Category Archives: Historic Homes

Happy Birthday, Emily Bronte!

Emily Bronte, portrait by Branwell Bronte

Emily Bronte was born on July 30, 1818. Her brother Branwell, an aspiring poet and portrait painter, composed one of the very few images of her. His sister Emily was painfully shy, hardly speaking with anyone outside the family. But she was a bold artist. Her novel, Wuthering Heights, is still startling in its passion and social critique.

Branwell was the only son in the family and great things were expected of him. I think poor Branwell suffered from what we might now call Preacher’s Kid Syndrome: a need to act out, just because his father, the Reverend Patrick Bronte, was such an upright man. Branwell studied painting, in between bouts of drinking, taking opiates, and getting fired from various gigs as a tutor–for which his father had taken great pains to educate him. In around 1834, at age 17, Branwell painted the group portrait above. It is now one of the most treasured works in London’s National Portrait Gallery, and the centerpiece of a special Bronte exhibit I saw last spring.

Why is this rare painting folded in the middle? We’re lucky that it still exists, damaged as it is. The portrait, together with the profile of Emily, traveled to Ireland with Charlotte Bronte’s widower after her death as a young bride. It appears that a heartbroken Arthur Bell Nicholls shoved the portraits of his beloved Charlotte and her sisters on top of a wardrobe in an Irish farmhouse, out of sight and out of mind.

The churchyard where all the Brontes are buried (except Anne, who died at Scarborough and was buried there) is just outside the door of the parsonage. Living there, walking every day past the graves of so many loved ones who had died so young, must have been unbearably sad.

By the time Charlotte died, shortly after her marriage and while pregnant with her first child, Branwell, Emily and Anne were already dead. Most likely they died of either tuberculosis or infectious diseases from the poor sanitation in the village. (Branwell more or less drank himself to death). Nicholls stayed in Haworth for several years to care for his father-in-law. Nicholls eventually remarried. His widow finally discovered the paintings (housecleaning, no doubt) in 1914.

Sadly, it seems that Branwell had erased himself from the family portrait. This fact was not known until the 1950s, when the oil paint became more transparent with age. Now, it is clear that there was once a man’s figure between the sisters. Did Branwell already have such a low opinion of himself? Was he ashamed to be seen with his much-more-virtuous sisters? Or did he feel he could not do justice to his own wonderfulness? Or was this possibly a portrait of his father, who took a very dim view of Branwell’s nights spent in the local pub or worse? We’ll never know.

The London exhibit also contains items such as Charlotte’s tiny boots. The caption says that for outdoor wear, the boots were most likely worn with wooden platens strapped to the soles for a little protection against mud and snow. How did the Bronte girls manage to walk for miles in the rugged North Yorkshire moors in footgear like this?

Last year I made a literary pilgrimage to Haworth in Yorkshire. The town still looks much the same as it did when Emily composed her novel about wild forbidden love on the moors. I was lucky enough to stay at Ponden Hall, a house where the Brontes were regular visitors. It’s now a family home, a lovingly run bed and breakfast, and a venue for gatherings of artists, writers, and Bronte fans. The charming hosts go out of their way to show all visitors around their historic home. In the photo below, the bookcase is a hidden door into a secret library. The Bronte girls used to visit the house, a couple of miles from the parsonage, to use the library.

It’s possible to actually sleep in the “box bed,” shown above, with the little window that reportedly inspired Emily to write her famous scene where the ghost of Cathy appears outside the window, begging to be let in. Her forbidden and guilt-ridden lover Heathcliffe staggers out onto the moors in desperate search of her. (Did I sleep in the box bed? No, but maybe next time! Do I believe in ghosts? Maybe!)

Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in “Wuthering Heights,” Public Domain

In 1939, Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon played the lovers Cathy and Heathcliffe in the classic romantic film based on the novel. Since then, there’s been a 2011 film version that makes explicit the racism that Emily only hinted at in her novel, by calling Heathcliffe a “gypsy.” It’s on my list to watch. There’s a 2009 miniseries, too.

Did I venture onto the wild moors myself? Only partway. I had a broken foot, thanks to a super-klutzy fall just before I left on my trip.

