeatedly until her final performance in the role in 1941.

Both Sybil and Lewis were active members of the Labour Party, and held strong left-wing views. Even when the 1926 General Strike stopped the first run of Saint Joan, they both still supported the strikers. Nonetheless, she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1931. As a pacifist, Sybil was a member of the Peace Pledge Union and gave readings for its benefit.