Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle

by The Countess of Carnarvon

  Two years later he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where the first thing he did was offer to scrape the paint in his room to reveal the original wooden panelling beneath. He loved the town’s curiosity shops and was more often found at Newmarket racecourse than in the library. He managed two years of study before buying a 110-foot yacht, the Aphrodite, and sailing from Vigo to the Cape Verde islands, from the West Indies to Rio. He heard Italian opera in Buenos Aires and was persuaded not to return through the Magellan Straits, since it was far too perilous at that time of year. His next journey was to South Africa, where he went elephant hunting and got a terrible shock when the elephant turned the tables and chased him up a tree.

  He read a vast amount about the countries he visited and learned on his feet, nurturing patience, self-reliance and calm. The practicalities of life at sea meant he had to be one of the team, whether taking the helm when the captain was delirious or helping with surgical operations on board. He usually spent summers in town going to the opera, then went for some shooting at Bretby in Nottinghamshire, another of the Carnarvon estates, or Highclere, where he stayed on into the autumn before dashing off on his travels again. He collected books, paintings and acquaintances in equal measure. He was, despite his family’s concern that he should begin to apply himself, thoroughly indulged.

  This delightful routine had been interrupted by the 4th Earl’s death in June 1890, at his house in Portman Square in London. Porchy had been able to get back from his voyage to Australia and Japan in time to be at his father’s bedside. The Earl’s health had been failing since 1889, and his friends from all walks of life were moved by his patience. He was said to possess a genius for friendship. General Sir Arthur Hardinge, an old friend and veteran of the Crimean War, wrote of him, ‘He was one of the greatest gentlemen I have ever met, and whilst he did not give his confidence easily, when he did, he gave it in full measure.’

  His coffin was brought down from London to lie in state in the Library as his first wife’s had done. Lady Portsmouth recalled that ‘there was a special train from and to London bringing the Queen [Victoria] and Prince [of Wales] to the mortuary chapel. It was a beautiful service by Canon Lydonn … I feel sometimes I must have been dreaming, but his last words were “very happy”.’

  When he died he left six children. His heir, George, Lord Porchester, was now the 5th Earl of Carnarvon.

  Succeeding to the title didn’t actually mean any immediate change in lifestyle. After his father’s funeral and the reading of the will, the new Lord Carnarvon went travelling again, leaving Elsie with Aubrey, Mervyn and his two younger sisters, Margaret and Victoria (who was known as Vera). They all lived between Highclere, Bretby in Nottinghamshire, London, Elsie’s own estate, Teversal and a villa in Portofino, Italy, that the 4th Earl had left to his widow.

  Winifred, Lord Carnarvon’s older sister, had just married the future Lord Burghclere. Lady Portsmouth wrote in her diary, ‘dear Winifred has engaged herself to Mr Herbert Gardner – worse luck – a natural son of the late Ld Gardner, but if he cares for her and is well principled and good tempered what more can you wish – she is a sweet dear child and I wish her happy.’

  Lord Carnarvon’s father had been a prudent as well as a successful man and had safeguarded the financial fortunes of the family. The estates were well managed by trusted staff; there was nothing to keep the new Earl at home against his tastes and inclinations.

  Lord Carnarvon was undoubtedly fond of his father – he spoke of him with warmth and respect all his life – but once the arrangements had been made and niceties observed, he was ready to take his inheritance and upgrade an already lavish lifestyle – even more travels, more antiquities purchased, more of everything. His trip to Egypt in 1889 was a particularly significant jaunt since it sparked a lifelong obsession that was going to prove very costly.

  Three years later he was, if not broke, then very heavily in debt. Yachts, rare books and art treasures do not come cheap, and the running costs of maintaining a household at Highclere, a London house at Berkeley Square, plus his other estates, was considerable. He owed £150,000: a vast sum, but by no means an unusual one for young men of his class at that time. The Prince of Wales was the most impecunious but extravagant of them all, making it entirely normal for the upper classes to live utterly beyond their means. Lord Carnarvon was careless but he wasn’t reckless. He was his father’s son, after all, and he knew he had an obligation to protect the patriarchal – basically feudal – way of life that still existed at Highclere. Whole families depended upon him; and in any case, he didn’t want to lose his beloved home. It was time to look for a way to secure his financial future.