E8ADF0D1-3C59-43B8-A466-D01193D148E5

But I’m determined to hike the moors. Next time, I hope I’ll be able to follow the signposts and get just a little bit lost in the wild countryside that inspired Emily Bronte and her sisters.

Join me next time for more explorations in the art, history and literature of Europe and the British Isles!

Erddig: Home of the Spider Brusher

2 Replies

Who is the Spider Brusher? She is Jane Ebbrell, a beloved servant at the Welsh estate of Erddig, near Wrexham. Actually, she was more of an all-around housemaid, but she wielded a mean spider-brush in her day. We know this because her slightly eccentric late 18th century master, Philip Yorke, not only commissioned her portrait, but wrote an affectionate ditty about her. It begins,

To dignify our Servants hall

Here comes the Mother of us all;

For seventy years, or near have pass’d her

Since Spider-Brusher, to the Master

At the time of her portrait, she was 87. Many other servants received the same oil portrait and poem treatment over the next 250 years. But the Yorkes went beyond lip service. Jane Ebbrell, for example, was encouraged to marry another servant, and when she finally retired it was to her own home on the estate.

In around 1852, the squire, Simon Yorke III commissioned a photograph of all the family servants, each holding an implement of his or her work, standing on the front steps. He and his family appeared in the window behind the servants.

In 1912, Philip Yorke duplicated the photo with his own servants and his own young family. He wrote a long poem for the occasion. A book of his poems, all affectionate doggerel, is sold in the gift shop.

What made seven generations of the Yorke family treat their servants so well? This was an age when kitchen maid might always be called “Mary” because master and mistress could not be bothered to learn new names. Most likely the reason is that the Yorke family had somewhat humble origins themselves. When they unexpectedly inherited the house and its grand 18th century furnishings from an uncle, they found themselves rich in property but poor in cash. They could not afford the usual wages, but they made up for it by treating their servants so well that they felt part of the whole enterprise.

Perhaps not wanting to waste anything, they eventually became epic hoarders.

When the property finally passed to the National Trust in 1973, the sole remaining Yorke required that no objects should EVER be thrown out or sold. About 30,000 objects were inventoried. Only about 10,000 can be on display at the same time.

In their more orderly years, the family kept a “Failures Gallery:” a collection of objects and art they didn’t like but didn’t want to part with. It lined the walls of the passage the servants used to get to the private chapel.

The chapel was the scene of daily prayers for everyone.

The family never used the Failures Gallery. They entered the chapel through their grand eighteenth century rooms. So life at Erddig kept some of the traditional distance between master/mistress and servant. But still, life in the Servants’ Hall at Erddig was pleasant enough that generations of families were happy to serve the Yorkes for low wages.

An article about Errdig is at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/wales/articles/Fiona-Bruces-Britain-Erddig-Wales/

Parham Park: My Favorite Long Gallery

Leave a reply

This is Parham Park, built in Elizabethan times for a wealthy old family fortunate enough to acquire the land in 1540, when King Henry VIII was busy dismantling monasteries. The land at that time passed from the Monastery of Westminster to the Palmer family, who began building their grand house in 1577. In about 1597, the Bishopp family bought the house and estate, and held it for about 325 years. In 1922, the Pearson family bought the property and found it in sad repair. They set about renovating, very conscientiously. The quiet but luxurious country life lived in this beautiful house has been about the same for centuries. It appears that over the years, the families who lived here were able to steer clear of the dangerous (and often lethal) political turmoil of their times.

The house is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, close to the southern coast. After the excitement of hosting troops during World War II, the family decided they liked having people around and opened to paying visitors in 1948.

The matriarch (think of her as the equivalent of Lady Violet on Downton Abbey) used to enjoy sitting in the Long Gallery, pictured below, as tourists filed through. She stayed anonymous and had a great time fielding questions and chuckling at inane comments. She especially liked it when complete strangers claimed that they had been guests of the family before the war–when she would have been their hostess.

According to a friendly docent on a recent visit, the house has the third longest remaining Long Gallery in the country. These galleries were built in Tudor and Elizabethan times to showcase the family’s treasures. Just as importantly, family members used the gallery to take long walks when it was pouring rain out in their gardens and woodlands.

