I have, in the past, referred to Will Cross as a truffle hound, ferreting out the hidden or obscure in the archives, and here again, the footnotes prove an evocative joy. In this book, however, Will Cross is less the truffle hound with a yen for the occasional ferret, more the rottweiler. Lies, Damned Lies and the Carnarvons is a ruthless demolition job on what a family might prefer to remain hidden. And yes, to play Devil’s Advocate for the moment, families do have a right to keep their skeletons tightly locked up, but only as much right as the researcher has to winkle them out.
The Fifth Earl of Carnarvon over the years. At least he died knowing it was his support and finance that revealed the tomb of Tutankhamen.
The book starts off on what seem relatively trivial, but even these small things—such as the Earl of Carnarvon’s near fatal car accident on an obscure German road, is meticulously researched, along with what at first seems to be a meaningless untruth in the official accounts—ie that the incident occurred in 1901, that Carnarvon recuperated in Egypt, and there discovered a lifelong interest in tombs and archaeology.
William Cross however proves beyond doubt that the car accident occurred in 1909 and conjectures the motive behind the shuffling of dates. Lord Carnarvon was in Hamburg in the Summer of 1898 for specialised treatment. A misspent youth had seen him riddled with ‘syphilis of the face, neck and mouth..’ That and severe lung disease made it highly unlikely that his son and heir, the Sixth Earl of Carnarvon born in 1898 and his daughter, Lady Evelyn, conceived in 1900 were actually his, especially since his wife, Almina, denied ever having sexual relations with him, not even kissing his mouth. What better way to obfuscate and explain Carnarvon's ill health and sojourn in Egypt than to blame it on a motoring injury that wouldn't occur for another eight years.
The book is a real potpourri—not all of it fragrant—of well researched tittle-tattle and gossip, totally gripping but too much to incorporate in a review.
I loved, for example the picture conjured up of the Earl and Countess at an archaeological dig
‘Even in the baking hot wilderness of the deserts of Egypt, Almina was like a beacon, radiating light.' One observer described her ‘dressed for a garden party . . . with charming patent leather shoes and a good deal of jewellery flashing in the sunlight.’
Neither deigned to do any digging. ‘They liked to watch, and sat under heavy canvas in the shade, protected from the sun and sandstorms, relaxing in idle comfort, reading and drinking mint tea. A native boy with a stick was on guard to deter snakes, with another to swat flies.’
Almina was an efficient and dutiful wife who found sexual relief where she could—even at the age of seventy with a heating engineer. By then, her husband, the Earl of Carnarvon was long dead; a victim of an insect bite and the curse of King Tut—a popular theory of the time and one that conveniently glossed over the more likely cause—the sins of the flesh having caught up with him at last.
As ever, Almina proved the dutiful wife. When in the last stages of his illness, she flew with an amenable doctor in a small plane to his sick bed and put him out of his misery.
An experienced nurse after World War I who had long advocated euthanasia and was conversant with morphine, it is suggested and hinted at by those at the time that she quietly and mercifully put her husband to sleep.
Unlucky with her choice of husband, though she made the best of it, Almina was equally unlucky with her children. Her son-in-law took a profound dislike of her and made it difficult for Almina and her daughter Evelyn to meet.
But the real rascal was her son, the new ‘Porchey’ and the future Sixth Earl who showed little love for his mother - possibly because she spent much of the money he hoped to inherit.
He was a bounder of the first order and ended up as the archetypal ‘dirty old man.’ Contracting mumps as a child, may or may not have made him sterile. His second wife the actress Tilly Losch strongly suggests he was, and rumours abound that his first wife, who he drove to alcoholism and a nervous breakdown, provided him with an heir with the help of artificial insemination and perhaps a willing butler. It was, apparently, a common practise at the time, at least amongst those aristocrats desperate for an heir. I’m surprised Evan Morgan didn’t try it, but there you go.
Sterile he may or may not have been, but an arrogant cad he was without doubt. One peeress was warned against spending a night at Highclere, the Earl’s castle, because of his propensity to appear stark naked from a wardrobe ‘brandishing his male member like a pirate’s cutlass.’ The peeress added that it was ‘exactly the same at Blenheim. Porchey Carnarvon and Bert Marlborough were alike, barrack room roughs, both together in the Hussars Regiment. They treated their women like their horses, and much worse.’
According to Michael Lewis, the Earl’s Chimney Sweep and one who knew the estate well, “His Lordship went around knocking and calling out at cottage doors – inside, the girls knew what he wanted and shuddered but conceded. Any refusal would have resulted in their family being thrown off the estate. . .It was horrible…The Earl was not a good man, he was vile."
He ended up as a rather sad nuisance, struck down by Parkinsons and housed in Edgecombe Nursing Home in Newbury where he continued to behave disgracefully to the end.
Poor old Almina, meanwhile ended up in a terraced house in Bristol—a far cry from her glamorous youth and chatelaine of Highclere —where she died aged ninety in 1969, the year of Woodstock and the breakup of the Beatles.
More can be found here, but for those who wish to avoid the Daily Mail’s ‘sidebar of shame,’ there is of course the book.
2 comments:
They'd never admit it, but they might've been happier if they'd been born middle class.
The middle classes have their moments — and don’t get me started on the working class 😀
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