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A Gathering of Graces – Part Two

Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland – title created 1766. Additional titles include: Earl Percy, Earl of Beverley, Baron Warkworth.

Family Pile: Alnwick Castle, Northumberland.

Family Pile #2 – Syon Park, London

History: Part of the original Norman Conquest set, the Percy family have been dominant in their part of the country for centuries. The family pile, Alnwick Castle, has been featured in Blackadder and stand in as the Hogwarts School in the Harry Potter films. The present Duke recently sold a Raphael painting to the nation for £22 million, a deal which attracted controversy because of the use of Lottery funds. But he’s also been buying treasures, as well. Or, rather, returning treasures to their proper homes. On the telephone during a recent Sotheby’s sale, the Duke of Northumberland acquired a piece of ancestral porcelain – a Meissen plate painted with a seated wolf surrounded by flowers, which finally sold for £36,000 against a pre-sale estimate of £15,000-20,000. This follows on from his acquisition of another plate from the service in Part I of the sale last November. Both of the rare Meissen plates are from the ‘Hanbury Williams/Duke of Northumberland’ service dated 1748-1750 which had been a gift from Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony to Sir Charles Hanbury Williams in 1748, and probably passed to the then Earl of Northumberland in 1756. Today, all but a few pieces from the service remain on display at Alnwick Castle, and now these two items will be reunited with them.

The newly-refurbished Alnwick Garden has become a major tourist attraction and in 2009 the Duchess was appointed the new Lord Lieutenant of Northumberland.

Holdings: With 132,000 acres, Syon Park in West London and a substantial art collection, he is valued at £300 million and ranked No. 178 on the latest Rich List.

Andrew Russell, 15th Duke of Bedford – Additional titles: Marquess of Tavistock and Baron Howland.

Family Pile: Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire

History: The first Duke fought on both sides in the Civil War and was ennobled after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In 1552, the duke received Covent Garden and seven acres of land in London. The 14th duke gave up most of his holdings in Bloomsbury to the University of London in 1953, but the present duke still has the power to raise the rents in Fizrovia and owns 23,000 acres of land and prime central London real estate. The family has made Woburn Abbey a major tourist attraction and the present duke is busy refurbishing much of the London estate.

For a look at the fascinating life of Mary, Duchess of Bedford, above, click here.

Holdings: Valued at £489million. Owns 23,000 acres and prime central London real estate.

Edward Fizalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk – date of creation 1483. Additional titles: Earl of Surrey and Baron Maltravers.

Family Pile: Arundel Castle, West Sussex.

History: As England’s senior duke, Norfolk carries the hereditary title of Earl Marshal. As such, he plays an important role in running state occasions. The family’s royal links stretch back centuries and theirs is the only Catholic dukedom. The present Duke’s wife, Georgina, stands in for the Queen at rehearsals of the State Opening of Parliament. The new formal garden at Arundel was conceived ain 2008 as a light-hearted tribute to Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel (1585-1646), known as ‘The Collector,’ who died in exile in Padua during the English Civil War. Lord Arundel was the first of the great English art collectors, whose antique marbles are now at Oxford, and the library at the Royal Society; but the magnificent Van Dyck and Mytens portraits and some other objects commissioned or collected by him form the basis of the collection now at Arundel Castle, while his retrieval of lost family estates, titles and honours after the disasters of his ancestors’ executions and attainders in the previous century were instrumental in the revival of the Norfolk family. The present Duke’s eldest son and heir, Henry, the Earl of Arundel, 22, is a promising Formula Three driver. You can watch a 1937 Pathe film of the previous Duke and Duchess of Norfolk returning to Arundel after their honeymoon here.

Holdings: Half his 30,000 acres are in leafy West Sussex, while the family also owns a ten-acre parcel of Lon
don valued at £100 million in 2001.

Part Three Coming Soon!

A Gathering of Graces – Part One

The Dukes: (from left to right) 1. James Graham, 8th Duke of Montrose; 2. David Manners, 11th Duke of Rutland; 3. John Seymour, 19th Duke of Somerset; 4. Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland; 5. Andrew Russell, 15th Duke of Bedford; 6. Edward Fizalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk; 7. Torquhil Campbell, 18th Duke of Argyll; 8. Maurice FitzGerald, 9th Duke of Leinster; 9. Murray Beauclerk, 14th Duke of St Albans; 10. Arthur Wellesey, 8th Duke of Wellington.