Sometime in the 1960s, the family at Parham tired of the plain white ceiling of their Long Gallery. They had repaired and replaced the roof decades before, but the Gallery was beginning to bore them. So they hired an artist to add vines and branches. And some wildlife! A little owl perches on a branch in the panel above.

How about a pair of birds and their nest?

My personal favorite is the monkey, who looks like he’s up to no good.

Parham today is managed by a charitable trust, and the Pearson family still lives in part of the house. If Parham were run by the National Trust or English Heritage, painting vines and wildlife on the ceiling of the Long Gallery would probably never happen. Those organizations rightly insist on historical accuracy. But since Parham was (and is still) privately owned, the family was free to do what private owners of stately homes have always done: make their home exactly the way they wanted it. The house is part of the Historic Houses Association, which sells a yearly pass that gets pass holders into many properties free, and into others at very limited times when no one else is admitted.

I’ll cheerfully flash my HHA pass at a house like Parham any chance I get, and I’ll return again and again to savor spectacular historic interiors like the dining room above.

img_8015-1

Virginia Woolf at Monk’s House

Leave a reply

VWoolf1902

On March 28, 1941, Virginia Woolf wrote a loving letter to her husband, Leonard Woolf, and walked out of her country home in rural Sussex, Monk’s House. She made her way to the nearby River Ouse. On its banks, she filled her pockets with stones, waded in, and drowned. Her body was recovered almost 3 weeks later. She was 59 years old. She was a central figure of the intellectual and artistic Bloomsbury Group, whose influence is still felt. Virginia herself was an avant-garde novelist who changed the shape of the English novel with works such as Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, The Waves, and To the Lighthouse.

BRDoorway

Last year I visited Monk’s House, now a National Trust property. I was thrilled to walk in the footsteps of Virginia and Leonard Woolf.

Virginia had suffered bouts of debilitating depression for much of her life, but she had always recovered. Between illnesses, she was a fun-loving friend and a wonderful conversationalist. But she needed a certain amount of “alone” time in order to create.

WritingShed In her country garden, she spent long hours composing her ground-breaking novels and thoughtful essays in her writing shed. It is furnished just as she left it. It looks as though she just stepped out for a stroll through her flowers.

One of Virginia’s most famous works is the long essay “A Room of One’s Own,” in which she examined the need for women to have solitary time and space in order to create. She knew all too well that most women had no writing shed or other personal space. Maybe her need for creative time and space is what prompted a friend, Lady Ottoline Morrell, to describe Virginia as “this strange, lovely, furtive creature.”

Kitchen

Inside the house, I could imagine long and lively discussions at the dining table, with the likes of Roger Fry, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, T.S. Eliot, and H.M. Forster, not to mention Virginia’s sister the painter Vanessa Bell. VWBR2

Her bedroom was originally added to the house as a writing studio.

WoolfBR

But Virginia liked the airy room so much she decided to sleep there. I would too.

VWBBR

Naturally, there are books everywhere in the house.

MonksLR

The drawing room is cosy, set up for long evenings of reading and conversation.

Monks2Chairs

Are these his-and-hers chairs? I can imagine Virginia in one and Leonard in the other.

VWBust

After her death, Leonard had Virginia’s ashes buried in their beloved garden. A bust of Virginia stands nearby. Her admirers leave stones beneath it.

LeonardWBust

Later, Leonard’s own ashes and bust took their places near hers. In her final letter, Virginia sadly explained that she could not bear another episode of what she called her “madness.” Possibly she suffered from what we would now call bipolar syndrome. At any rate, she described hearing “voices.” The last line of her final letter read, “I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.”

The photo at the top of this post is from the article cited below, “Virginia Woolf: The Woman Who Remade the Novel,” by Jonathan deBurca Butler. The photo, of Virginia in 1902, is by George C. Beresford. The article is an excellent summary of Virginia’s life, her sad death, and her continuing influence on modern literature.

http://www.independent.ie/life/virginia-woolf-the-woman-who-remade-the-novel-34572892.html

MonksNT

Monk’s House is wonderfully maintained by the National Trust. Charleston Farmhouse, where Virginia’s sister Vanessa Bell lived, is nearby. I would highly recommend a visit to both.

