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

by The Countess of Carnarvon

  On this occasion, doubtless to Almina’s relief, her son acquitted himself perfectly and the whole ceremony was magnificent, with the guns’ salute thundering across Hyde Park and the bells of the abbey pealing out over the newly crowned King and Queen as they left the church. It was probably the last great gathering of the old order. Europe’s political scene was tense and getting worse; there were just over three years to go before war was declared. Of the eight Pages of Honour on that occasion, only two would survive the coming carnage. Lord Porchester would be one of them.

  On New Year’s Eve 1911, Almina gave her annual children’s party at Highclere, with hundreds of guests, and entertainers brought down from London. Twelve days later she threw a ball for 500 local people. Almina had to greet her guests without the Earl, whose migraine was so bad that he could not attend for more than a few minutes before retiring to his rooms. That wasn’t unusual; Almina was increasingly the power that was keeping everything going. She addressed the throng of people at midnight, from the balcony that overlooks the beautiful vaulted Saloon at the heart of the Castle, apologising on Lord Carnarvon’s behalf. She was flanked by her mother Marie, her husband’s sisters, and by Aubrey and his wife Mary. Prince Victor Duleep Singh stayed to lend his support to Almina as she spoke and then loyally retired to the Earl’s sitting room to keep his old friend company. Aubrey welcomed everyone again at supper and then the Mayor of Newbury thanked the Carnarvons and family on behalf of the guests. The dancing began after supper with music supplied by Merier’s Viennese orchestra and twenty different dances on the programme. Almina had placed lanterns all along the carriage driveways to light her guests home in the early hours and the party didn’t finish until 6.00 a.m.

  It had been fun, it had been a success; but by now Almina could manage these occasions in her sleep. It was not the challenge she needed. The Earl’s health continued to be poor and she was busy overseeing all his treatments. She loved to take care of him and, gradually, nursing became a preoccupation, not just at home but in general. She attended operations performed by Berkeley Moynihan, the eminent surgeon at Leeds General Infirmary who made occasional trips to London to carry out his duties as a consultant at University Hospital. A plan was forming in the back of her mind, and she wanted to be prepared if the moment for action presented itself.

  Almina continued to accompany Carnarvon on his trips to Egypt, where he and Carter were struggling to get access to the sites they were determined to excavate. They had their eye on a spot in the Valley of the Kings, rather than the Valley of the Queens or Nobles, where they had always been based, but at that time the concession was still held by an American, Theodore Davis. Alternatives were proposed and rejected. Private excavations were no longer favoured and Maspero insisted that the pyramid site Carnarvon had been considering must be reserved for official exploration.

  Ever resourceful, Carnarvon contacted Lord Kitchener, who was a personal friend, and asked if he could lean on Maspero. After his nine years as Commander in Chief of India, Kitchener had been sent to Egypt in 1909, where he was Consul General and de facto Viceroy. It was inevitable that Kitchener and Carnarvon would meet and socialise out there, since they moved in precisely the same circles. Despite this high-level connection, though, Carnarvon had no success.

  Unsure where to concentrate next, he was persuaded by Percy Newberry, a noted English Egyptologist, to apply for some delta sites at Sakha and Tell el-Balamun. Working in the delta of the River Nile put them out of range of civilised amenities: it was going to entail camping. The fact that a man of Carnarvon’s fragile health should even consider such a thing is proof of his obsessive love for his work. The fact that Almina went along too is surely proof of her love for him.

  Carnarvon asked Percy Newberry to organise tents and provisions for him, Almina, his valet Fearnside, Her Ladyship’s maid Edith Wiggal, Howard Carter, Dr Johnnie and himself. Provisions such as tins of soup were shipped from Fortnum & Mason’s in London. The expedition duly set off. It was an adventure by anyone’s standards, and one imagines Jessie and Almina rolling their eyes together at the privations they were both expected to bear. Jessie was a regular traveller since she accompanied Almina wherever she went, but it was the first time the two women had roughed it and it proved too much.

