Duke of Wellington – Page 28 – Number One London

Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, Part Two

Sir Winston Churchill by Arthur Pan

The most famous name associated with Blenheim in modern times is Winston Spencer Churchill, grandson of the seventh duke. He was born at Blenheim in 1874, son of Randolph Churchill (a second son) and his American wife, Jennie Jerome.

Jennie was staying at Blenheim when she went into labor and the baby arrived, typical of his later impatience, two weeks before his due date. Winston proposed to Clementine Hozier in the Blenheim garden folly known as the Temple of Diana.

Sir Winston and Lady Churchill are buried in the graveyard of St. Martin’s Church in the nearby village of Bladon.

As an archetypical English country house, Blenheim today is a museum of art and historical memorabilia, featuring such attractions as the victory dispatch the first duke wrote to Sarah on a restaurant menu, elaborate tapestries depicting his campaigns, ducal coronation robes, and the memorabilia of three centuries.

The gardens at Blenheim have been redesigned many times and currently reflect a variety of styles from formal, at left, to the rolling hills of Capability Brown’s tastes.

In the long library, there is a chart of the family’s genealogy, a familiar object in most English Stately Homes. However, instead of just showing the family’s lineage back to William the Conqueror, this Spencer-Churchill (Marlborough) family traces its origins to Charlemagne.

Below, see the long library set up for a wedding.
Blenheim is one of many stately homes which can be rented for a lavish ceremony and reception.

As I mentioned in my first post on Blenheim, it is not a house designed for a family to live in. Wandering through the remarkable but sadly bleak trappings of Blenheim, one is struck by how much the first Duke of Wellington learned from Blenheim’s dominion over the entire Marlborough family. When offered a great Waterloo Palace as a gift from the nation after his victory over Napoleon (much as the first duke of Marlborough had been promised a great estate after his victory at Blenheim), Wellington proceeded cautiously. The Iron Duke knew what a burden Blenheim had been to its owners. What Wellington did, the story of Stratfield Saye, we will save for another blog post.

The Great Hall is 67 feet high with stone carvings by Grinling Gibbons. The arms on the stone arch are those of Queen Anne. The ceiling, painted in 1716 by Sir James Thornhill, shows the Duke of Marlborough kneeling to Britannia.

The door leads into the saloon.

The Saloon is also known as the state dining room and is now used by the family once a year on Christmas Day. The magnificent ceiling was painted by Louis Laguerre. Various nations are represented in wall paintings, whilst the ceiling shows the 1st Duke in victorious progress but stayed by the hand of peace.

Another view of the saloon.

In the Green Writing Room, below, the Blenheim tapestry depicts the first Duke of Marlborough accepting the surrender of the enemy in 1704, the accomplishment for which he was honored with the dukedom and the estate.

A detail of the Battle of Blenheim tapestry.

The above tapestry showing Marlborough on the way to the battle hangs in the First State Room.

The Green Drawing Room, Red Drawing room and the Green Writing Room ceilings are the work of Nicholas Hawksmoor and the walls feature beautiful portraits of members of the family. The tapestries are superb examples of the weaver’s art; ten Victory tapestries grace the walls of the State Rooms.

The Second State Room

The architects of Blenheim designed the house as a monument not as a family home, much to the disapproval of Sarah, first Duchess of Marlborough, who wanted a livable residence. Continued maintenance of the estate has caused many generations of family to become the slaves of their legacy. The house is vast but the rooms, to me, almost seemed claustrophobic, crowded and anything but comfortable.

Nevertheless, it is worth a visit, even with the steep entrance fees. But go soon, because it is ever more becoming a theme park. We will write about that in a future post on Blenheim, Part Three.

Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire – Part One

Blenheim Palace is one of England’s most famous buildings, a sprawling edifice of honey-colored stone surrounded by spacious parks. Residence of the Dukes of Marlborough, the palace is located in the village of Woodstock, near Oxford. Despite its beauty and idyllic grounds, I found an air of melancholy permeated the property.

