Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey

by The Countess of Carnarvon

  It was late September, and Lord and Lady Carnarvon were both on the Continent, staying in Germany. They had travelled separately and were supposed to be meeting at Bad Schwalbach. The Earl and his chauffeur, Edward Trotman, were bowling along, enjoying testing the car’s speed and handling when, as they crested a rise in the road, they came upon an unexpected dip and two bullock carts blocking their way. Carnarvon tried to steer the vehicle off the road, but the grass verge hid a scree of stones and he lost control of the car as it skidded, somersaulting to its resting place upside down across a muddy ditch. Trotman, who had been thrown clear, rushed to help Carnarvon and managed to drag him out, unconscious and unmoving, but still breathing. Some workers from a nearby field heard the desperate cries for help and went off in search of a horse and cart to transport the injured man to the nearest house to await the arrival of the local doctor. Carnarvon had a swollen face, concussion, burnt legs, a broken wrist and jaw and was covered in mud. He was lucky to be alive.

  Almina had been sent for immediately and she rushed to join her husband. The first sight of him was terrifying, but Almina wasted no time in making arrangements for them to return to Britain so that Carnarvon could begin the long-term treatment he needed. On that voyage back, Almina discovered a talent that was to grow into her greatest passion: nursing. She looked after her husband tenderly, and found that she could bear the stress and the worry with calm and resilience. Once back in London, Almina summoned the finest surgeons and Carnarvon had a series of operations, but his health, always fragile, never fully recovered. The accident was to have a lasting effect on the dynamic between them, as well as changing both of their lives in ways neither could have predicted.

  The first and most visible change was that the Earl, at the age of thirty-five, was no longer a vigorous man. He had to use a stick to walk and was even more prone to picking up any and every influenza or virus that was making the rounds. He suffered crippling migraines for the next five years, the result of his head injuries. Almina insisted that he needed a personal physician, and Dr Marcus Johnson joined the household as the family doctor. Over time he became a great friend, virtually a member of the family, and was always called Dr Johnnie.

  Dr Johnnie initially advised the Earl to adopt a more sedate pace of life, but Lord Carnarvon had other ideas. He was determined not to lose his nerve after the accident, and had begun driving again as soon as he was able. Riding was now too much for him so he took up the newly fashionable pastime of golf, and decided to construct a nine-hole course on the estate. He was also a keen photographer. His lifelong love of gadgets and gizmos meant he was an early adopter of all the latest advances in technology. He proved to be talented and meticulous and built up a reputation as one of the most respected photographers of his time. But it was travel, his first love, specifically his trips to Egypt, which provided him with the hobby that would metamorphose into the obsession that guaranteed his lasting fame.

  As winter settled in, Dr Johnnie suggested to the Earl that – given the state of his lungs – he should avoid the cold damp English winters and head for somewhere warm. This time Lord Carnarvon was entirely in agreement with his physician. The obvious choice was Egypt, where there is virtually no humidity and the air is always clear and dry. Carnarvon had visited for the first time in 1889 and loved it. Then in 1898 he had been holidaying there with Almina when she had fallen pregnant. Now Egypt was set to become a regular part of the Carnarvons’ lives.

  By the end of the nineteenth century, Egypt was very firmly on the tourist trail. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, travellers returned to their native lands laden with antiquities, and interest in all things Oriental provoked a craze of Egyptomania across Europe. The flood increased throughout the nineteenth century, and well-to-do British tourists astounded their friends back home with their watercolour sketches of the pyramids and stories of even greater wonders, just waiting to be discovered beneath the sands. By today’s standards, though, the visitor numbers were pretty small. Travel was still the preserve of the very wealthy, and was not only expensive but arduous. The journey from Britain started with a train to Southampton, then a sea crossing to France, another train to the Riviera and a boat from Marseilles to Alexandria. The last leg of the trip was via another train to Cairo. But even in his enfeebled state, Lord Carnarvon was a man full of wanderlust and a need for distraction and diversion.

  Virtually every year from 1902, just after Christmas, which once they had children they almost always spent at Highclere, Lord and Lady Carnarvon set out together for Egypt. There were exceptions to this choice of destination: in 1903 they thought they would try the United States, but although the New York Times described Almina as ‘a very pretty young woman, small and piquante’, it seems she didn’t love America back, considering it too brash and too fast for her tastes. In the winter of 1906 they went to Colombo and Singapore. Porchy and Evelyn were left in the care of their grandmother, Marie, much to their delight since they were tremendously spoiled. There was a summer family holiday to Cromer in Norfolk when Almina joined the children and Nurse Moss on the beach. But mostly, the Carnarvons’ trips were to Egypt.

  Sometimes they stopped off in Paris en route. Almina had many friends there and perhaps her husband judged that a few days in the luxurious surroundings of the Ritz would be a delightful interlude before the discomforts that awaited her on site at the Earl’s excavations.

  In the early days, though, the trips to Cairo were leisured affairs. Lord and Lady Carnarvon stayed at Shepheard’s Hotel on the banks of the Nile in Cairo, a magnificent building in classical French style that betrayed the influence of Napoleon’s 1798 military campaign. It was the fashionable place to stay and was always full of artists, statesmen and sportsmen, as well as genteel invalids and collectors. Almina, who delighted in a good social scene, enjoyed herself, and Lord Carnarvon’s health began to recover.