In celebration of its 300th birthday last year, Tatler magazine rounded up some of the UK’s twenty-four surviving Dukes to a lunch in St. James’s, and ten accepted the invitation. Some of the remaining twenty-four Graces were either living abroad or too frail to make the journey. The group who attended was still the largest gathering of dukes since the Coronation of 1953 and until 1975 a quarter of the dukes were all related to each other, through either bloodlines or marriage. They are apparently still thick as thieves – the water served at the luncheon was bottled at the Duke of Marlborough’s estate, Blenheim.

Here is an introduction to those ducal guests and a bit on their family history.

James Graham, 8th Duke of Montrose – date of creation 1707. Other titles include Viscount Dundaff and Lord Aberuthven, Mugdock and Fintrie. The current Duke is also Chief of the Graham clan.

Family Pile: Auchmar, near Loch Lomond.

A look at an 1871 issue of The Academy is enough to sum up the family’s historical importance. It reads in part – Mr. Frascr reports on the highly important muniments belonging to the Duke of Montrose. They include charters from King William the Lion, and subsequent Scottish sovereigns to successive representatives of the family of Graham. The papers relating to the first Marquis of Montrose embrace the correspondence with him of Charles I. and II., Queen Henrietta Maria, Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia, James Duke of York, Prince Rupert, Prince William of Orange, and others. The letters of Charles I., which are nearly all holograph, were written from various places during the Civil War, and show the great difficulties in which the king often found himself. The correspondence of his sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia, is marked by her characteristic wit and vivacity. The papers connected with the trial of Montrose and his companions, the depositions of witnesses concerning his invasion of Scotland, and the battle of Tippermuir in Perthshire; the petitions of the Ecclesiastical Courts for the execution of his imprisoned adherents; the acts and proceedings of the Privy Council and the Committee of Estates to enforce subscription to the Covenant, all throw strong light on the condition of Scotland in those stormy times. There is also an extensive correspondence of the first Duke of Montrose, who was greatly instrumental in accomplishing the Union between Scotland and England. In addition to the Montrose Papers proper, the present duke possesses the Lennox and the Menteith collections, which are scarcely of less historical importance.

Holdings – 8,800 acres valued at around £1 million in 2001.

David Manners, 11th Duke of Rutland – date of creation 1703. Additional titles: Marquess of Granby and Baron Roos of Belvoir.

Family pile: Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire

History: While the main seat, Belvoir, is a magnificent 365-room pile with an underground railway and £100 million of art, the family also owns Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, widely recognised as one of Britain’s finest medieval and Tudor manor houses. A previous Marquess of Granby (later the third duke) was a popular soldier and helped many of his men with their retirement, hence the number of pubs called the Marquess of Granby. The present castle is the third incarnation of the property. In 1799 the Fifth Duke of Rutland, then aged 21, married 20 year old Elizabeth Howard from Castle Howard in Yorkshire. She said that she would prefer to have a more traditional castle with towers, turrets and battlements, and so in the following thirty years the previous castle was rebuilt to the very fine Gothic Revival Castle that stands there today, complete with a great deal of fine Regency furniture, and a fabulous collection of fine art.

The Humours of Belvoir Castle — or the Morning After”, a March 1st 1799 English caricature depicting the debauchery that took place to celebrate the 5th Duke’s 21st birthday appears above. Blackwood’s Magazine ran the following piece which tells at that Beau Brumnmell attended – “At Belvoir he was (like one of the family) and at Chevelcy, another seat of the Duke of Rutland’s, his rooms were as sacred as the Duke of York’s, who was a frequent visitor there. On the Duke of Rutland’s coming of age, in 1799, great rejoicings took place at Belvoir, and Brummell was one of the distinguished party there, among whom were the Prince of Wales, the late Duke of Argyll, the Marquis of Lorn, and the other chief fashionable people of the day.” At another time, Brummell, who w
as then in the army, was more than an hour late for a military review. When at last he did arrive, he was dressed not in military dress, but rather in the colors of the Belvoir Hunt. He apologized profusely for any inconvenience caused and explained that he’d been thrown by his horse and had lain, senseless, on the ground for well above an hour. No one was fooled as to where the Beau had been – riding with the Duke of Rutland – but the general in charge of the review was somewhat mollified about this indiscretion when Brummell invited him to Belvoir Castle for dinner that evening. If you’d like to don your pinks and join the duke’s Belvoir Hunt, click here.

