Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey

by The Countess of Carnarvon

  Ian was kind, charming and a support to Almina in her bereavement, but he was also chronically short of money and was not a well man: he had broken his hip in the war and was wheelchair-bound. For her, this was very probably all part of the appeal. Nursing him reconnected Almina to her wartime experience of running a hospital, which had been the most fulfilling work of her life. Almina was a woman who thrived when she had a project, a woman who needed to be needed, and now here was a kind man whose needs she delighted in trying to meet.

  Ironically, given everything that would happen later, Almina and Ian were introduced by Dorothy, Ian’s ex-wife, who was a great friend of Almina’s. The women had met on 29 November 1920, having rushed to the bedside of a grievously sick mutual friend. Lieutenant General Sir John Cowans had been Quartermaster-General to the Forces throughout the Great War and was a lifelong visitor to Highclere. When he died, in April 1921, he was given a military funeral funded by the state, in recognition of his exceptional service. But, as would subsequently become clear, the war hero had been having numerous affairs, and one of his mistresses had been Dorothy.

  Not that Almina had any inkling of this when she and Dorothy struck up a friendship. As far as she was concerned, her friend had been separated from her husband for years, though they remained on speaking terms, and lived a quiet and blame-free life. Before long the two women were inseparable. Dorothy, who was living in very reduced circumstances, was always at Highclere, keen to enjoy the Carnarvons’ hospitality. Long before Almina became embroiled in Ian’s financial woes, she had become very familiar with Dorothy’s.

  The Dennistouns divorced in March 1921. Dorothy was persuaded to accept that Ian was in no position to pay her back for various loans, or to pay out for her ongoing upkeep. He simply didn’t have the funds. But an informal agreement was apparently made that, should his financial circumstances alter for the better, he would compensate Dorothy. They seem to have been one of those couples that, having finally resolved the crisis of their failed marriage, were able to behave far more civilly towards one another. They began to see each other socially. In 1923, Dorothy introduced him to her friend and benefactor.

  Eight months later, Ian’s circumstances did indeed alter, very much for the better, when he married Almina. Dorothy, who had spent so much time at Highclere, was in the perfect position to gauge the implications for her ex-husband’s finances, and her own. The fact was, neither Dennistoun had a penny. Almina never cared about such things: she was in a position to be generous to a fault, first to her friend and later to her new husband. But it would turn out to be a serious problem when the emotional dynamics shifted.

  Almina’s second wedding was sandwiched between Ian’s divorce and his ex-wife’s subsequent claim for alimony. It was hardly a propitious beginning. The couple—and by extension all the new inhabitants of Highclere—would shortly have to endure their names and reputations being dragged through the law courts in one of the most notorious high-society scandals of the 1920s. The saga would seal the freeze on relations between Almina and Porchey for several years.

  That Christmas, as Eve and Brograve joined a party at Highclere, Almina and Ian spent a quiet holiday at their new home in Scotland. Ultimately, it wasn’t Porchey’s disapproval they needed to worry about; it was Dorothy’s determination to extract her dues.

  For Catherine and Porchey, the Christmas and New Year of 1923 were their first as Lord and Lady Carnarvon. They had the imminent birth of their first child to celebrate, and were looking forward to marking the festivities in their new home. There was a great deal to feel thankful for, but it had also been an exhausting year of extremes and Catherine especially was feeling tired. They invited a small group of old friends and family and were just ten for Christmas.

  It was to be Streatfield’s last hurrah. He had worked for the Carnarvons at Highclere for nearly forty years, during which time he had served three generations of the family. When he began his service as House Steward, in 1887, the 4th Earl was Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord Salisbury’s government and Queen Victoria had another fourteen years to reign. Streatfield had devoted his life to ensuring the prestige of Highclere Castle and the wellbeing of the family that lived there. He had outlasted a great many of them but now it was time to step down and let George Fearnside, formerly the 5th Earl’s valet, take over. His last task before he went was to help the new Lady Carnarvon allocate rooms, plan menus and decorations and organise the traditional local children’s tea party on New Year’s Eve.