  3

  Almina, Debutante

  In August 1893, three months after Almina’s presentation at Court, she encountered Lord Carnarvon when they were both guests at one of Alfred de Rothschild’s weekend house parties at Halton House. Sir Alfred was very much in the habit of entertaining in spectacular style. He would doubtless have been only too delighted to welcome Lord Carnarvon, who was an excellent shot and had a great collection of anecdotes from his travels, as well as being in possession of one of the grandest titles and estates in the country.

  Given that the 5th Earl was also languishing beneath a significant burden of debt, he had seemingly arrived at the conclusion that it would be imprudent to marry without money. And Almina, with her rumoured connections to the Rothschilds, had caught his eye.

  They probably met for the first time at the State Ball at Buckingham Palace on 10 July, which Almina attended with her aunt, Lady Julia, and cousin. This was the opening event of the debutantes’ Season, and everyone who had been presented went, as well as virtually every Duke, marquess and Earl in the land. Given that Almina was highly unlikely to be invited to any other big social occasions by any of the grander sort of people, this was probably her only chance to attract the attention of a suitor from the upper echelons of Society. She didn’t squander it.

  Her wardrobe for the Season had been carefully selected after close consultation with her mother and aunt. Almina loved fashion and was lucky enough to have the means to purchase the finest clothes, hats and jewels. There were strict rules about what was appropriate attire at each occasion and her dress for the ball would have been white and relatively unadorned, with minimal jewels and shoulder-length white gloves. Consuelo Vanderbilt, an American heiress who went on to marry the Duke of Marlborough six months after Almina’s wedding, was shocked when she came to London as a debutante, having first been presented in Paris. In France the girls wore very demure dresses, but in England it seemed it was the done thing to use a lower neckline so that the girls’ shoulders were more exposed.

  There were hundreds of debutantes at the palace, all of them nervously aware that they were on display and longing to meet a lovely and eligible man. They sat with their chaperones and their dance cards, a little booklet in which a young man could mark his name against a waltz or a polka. It was a subtly but highly competitive business that could be the making of a girl for life.

  Almina was very pretty with beautiful posture, a little Dresden doll of a girl. And she had all the vivacious charm that came from growing up in Paris, the acknowledged capital of refined elegance and luxurious decadence. Lord Carnarvon must have spotted her, perhaps as she was dancing, and made a beeline. Almina would go on to prove herself made of stern stuff, not at all inclined to fits of the vapours, but her heart must have been pounding as she curtseyed to the Earl. There would have been a short conversation, an engagement to dance once, perhaps twice, but no more. It was enough for the two young people to charm each other. When she left Buckingham Palace that night, Almina was excited about the young man she had just met. There was of course nothing she could do except wait to see what might transpire. She might never hear from the Earl of Carnarvon again. But the Earl was taken with this lovely girl, and would have known that – as well as being charming, pretty and fun – Almina had friends in the wealthiest circles
in London.

  If a young man of good credentials were looking to acquire significant sums, it was natural that his attention should be drawn to some of the fabulously wealthy financiers who had amassed spectacular fortunes during the years of speculation of the 1860s. The Victorian period is sometimes thought of as being one of strict morals and prim behaviour, in all aspects of life, but it was also an age of materialism and wild confidence. The Empire was expanding, and British commercial interests with it. Dizzying amounts of money were made in the City of London by men who were prepared to step in and offer loans to the government or to the East India Company or even to individual entrepreneurs. Sir Alfred de Rothschild was one such man, and he came from a family who had been at the heart of funding the British imperial project for two generations.