Join me next time for more explorations in the art and history of Europe and the British Isles!

Disraeli at Hughenden Manor

Leave a reply

Vic&Dis

I can’t really leave Benjamin Disraeli without posting some more pictures from his country home, Hughenden Manor. It’s the most quintessentially Victorian place I can think of. In those days, it must have seemed perfectly natural to hang side-by-side portraits of the Prime Minister and his Queen above the fireplace–in the bedroom Mr. Disraeli shared with his loving wife, Mary Anne. She decorated the room herself.

DisRobe

In the House of Lords during the height of the British Empire, politicians wore red velvet robes on ceremonial occasions, without irony or having to wade through rude protests outside. Becoming the Earl of Beaconsfield was a proud accomplishment for a man born into a modest Jewish family in 1804. Disraeli became an Anglican at age 12, and remained one for the rest of his long life.

We tend to think that Britain has a fairly rigid class system, but even in Victorian times it was possible for an unlikely man to rise to the height of power, through luck, connections, charm and sheer hard work.

512px-Her_Majesty's_Gracious_Smile_by_Charles_Knight

Queen Victoria has a reputation for sternness, but she knew how to be amused, too. And her trusted friend Benjamin Disraeli amused her.

The Queen set an example of happy, respectable family life for her subjects. Mary Anne Disraeli created a peaceful refuge at home for her busy husband.

Why did Victorians stuff their homes with so much stuff? In a restored Victorian home like Hughenden, every surface is occupied: baubles, bibelots, and knickknacks carefully arranged on top of curlicued whatnots. In Victorian times, minimalism was an unknown concept. And old photos seem even more crowded than restored rooms. Why? Here’s my theory: the British ruled an empire that spanned the entire globe. Victorian rooms seem crowded and stuffy to the modern sensibility, but I think all those possessions were an exuberant expression of Victorian confidence and optimism. If you’ve got it, flaunt it!

HughendenDR

Mary Anne Disraeli presided over a lively dinner table. She was practical, too–which her husband was not. Household records show that after one dinner party, she sent two big unused blocks of cheese back to the cheesemonger. Waste not, want not!

Disraeli loved trees. In fact, while Mary Anne was busy inside finding just the right places for her trinkets and doodads, Disraeli was busy outside planting trees–the more the better. He brought in specimens from the far-flung empire and created a forest that lives on today. He spent hours walking among his trees, taking solace from their growth and variety. He once remarked, “I am not surprised that the ancients worshipped trees.”

HughendenExt

I was so interested in the house–with its Victorian history as well as the amazing part it played in World War II–that I didn’t get into the gardens and the forest. Next time!

The three posts just before this one described the vital history of Hughenden in more detail. Join me next time for more explorations in the art and history of Europe and the British Isles!

No More Red Boxes? What Would Disraeli Say?

Leave a reply

At Hughenden Manor last spring, I was thrilled to spot Prime Minister Disraeli’s famous “red box” in his study. It’s a kind of box used for the last 150 years or so by British government officials. It’s really just a briefcase, but so much more romantic–and quintessentially British. These boxes were first used in the 1860s. They were covered in red-dyed rams’ leather, embossed with the Royal Cypher and lined with lead–reportedly so that if the carrier were captured at sea, the box would sink with all its secrets intact. The lead also made the boxes pretty strong in the event of bombing or other catastrophe. The lock is on the bottom of the box, guaranteeing that nobody will walk off without locking it. (Does anyone ever forget, grab the handle and spill the important documents? Let’s hope not).

Photo from “Daily Mail” article cited below

Until very recently, important government officials proudly carried their red boxes wherever they went. (Naturally, a government official is always hard at work, so the box is necessary at all times). Any man or woman would walk a little taller carrying the jaunty red case. And what a status symbol to casually place on one’s table on the train!

Queen Elizabeth, like Disraeli’s Queen Victoria, receives her own royal red box daily. It contains documents the sovereign must sign before they become law. I’d like to think the Queen’s red box will exist for a long time.

