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Hello, Malone!
My Chambers is the 10th edition.
(Got it cheap on eBay!)
No mention of printing under orphan, just "club-line qv".
I knew no good would come of Chambers leaving Edinburgh!
But, well done on solving the mystery!
And, as it was one of the three puzzles used in the Championship final, it had to be a toughie, I think!

Thanks, Rusty. I found today's puzzle much tougher than the other Championship puzzles - I didn't finish it. At least your edition of Chambers had 'club-line', the definition of which leads back to 'orphan' and a less disgruntled solver!

Sorry, Shakespeare added his extra bit to his will only a month before he died. And the H on Susanna was a typo, though I have an eighteenth century Susannah in my family history whose name is written variously with and without an H and also sometimes as Susan.

Hi, Rusty!
Ooops! No, divorce only came into being in the mid 19th Century, I think?
Long after Shakespeare's time!
But only the very rich could afford to be divorced, at first......and I think that had to be instigated by the men!
I should have said that William and Anne S. remained together!
There were varying divorce laws passed later on.
Re 22d:
I didn't think to check whether there was another meaning to "orphan"!
How remiss of me!
I was so fixated on what I thought was the apparent misuse of "lonely " for "alone"!
My 13th ( ill-fated ) edition of Chambers says "a short line at the end of a paragraph; a club line (printing)"
Well done Malone for spotting it!
Still no word from my son..... but he has done this before...... so I guess no news is good news......


Funnily enough. Malone, apart from 22d , I found this puzzle one of the easier Championship ones!
I even managed all the parsings!

Elle, I wasn't too aggrieved at not finishing today's puzzle - I just felt I'd met my match! I'm always disappointed if a crossword is too easy, as I like it to be a bit of a challenge. I definitely lost today's battle of wits.

I think we were all focussed (too focussed) on the lonely orphan, missing the lonely orphan type.

Hi, Malone, I don't consider I have "finished " a crossword, unless every part of the clue is parsed to my satisfaction! - and hopefully in accordance with the setter!
So I often come unstuck!
Today was just one of the better ones for me!

Ah, now I get it re orphans. I've remembered a typesetting term, "widows and orphans" which refers to a single word at the bottom of a paragraph or the top of a new page which is supposed to be A Bad Thing. Phew!

Back to my knitting!

Good evening, Elle!
Surely old Henry V111 was divorcing wives away back in the mists of time?
10/10 to Malone, the demon solver!
I think I told you when I first started cryptic puzzles, I was baffled that a "priest" could be a "club".
So that got me into the way of not presuming I knew what a word meant!
In the Championship final, the competitors are given three puzzles to solve.
The first all correct entry wins.
Let's hope you hear from your son!

Hi, Rusty!
I'm not sure how Henry VIII managed to achieve that.... didn't he have a row with the Pope over wanting a divorce?
My History is rocky at the best of times!
I'm sure Google will know ...but I am too tired to find out......
I take your point about "priest" meaning "club"!
Yes, you had told me that, and I should have remembered it, and consequently looked up "orphan" in the dictionary!
Never mind...... a salutary lesson...... and I have learned from it!
I shall hopefully not make that mistake again!
I am going to sit quietly and read my Michael Connelly......I may even go to sleep....!
My husband is shredding paper.........I wonder what we have that needs such fierce destruction....?

Didn't Henvy VIII have a row with the pope, and thus created the
Church of England, declaring himself as the Head of that Church -
whereby he could do as he pleased?
Something like that, isn't it?