The Duke naturally found himself the centre of controversy as the twentieth century has moved slowly towards a different view of foxhunting. Objections have been raised against it first on the grounds that it is a sport for the "idle rich", and secondly because it is cruel. The first objection holds no water at all. The hunt is enjoyed by members of all classes, but since they are not all dukes, they are not attacked for it. The Dowager Duchess of Beaufort rode with the Banwen Miners' Hunt, and invited the miners to hunt with the Beaufort.45 The other objection is, however, more uncomfortable. One cannot help feeling uneasy that people should derive pleasure from seeing a living creature made dead; even the words used in hunting terminology smack of violence. The hounds do not kill a fox, they "break him up". A former Master of Foxhounds has described the hunt as "a carnival, with men and women paying money to take part in the slaughter",46 and another correspondent voiced the feelings of the Duke's critics when he wrote of "callousness to animal suffering which is an affront to the civilised conscience".47 The Bishop of Southwark claimed that bloodsports were contrary to Christian teaching, a charge that the Duke felt obliged to answer, but which he avoided; he said the alternatives were worse, which may well be true, but does not invalidate the Bishop's point.48 Some neighbouring farmers, tired of reasoning with a man who could not bring reason to bear in a matter which was the fibre of his soul, took from time to time to more strenuous methods. There was one gentleman who threatened legal action against the Beaufort Hunt if it continued to cross his land and do damage: he said the hunters were boorish, and insulted him if he remonstrated with them.49 Another farmer shot the fox to put it out of its misery, then ordered the Duke off his land. The Duke is reported to have said, "Don't be silly", which is usually the incredulous reaction of those who hunt foxes, and do not understand that it may be offensive to others.50
The terrain of the Beaufort hunt was badly scissored by the M4, cutting off the Dauntsey Vale, where a famous hunt in 1871 had lasted for fifty miles, and the Duke had exhausted three mounts in the chase. Horses and hounds are not allowed to cross motorways. There is the occasional glimpse of humour amid all the earnestness. Mr H. P. Forder, of Samuel Fox & Co., learning that the Duke of Beaufort rode in a car marked MFH 1, wrote to The Times. "At these works we travel in FOX 1", he said. "May I be assured that, should we happen to meet His Grace upon the road, no unseemly incident will occur?"51 In his reply the Duke pointed out that his hunt went nowhere near the works of Samuel Fox & Co.
Throughout World War II, Badminton played host, at the suggestion of the Government, to Queen Mary, who was the Duchess of Beaufort's aunt. Strict secrecy was imposed with the result that hardly anyone knew where she was all this time. Badminton certainly knew, however. The Duchess viewed with some apprehension Queen Mary's convoy of vans arrive in October 1939, with her seventy pieces of personal luggage, and retinue of fifty-five fastidious servants. The arrangement was that she should take over the whole house, or as much of it as she wanted, with the exception of the Duke's bedrooms and sitting-rooms. The Beauforts in effect were guests in their own home. The Duchess wrote: "Pandemonium was the least it could be called! The servants revolted, and scorned our humble home [Badminton humble!]. They refused to use the excellent rooms assigned to them. Fearful rows and battles royal were fought over my body. . . . The Queen, quite unconscious of the stir, has settled in well, and is busy cutting down trees and tearing down ivy." (Queen Mary hated ivy and attacked it wherever she saw it.)52 She kept three suitcases ready packed throughout the war with which to escape in the event that the Nazis should attempt to kidnap her.53
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.
6. For K
ing and Country
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."2Wellington, 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
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