  The delta was muddy and full of cobras but the group stuck it out until the Earl fell ill with bronchitis, at which point they repaired to Luxor and the Winter Palace Hotel. With his weak lungs, he was quite seriously sick, and Almina had to nurse her husband, who was not an easy patient, back to what constituted more or less full health over a number of weeks. Carnarvon wrote at one point to Budge saying he could not put any weight on. He weighed less than nine stone and was five feet ten inches tall.

  By Easter, Lord and Lady Carnarvon were back at Highclere and digging was over for another year. The Earl used the summer months to entertain his Egyptian contacts, since without a supportive group of friends in high places, it was likely to prove harder and harder to work out there.

  This routine of winter in Egypt and spring and summer at Highclere was disrupted in 1913 when Almina’s mother grew very ill. Marie had been a key presence throughout Almina’s married life, coming to Highclere for weekend parties and for Christmas with Porchy and Eve, looking after the children in London when Lord and Lady Carnarvon were away. Almina adored her all her life and the bond they had formed when times were much harder was sustained when Almina’s circumstances changed. It was a terrible blow when Marie’s health began to fail in spring 1913. Almina’s instinct was to bring her to Highclere and care for her there, with the aid of Dr Johnnie, but Marie was adamant that she wanted to visit her native France one last time.

  Marie Wombwell’s death was announced in the Daily Mail on 1 October 1913. She had passed away the previous week at her house in Bruton Street. Marie had got her wish and travelled to France, taking the waters in Vernetles-Bains with her daughter by her side, but Almina had been concerned that the medical care there was not as good as that in London and the women returned to Mayfair. For six weeks Almina put into practice everything she had learned nursing her husband over the years to make her mother’s last days as comfortable as possible. She owed her an enormous amount, from her French charm to her determination and self-belief, and when Marie was gone, Almina was lost without her. Alfred was terribly saddened. He and Marie had been companions for almost forty years.

  A few days later, Almina’s uncle, Sir George Wombwell, also died. He had stood by her all those years when rumours about her paternity circulated and had stepped up to give her away on her wedding day. Sir George and Lady Julia had often been at the Castle when Marie had been visiting and now, with his loss, it must have felt as if one more link to her past and to her mother had been broken.

  She went home to Highclere and resolved to resume all her duties, but never had the everyday tasks of hosting her husband’s friends and business contacts seemed such a struggle. Earlier in the year, Almina had been delighted to write to Rutherford from Egypt to accept a request to become the Patroness of Cold Ash Hospital, which lay five miles north of Highclere. She had always said she would do anything to help them, and now, more determined than ever that nursing was her vocation, she applied herself to finding out how she could be most useful at the hospital.

  The guests at the Highclere house parties had always been eclectic, and now they were becoming more than a little odd. The Earl had been interested in the Occult for years, an interest that deepened the more time he spent in Egypt. By 1912 he occasionally employed a palmist to read his palm and quite frequently engaged a clairvoyant to hold séances at Highclere. There was nothing unusual in that. Spiritualism, which had begun as an import from the United States in the 1850s, rapidly became a craze. The first national Spiritualist meeting in the UK was held in 1890, by which time it was a genuine mass movement. All over the country, people were sitting in circles, hands joined, hoping to make contact with the spirit world and receive messages from the
dead. There were celebrity fans such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes books, who wrote extensively on the phenomenon.

  Sometimes the séances were private affairs, but sometimes they were offered as entertainment at a house party. Porchy remembered observing several, sometimes with his sister, Eve. They were held in one of the upstairs guest bedrooms, with the shutters closed against any glimmer of light, and could be very tense occasions. Once, Porchy and Eve witnessed a bowl of flowers levitating off the table. Eve got so nervous she reportedly had to go into a nursing home for a fortnight’s rest. At one, Howard Carter and a female guest were present, and the lady was placed in a trance in order to channel a spirit message. She began to speak in a strange voice and a language that at first no one could identify. Carter proclaimed, in a tone of amazement, ‘It’s Coptic!’