Blenheim Palace was a gift from the British nation and a grateful Queen Anne to John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, after his 1704 victory over the forces of Louis XIV. When Anne died before the house was finished, the royal purse closed. The Duke and his descendants have been paying for the Palace ever since. Blenheim was a nightmare to build and is a monstrosity to maintain. Take a look at this statement from the Blenheim education page: “The 11th Duke has devoted his life to the preservation of the Palace. He has had a difficult task of balancing the needs of the modern day visitor with the necessity of maintaining a World Heritage site. He said that ‘Although the Battle of Blenheim was won in 1704 the Battle for Blenheim continues in the unceasing struggle to maintain the structure of the building and to obtain the finance for the future.’”

Sarah, the first duchess, fought with architects John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor from the very beginning. She wanted a comfortable residence. They, after creating the baroque magnificence of Castle Howard, wanted a splendid national monument on the order of Versailles. The subsequent story of Blenheim is an indiscriminate mix of the acquisition and dispersal of great art, the antics of peculiar family members, the real and imagined obligations of the aristocracy, and curiosity of the public.

Though Sarah bore the duke six children, both sons and one daughter did not live to adulthood. The eldest of the three remaining daughters, Henrietta, became the 2nd Duchess of Marlborough in her own right. Sadly, her son did not survive her and the 3rd Duke of Marlborough was the son of her sister, Anne, wife of Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland. This is the connection to the Spencer family, ancestors of the late Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales.

above, tomb of the Duke and Duchess

and their sons

The fourth duke, who succeeded to the title in 1758 at age 19, was actually the first to make Blenheim his family’s principle residence. He found the place cold, forbidding and rundown, never properly completed. He assumed the great honor and burden of rejuvenating its grandeur and surrounding it with an appropriately sublime setting, a park designed by Lancelot “Capability” Brown. George III, on a visit in 1786, is reported to have said, “We have nothing to equal this!”

Family of the 4th Duke of Marlborough by Sir Joshua Reynolds

Never plump enough in the pocket, the fourth duke spent millions of pounds on the mansion and grounds. By the 1780’s, he was fading into reclusiveness, his obsession with the house nearing insanity. When Admiral Nelson visited in 1802, with Lord and Lady Hamilton, the duke refused to receive them. Upon the fourth duke’s death in 1817, his son succeeded.

George Charles Spencer-Churchill, formerly the Marquis of Blandford, lived an extravagant life as fifth duke, dissolute yet brilliant and eccentric, qualities that seem to run in the family. He revised Brown’s landscape and sold off non-entailed treasures to finance his high living, even charging visitors by the hour to shoot and fish on the property. The fifth duchess, Susan, daughter of the seventh Earl of Galloway, like her predecessors, sank into the same enslavement to the house. After years of near-bankruptcy, the fifth duke died in 1840, his duchess the next year. When the Duke of Wellington and his friend, diarist Harriet Arbuthnot, visited Blenheim in 1824, Mrs. Arbuthnot wrote, “The family of the great General is, however, gone sadly to decay, and are but a disgrace to the illustrious name of Churchill, which they have chosen this moment to resume. The present Duke is overloaded with debt, is very little better than a common swindler and lets everything about Blenheim. People may shoot and fish at so much per hour and it has required all the authority of a Court of Chancery to prevent his cutting down all the trees in the park.”

Thus, the pattern was established, dukes and duchesses sacrificing themselves and their families to a symbolic vision of Blenheim Palace more important than mere humans. Another famous victim was Consuelo Vanderbilt, who married the 9th duke in 1895, a social coup for her mother, but a lesser triumph for her father, who provided millions to restore and maintain Blenheim. Consuelo later divorced and eventually achieved happiness as Countess Balsan. Right, the 9th Duke and Duchess of Marlborough with their heir and spare, painted by John Singer Sargent in 1907.

The Red Drawing Room

In a future blog, I will take you on a tour of Blenheim and tell more of the story of how a family has had the lives of generations absolutely dominated by the care and maintenance of a home that is also almost a national monument. Imagine needing a new roof!

London and Waterloo Tour – Apsley House

One of the very first stops Victoria and I will be making together is a visit to Apsley House, the Duke of Wellington’s London home. Apsley House is, of course, the place from which we took the name for this blog. The house became familiarly known as Number One, London as it was the first house after the Knightsbridge toll gates that travelers passed upon entering London.

