Day 22 - In the footsteps of Consuelo

Consuelo Vanderbilt had a pretty hard time of it. “Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Mother and a Daughter in the Gilded Age” by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart tells the story. I had read this a year or so ago. The 9^th Duke of Marlborough inherited an estate that was nearly bankrupt. Social mores of the day meant that he could not work. The only way he could get money was to marry it. Alva Vanderbilt, who was separated from her husband, thought it would be a jolly good wheeze if her daughter Consuelo became a duchess. The only way to do that was to marry a duke. I recall from the book that the competition between society ladies in New York at the end of the 19^th century was intense. Alva needed to outdo everyone else and Consuelo was the weapon of choice.

The 9^th Duke got about $2.5m (equivalent to about $70m today) and the couple each got $100,000 a year for life. These are massive sums by any stretch. On the day of the marriage it is said that Consuelo had to be dragged to the altar, tears streaming down her face. And it was no Downton Abbey happy ending marriage although Consuelo did her marital duty and produce an heir. They separated after 12 years with the Duke eventually marrying his long-time lover (and friend of Consuelo) Gladys Deacon. The marriage was not particularly happy. Consuelo married Jacques Balsan who sounds like a really interesting character and they were very happy. He was a record-breaking pioneer French balloon, airplane, and hydroplane pilot who once worked with the Wright Brothers. His brother was a lover of Coco Chanel.

I tell you all this because today we are going with my parents to Blenheim Palace which is the seat of the (now 11^th) Duke of Marlborough. That Blenheim Palace is still habitable is due to the 9^th Duke’s unhappy marriage to Consuelo.

We slept like logs last night – at least 9 hours. Holidaying is good therapy but I have to say we are both looking forward to being back home again. The weather looked set fair and proved so to be. We have cracked the satnav in the fancy Mercedes CLS350 so we set off to collect a pair of parents and drive to Oxfordshire avoiding motorways and ferries.

The Beast - a lovely design, comfortable, quiet and quick but with so many bells and whistles that you feel a technological incompetent at the hands of this car

We're staying here at Pastures Farm which is in a lovely location with lovely hosts. Why do people stay in hotels? And the eggs for breakfast are fresh from the bottom of a chicken that roams out back

Looking down the drive into Pastures Farm. I am a farming ignoramus so I do not know what crop has been a-gathered in from the field on the right

Our route took us across country from Northamptonshire and into Oxfordshire. These are roads that I have driven many times. Coming out of Northampton you travel roughly south west passing Towcester and crossing Watling Street. Watling Street is the name given to an ancient trackway in England and Wales that was first used by the Britons mainly between the modern cities of Canterbury and St Albans. The Romans later paved the route and now it is called the A5. From Towcester it is stone's throw to Silverstone. One travels on through Ardley and Middleton Stoney - both places I remember but which will mean nothing to you - and Kirtlington (where I stopped to post some post cards) and then to Woodstock which is where one finds Blenheim Palace. This, of course, is the other Woodstock - not  the famous 1968 festival Woodstock!!

The Oxford countryside is beautiful. We drove through avenues of trees that are changing colour almost as we watched them

The Old Man has a disabled sticker thingy so we parked pretty much at the front gates!!

The Duke was clearly at home and had left his car next to ours - a Ferrari FF 6.3 litre V12, 0 - 100kph in 3.4 seconds. That's quicker than the TVR

I am not going to bang on about Blenheim Palace and why it's there. It's a simple story. The first Duke of Marlborough (his name was John Churchill) was aprofessional soldier. His wife, Sarah (neé Jennings) was very friendly with Queen Anne and she pretty much got him the Dukedom. But the Dukedom didn't come for nothing. The great man had been the Captain-General of the Grand Alliance forces (of which England was a member) at the Battle of Blenheim which happened on 13 August 1704. The issue was between the Grand Alliance and France about who would succeed to the Spanish throne. Basically we won so John Churchill was a hero. A grateful sovereign rewarded him with 2,000 acres of land at Woodstock and a grateful country rewarded him with the equivalent of about £20,000,000. He used this to build Blenheim Palace.

As it happened he died before it was finished and Sarah ended up finishing it to the original specifications. It is the only non-royal, non-ecclesiastical (even non-episcopalean) residence in Britain to be called a palace. Not only that, the Duke's title is the only English title that can descend through the female line.