  The house looked and smelt beautiful. The Drawing Room, Dining Room, Library and Catherine’s sitting room were decked with holly and ivy that the gardeners had cut from Highclere’s woods. Catherine had arranged it on mantelpieces and directed housemaids to use it to festoon mirrors and bookshelves. There were pine cones to burn in the fireplaces for their fresh scent and, down in the kitchens, the cook and the kitchen maids had been baking and preserving, mulling wine and potting game. The days running up to Christmas Eve were flavoured with tempting aromas of cloves and cinnamon, sage and juniper drifting from the back staircase used by the servants.

  The centrepiece was the Christmas tree. Workers from the estate’s forestry department had felled a pine tree and brought it to stand, well over eighteen feet tall, in the Saloon, festooned with glass baubles and piled round about with presents for the local children.

  Catherine had felt a moment’s doubt about maintaining Almina’s tradition of the children’s party. With her pregnancy so advanced and the intention being to have a quiet family Christmas, she wasn’t sure she was up to hosting an event for 500 children. In the end, she resolved to lean on Streatfield for assistance with logistics and Porchey for help on the afternoon itself. He was enthusiastic. Continuity of tradition was important to him and he knew that it was essential to Highclere’s position as the centre of a community that such occasions be upheld. It would involve clamour and chaos, but it would be good fun.

  Arthur Portman, a friend of Porchey’s from the racing world, arrived with his wife on the 22nd of December, but neither they nor anyone else from the upstairs world were invited to the social occasion that took place on the following night. Every year one of the houses in the local area took their turn to host a dance for all the staff of the nearby establishments. There was beer and food and dancing, and a chance to meet with friends or make new ones. The parties tended to go on late—so late, in fact, that the housemaids, who got up before anyone else to light the fires in the kitchen and bedrooms, often went without sleep altogether. That year the party was being held at one of the neighbouring houses. The maids set out a cold buffet and some tureens of soup in the Dining Room, and then the entire household staff left the Carnarvons to their own devices and headed off to enjoy their Christmas.

  On Christmas Eve, the house party assembled. There might have been just eight house guests, but that also meant an additional quota of servants. The household had effectively doubled in size overnight. On Christmas Day, once a leisurely breakfast was completed, Porchey helped his wife into the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost to make the short trip to attend church. Their guests either piled into their own motorcars or walked through the park, past the cricket pitch and into Highclere village. Practically the entire congregation depended upon the Castle to some degree. Catherine and Porchey received endless congratulations and well-wishes before making their way home. After an excellent lunch of turkey and all the trimmings, there was coffee in the Drawing Room and a walk or a rest, before charades in the Library in the evening, in front of the Christmas tree. On Boxing Day, Porchey, Tommy and various others went out for a day’s shooting and then the following day their guests took their leave, full of praise for the wonderfully relaxing visit they had enjoyed. It had all gone just as Catherine had hoped. Now, not even the prospect of the children’s party could faze her. She was marking time, waiting for her baby to be born. She prayed that 1924, in contrast to 1923, would be a peaceful and joyous year.

  Miss Cather
ine Wendell on her engagement.

  Catherine’s mother, Marian Fendall Wendell.

  Catherine’s father, Jacob Wendell.

  Catherine and her sister Philippa were very close.

  Catherine with her siblings. Left to right: Jac, Reggie, Catherine, and Philippa.

  Catherine’s birthplace – Willowbank, in Maine.

  Porchey’s mother Almina married the Earl in 1895. She is pictured here nursing a wounded soldier during World War One, when Highclere Castle was used as a hospital. (Picture Acknowledgment i1.1)

  The Fifth Earl of Carnarvon, Egyptologist, discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, November 1922. (Picture Acknowledgment i1.2)

  Highclere Castle was designed by the architect Sir Charles Barry, who also designed and rebuilt the Houses of Parliament during the same decades. The first stone to mark the transformation from the Georgian house was laid in 1842.