  That first season in Egypt was so beneficial that on their return to Highclere Lord Carnarvon decided to focus on a long-cherished dream, and in 1902 he founded the stud that has been such a vital part of life at Highclere ever since. He had a lifelong obsession with racing and racehorses and had a lot of success as a breeder.

  Almina also indulged her passion – in this instance, for clothes. The newspapers of her era were every bit as avid as any of today’s glossy magazines for the details of trendsetters’ wardrobes and Almina’s taste was commended numerous times in the press. The descriptions of her dresses are mouthwatering. On one occasion ‘her dress of all white orchids was much admired’. At a garden party at Kensington Palace she was ‘very smart in white muslin with incrustations of fine lace’. After another function it was reported that ‘Lady Carnarvon was gorgeous in terracotta satin with a pearl and diamond necklace.’ Her combination of petite beauty and impeccable dress sense made her a cover star many times over. On 8 November 1902, a little over a year after Eve’s birth, she appeared on the front cover of Country Life magazine, figure fully restored, waist laced down to nothing, looking radiant.

  The routine of summer at home, winter in Egypt, improved the Earl’s health immeasurably. In fact, he got so much better that within a couple of years, he was determined to apply for a concession and undertake some excavations himself. He had been reading about the cultures of Ancient Egypt ever since he was a boy and, as he wrote to his sister Winifred, had been seized with the ‘wish and intention even as far back as 1889 to start excavating.’ Now that he was spending more time out there, he struck up a close and enduring friendship with Sir William Garstin, who was director of the Ministry of Public Works. One of the departments within his ministry was that of Antiquities. It was run by a charming and gallant French Egyptologist called Professor Gaston Maspero.

  Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt had renewed interest and knowledge in all things ancient and curious, because his army had been accompanied by one hundred academics to record, sketch and investigate the lost culture. Thereafter, scholars, adventurers and bon
a fide Egyptologists had all set off to explore and return with histories of the architecture and works of art for public and private collections.

  The fortunate discovery of the Rosetta Stone by the French, and its subsequent acquisition by the British, led to the decipherment of hieroglyphs. The tablet was engraved with a decree repeated in three different languages – demotic script, Ancient Greek and Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs – which allowed Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion to unlock the key to the ancient language.

  Only at end of the nineteenth century was there any sort of requirement for a methodical approach towards excavation. Egyptian Exploration Societies, universities and private individuals could all apply for permission to excavate. Scholars were just beginning to appreciate how important it was to record the context of any discovery, and the British archaeologist Flinders Petrie set the standard for painstaking recording and study of artefacts.

  The competition for concessions was intense, and private individuals such as Lord Carnarvon accepted that, to begin with, the sites they were granted would be the less exciting ones. Presumably Carnarvon was not sure about his own level of commitment either, given that the sums involved in mounting a serious excavation were absolutely vast. As Carnarvon wrote in the preface to his 1911 book Five Years’ Explorations at Thebes, there could be anything up to 275 men and boys labouring on any team, and during one season he was running five teams. There were also overseers, mules and boats to be hired and digging and storage equipment to be bought. Lord Carnarvon had sold his two Somerset estates, Pixton and Tetton in 1901 to his mother-in-law, Elsie, who was to give one each to his brothers, Aubrey and Mervyn. Carnarvon was at this point well able to finance his excavation work, whilst Almina’s fortune continued to fund the running of Highclere.

  Back in 1906, when the Earl began his excavations, the first site he was assigned was an unprepossessing rubbish mound near Luxor. He was there for six weeks, enveloped in clouds of dust. Lord Carnarvon wrote to his sister Winifred, telling her that ‘every day I go to my digging and command a small army of 100 men and boys.’ A large screened cage had been constructed to provide a scrap of shade from the sun and protection from the flies. Carnarvon was poised, optimistically, to catalogue finds and draft maps of the site.

  Almina loyally attended every day. Photos of Lord Carnarvon show him wearing a three-piece tweed suit, a wide-brimmed hat with a white band, and stout English shoes. Almina, on the other hand, was dressed for a garden party on a fine English summer’s day, in a floaty tea dress and patent leather heels, complete with jewellery winking in the blinding sunshine.

  It was gruelling and rather dull. Nothing much seemed to be happening. The couple would share a sandwich at lunchtime and struggle to keep each other’s spirits high in the face of very little success. Almina always supported her husband in Egypt, and in the most concrete ways – with her money and with her presence – but she was interested in, rather than passionately intrigued by, his work.

  After the travails of the dusty days, the Carnarvons retired to the Winter Palace Hotel, in time to watch the sun set over the rocky escarpments and temples on the west bank of the Nile. The hotel was by far the best place in town to stay: an elegant, dusky pink building with broad curved staircases sweeping up to the entrance, and magnificent gardens. It had a cool marble salon shaded with white blinds and decorated with aquarelles of the ancient sites. Outside there were lovingly watered lawns, hibiscus bushes and palms.

