The Dukes (48 page)
As "Master" and his wife had no children, the dukedom passed in 1984 to Mr David Somerset, a cousin, and a connoisseur of Fine Art, whose wife,
nee
Lady Caroline Thynne, is a daughter of the Marquess of Bath. It would be attractive to think that as Mr Somerset was not the son of his predecessor, he suddenly found himself transported at the age of fifty-six to a grandeur of style and a burden of responsibility for which he was not prepared, but such was not the case. He had been aware of what might befall him since the age of eighteen, when Master had told him on a visit to Badminton, "You must treat this place as your own." From then on, the 10th Duke effectively behaved as if David
were
his son, gradually involving him in decisions relating to Badminton and the estate, always consulting him, and in the last thirty years, more or less leaving plans for the future in his control. He has always lived on the estate and has been in and out of the house all his adult life.
The 11th Duke of Beaufort, therefore, carried on much as he did before. He is still Chairman of Marlborough Fine Art (UK) Ltd and has no intention of abandoning his life's work. He is resolutely apolitical, with no burning ambition to take his seat in the Lords. And he is not Master of the Queen's Horse; though the public mind long associated this position with the dukedom of Beaufort, it is not inherited with the title and is now held by the Earl of Westmoreland.
His descent is interesting, for his ancestor on one side is the poetLord Henry Somerset, who was banished into exile in 1879, while his grandmother was a daughter of the 10th Duke of St Albans, son of the mad Miss Gubbins. And of course, through Henry Somerset's wife, and in common with Virginia Woolf, he has the legacy of handsome looks from the Pattle sisters. The Duke's son and heir, Lord Worcester, was born in 1952. As there are two younger sons (and a daughter), the dukedom seems destined to continue henceforth in a straight line.
references
1.
Daily Express,
16th February, 1949.
2.
William Shakespeare,
Richard II,
Act II, Sc. 1.
3.
Osbert Sitwell, Preface to
The Somerset Sequence,
p. 9.
4.
Collins,
Peerage,
Vol. I.
5.
Evening Standard,
12th December 1964.
6.
J. H. Round,
Studies in the Peerage.
7.
Ailcsbury Memoirs,
quoted in
Somerset Sequence,
p. 144.
8.
Collins, I, 210.
9.
Anita Leslie,
Edwardians in Love,
p. 248. 1 o. Walpole, cd. Cunningham, IX, p. 92.
11.
letters
of Lady Granville, quoted in
Somerset Sequence,
p. 174.
12.
Greville, I, 102.
13.
Walpolc, XVII, 486. .4.
ibid.,
XVIII, 185.
15.
ibid.,
XVII, 452-3.
16.
ibid.,
XVIII, 185.'
17.
Lady Holland to Her Son,
p. 27.
18.
Lockhart,
Life,
p. 585.
19.
Harriette Wilson,
Memoirs,
p. 316.
20.
ibid.,
273.
21.
ibid.,
315.
22.
ibid.,
391.
23.
ibid.,
454-5.
24.
ibzV/., 497.
25.
Greville, VI, 141.
26.
Somerset Sequence,
183.
27.
ibid.,
187.
28.
Greville, VI, 49.
29.
ibid.,
and pp. 77-9.
30.
E. F. Benson,
As We Were,
pp. 89-90.
31.
ibid., go.
32.
Kathleen Fitzpatrick,
Lady Henry Somerset,
p. 92.
33.
E. F. Benson,
As We Were,
p. 91.
34.
Timothy D'Arch Smith,
Love in Earnest,
p. 26.
35.
Songs of Adieu,
pp. 5-6.
36.
Timothy D'Arch Smith,
op. cit.,
p. 27.
37.
Public Record Office, DPP 1 95/5.
38.
ibid.
39.
Sir Philip Magnus,
King Edward VIII,
p. 214.
40.
Public Record Office, DPP 1 95/1-
41.
Ralph Nevill,
English Country House Life,
p. 156.
42.
Evening News,
20th July 1951.
43.
The Times,
20th May 1966.
44.
T. F. Dale,
Eighth Duke of Beaufort and the Badminton Hunt,
p. 98.