  Catherine was a renowned beauty.

  The invitation to the wedding of Catherine and Lord Porchester.

  Catherine’s bridesmaids, caught in a gust of wind.

  Catherine arriving at St Margaret’s Church, where Lady Almina was married 27 years earlier.

  Catherine surrounded by her bridesmaids and, standing at the back left to right, her husband Lord Porchester, Mr Thomas Frost (best man) and HRH Prince George.

  Lord Porchester having triumphed at polo in India, in 1923. The players are: Moorhead, Porchester, Sheppard and Byass who played for the Ezra Cup (Calcutta), the Rajpipla Cup (Bombay) and for the Subaltern’s Cup in Meerut.

  Bronx Hall, their bungalow in Mhow.

  Catherine and Porchey enjoyed the life of the British Raj as newlyweds in India, enjoying picnics and the round of the social life with their friends.

  Lord Carnarvon’s tragic death so soon after discovering the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1923 shocked the world. (Picture Acknowledgment i1.3)

  Lord and Lady Porchester walking through the Monks’ Garden at Highclere whilst on their honeymoon.

  5

  The Heir Is Christened

  On 19 January 1924 Catherine was safely delivered of a healthy baby boy. He was named Henry (for his father) George (for both his late grandfather and his godfather) Reginald (for his uncle, Catherine’s beloved brother and Porchey’s great friend) Molyneux (a family surname).

  An ecstatic Porchey declared he had won the champagne stakes and telephoned the news to Eve and Brograve, Almina at Seamore Place and to Fearnside, newly installed as house steward, so that he could inform all the staff at Highclere. All trace of rancour between Porchey and Almina was temporarily set aside amidst the general rejoicing.

  Catherine and Porchey had been in town since the beginning of January, staying in a house in Mayfair they had taken for the duration of Catherine’s confinement. Dr Johnnie, Almina’s friend and colleague, spent Christmas at Highclere in order to be on the spot just in case. Once the New Year’s celebrations were concluded, Catherine was anxious to travel while she still could, conscious that her baby might arrive at any moment. She had asked her mother to come to stay with her.

  Porchey consulted Dr Johnnie, whom he had known all his life, on the engagement of nurses and doctors to attend Catherine. He also asked his mother and sister for their thoughts. Both Almina and Eve suggested Dr William Gilliatt, a renowned gynaecologist and obstetrician whom Almina had met as a result of her nursing work. Dr Johnnie concurred. Catherine had experienced no problems during pregnancy but, naturally, both she and Porchey were apprehensive.

  Quite aside from the nerves common to all first-time parents, the fact was that childbirth in the 1920s was almost as risky for the mother (though not for the child) as it had been when Queen Victoria had ascended the throne in 1837. It wasn’t until the mid-1930s that maternal mortality began to decline dramatically, due principally to the rigorous use of antiseptics, which massively reduced the risk of puerperal fever, the greatest cause of death in childbirth.

  Counter-intuitively, an upper-class woman in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s was more at risk of dying during childbirth than a working-class one. She was typically attended by a physician, who tended to advocate more interventionist methods that carried greater risk of infection, rather than a midwife, who from the 1920s onwards had increasingly received excellent specialist training in obstetrics, and favoured natural birth.

  Fortunately, the birth went smoothly, and she and Porchey were jubilant over the arrival of their son. Two days later, Catherine began to receive visits from family and close friends. She had been advised by her doctor to take at least ten days of complete bed rest, so Doll ushered the visitors into Catherine’s bedroom. Doll was kept very busy bringing in the endless flowers and messages of congratulation, and liaising with nurses and the temporary household staff. Philippa and Eve were constantly at the house, enchanted with the baby and eager to help. Porchey, one suspects, probably availed himself of the opportunity to slip away to his favourite club, the Portland, to celebrate with friends over brandy, cigars and a game of bridge.

