Friday Video: The Last of the Dukes

1st Duke of Wellington-married

Loretta reports:

In Romancelandia, we create gorgeous young dukes by the thousands. In real life, as I and others have noted, there were fewer than two dozen, more or less, depending on the time period. And of those few, as I discuss here at RT Reviews, the number who were young, handsome, and single was very small, depending on the year. In the time of my recent stories (1833 & 1835), there were two single dukes, and it was clear they would never marry. Also, they were not young.

6th Duke of Devonshire-lifelong bachelor

The video—thank you, Susan, for sending me the link & letting me do the honors!—is an hour long, but it’s very well done, and if you can set aside some time, I think you’ll find it fascinating.

No doubt it will raise a great many reactions and questions. A few things I try to remember about the British aristocracy: (1) Even though we have vast economic inequality in the U.S., it’s hard for us Yanks to truly understand that class system and the way people in the UK feel about it; certainly the feelings, positive and negative and in between, exist at a depth I don’t think we can ever fully grasp. (2) Working conditions for the staff were generally hard—in some cases horrifically so—but that was the case for many working people (there and elsewhere), and those grand houses and estates employed and supported a lot of people; also, the conspicuous spending provided work to tradespeople. (3) As in every other walk of life, you have lovely people and you have the other kind.

Those are just a few comments on a big topic. I have a great many more, but I’ll leave it to you to form your own opinions, make your own observations, and so on. For starters, it will be interesting, though, to find out who’s your favorite and least favorite!

Video: The Last Dukes (British Aristocracy Documentary) - Real Stories

Images: Thomas Lawrence, 1st Duke of Wellington, c. 1815-16

Thomas Lawrence, 6th Duke of Devonshire (you can read more about him here)


Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

A Duke's Household

Morris, Woburn Abbey 1866

Loretta reports:

In A Duke in Shining Armor, my heroine says, “It’s good to be a duke.”

Though dukes, by and large, are nothing like as numerous or as attractive as we paint them in romance novels (as I describe at RT Book Reviews), and any number have fallen on hard times in the past and present, things were not so bad for the 11th Duke of Bedford.

Reading Lucy Lethbridge’s Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times, I came upon this:

“At Woburn Abbey, the eleventh Duke of Bedford maintained until his death in 1940 not only a household of at least sixty indoor servants to attend solely to his wife and himself, but two separate, fully staffed residences in Belgrave Square, including four cars and eight chauffeurs; the Woburn parlourmaids were all Amazonian at over five foot ten, as had always been the Bedfords’ stipulation.”

According to the 13th Duke, (who sounds like a pip, and whose books I intend to read):

“‘Guests never travelled with your suitcase, that was not considered the thing to do. It had to come in another car, so you had a chauffeur and a footman with yourself, and a chauffeur and a footman with the suitcase, with another four to meet you. Eight people involved in moving one person from London to Woburn.’”

11th Duke of Bedford in Coronation Robes

While other noble families changed or economized as the times demanded, the Bedfords continued in the lavish late Victorian/Edwardian style until 1940. “The [11th] Duke always started meals with his own cup of beef consommé and a plate of raw vegetables served to him on a three-tiered dumb-waiter. The Duchess’s secretary-companion had her own quarters that included a cook and a maid.” The duke’s mistress had her own rooms with her own staff—on the premises, I assume?

Apparently, the 11th Duke of Bedford is also responsible for the grey squirrel invasion of England.

Images: Woburn Abbey, from Francis Orpen Morris, The County Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland 1866; 11th Duke of  Beford in Coronation Robes, Photo credit: Middlesex Guildhall Art Collection.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Temple Bar Returns

Loretta reports:

In Dukes Prefer Blondes, I mention Temple Bar, a gateway that stood where Fleet Street meets the Strand. Through it have passed, along with the usual traffic, monarchs dead and alive. On the main arch, on iron spikes, traitors’ heads were on display.

The structure still exists, as I set out to prove to my satisfaction during my stay in London, and this existence, to me, is a miracle. It is London’s only surviving gateway, and the story of its survival includes a trip to Hertfordshire.

Built in 1672, the time of King Charles II, it was taken down, stone by stone, in 1878, because it was in the way. It had for years obstructed traffic, and now it was hampering construction of the Royal Courts of Justice. Unlike other historical structures, though, Temple Bar was saved from complete destruction. The stones weren’t carried off and used to build something else. They were saved, in hopes of a restoration. Nobody quite worked out how to do this, though.

Then, ten years later, at his wife’s instigation, Sir Henry Meux bought the 400 tons of stone from the Corporation of London and rebuilt Temple Bar as a gateway into his estate at Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire. Apparently, it did the trick of enhancing Lady Meux’s social status, as she’d hoped: It’s believed that she dined in its upper chamber with, among other notables, the Prince of Wales and Winston Churchill.

Temple Bar remained at Theobolds Park until 2004, when it returned to London, to be reassembled, stone by stone, in Paternoster Square.

The History of Temple Bar site and the Wikipedia entry will offer you more details. I offer some pictures.

All images: Photo copyright © 2017 Walter M. Henritze III
Clicking on the image will enlarge it.

Holland House

Loretta reporting from London:

After checking into our flat in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, we made our way up for greenery, to Holland Park. During the time of my stories this was one of the great London estates. Its immense Jacobean House became the model for Marchmont House, a setting in "Lord Lovedon's Duel."  Sadly, very little of the house remains. It survived long after other great London houses, like Northumberland House, were demolished in the 1800s and early 1900s. But WWII bombing destroyed all but a very little. Still, a large, beautiful park and garden remain, along with a youth hostel and cafe created in surviving, repaired pieces of the house.

Garden Decor for 1821

Bridge & Temple 1821

Loretta reports:

Prose of the early 19th century can be dauntingly indirect. When reading periodicals of the time, I find myself wondering whether there were rules like “Avoid the active voice” and “Never come at a sentence straight on, but wind your way in by means of numerous clauses.”

“An elevated class of decoration” had me scratching my head. Did they mean classy? Or reaching skyward?

For fun, you might want to rewrite the Bridge & Temple description in a modern style.

Meanwhile, we now know to make sure there’s a quarry on our estate, so that we can build our garden ornaments with stone rather than the too-rapidly-decaying wood or plaster.

Bridge & Temple Description 1821

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Friday Video: A Quick Tour of Castle Howard

Isabella reporting,

When most of us decide to part with extra stuff around the house for a little extra cash, we turn to the local second-hand shop, flea market, or garage sale. But if you're the family of the Earl of Carlisle and your house is Castle Howard, you turn to Sotheby's auction house.

As we've noted before here on the blog, maintaining an enormous English country house in the 21st century is an equally enormous challenge. No matter how beautiful the house may be or how rich in history: age, deferred maintenance,  and the taxman will take their toll, requiring the noble families to turn to creative ways to make certain the houses survive. (See here for more about Ugbrooke Park, home of Lord Clifford of Chudleigh; St. Giles House, home of the Earl of Shaftsbury, and Highclere Castle (aka Downton Abbey), home of the Earl of Carnovan.)

Earlier this year, the Howard family sold nine of their family treasures at auction. No flyers on telephone poles for them - instead Sotheby's created this elegant video that offers a quick yet breathtaking tour of Castle Howard along with highlighting the pieces in the sale. Fans of the 80s version of Brideshead Revision (which was filmed at Castle Howard) will recognize the unmistakable voice of actor Jeremy Irons as the narrator.

If you'd like to read more about the Castle Howard and the famous family who has lived there, here's the post on the Sotheby's website. And if you're curious to learn the results of the sale, here's the overview, including the prices realized.