But now, the British government is phasing out the revered symbol of power in favor of secure smartphones. For one thing, ministers have developed the wasteful habit of having their boxes shuttled from place to place in chauffeured limousines, as described in an article from The Independent. Then there’s the problem of security. A fingerprint-activated smartphone is apparently safer (at least until it’s hacked.)

2015-04-21 19.03.39

So in England, red ministerial boxes are going the way of red curbside telephone boxes.

Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli lived in a slower-moving world. His red box came with him to his country home, where he worked in his quiet study between long walks inspecting his grounds. There was time for him to think, to read actual books, to reflect on the weighty problems of state. I fear that Britain’s government ministers will now be more like the rest of us: constantly intent on a pocket-sized screen.

Somehow, I can’t see the elegant Mr. Disrael hunched over a smartphone.

I wouldn’t give up my own smartphone for anything, of course. It’s my only camera, as well as my window into the wider world. I can look up most anything with a few thumbstrokes. But if I were a British government minister, I would miss my elegant red ramskin box with the Royal Cypher and the lock on the bottom.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2958851/Traditional-government-red-boxes-phased-150-years-ministers-given-thumbprint-activated-smartphones.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-government-ferried-briefcases-around-alone-in-chauffeur-driven-cars-3000-times-in-the-last-three-a6812851.html

Join me next time for more explorations in the art and history of Europe and the British Isles!

Hughenden Manor: Winning the War in the Icehouse

5 Replies

Who was the man getting the surprise ice-water bath above, and what did he have to do with victory in World War II? One day in 2004, a National Trust guide at Hughenden Manor overheard an intriguing conversation. An old man was very quietly describing to his grandchild how he had once worked in the very room they were standing in. Hughenden Manor was the country home of Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister and friend of Queen Victoria.

HughendenLR

The house was a dusty relic of Victorian times. But it turned out that the house played a pivotal role in the Second World War, totally unknown to anyone except the 100 or so people who secretly worked there in the 1940s.

When the Battle of Britain and the London Blitz ended in late 1940, Britain’s Royal Air Force, the RAF, had overcome all the odds and held off the German Luftwaffe. Adolf Hitler had believed that the British would fold under heavy bombing, negotiate a peace treaty, and become his allies. How wrong he was. About 3,000 young pilots, averaging 20 years of age, did battle daily over the Channel, outnumbered by 5 to 1 in both equipment and flyers. They were not all British; some of them were Polish, Czech, Belgian and French. According to the RAF, 544 of them were killed in the Battle of Britain, and another 814 died later in the war. Winston Churchill famously summed up the Battle of Britain: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” To this day, pilots who fought are referred to as “The Few.”

But the war was just beginning. It was necessary for Allied forces, soon including the United States, to knock out German infrastructure. The only maps available at the time were made for tourists. They showed roads, cities, railways and sightseeing destinations like castles and cathedrals. Bombers needed detailed maps to accomplish their missions of destroying armament factories and other strategic targets.

Hughenden Manor became a secret command center for the vital mission of creating detailed maps for bomber pilots to use. British Spitfires and later Mosquitos were dispatched across the Channel with automatic cameras in their gun bays. Since the gun bays had no guns, the planes had no protection. The pilots, as brave as any of The Few, flew thousands of surveillance missions over Germany. Over the course of the war, they took 36 million photos. The camera film was carried by courier to Hughenden Manor, where the 100 or so top-secret mapmakers went to work.

The old Hughenden icehouse was the darkroom.

Mapmakers were on duty at all times; someone always slept in the icehouse.

Inside, mapmakers worked day and night, translating the surveillance photos into maps for bomber pilots. Target maps were drawn by hand, with the target in the middle, surrounded by concentric circles one mile apart.

Today, the visitor can try out the equipment, which in its day was high-tech. Completed maps, thousands of them, were sent seven miles up the road to Bomber Command. Often, couriers used bicycles, so as not to draw attention.

The entire map-making operation was a military secret, protected by the Official Secrets Act. People who worked at Hughenden, military and civilian, took an oath to keep the operation secret for their entire lifetimes. When the National Trust accidentally learned a little about the amazing World War II history of Hughenden, they went to Parliament and eventually received permission to make the secrets public. Today, the icehouse and the basement of Hughenden hold an enthralling museum of this vital part of victory for the Allies in World War II.