Apsley House, originally a red brick building, was built between 1781-1787 by neo-classical architect Robert Adam for Baron Apsley, later the second Earl Bathurst. It was purchased by Marquess Wellesley, elder brother to Arthur Wellesley, in 1807, with financial difficulties following soon after. Needing a base of operations and residence in London, and seeking to ease his brother’s financial burdens, the ever practical Duke purchased the house in 1817.

Wellington settled upon architect Benjamin Wyatt to carry out restorations to Apsley House. Wyatt expanded Apsley by two bays, and built the Waterloo Gallery for the Duke’s paintings and refaced the house with Bath stone. Wellington presided over the redecoration of Apsley House’s interiors in Regency fashion and hosted annual Waterloo Banquets to commemorate his victory of 1815, entertaining fellow officers from his campaigns in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo.

The house was used for entertaining on a grand scale, and Wellington’s great dinner and dessert services are on display. The Sèvres Egyptian Service was commissioned by Napoleon for his Empress Josephine. The vast silver Portuguese Service, with an 8 metre long centrepiece, adorned the table at the annual Waterloo Banquet, a great event at which the Duke entertained officers who had served under him at Waterloo and in the Peninsular War.

From 1992-1995 Apsley House was restored to its former glory as the private palace of the ‘Iron Duke’. Apsley House is the last great London town-house with collections largely intact and family still in residence.

The first Duke of Wellington possessed a collection of art and fine furnishings perhaps unrivalled by any contemporary. After the Duke’s victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, grateful nations and private citizens showered Wellington with gifts of thanks, including a fine Sevres porcelain service from Louis XVIII of France, and superlative Portuguese silver.

There are also 200 paintings from the royal collection of the Kings of Spain that Wellington recovered from Joseph Bonaparte after the Battle of Vitoria in 1813. After King Ferdinand VII was reinstated as monarch, he asked Wellington to keep the paintings as a gift of thanks. The Duke, no fool he, agreed. Among these paintings are works by Goya, Velasquez, Correggio, and Rubens.

Front and centre upon entering Apsley is Antonio Canova’s huge statue of Napoleon, portrayed as an ancient Greek athlete. The sword carried by Wellington at Waterloo is on display in the Plate and china Room, as well as the sword of his great foe Napoleon.

I suppose I should come clean and confess that the last time I was at Apsley House I set off the alarms. Really. It was in the Waterloo Chamber. I was looking at the 8 metre long silver centerpiece on the table and simply could not believe my eyes. The entire thing was coated in a layer of dust. My eyes must be deceiving me, thought I, as I wiped a fingertip across one of the figures. Well, not only was there, indeed, dust on my finger, but the alarms began sounding and by the time a guard entered the room, I’d turned my back and was studying the full length portrait of George IV. No matter that I was the only person in the room, I simply acted as though nothing at all had happened. And as far as I’m concerned, it hadn’t. Hopefully, they feel the same and will let me back in this June. Kristine

Living With the Duke of Wellington

I’ve been living with the Duke of Wellington for nigh on thirty years now – reading about him, researching him and, perhaps most fun, collecting items associated with him. The first portrait of the Duke I ever bought is pictured at right. If you can believe it, I stumbled upon it in a thrift store in Florida and paid just $99 for it. Afterwards, I brought a photo of it with me to London and took it to Grosvenor Prints in Seven Dials and asked the gentleman there what he thought it was worth. He hemmed and hawed on giving me an appraisal without actually seeing the piece, but did tell me that mine was one of a series of eight engravings done shortly after the Duke’s death to commemorate the high points thereof. My engraving shows the Duke being installed as Chancellor of Oxford University and the frame is rosewood. When I told the man how much, or how little, I’d paid for the piece, he peered at me over the top of his glasses and said, “Madam, you got yourself a bargain.”

The next portrait I bought was this reproduction of Thomas Phillips’s 1814 painting of the Duke. Unfortunately, there isn’t an amusing story attached to this purchase, just ordered it through the mail, took it to be framed and matted and hung it above my fireplace. I must say, though, Artie looks tres festive when wreathed in garland at the holidays! My father bought the pheasant at an auction decades ago and when he returned home with it, both my mother and myself thought he was crazy. However, now I’m ever so glad he found it, as it’s so veddy Victorian in appearance and goes quite well on the mantle, non?