  Alfred’s father was Baron Lionel de Rothschild, who inherited a fortune accumulated in an extraordinarily short time by his father, Nathan Mayer de Rothschild. Nathan had arrived in Britain from Germany in 1798; over the next thirty years he established the Rothschilds as the pre-eminent investment bankers in Europe. Baron Lionel continued his father’s work and was instrumental in loans of approximately £160 million to the British government over the course of his lifetime, including, in 1876, the £4 million advanced for the purchase of 44 per cent of the Suez Canal shares from the Khedive of Egypt. He cleared a profit on this deal alone of £100,000. His legacy bears tribute to his brilliant judgement and tremendous influence: he was the first Jew to be admitted to the House of Commons, without having to renounce his faith, in 1858.

  Alfred was the second of Lionel’s three sons. His older brother, Natty, was elevated to the peerage by Queen Victoria in 1885, the first Jewish member of the House of Lords, his younger brother Leopold was more interested in the Turf and was a prominent member of the Jockey Club. Alfred was industrious, but loved the high life as well. He worked at the family bank throughout his life, although he rarely arrived much before lunchtime on any given day. He became a director of the Bank of England at the age of twenty-six, a post he held for the next twenty years. When sent to an international monetary conference by the British government in 1892, he was the only financier to turn up with four valets, vast quantities of luggage and an impeccable buttonhole.

  So by the time Lord Carnarvon went to Halton House for the first time in December 1892, probably to shoot, the Rothschilds were by no means marginal figures. Their willingness to put their vast amounts of money at the service of the Crown, coupled with the family’s very generous interest in philanthropic causes, meant that they were accepted figures in Society. Sir Alfred epitomised the social mobility of the Victorian Age.

  Alfred’s final stamp of approval had been provided by his friendship with His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales. Alfred had received the education of an English gentleman and had become firm friends with the Prince of Wales at Trinity College, Cambridge. They had a surprising amount in common. They were both of recent German descent, spoke that language as well as French, and yet were part of the English Establishment. They also shared a love of fine food and wine, and a life of pleasure. The difference was that Alfred, unlike the Prince of Wales, could afford it.

  Bertie, as he was known to his mother even when he was in his fifties, was kept on a very tight budget by the reclusive and pious Victoria. Periodically he applied to the House of Commons to supply an increase in his living expenses, in return for his assuming some of the tasks that Victoria no longer cared to fulfil. He was always thwarted by his mother, who distrusted him intensely, despite support from various prime ministers, including Gladstone. So the Prince of Wales didn’t have enough work to do, and didn’t have enough money to pay for his leisure pursuits. He was always in dire need of very wealthy friends, and Alfred was not only very rich and very generous, he was also a scholar, an aesthete, a bachelor, a wit and a sartorialist. The friendship endured for the whole of the Prince of Wales’ life.

  In fact, Alfred was disparaged more by his own family than by wider society, in particular his older brother’s wife, Emma, who thought him frivolous, self-indulgent and eccentric. When Alfred, who never married, began a relationship with Marie Wombwell, a woman who was not only married to another man, but to a man who had been arrested for poaching from his own in-laws, there was strong disapproval. The fact that he maintained Marie in lavish style at one of the most exclusive addresses in fashionable Mayfair, and went on to dote upon Marie’s child Almina, was seen as further evidence of his disregard for the dignity of the family.

  Whilst the question of Almina’s paternity can’t be conclusively determined with any certainty, Marie had been estranged from Fred Wombwell for years when Almina was born. He did turn up occasionally. She and Alfred were certainly confidants and lovers, but they were not by any means an established couple.

  Marie’s background was very respectable. Her father was a Parisian financier and her mother was from a wealthy Spanish family. She grew up in Paris but spent a lot of time in England. Her two sisters both made good marriages to titled English gentlemen, but Marie’s marriage was less successful. Frederick Wombwell was the youngest son of a baronet and their wedding was attended by several prominent members of the aristocracy. But Frederick proved to be a bad lot, a drunkard and a thief; although the couple had one son, also called Fred, they were estranged after Fred senior’s misdemeanours became too much for Marie to bear. (The hapless Wombwell eventually died, six years before Almina married, thus avoiding any further embarrassment and allowing his brother, Sir George Wombwell, to step in on her wedding day and give her away.)