Veterans of the secret operation were tracked down and interviewed on video, before their stories were lost forever. People sent in their personal diaries and photos. The almost-lost history came alive.

And the man getting the surprise ice bath? Newbies were invited into the icehouse to have a wartime picture taken, to send to the folks at home (of course, the location was always kept secret). The helpful icehouse staff posed the unsuspecting person under an icy water outlet in the brick ceiling. Someone pulled a lever at the exact moment the camera snapped. Everyone, including the victim, laughed uproariously.

The result was a nice wartime keepsake, and a personal reminder of undaunted British spirit when the odds of victory seemed slim. British self-deprecating humor and camaraderie were a big part of that spirit.

HughendenCover

I’d recommend a visit to Hughenden Manor. Join me next time for more explorations in the art and history of Europe and the British Isles!

Mary Anne Disraeli: the Woman Behind the Man

1 Reply

Why is a Victorian carriage door prominently displayed on a wall at Hughenden, the country home of Queen Victoria’s friend and Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli? The Prime Minister himself removed it from the carriage and preserved it as a tribute to his wife, Mary Anne. One evening the ambitious politician and his doting wife set off from his London house to Parliament, where he was to deliver a very important speech. When the carriage door was closed, it slammed shut on Mary Anne’s thumb. What did she do? She suffered in silence, all the way to Westminster. She didn’t want to upset the man before his speech. A placard next to the carriage door explains that Mary Anne said not a word until Disraeli was safely out of the carriage and on his way into the corridors of power. The placard remarks drily that her words when her thumb was released were not recorded.

Mary Anne was 12 years older than her husband, and the marriage began as one of convenience. But it grew into a true love match.

According to the guidebook sold at Hughenden, Disraeli was a novelist and something of a playboy in 1830s London. He had written a novel, Vivian Grey, which was a thinly veiled self-portrait of a young man on the make. His friend Bulwer-Lytton described him thus: he wore “green velvet trousers, a canary coloured waistcoat, low sleeves, silver buckles, lace at his wrists, his hair in ringlets.” He cut a wide swath through bohemian London salons, finally gaining an entree into the highest circles. He tried five times for a seat in Parliament before he won an election. His maiden speech was a disaster; he was shouted down. What worked in drawing rooms did not work in the House of Commons. He famously ended by saying, “I will sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me.”

Mary Anne, my photo from Hughenden guidebook

What Disraeli needed was a rich wife. He met Mary Anne Wyndham Lewis in 1832, when she was just another older married woman he enjoyed flirting with. He thought her “a pretty little woman, a flirt and a rattle” which according to the guidebook meant “incessant chatterer.” But her deep-pocketed husband obligingly died in 1838, leaving her a rich widow. Her appeal increased and Disraeli married her in 1839.
Disraeli soon learned what a treasure he had found. He wrote, “There was no care which she could not mitigate, and no difficulty which she could not face. She was the most cheerful and the most courageous woman I ever knew.” High praise indeed; Disraeli had known and depended on many, many women in his rise to power in Victorian England.

A visit to Hughenden is a window into the Victorian past.

The estate is under the care of the National Trust, and beyond the quintessentially Victorian rooms there’s a surprise, new since I first visited years ago. The estate was a secret location for surveillance work which was crucial to victory in World War II. This work was so secret that not even the National Trust knew a thing about it until very recently. I’ll be writing about what went on in the wartime rooms and the icehouse soon.

Join me next time for more explorations in the art and history of Europe and the British Isles!

Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II

2 Replies

Queen Victoria in her coronation regalia, public domain

Britain’s beloved Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901, ending the Victorian Era. She was also Empress of India all through the heyday of the years when the sun never set on the British Empire. Her image still appears everywhere in Great Britain. The coronation portrait by George Hayter is in the Royal Collection (Public Domain now). It still appears in reproductions in some tradition-loving British homes.

6B7E95AF-0E29-47D1-87D7-DDCD309D43FD

Other homes display mass-produced images like the one above, spotted in the very regal Wimpole Estate.