On a subsequent trip to London, I returned to Grosvenor Prints and spent quite a few hours perusing their Duke of Wellington stock, finally choosing this engraving because it seemed to match the first engraving in size and subject composition. It’s a contemporary engraving of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s 1821 portrait of the Duke, with Copenhagen’s head visible in the lower left corner. I had it matted and framed to match the first engraving.

On that same visit, I also bought this engraving of Elizabeth Hay, 2nd Duchess of Wellington and favorite daughter-in-law of the Duke. I also have an engraving of the Duke showing Elizabeth over the field of Waterloo on horseback. My husband tries to make me understand that these pictures should all be hung together, museum-like in a large room or gallery and not ranged over every conceivable bit of wall space in a smallish family home in which current day people actually live. I told him that I agreed. The collection as a whole would look infinitely better in a townhouse in Bath’s Royal Crescent or a Grade II listed period home in, say, Gloucestershire. I further told him that as soon as he bought me one or the other I would move each and every picture and knick knack to our new house. No need to tell you that I’m still waiting for word that our Georgian manor home has been purchased.

One wall in my office is taken up with various prints and here hangs Sir Thomas Lawrence’s most iconic image of the Duke, as well as the engraving on the field of Waterloo I mentioned earlier at bottom left. The framed document in the middle is a land indenture and the document at top right is an edition of the London Chronicle from 1771. Prince Leopold (or Leopold, King of the Belgians) is matted in red top left. Can I tell you how much enjoyment my passion for the past has afforded me over the years, giving me the excuse to visit bookshops, printsellers, antique shops and stalls and the like? While I love each find, I think my favorite piece of Wellington memorabilia is one of his handwritten envelopes, seal still intact, that I found on Ebay!

And, of course, all the book finds, whether associated with the Duke or not. Here are but a few. It always makes me chuckle when people ask me whether I’ve actually read them all. Obviously, these people are a breed apart from you and I. So, that’s a quick tour of my Wellington collection. When we go to London in June, Victoria and I plan to visit Grosvenor Prints and the bookstores in Charing Cross Road and Cecil Court. No doubt we’ll be coming home with more finds.

I can hear my husband groaning now.

Almack's Assembly Rooms

When Almack’s Assembly Rooms, King Street, St. James’s, opened on 13 February, 1765 Horace Walpole wrote: “The new Assembly Room at Almack’s was opened the night before last, very magnificent, but it was empty; half the town is ill with colds.” Apparently, the ton recovered quickly, for Almack’s was soon touted as the epitome of all that was fashionable. Almack’s boasted three rooms, where, for a subscription of ten guineas, one attended ball and supper each Wednesday evening during the twelve weeks of the London Season. However, before becoming a subscriber, one was first subjected to the scrutiny of the Lady Patronesses of Almack’s, originally comprised of Ladies Pembroke and Molyneaux, Mrs. Fitzroy and Mrs Meynell and the Misses Pelham and Lloyd. Circa 1814, the committee was made up by the Ladies Jersey (Sarah, Countess of 1786-1867), Castlereigh, Cowper (later Lady Emily Palmerston d. 1869) and Sefton, the Princess Esterhazy and the Countess (later Princess) of Lieven. Mrs. Drummond-Burrell (later Lady Willoughby de Eresby) also served briefly. According to Ticknor’s diaries, only one member of the committee acted as Patroness at a time, the post being filled by a rotation system.

Should an applicant not meet the approval of these ladies, he or she was turned down for membership. In addition, the rules were strictly adhered to, with the Duke of Wellington himself being turned away when he arrived at the Rooms in trousers, rather than the required knee breeches. Or was it because, as another story goes, he arrived after the hour of midnight? Appropos of this singular event, George Ticknor wrote that he and Lord and Lady Downshire, on their way to Almack’s, stopped off at Lady Mornington’s, where they met the Duke of Wellington. They asked him if he were going to Almack’s and the Duke replied that “he thought he should look in by and by,” upon which his mother told him that he’d better get there in good time as Lady Jersey would make no allowances for him. The Duke dawdled, Ticknor and the rest going on to Almack’s without him. Later that evening, Ticknor was standing with Lady Jersey when an attendant told her, “Lady Jersey, the Duke of Wellington is at the door, and desires to be admitted.” “What o’clock is it?” she asked. “Seven minutes after eleven, your ladyship.” She paused, then said with emphasis and distinctness, “Give my compliments to the Duke of Wellington, and say she is very glad that the first enforcement of the rule of exclusion is such that hereafter no one can complain of its application. He cannot be admitted.”