  It was extremely luxurious but, naturally, the Carnarvons were adding even more extravagant pleasures to their stay. They took the central rooms, with balconies looking out over the river and towards the cliffs around Hatshepsut’s temple. Their view at Highclere was over the lush rolling hills of a landscape that symbolised the permanence of power. When they looked out in Luxor, they saw the desert that had engulfed the palaces of kings.

  If they were inclined to worry about the impermanence of things as they took their aperitifs on the balcony, they could always distract themselves with an excellent dinner. They dined in a private room and had brought with them supplies of food and wines, brandies and Madeira from the Rothschild cellars were also shipped in. As always, they were generous with all this abundance. Almina enjoyed the social life more than the day’s activities, and the hotel was full of interesting people to invite to join them.

  Domestic concerns and the small tensions of married life lurked in the background. Carnarvon was pleased to hear from Highclere that Henry [Porchy] had a new tutor who was ‘very satisfied with him, says he has exceptional quickness and a remarkable memory.’ The parental pride is touching, especially from a man who struggled to be at ease with or express affection to his son. ‘I should like him to be good at games,’ Carnarvon commented. Perhaps it was the wish of the frustrated sportsman in a failing body.

  He was also concerned that Almina was bored and had been suffering some health problems. She was somewhat nervy, but he commented to Winifred that Luxor seemed to agree with her. ‘I am glad to say Almina is looking better … the air on the hills is so pure and champagne-like. I am afraid she will have to have a small operation on our return, scraping the womb. I consider it comes chiefly from nerves but I am not a very nervous person, so perhaps am not a good judge.’

  That first dig must have been extremely trying for any casual observer. After six weeks of hard labour and dashed hopes, Carnarvon brought operations to a close. The sum total of artefacts recovered was a single case for a mummified cat, which Lord Carnarvon gave to Cairo Museum. He was not discouraged. As he assured Winifred, ‘this utter failure, instead of disheartening me had the effect of making me keener.’

  In 1907, the Carnarvons were back, and this time the Earl was well aware that he had previously been palmed off with a site that the authorities knew was a dud. With the help of Gaston Maspero, Carnarvon chose a site near a mosque en route to the temples at Deir el-Bahri. He had gathered in the local coffee shops that there were rumours of a tomb, and after two weeks of hard digging, his team found it. It proved to be an important Eighteenth Dynasty tomb, that of a King’s son: Teta-Ky. There was a principal decorated chapel more or less intact, niches in the courtyard contained shabti figures (small servant figurines) and eight more painted shabtis lined the corridors to the subterranean vaults. Carnarvon was incredibly excited – and hooked. He spent days taking photographs as a record of everything he found. He also donated a limestone offering table to the British Museum. Carnarvon knew that if he carried on in Egypt he would need professional help and interpretation. Gifts of antiquities were an excellent way of gaining attention. In the end Dr Wallis Budge of the British Museum became a close friend and frequent guest of the Carnarvons in London and at Highclere.

  Gaston Maspero was still receiving disparaging letters from his inspector, Arthur Weigall in Luxor, concerning Lord Carnarvon’s excavations. To be diplomatic and to improve Carnarvon’s chance of success, Maspero suggested that he hire Howard Carter to supervise and advise on the excavations. In terms of subsequent events, the most significant event of this season was therefore the planting of a seed that led to a friendship between Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon. It was to be another two years before they embarked upon a collaboration that lasted fourteen years and eventually, with the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, ensured that their names are still remembered by anyone with more than a passing interest in Ancient Egypt.

  Howard Carter was born in London in 1874, the son of an artist who specialised in animal paintings. He had been in Egypt almost constantly since 1891, when he arrived as a precociously talented seventeen-year-old draughtsman. He rose to become one of the most eminent experts in the field, but in 1905 he had fallen on hard times. He had resigned earlier that year from the post he had held since 1899 as inspector of Lower Egypt for the Antiquities Service. There had been a fracas between French tourists and Egyptian site guards in which he supported the Egyptians, and his position became untenable.

  In 1909
Lord Carnarvon engaged Carter to be his man in Luxor and was paying him a salary; the following year he built him a house that became known as Castle Carter. His concern was that Carter should be sufficiently well provided for to be able to get on with the job in hand. Carnarvon installed a dark room, which helped enormously with his photographic work. Castle Carter would also come in handy as a lunchtime rest point. Carter was delighted to have secured a financially generous, committed and serious-minded colleague. Despite the differences in the two men’s social background, they were a formidable alliance and became great friends.

  This change in fortunes was exhilarating; Carnarvon was ecstatic. He adored the exquisite objects that he was discovering and before long established a reputation for his collector’s eye. ‘My chief aim … is not merely to buy because a thing is rare, but rather to consider the beauty of an object than its pure historic value.’ He was not merely an aesthete, though. The book he wrote with Howard Carter about their five years’ digging at Thebes was a serious work, published by the Oxford University Press and illustrated with his own photos. Although he was regarded by many as a maverick, he was well liked by the locals, who referred to him as ‘Lordy’. Carnarvon was unfailingly courteous, one of the very last of the gentleman excavators.