45.
Daily Express,
12th April, 1962.
46.
The People,
8th November 1959.
47.
Michael Peel, letter to
The Times,
31st December 1969.
48.
The Times,
29th December 1969.
49.
Daily Express,
15th February 1962.
50.
Daily Express,
12th April 1962.
51.
The Times,
11th November 1960.
52.
Osbert Sitwell,
Queen Mary and Others
, p. 34.
ibid.,
49.
Duke of Marlborough; Duke of Wellington
By an appropriate coincidence, the present Dukes of Marlborough and Wellington were introduced to the House of Lords on the same day - 20th July 1972. They are descended from men who had in common military genius, cool grasp and judgement, and a capacity for bold and quick decision. Away from the battlefield, however, where their personalities could be observed in less theatrical circumstances, the 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722) and the 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) were as different as two men ever could be.
In the first place, the fundamental principle which separated them was ambition. Marlborough was a man "on the make", who would not scruple to subordinate many a consideration to his own interest. He was quick to see where his advantage lay, and resolute in pursuing it. His ambition led him to desert his monarch, James II, when he saw that he had more to gain by supporting William of Orange, and to cover himself by giving clandestine support to James while holding positions of trust from William. "Marlborough was not the man to shrink from any means which would lead to his end, and apparently regarded a treasonable action as not less admissible than a stratagem in war."
1
Thackeray had this to say about him: "Here is my lord Duke of Marlborough kneeling too, the greatest warrior of all times; he who betrayed King William - betrayed King James II - betrayed Queen Anne - betrayed England to the French, the Elector to the Pretender, the Pretender to the Elector . . . and you, my lord Duke of Marlborough, you would sell me or any man else, if you found your advantage in it."
2
Wellington, on the other hand, was completely devoid of vanity or personal ambition. Where Marlborough sought fame and greatness (and had to wait until he was over fifty before the opportunity came), Wellington had greatness thrust upon him in his thirties. He had none of the conceit, the guile, the deviousness of the other man. He was genuinely humble, his most highly developed motive being a sense of duty. He was unflinchingly loyal to each of the four monarchs he served, whatever he may have thought of them personally. His greatest victories and his most humble services were alike motivated by an equal degree of obligation towards his country, his superiors, or his fellows. He seems never to have been tempted to follow a course of action which would advance himself. He responded to patriotism, not to ambition, because he was essentially a man of great simplicity, straightforward, direct and truthful, who would find personal aggrandisement both distasteful and complex. Something of this attitude is in his remark that the difference between the English and the French was that "with the French, glory is the cause; with us, the result".
3
This also neatly defines the difference between Marlborough and Wellington.
It is simply not good enough to say, as Marlborough's apologists do, that they were the product of different ages. On the contrary, they helped to define what we now regard, with hindsight, as the characteristics of the times in which they lived. The explanations are more personal. Marlborough, the son of an already famous man, had fame as his object from the beginning. With good looks and a charming manner, he was naturally gregarious and social. It was perfectly normal that he should want to do well for himself. Wellington, on the other hand, was from a comparatively obscure family. At school he had been unsocial and alone, with a pet terrier as his closest companion. All his life he remained virtually friendless, in that he did not confide his deepest thoughts to anyone (probably not even to Arbuthnot). Unsure of his personal charm, he protected himself from having it exposed by making himself an intensely private individual. He never told anyone where he was going, and, of course, no one ever dared ask him. Answerable only to himself for his psychology, he thereby gained the strength to be strangely indifferent to public acclaim. "He held popularity in great contempt, and never seemed touched or pleased at the manifestations of popular admiration and attachment of which he was the object."
4
"Trust nothing to the enthusiasm of the people," he said,
5
and although most reports picture him as unfailingly courteous, there are occasions on which he is said to have been brusque with flatterers." While Marlborough would measure his success by the effect he produced, in trivial as well as major issues, Wellington was true to himself, to his conscience, and to his duty. He had nerves of steel. No wonder he was nicknamed the "Iron" Duke.