In any case, the Duke was not the only person of rank who was censored. A report dated 1765 runs: “The Duchess of Bedford was first blackballed, but is now since admitted, the Duchesses of Grafton and of Marlborough are also chosen. Also Lady Holderness, Lady Rochford are blackballed, as is Lord March.” Captain Gronow records, “Very often persons whose rank and fortunes entitled them to entree anywhere else were excluded by the cliquism of the lady patronesses, for the female government of Almack’s was a pure despotism and subject to all the caprices of despotic rule. It is needless to add that, like every other despotism, it was not innocent of abuses.” Still, admittance was sought and the Rooms became, “a matrimonial bazaar where mothers met to carry on affairs of state; and often has the table, spread with tepid lemonade, weak tea, tasteless orgeat, stale cakes and thin slices of bread and butter – the only refreshment allowed – been the scene of tender proposals.”

Subscribers to Almack’s were allowed to bring a guest to a Ball, provided they passed muster first. He or she had to call personally at the Rooms and were either granted a “Strangers Ticket” of admission or were blackballed. The Rooms were open for supper and gaming, with dancing lasting the night. Once supper had been served at eleven o’clock, the doors were closed and no one else was admitted for the evening, regardless of rank or reputation. Once you had been approved by the Lady Patronesses, your social standing was guaranteed to soar. Fortunate young ladies making their first London Season and who’d been allowed to ‘come out’ at an Almack’s ball had their dancing partners personally chosen by one of the Ladies. A passage from Lutrell’s work “Advice to Julia” concerning Almack’s reads:

“All on that magic list depends;
Fame, fortune, fashion, lovers, friends;
`Tis that which gratifies or vexes
All ranks, all ages, all sexes.
If once to Almack’s you belong,
Like monarchs, you can do no wrong;
But banished thence on Wednesday night,
By Jove you can do nothing right.”

The ballroom was partitioned off for the dancers by crimson ropes. In 1814, the dances at Almack’s were Scotch Reels and English Country dances and the orchestra, being from Edinburgh, was conducted by the celebrated Neil Gow. During the early Victorian era, Weippert and Collinet’s band provided the music. It was not until 1815 that Lady Jersey introduced the French Quadrille to the Rooms, about which Mrs. Arbuthnot wrote on in a letter on June 22, 1823 . . . . “I went two nights ago to a costume ball at Almack’s for a Welsh charity. It was very brilliant & there was a quadrille that was beautiful. All the prettiest girls in London were in it, such as Ly A. Hervey, Miss Poyntz, Miss Stewart (natural daughter of Ld Granville & the late Lady Bessborough) Miss Foresters, Miss Beresford, Miss Howard. The men were in regimentals & each wore a bouquet. The quadrille, however, gave great offence, for they danced together all night & took the upper end of the room, which was considered a great impertinence. They were dressed in caps & flowers with a chip Swiss hat at the back of the head, scarlet bodices & white petticoats trimmed with scarlet ribbons & flowers. All the Royal Family were there, & it was altogether a very grand concern.”

Around this same date, Prince Puckler-Muskau, (pictured at left) a visitor to London whilst on the hunt for an heiress to marry, offered a fresh perspective on the Rooms in a letter he wrote on April 26, 1825, “The first Almack’s ball took place this evening; and from all I had heard of this celebrated assembly, I was really curious to see it: but never were my expectations so disappointed. It was not much better than at Brighton. A large bare room, with a bad floor, and ropes round it, like the space in an Arab camp parted off for the horses; two or three naked rooms at the side, in which were served the most wretched refreshments; and a company into which, spite of the immense difficulty of getting tickets, a great many `Nobodies’ had wriggled; in which the dress was generally as tasteless as the tournure was bad; – this was all. In a word, a sort of inn-entertainment: – the music and the lighting the only good things. And yet Almack’s is the culminating poin
t of the English world of fashion.”