Holdings: Ranked 474th in the latest Rich List, he is valued at £115 million. Estates across Leicestershire (12,000 acres), Derbyshire (10,000 acres), Cambridgeshire (4,000 acres) and Lincolnshire (2,000 acres).

John Seymour, 19th Duke of Somerset – date of creation 1547. The family pile is located in Maiden Bradley, Somerset, but is being rented out at £50,000 a year. The Duke runs the estate from a smaller house in Devon.

History: He is a descendant of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife. The first Duke of Somerset, Edward Seymour, was Jane’s brother. The family owns the fourposter oak bed in which Edward VI is said to have been conceived. To read about the life – and execution – of the first duke, click here.

Holdings: Around 5,000 acres of Somerset, including several villages.

Part Two Coming Soon!

Leading Up to Jane Austen's Birthday…

Jane Austen’s 235th Birthday Celebration at JASNA GCR

Victoria here. On Saturday, December 4, 2010, a packed house of Jane Austen aficionados met at Chicago’s Fortnightly to celebrate her birth on December 16, 1775.

The Fortnightly, a woman’s club founded in 1873, was decorated for the holidays in a splendid array of tasteful sparkle.

Jane Hunt

The eager celebrants enjoyed a program begun by JASNA CGR Area coordinator Jeffrey Nigro of the Chicago Art Institute and Elisabeth Lenckos, of the University of Chicago. Jane Hunt, a member of the club and the JA society gave us a brief history of the organization, on E. Bellevue Place in the historic landmark Bryan Lathrop House in downtown Chicago.

Cathy Feldman introduced the afternoon’s speaker, Michaelangelo Allocca, also of the University of Chicago, who discussed: Are you Sure They Are All Horrid? Austen’s Degrees of Disagreeability.”

Mr. Allocca cited a number of uses of the word HORRID in Northanger Abbey, having at least three distinct definitions. When speaking of the gothic novels to which they were addicted, Catherine and Isabella use HORRID to mean wonderful, full of horror, awesome and meeting all their expectations. Later in the novel HORRID is used to mean bad in the sense of naughty or ungentlemanly behavior, and thirdly, to mean morally reprehensible and blameworthy.

Karla Benton, William Phillips

Mr. Allocca, later joined by questioners from the audience, then dissected various unsavory characters in Austen’s Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey, defining to which version of HORRID each one belongs. It was a lively and entertaining talk.

Little did we know what richness still awaited us, as we passed through the tea buffet with its delicious finger food – both savory and sweet. I was a particularly fan of the chicken salad with cranberries, something I doubt that Jane Austen ever tasted. And as for the chocolate dipped strawberries, not even Mrs. Elton could have surpassed the luscious fruits.

Now I await a second birthday celebration on December 11m at the North Hills Country Club when JASNA-WI has a luncheon in honor of our beloved author. Aren’t I lucky to belong to TWO JASNA chapters????

A Hunting We Will Go

Modern day controversy aside, there’s still no more iconic image of the English Gentleman than those like the one shown above – dressed in “pinks” and ready to join the fox hunt or to go riding to hounds. The Duke of Wellington did it, though he wore a light blue jacket, and the present Duke of Rutland is known for his Belvoir Hunt. But what, in this day and age, is the actual cost of kitting oneself out for the hunt?

Plain cream silk stock – £35.00

Frock style hungting coat £430.00

Bespoke moleskin breeches £165.00

Bespoke hunting cap £275.00

Hunting whip £45.00

Silver hunting horn £698.00

Hunting boots approximately £450.00

Saddle approximately £1,000.00

A decent mount approximately £5,000.00

Total approximate cost – £8,098.00

Or $12,944.37, excluding shirt, gloves, socks, bridle, spurs, hounds, rifle or flask

Christmas at Castle Howard, Yorkshire

Saturday’s Snow update: The roads to Castle Howard are open, but please drive with care. The House & Gardens, Stable Courtyard Shops, Farm Shop, Café and Garden Centre are open for business as usual from 10am daily, and ‘Audiences with Father Christmas’ will go ahead as scheduled this weekend. The snow covered gardens look stunning – so please wrap up, enjoy the views and have fun! Updated 4.00pm on 03/12/2010.Check the Castle Howard website for daily updates here.