  Marie was a lonely woman when she met Alfred de Rothschild. Still young and attractive, she was marginalised by the fact that her husband was disgraced and she had very little money. Marie must have delighted in the companionship of a man who was happy to spoil her lavishly. Alfred and Marie appear to have enjoyed a good relationship throughout their lives, but there was never any chance of marriage, even after Fred Wombwell died, since Alfred had no desire to give up the freedom of his bachelor status or to marry a Roman Catholic. When Marie’s daughter was born, Alfred doted upon her, and although he never formally acknowledged the child as his, Almina’s unusual name, which was formed of a combination of her parents’, was a reference, albeit a coded one, to the reality of her parentage. Her mother was always known as Mina, to which was simply added the first two letters of her father’s name.

  By the latter years of the nineteenth century, attitudes to affairs – at least amongst the upper classes – were generally tolerant, so long as discretion was maintained. Adultery was definitely a lesser evil than divorce. Disgrace came in exposure, not in the act, even for women. Although some of the Rothschilds were outraged (evidence, perhaps, of their less well-established status), and Marie was not received by the higher echelons of polite society (not just because of the affair but also, crucially, because of her husband’s fall from grace), the relationship flourished in a grey area in which everyone turned a blind eye and politely agreed not to notice.

  Almina was educated at home by a governess, as was the custom for girls from upper-middle- and upper-class households. The aim was to ensure she was well read and could fulfil the social skills required ‘for the drawing room’, which meant music, dancing, singing and sketching. Ordinarily there would also have been French lessons, but Almina already spoke the language fluently, having grown up speaking it with her French family.

  Throughout her childhood, whether in Paris or London, Almina received a visit from her ‘godfather’, Sir Alfred, on her birthday. He always brought excessive presents. Almina got to know her benefactor well, especially when she was older, and was very fond of him. He adored her; and at some point, presumably, Almina must have been told the truth about her birth. It was, after all, an open secret.

  By the time she was seventeen she was visiting Halton with her mother on a regular basis. Alfred being Alfred, the atmosphere was exuberant – the whole purpose of the gathering was to have fun. Ev
erything was magnificently excessive. Alfred, who loved music, was fond of conducting the orchestras – which were brought in from Austria to play for his guests – with a diamond-encrusted baton. He had a private circus at which he was the ringmaster. He installed electric lighting so that his guests could properly appreciate his exquisite art collection. Alfred could be frivolous, but he was also a serious collector of artists such as Titian and Raphael. Typically, he was also a great benefactor and a founder trustee of the Wallace Collection. Highclere still has some beautiful Sèvres and Meissen porcelain almost certainly given by Alfred to Almina.

  In an atmosphere in which no expense was spared in the pursuit of pleasure and the acquisition of beautiful things, Almina enjoyed herself immensely. She had been spoiled all her life, but now she had a space in which to show off. Good clothes would have been ordered, day dresses and evening wear, hats and gloves in colours to match. The fashion of the 1890s was for corseted waists laced down to almost nothing, shoulders bare in the evenings, masses of lace trims and feathered fans. They were opulent times for the upper classes, and Almina’s wardrobe was her arsenal in the battle to attract a suitable husband. Doubtless the proprieties were observed in terms of her dress and her introduction to male company, but Almina certainly attended dances, dinners and concerts, all the regular entertainments in Alfred’s weekend home, always chaperoned by her mother, but very much on display. Out of sight of the critical gaze of London Society, Almina could be introduced, under strict conditions, to people that she had no opportunity to meet in town. She flourished and, given that she was petite, beautiful and charming, she began to attract attention.