Hardness and self-reliance may have assisted Wellington in his public duties, but they were hostile influences on his private life. His personality lacked tenderness, warmth and affection, the imaginative leap which enables a friend or a lover to take account of the sensibilities of another. He may not have had a cold heart, but he effectively barred anyone from finding out, so that only the coldness was visible.* Consequently, he never knew domestic happiness. He married Catherine Pakenham, Lord Longford's daughter, in 1806, and had two sons by her, but their fundamental incompatibility made them live apart after a few years, and he grew to dislike her. She was perhaps a lightweight compared to her husband, and unequal to the demands made by the scale of his personality, but she cannot be expected to bear all the blame for failing to make a success of living with such a secretive man. His relations with his son were likewise forbidding and terrifyingly formal. He one day refused to acknowledge a greeting from the young man, who was in civilian clothes, but curtly ignored him. Anxious to please, Douro rushed home to change into his uniform, whereupon his father, a quarter of an hour later, said, "Hello, Douro, I have not seen you for a long time."
7
Wellington was a renowned womaniser, yet none of his relationships were productive. He is said to have sat on the bed reading the Gospel of St John to a "woman of the streets". Harriette Wilson claims to have been one of his amours. The way in which she relates their conversations, with his harsh, staccato sentences, polite and accurate, but spare and giving nothing away, which was so typical of the man, testifies to the fact that she knew him. She says that he was unfeeling, with "fine nerves", and pays due tribute to his generosity. Incidentally, a further insight to his character as well as a now cliche phrase is afforded by the story of Harriette's publisher attempting to blackmail the Duke by suggesting that the book might be injurious to his reputation and could still be stopped on certain considerations. Wellington sent back the letter, having scrawled across it, "Publish and be damned".
8
With Marlborough, it was quite otherwise. A deeply affectionate man, he was genuinely grief-stricken when his son and heir, Lord Blandford, died of smallpox at the age of seventeen in 1703. The signs are that he was a far more emotional man than Wellington. There were two strong love affairs in his life, one with the infamous Duchess of Cleveland (Charles II's mistress and mother of the Duke of Grafton), and one with the woman who became his wife, Sarah
*The letters he addressed to Miss A. M. Jenkins, published in 1899, were avuncular rather than tender.
Jennings. He was only twenty years old (and still a plain mister) when his affair with
la Cleveland
began in 1671; she was twenty- nine, and known to have a
penchant
for youngsters. The relationship lasted three years, producing a daughter on 16th July 1672. Fortunately, the King was already tiring of his bad-tempered mistress by this time, and had turned his attentions to Nell Gwynn. There is a story that he nevertheless surprised the young man in the Duchess's bedroom, giving him just sufficient time to escape through the window, at quite a height, to save what crumbs of honour she had left. For this timely gallantry she paid him £5000. Another version has it that Charles came face to face with the boy, and said to him, "Go, you are a rascal, but I forgive you because you do it to get your bread."
8
The inference is nasty, and time was to prove it justified. Whatever his relations with the Duchess of Cleveland, there is no doubt that Marlborough's marriage to Sarah Jennings was a most successful love match, the excitement of which lasted until death. One has only to read a handful of letters between them. "It is impossible to express with what a heavy heart I parted with you when I was at the waterside. I could have given my life to have come back," he wrote to her, adding a touch of pure romance: "I did for a great while have a perspective glass looking upon the cliffs in hopes I might have had one sight of you." Sarah, separated from her husband, thought of him constantly. She wrote, "Wherever you are whilst I have life my soul shall follow you, my ever dear Lord Marl, and wherever I am I shall only kill the time, wish for night, that I may sleep, and hope the next day to hear from you." More revealing than all is the letter which Sarah wrote to the Duke of Somerset (the so-called "Proud" Duke) who had graciously permitted himself to consider making her his wife, after Marlborough's death. Her reply is dignified, crushing, and touching. "If I were young and handsome as I was", she wrote, "instead of old and faded as I am, and you could lay the empire of the world at my feet, you should never share the heart and hand that once belonged to John, Duke of Marlborough."