  Out in the real world, there were things far more frightening than inexplicably floating flowers or even the reappearance of long-dead languages. You didn’t need to be psychic to sense that something nasty was coming for the people of Highclere.

  The staff of Highclere Castle in Almina’s day.

  A part of the staff staircase in the Castle which begins in the basement and runs right up to the roof through several bedroom floors. The staircase was used in the filming of ITV1’s Downton Abbey.

  Some of the staff of the Castle on an outing to Beacon Hill Lodge Gate in Edwardian times. Sometimes called Winchester Lodge, it was once the main gateway to the Estate from the south.

  The bellboard in the lower ground corridor of the Castle, photographed in 2011 but exactly as it was 100 years ago.

  The original staffroom of the Castle 100 years ago.

  A group shot, taken by the 5th Earl of Carnavon in December 1895, of Albert, HRH The Prince of Wales, on his visit to Highclere Castle. Albert, later King Edward VII, is in the middle, standing behind Almina, seated with fur stole, on whose left (right in the picture) is Lady Winifred Herbert, the 5th Earl’s sister.

  Almina pictured with her newborn son, later the 6th Earl of Carnarvon, in January 1899. He was always referred to as ‘Porchy’, never Henry, his real name.

  Almina as front cover star of Country Life magazine in November 1902. (photo credit i2.8)

  The 5th Earl and Countess of Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn, with the people of Newbury, celebrating the Coronation of George V in 1911.

  Edwardian estate workers on the Castle grounds.

  Panhard-Levassor motor carriages arriving at the Castle, c. 1910.

  Living the Edwardian High Life at Highclere Castle. (photo credit i2.12)

  9

  The Summer of 1914

  The summer of 1914 was delightfully warm. Almina arrived back from Egypt in late April and was only at Highclere for a few weeks before she made a week-long trip to Paris. On 11 June, the Earl and Countess were entertaining a large house party for the Newbury Races; amongst their guests were Mr and Mrs James Rothschild. If you were a casual observer, you might say it was business as usual, but a glance at the newspapers, or at Alfred de Rothschild’s distraught face as he sat puffing cigars nervously in the Smoking Room, would have told you otherwise.

  Europe was on the brink of war, despite the best efforts of numerous people, including Alfred, to avert it. Alfred had placed his considerable powers of influence, his network of contacts and his money at the disposal of the British government, acting as an unofficial intermediary between the unravelling Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany. Half of Alfred’s family and friends were based in Europe and it was agony to him that hostilities were about to open up between countries that had until relatively recently been bound together so closely. The growing certainty that conflict was inevitable left him worried sick about loved ones on both sides and suffering from a sense of helplessness.

  The challenge of holding back war was too big for any single individual, family or politician, despite all the desperate, behind-the-scenes negotiations. For months the newspapers had carried stories of Germany, Russia and Austria all conscripting men into their armies and hurriedly constructing more railways to transport them. Germany, although virtually landlocked, had been building up a Navy big enough to rival Britain’s.

  Almina sensed what was coming and made a decision. She had, after all, been thinking about it for at least two years. She consulted Lord Carnarvon, who was lukewarm, but when pressed, agreed that it might be a possibility. Lady Almina wanted to convert Highclere into a hospital for injured officers, to bring in the most expert medical staff and provide the best of everything a soldier could possibly need to recover, from state-of-the-art equipment and pioneering operations to abundant fresh food and soft clean sheets. Almina’s instinct was to create a hospital that soothed and cheered the senses of men who had been half destroyed by horror.

  With her husband’s assent secured, Almina’s next step was to speak to the military authorities. She would need their assistance at least on the administrative side, if not the financing. Almina already had a third conversation planned that would resolve the problem of who was going to pay for everything: the money question could wait. It was entirely typical of Almina’s life that when she decided to establish a military hospital, the person she elected to call to discuss her plans should be the highest-ranking official in the Army. Straight to the top – that might as well have been Almina’s motto.