Hurrah! All those lovely decorations and planned events no longer postponed! Unless we live in a tropical climate, we expect snow in December, but I reckon the current situation in Europe is more than anyone expected. If you are anywhere near Yorkshire, check the website and plan a Christmas visit to the Castle. Many events are planned, some already sold out.

Castle Howard is the spectacular estate belonging to the Howard family, Earls of Carlisle, built in the early 18th century in the baroque style by Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. The building of Castle Howard is the story of unique friendships. Under history in the website above you can learn about the trio of Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle (c.1669-1738), John Vanbrugh (1664-1726) and Nicolas Hawksmoor (1661-1736), who cooperated to build this remarkable house.

You may be familiar with it as the setting of the television series Brideshead Revisited. Both the 1981 eleven-episode version starring Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons and the 2008 film of the same name (if you are interested, definitely choose the former). Castle Howard also served as one of the settings for The Buccaneers, a five-episode miniseries in 1995 of Edith Wharton’s last unfinished novel about American heiresses looking for English titles. More film appearances are detailed on the website.

Christmas in the Great Hall

Castle Howard replaced the nearby Henderskelfe Castle, the ancient Yorkshire seat of the Dacre family from which the Howards are descended. This castle was destroyed by fire in 1693; today a large obelisk marks its former location. The third Earl at the end of the 17th century, decided to bult a great house, and first chose William Talman (1650-1719), the architect who was redoing Chatsworth for the Duke of Devonshire. But they didn’t get along.

The Earl turned to John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), a multitalented fellow, a former soldier, whose very first play was a success. He was an amateur architect, more familiar with theatrical design, but he was able to work closely with Nicholas Hawksmoor (c.1661-1736), a professional who was an assistant to Wren and, alone, the architect of several noteworthy buildings. The partnership worked so well it was continued in the building of Blenheim.

Castle Howard spreads out under a lanterned dome, perhaps inspired by the recent erection of Wren’s St. Paul’s. The dome was not part of the architect’s original drawings. Work on the house continued until Vanbrugh’s death in 1726. The planned west wing was not built until the 1750’s and then to plans altered by architect William Kent.

Nigel Nicolson writes of Castle Howard in the National Trust Book of Great Houses of Britain, “From a
distance it passes every test; it is noble, dramatic, splendid and in scale. From a closer view, there is almost nothing in British architecture to match the explosive vigour of its soaring stone…the minds of several great men have met here to create what is without question the finest memorial to the short-lived age of the English baroque.”

Chapel

Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748-1825) went on the Grand Tour with Charles James Fox, then held a number of royal appointments. At 30, he became the Chief Commissioner to North America on the eve of the Revolution, and later was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He acquired many fine Italian paintings now in the house.

His son, George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle (1773-1848), married Georgiana Cavendish, daughter of the 5th Duke and Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Lady Georgiana’s bedroom has been preserved as it was at her death in 1858 with its 18th century furniture intact.

Despite her fragile beauty, Lady Georgiana bore the 6th Earl a dozen children, 6 boys and 6 girls.

Upon the death of the 9th Earl of Carlisle in 1911, the family estates were divided. The 10th Earl inherited Naworth Castle, Cumbria, and Castle Howard went to Hon. Geoffrey William Algernon Howard (1877-1935). His grandsons are now the trustees of the corporation that owns and operates Castle Howard. It’s worth noting that the Howards are the only great Catholic medieval family to survive to present day.

During World War II, the house was used as a girl’s school. During the school’s tenure, a fire destroyed the south wing and the central great hall and dome. The dome and Great Hall were restored but the interiors of one wing of the house are empty. These rooms, stripped to their unadorned brick walls, once held the major State Rooms, now all gone. In other areas of the house, many fine rooms are open to the visitor.

The park and the buildings scattered around the grounds, the Temple of the Four Winds by Vanbrugh and the Mausoleum by Hawksmoor, and the handsome bridge are as admired as the house itself.