Go to the old peers of the kingdom and ask them to review their Order of Precedence record. Then listen to them natter with eachother about when they got their award and what was happening at the time. They also have this tendancy to pass the book off to other peers to fill in things for them and then it gets really funny...

"oh that was when you were married to ... and X was on the throne... then.... oh yeah that happened, and we all..."

Lots of conversations of that sort.
Yes an Abacus hat looks silly, and the beads get tangled in my hair.