And if you want to know any more you will need to look it up. It's worth looking up because it's all really interesting. And for the prurient, I believe it highly unlikely that Queen Anne and Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough were anything other than good friends (until they fell out that is).

The east wing from the front door

What a front door!! The whole thing is so completely over-the-top it's not true!

Apart from the 1st Duke, the other famous son of Blenheim was Winston Churchill, Britain's prime minister for most of the Second World War. He was born at Blenheim prematurely and by accident. His parents had been attending a function there and his pregnant mother tripped, went into labour and Winston was born 6 weeks prematurely. His father was the third son of the  7^th  Duke of Marlborough so the 8^th Duke was his uncle.

There was a Churchill exhibition which I think my parents enjoyed enormously as they are of a generation for whom Churchill was close to being a hero. Recent historical assessment has been slightly more balanced - he was after all a human being - but he was a remarkable man.

Winston Churchill: Bottlescape. I thought this was a great name for a picture. There were several of Winston Churchill's paintings there and all were remarkably good. Whatever his failings may have been (and Roy Jenkins' book "Churchill" is an honest appraisal) he was a talented fellow

My imagination was piqued by the minute that Churchill handwrote to Alexander in 1942 telling him to kick Rommel out of Africa. This "most secret" minute reads:

"1 Your prime and main duty will be to take or destroy at the earliest opportunity the German-Italian Army commanded by Field Marshal Rommel together with all its supplies and establishments in Egypt and Libya.

"2 You will discharge or cause to be discharged such other duties as pertain to your Command without prejudice to the task described in paragraph 1 which must be considered paramount in His Majesty’s interests."

It is written while Churchill was in Cairo and I was left wondering whether he just called for a piece of embassy paper and wrote it straight out - such was the urgency of the North African threat.

At any event Alexander was able to reply:

"Sir
"The orders you gave me on Aug 15 1942 have been fulfilled. His Majesty’s enemies, together with their impedimenta have been completely eliminated from Egypt. Cyrenaica, Linya and Tripolitania. I now await your further instructions."

There were plenty of people willing to take this success away from Alexander notably Montgomery and Alexander went on to have his challenges with Patton (who was his subordinate).

Churchill's handwritten instructions to Alexander to kick Rommel out of North Africa

Of course as we all know Churchill lost the general election of 1945. That election was the first for ten years and the country and its mood and changed significantly.

Election poster for Churchill

But, back to Blenheim: here are a few pictures that I took.

A table centrepiece. This had no function other than to sit in the middle of the table and look cool. Made of silver it weighs 50 kilos

A table setting of which even The G approved. The dining room was huge and would be bloody nippy in the winter

These pieces are by the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei. He has an exhibition in the palace. Some of his pieces are placed alongside the 17th century artefacts with the sort of contrasting and arresting effect you can imagine

The first Duchess of Marlborough (Sarah) was best buddies with Queen Anne. They fell out when the Whigs fell from power in 1708. Of course it's a bit more complicated than that but this is not a history blog

More opulence

There is a chapel (of course) with this pulpit. Were the rope not across the stairs I would have delivered an appropriate sermon

The West Terrace Cafe is on the ground floor of this wing. We lunched there but did not see the Duke

Many readers will know that I have constructed raised beds at home. There were a set of raised beds (pictured above) that were the mothers of all raised beds. This was a lavender bed and The G and my Mother were spotted liberating small sprigs for experimental purposes

We went off to look at the Butterfly House which, not surprisingly, is awash with butterflies. 

A butterfly that looks like a leaf - really amazing. Perhaps it has a name but I do not know it

This yellow and black butterfly looked good against the orange blooms

Here is another cool dude of a butterfly

And here is a short movie of a butterfly in action.

I don't know why I found this interesting but I did. It's the garden wall and it's covered in indentations that look like bullet holes. In fact the walls were covered with espaliered fruit trees that were supported by nails driven into the wall

We drove home safely and accurately courtesy of the satnav in the Mercedes. The car is a delight to drive but - and maybe I am after all a Luddite - has too much widgetry for me!!

We supped with my parents. We shared the bottle of this year's Battle of Bosworth Shiraz that we had brought over for my father. It is a fine young and eminently drinkable wine - so good in fact that my mother drank a whole glass, a feat which I cannot recall in all my life. Usually she drinks nothing.

We have one more day before we fly out tomorrow so today we go in search of another of my heroes: Alan Turing. We are going to visit Blethcley Park (www.bletchleypark.org.uk).

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