  After the customary period of lying-in, Catherine was eager to return to Highclere. The bustle of well-wishers was joyous but also tiring, and she was longing for the peace of what she now thought of as home. All her married life, Catherine preferred to be at Highclere rather than in town.

  At the end of February, Lord and Lady Carnarvon set off with the new Lord Porchester. They arrived at Highclere to a repetition of the chorus of delight they had left behind, from friends, neighbours, tenants and employees alike. For the many staff who had given years of service, this birth was an occasion for sincere happiness. For everyone, downstairs as well as up, the significance of His Lordship’s arrival was clear. The world was changing at a pace, but even so, the birth of a healthy baby boy was hugely significant when a complex succession could still feel as tortuous as a medieval saga.

  Highclere and its inhabitants were far more modern than, say, the fabulously wealthy Earls Fitzwilliam at Wentworth House in south Yorkshire, who cultivated the lifestyle of a feudal clan. It was the Fitzwilliams’ custom to celebrate the arrival of an heir with a spectacular party for their tens of thousands of tenants and employees. They spurned such luxuries as electricity and sanitation well into the twentieth century and were still squabbling over the 1902 succession of the 7th Earl seventy years after the event. Such lavish melodrama was quite alien to Porchey and Catherine, but there was still a whiff of the seigneurial about the summoning of the staff to the Library to receive at Lord Carnarvon’s hand a drawstring purse containing a gold sovereign, in honour of his son and heir. One maid recalled that ‘we all had to have spotlessly clean aprons. We were to say, “thank you my lord,” curtsey and go.’

  Porchey was very much in favour of maintaining such traditions. In many ways he was a moderniser in his social circle and his personal habits, a man who all his life enjoyed the company of fun-loving, easy-going people, be they duchesses or actors, but he also took his responsibilities seriously. Some aspects of communal life at Highclere were just the same as they had been for generations, and this was a moment heavy with the symbolism of many centuries. For the outside staff, it was the first time they had been in the house, and for the kitchen and scullery maids, it was the first time they had been upstairs. Old-fashioned the gesture might have been, but doubtless the generosity was very welcome.

  Lord Porchester was christened on Easter Sunday, 20 April, in Highclere Church, which sits just outside the gates to the western side of the estate. It is a beautiful Victorian Gothic building of flint and brick. The 4th Earl of Carnarvon commissioned Sir Gilbert Scott to design it as the rather larger replacement for the succession of churches that had stood next to the mansion at Highclere since medieval times. Sir Charles Barry and later Thomas Allom had already created the soaring castle but were both undecided on how to redesign the church to complement the new style of architecture. Barry died in 1860 and the 4th Earl then took the simpler option of constructing a wholly separate Highclere Church.
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  Spring sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows and the building smelled of narcissi and apple blossom. It was already filled to overflowing with the congregation, a sea of neat hats and happy chatter.

  The first car to leave for the church contained Lady Evelyn and Sir Brograve Beauchamp, Reggie and Philippa Wendell and Dr Johnnie. Catherine followed in the Rolls-Royce, with her mother and husband. The ubiquitous press reports tell us that she was wearing a ‘crepe marocain in a delicate shade of fuschia’ while her mother wore a ‘smart black and white charmeuse’.

  Following tradition, Lord Porchester was to travel in the arms of his nanny, Mrs Sambell, driven by the coachman in the gleaming phaeton. The baby was dressed in the ivory satin christening gown that had been used for both his father and grandfather; the garment had lain carefully wrapped in tissue paper in a trunk since its last outing, a generation previously, at Eve’s christening.

  The happy parents stepped out of the car to waiting photographers from the London papers and the local Newbury Weekly News. There was no sign of the phaeton. They waited for a few minutes and then, slightly worried, had just asked Trotman the chauffeur to return with the car to look for it when they arrived, the pony trotting smartly through the church gates. ‘Sergeant Cass, the gallant police officer from Kingsclere’ assisted Mrs Sambell and Lord Porchester’s safe descent from the little carriage.