  Field Marshal Earl Kitchener, Sirdar of Egypt, accepted her invitation to lunch in late June and arrived dressed in an immaculate tweed suit, accompanied by his military secretary Colonel Evelyn Fitzgerald. The famous hero was now sixty-four years old but he was an upright, imposing man, with the piercing eyes and perfectly groomed moustache that would shortly be put to such iconic use in the famous recruiting poster ‘Your Country Needs You’.

  He was also a longstanding friend of the Carnarvons and Alfred de Rothschild. Almina had prepared a delicious summer lunch and showed Lord Kitchener around, explaining what she wished to do. He was impressed by her enthusiasm and sincerity. She needed his approval and blessing, and a promise that he would encourage the Services, particularly Southern Command, to take her up on her offer. She got it.

  Porchy had been allowed to join them for lunch. He was an overexcited Eton schoolboy in awe of meeting one of his heroes, and years later he still vividly recalled the moment his father turned to K, as he called the great man, and said, ‘In future, dear K, our telegraphic address will have to be Carnarvon, Amputate, Highclere.’

  Almina was euphoric. She had never doubted for a moment that she would bring the necessary people round to her way of thinking. She immediately set about laying plans. The first step, naturally, was to secure the finances. And equally naturally, that was as easy as getting on the train to London and making her way to the Rothschild offices in New Court, St Swithin’s Lane, to speak to Alfred.

  Alfred had never ceased to be astoundingly generous with his time, money and affection over the years. It was hardly unprecedented for Almina to apply to him for support – the electric lights in Highclere were testament to that. Porchy remembered being taken up to visit his relatives from time to time and relishing the fact that he was likely to find all three Rothschild brothers at work, all of them only too willing to press as much as ten gold sovereigns into his hand. Alfred occasionally used to remonstrate gently with Almina, saying, ‘Oh, puss-cat, I gave you ten thousand pounds only last week. Whatever have you done with it, my darling child?’ But he never refused her; he simply took out his chequebook and unscrewed the lid of his pen.

  Even so, this request was for a lot of money. Almina asked Alfred to give her £25,000 for the set-up costs. He agreed unhesitatingly. Alfred was delighted to help. He had been actively trying to avert conflict, but now that it was coming, he switched his attention to supporting the British war effort. He lent Halton House, his beloved country pleasure ground, to the armed forces for the duration of the hostilities. (It would be used as a training centre, complete with dug-out trenches, for some of Kitchene
r’s ‘first hundred thousand volunteers’ later in the year.) He also supported other grand ladies in their relief work. (Almina was by no means the only Society hostess engaged in war work – Lady Sutherland was to set up a field hospital in France, and the indomitable Dowager Countess of Carnarvon, Elsie, would play a crucial part in alleviating the suffering of soldiers caught up in the savage fighting in Gallipoli.)

  The Rothschilds had always had a strong commitment to philanthropic work and were particularly interested in supporting hospitals. The family interest might have been one of the spurs for Almina’s own fascination with nursing, and probably fuelled her belief that it was a perfectly reasonable thing to aspire to do. After all, the Evelina Children’s Hospital that was eventually merged with Guy’s and St Thomas’s had begun as a Rothschild-financed memorial hospital for Lady Evelina de Rothschild, who had died in childbirth in 1866.

  Almina left New Court with a sense of purpose and an iron determination. She was going to make things happen.

  The eighteenth of July was the start of the last big house party at Highclere for years. There were twenty-six guests, plus all their servants. Among the visitors were General Sir John Cowans, General Sir John Maxwell, Aubrey Herbert and Howard Carter. Lord Carnarvon was very much alive to the threatening state of affairs, and advised Sir John to recall his wife and daughter from Aix-en-Provence in France and Homburg in Germany, immediately.

  The Earl, like the rest of the country, was worried that the Germans had been building up their Navy in order to blockade Britain. If that did happen, food shortages were likely. The farm at Highclere would be a crucial resource in the war effort and, in fact, Carnarvon had already received a large offer for his grain stock. Considering that he was morally responsible for the welfare of the entire household, as well as the tenants, he refused the offer and set about adding to his flocks and herds. He also bought one and a half tons of cheese and an immense amount of tea.