VictoriaModel

Victoria’s image, dressed in black in her widowhood and with her little diamond crown perched on top of her head, is instantly recognizable. The little model above holds pride of place in an exhibit of military models at Blenheim Palace. That unusual crown served as a canny early version of a prominent person creating a unique brand for herself.

256px-Victoria_sketch_1835

How did Victoria see herself? The sketch above, Public Domain, was Victoria’s own self-portrait as a young girl. She already has some kind of little whatsit balancing on top of her head. She looks apprehensive. But when she unexpectedly took the throne at the age of 18, after everyone else in the line of succession had died, she rose to the occasion and she kept rising. She reigned over England for over 63 years.

512px-Her_Majesty's_Gracious_Smile_by_Charles_Knight

We tend to think of Victoria as a dour old lady. But in fact she laughed often. The Public Domain photo above shows her in a jolly mood, even into her old age.

A statue of Victoria stands serenely at the entrance of Windsor Castle, the thousand-year-old complex that is one of the favorite homes of the current Queen.

Queen Elizabeth II has now reigned longer than her ancestor, the redoubtable Victoria. Whatever one thinks of the institution of the monarchy, there’s no doubt that Queen Elizabeth is a cracking good Queen. The photo above is from the shop at Sandringham, the country estate in Norfolk that Queen Victoria wisely bought as a private retreat for the Windsors. When I was there, neither the Queen nor her Corgis were in sight, but their presence was felt everywhere. There’s nothing more British than the Queen and her beloved Corgis. I wish them all well.

Join me next time for more exploration in the art and history of Europe and the British Isles!

Remembering Captain Eustace Lyle Gibbs at Tyntesfield

4 Replies

Eustace Lyle Gibbs, born March 10, 1885, was the second youngest son of Antony Gibbs. He was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. Then, as expected of him, he joined the family shipping business.

Eustace was already a member of the North Somerset Yeomanry. When World War I broke out on July 28, 1914, he was among the first British troops sent to France. Wealth and rank did not exempt men from serving; in fact, those of high rank mostly felt even more obligation to fight than those less fortunate. They generally entered the war as officers.

Eustace had a short home leave in December 1914. While visiting his family at their beautiful Victorian country house, Tyntesfield, he gave an interview to the Western Daily Press. Asked how people at home could help soldiers at the front, he said the troops always needed gloves and socks. And they really missed chocolate. When he returned to the front, he brought donations of these items with him, and handed them out to the men of his “B” Company, British Expeditionary Force.

During his leave, Eustace no doubt spent time in the Billiard Room at Tyntesfield, a wonderfully masculine space designed for the men in the family. Eustace would never see his home again.

Eustace died on February 11, 1915 of wounds received fighting near Ypres. He was 29 years old. His portrait was painted in 1916 from a photograph of him in his uniform. The artist was Albert Henry Collings.

1915 was the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Great War. I wrote about the spectacular display of close to a million ceramic poppies in honor of fallen British soldiers at the Tower of London. The The photo above is from The Guardian at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/01/tower-of-londons-ww1-remembrance-installation-share-your-photos-and-videos. The post is at https://castlesandcoffeehouses.com/2014/09/26/remembrance-of-wars-past/.

That post also remembers another aristocratic young man who gave his life for his country, Edward Wyndham Tennant. He died at age 19 in the Battle of the Somme, 1916. On the plaque above his marble relief portrait, a fellow soldier describes the young man’s leadership: “When things were at their worst he would go up and down in the trenches cheering the men; when danger was greatest his smile was loveliest.” His grieving parents commissioned the touching memorial to him in Salisbury Cathedral.

Fighting in the Great War ended “at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918. Virtually every town and village in Britain (and also in other countries like France) lost young men to the carnage of the First World War. About 20 million people lost their lives. On Armistice Day, in England and in other places, there are ceremonies honoring the fallen.

Americans actively entered the war in its last few months, after supporting the Allied side indirectly. No one knows exact numbers, but about 110,000 Americans lost their lives in the fighting. In the United States, November 11 is Veterans’ Day, when all who have served their country in the military are honored. Today, women serve as often as men do. And as in times past, whole families and communities feel the effects of loved ones marching off to serve. We need to salute them all.