10
Other minor characteristics separate the two men. Marlborough was peevish, painfully aware of any slight; Wellington remained serenely unaffected by such matters. "There is no part of his great character more admirable or more rare than his temper and fortitude under great disappointments arising from the weakness or neglect of others", wrote Lord Mulgrave.
11
Marlborough was vain, Wellington modest, the former liked display, the latter abhorred it. When he was made Marquess of Wellington in 1812 he objected to the Union Jack being included in his coat of arms on the grounds that it was pretentious. He was also noted for extraordinary generosity, of which examples are manifold. Most interesting of all, perhaps, is the fact that when the Parliamentary Commissioners bought the estate of Stratfield Saye in 1817, for £263,000, and presented it to the Duke from a grateful nation, he spent every penny of income from the estate on improving it; not a
sou
did he spend on himself.
12
The reputation that Marlborough had for stinginess dies hard. If it is too strong to call him a miser (there are those who would say it is not), then he was certainly niggardly, giving rise to some amusing stories of his penny-pinching habits. Having devoted his life to
acquiring
money, he was not easily going to
lose
it. He was forever speculating how to add to it. As an old man, walking with difficulty, he would still walk home rather than pay sixpence for a chair to take him. His descendant Sir Winston
Churchill,
anxious to defend him against the charge of greed, nevertheless relates in his biography the story of his playing cards with General Pulteney. Marlborough asked Pulteney if he could borrow sixpence to pay for his chair-hire. Pulteney obliged, and the Duke left. Lord Bath, who was there, said, "I would venture any sum now, that the Duke goes home on foot. Do pray follow him out." Pulteney went to see, and there, sure enough, was the old man trudging to his lodgings.
13
Lord Peterborough was once mistaken for the Duke of Marlborough by the London crowd, who surged around his chair shouting "God bless the Duke of Marlborough". Peterborough insisted that he was
not
the Duke, but the crowd would not be moved. He then got out of his chair, stood before them, and said, "I will give you two convincing proofs that I am not: one is, that I have but a single guinea," and he turned his pockets inside out, "the other is, that I give it to you.""
Much of Marlborough's unpleasant reputation in this regard can be assigned to Macaulay. Sarah Marlborough asserted that the Duke had never taken a bribe, and Sir Winston says that there is no evidence to contradict her. He goes so far as to call Macaulay a liar, and points out that at forty-five Marlborough was the poorest duke in England. For once, Churchill erred. First, at forty-five Marlborough was yet only an earl, being raised to the rank of duke at the age of fifty-two. Secondly, his great period of accumulating wealth was still in the future, when Queen Anne came to the throne; Anne was influenced to an extraordinary degree by her friends the Marlboroughs, John and Sarah.
From another point of view, it matters little that Marlborough was covetous. It is important only that he was a great general. As Trevelyan wrote, "If he loved money, he gave England better value for every guinea he received than any other of her servants."
Sarah apparently shared this mean streak with her husband. She is said never to have put dots over her i's to save ink.
15
Another source, Prince Eugene, attributes the same habit to the Duke.
Much of the Duke's personality was public knowledge, which alone can account for his eventual unpopularity. In spite of his great achievements. "He had probably less public sympathy than any successful general." Wellington's massive popularity could not be more vividly contrasted with this. In 1814 his journey from Dover to London was a triumphal progress (this was even before Waterloo). The people themselves took over and drew his carriage from Westminster Bridge to Hamilton. Place. Years later, at the Great Exhibition of 1851, his attraction had not dimmed; thousands stared at him instead of at the exhibition. At his funeral in 1852 one and a half million people lined the route. (The population of London was then 2,362,236.) "No man ever lived or died in the possession of more unanimous love, respect, and esteem from his countrymen," said Palmerston. Only once did this love turn sour. The Duke was a high Tory and a passionate opponent of the Reform Bill. The people stormed his London home, Apsley House, and threw stones at the windows. The Duchess was lying dead within. One stone passed over the Duke's head as he was writing, and cracked a picture on the opposite wall of the room.
16
He did not flinch. Characteristically, he did not deign to repair the broken windows, but boarded them up.