> personal secretary to black rod in the house of lords,
In 'merican.....
A person carrying a black rod is in charge of maintaining the buildings and security of the place where congress-critters meet (Palace of Westminster, the meeting place of Parliament). If the King/Queen is in the house, he hangs protectively.
Every year he fetches the house of Commons to attend the opening of Parlament. They slam the door in his face, because the Commons does not take orders from King/Queen (think of Tea Party Reps welcoming Obama's summons) and he has to bang on the door three times with his staff.
Also this guy guards the door at meetings of the Order of the Garter, a very select group of the King/Queen and about 2 dozen hand-picked "companions", broadly similar to old Arthur's Round-Table Knights. (And like Arthur's place, apparently a LOT of other people get invites to sit against the walls, including many Kings/Queens still employed in Europe and Japan, military pensioners, and others.)
While Black Rod is supposed to organize opening of Parlament, it seems he delegates much of that to Mrs Astro then struts around like he did-it-all. To make-up for taking the public limelight, Rod let Mrs Astro bring her current boyfriend over to Windsor for the Garter party.
While the Garter folk are all super-important people, myself I'd rather slip out back and run the Corgis/Dorgis.