Obituary: Diana, Duchess of Wellington (1921 - 2010)

The Daily Telegraph and The Times are carrying the obituaries concerning the recent death of a member of the Ascendancy by marriage, Her Grace The Duchess of Wellington, who passed away at the family home on November 1st, at the age of eighty-nine. The Duke, now a widower at the age of ninety-five, has expressed his grief at his wife's death only a few months before their sixty-seventh wedding anniversary, but a friend has remarked to The Times that "He is grateful that they had so many happy years together."

Born Diana Ruth McConnel in 1921, the late Duchess was the daughter of the Scottish Major-General Douglas Fitzgerald McConnel and his wife, Ruth (née Garnett-Botfield.) She was married to Arthur Wellesley, the heir to the duchy of Wellington, in 1944, when the future Duke (then Marquess Douro) was on active service for the British war effort. In 1972, following the death of his father, Gerald, Arthur inherited the family's main titles, becoming the eighth member of the Wellesley family to hold the title of Duke of Wellington, Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo, Duke of The Victory, Prince of Waterloo, Marquis of Torres Vedras and Earl of Morington. 

The main title of Duke of Wellington had first been awarded to the duke's ancestor, also called Arthur, a member of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy. It was given to him by King George III, in recognition for his military services to Britain during the Napoleonic Wars, in which Arthur was instrumental in securing Britain's eventual triumph and the liberation of the kingdoms of Portugal and Spain from Bonapartist occupation. He later served as British Prime Minister from 1828 to 1830 and again from 1834.

As a result of the duke's heroism on the battlefield which led to the destruction of the Bonaparte regime and the restoration of the French monarchy, the Wellesley family today are amongst a very rare group of aristocrats who hold titles in more than one kingdom - William I, the first King of the Netherlands, gave the family the hereditary title of "Prince of Waterloo," in honour of the great battle of 1815, against Napoleon. Ferdinand VII, King of Spain, gave him the title of "Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo" and Maria I, Queen of Portugal, awarded the family the rather magnificent title of "Duke of the Victory" and "Marquis of Torres Vedras." In addition to this, the dukes of Wellington also remain true to their Ascendancy heritage by holding a title in the Irish nobility - they are the hereditary earls of Morington, a title now usually used by the second in line to inherit the Wellington duchy. So, as well as holding titles in both strands of the British peerage (Great Britain and Ireland's), the dukes of Wellingtons are also Grandees of Spain, nobles of Portugal and jonkheers of the Netherlands. The family's subsidiary title, reserved for the heir-apparent, is Marquess Douro. Thus, the late Diana was the Marchioness of Douro between 1944 and 1972. The family's Spanish title - the duchy of Ciudad Rodrigo was abdicated by the current Duke of Wellington in March of this year and given to his eldest son, Lord Douro. The appointment of Lord Douro to the duchy was confirmed by the Spanish Royal Household and King Juan Carlos in the spring.

Lady Diana is survived by her husband, Arthur, Duke of Wellington and by their five children - Arthur, Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo and Marquess Douro (65) and his wife, Her Royal Highness Princess Antonia of Prussia (great-granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II); Lord Richard Wellesley (61); film producer and author, Lady Jane Wellesley (59); Lord John Henry Wellesley (56) and his wife, Corinne (née Vaes); and Lord James Wellesley (46) and his wife, Emma. Duchess Diana is also survived by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The Daily Telegraph, which still carries aristocratic obituaries as a matter of course, reported that announcements concerning Lady Diana's funeral will be made shortly.

Diana Wellesley, The Most Noble Duchess of Wellington, Member of the British Empire for services to the Community of Hampshire, Princess van Waterloo and Duchess of The Victory, who passed away at the family home on 1st November, 2010.

November 2nd, 1755: The Birth of Marie-Antoinette

"Her Majesty has been very happily delivered of a small, but completely healthy, Archduchess."  

- Count Khevenhüller, Court Chamberlain to the Empress Maria-Teresa (1755)

On this day in 1755, the future Queen of France and Navarre, Marie-Antoinette of Austria (above), was born in the Imperial Apartments at the Hofburg Palace, Vienna. She was the fifteenth child and eleventh daughter of the Empress Maria-Teresa, the hereditary ruler of the Hapsburg dominions which then included most of modern-day Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as parts of the former kingdom of Yugoslavia, Italy and Poland, and her husband, the Emperor Franz-Stefan, the elected leader of the Holy Roman Empire (comprising most of modern-day Germany.) 

Since this was her fifteenth time undergoing labour, the Empress saw no reason for it to disrupt her work schedule. Up until the last minute, Her Imperial Majesty kept herself busy - reading government documents and signing state papers. And then, the moment her eleventh daughter had entered the world, the Empress returned to the business of government, requesting that some recent policy proposals be brought to her for inspection. It was half-past eight in the evening and the birth had taken place in the Empress's luxurious apartments on the first floor of the palace. Her husband, waiting outside, was delighted that both wife and baby were in good health. Whatever his faults - namely a taste for fine-living and pretty women - the Emperor Franz-Stefan was a wonderful father. Once he knew that everything had gone as expected, he dutifully made his way to the imperial chapel for a Te Deum service of thanksgiving for the safe delivery of the Empress and the new Archduchess. There, he was joined by the various members of the Court aristocracy who had been waiting in the palace's Mirror Room, as etiquette now required. 

There was a slightly superstitious frisson at the fact that the baby princess had been born on the second day of November - the Feast of All Souls in the liturgical calendar - or, put crudely, the Day of the Dead. Every church, chapel and cathedral in Vienna was hung in black to remind people to pray for the poor souls in Purgatory - even in terms of a visual aesthetic, it was hardly an encouraging welcome into the world of the living for the Empress's latest child. These poor omens were only added to when news later arrived that on the very day of the birth, Lisbon, capital city of Portugal, had been hit by a devastating earthquake - one of the worst in European history - resulting in the deaths of 30,000 people. The King and Queen of Portugal, José the Reformer and his wife, Mariana-Victoria of Spain, were some of the new Hapsburg princess's godparents, which was again interpreted by some superstitious souls as a sign of bad luck. They had been fleeing their collapsing palace at the moment their Austrian god-daughter had been born.

November 1st: The Feast of All Saints

From the blog Cross of Laeken comes a prayer for today's feast - the Feast of All Saints - with an illustration of one of my favourite works of art - Fra Angelico's magnificent carving of the saints in Heaven.

Mr. Jefferson in Paris

"Are all men created equal, Mr Jefferson, or should this read 'all white men are created equal'?" 

So asks a French aristocrat in the 1995 movie Jefferson in Paris, gazing at the ambassador for the new United States with a slightly amused sneer.

Over at The Guardian newspaper, Alex von Tunzelmann reviews the movie, fifteen years after its release, commenting that its two leads "have the sexual chemistry of a pair of recalcitrant pandas." A phrase I found delightfully hilarious. Read the full review here. 

Over at Tea at Trianon, novelist Elena Maria Vidal comments on a recent article about how Mr. Jefferson, despite claiming to hate the decadence of pre-revolutionary French high society, was in fact secretly enthralled by it - especially its culinary delights. As always, it's the puritans you need to watch-out for... 

"Though disgusted by the excess of Parisian society, Jefferson couldn't help but be drawn to its art, architecture, music, food and wine. A man of contradictions (he was adamantly against slavery yet never freed his 200 slaves), Jefferson socialized with the bourgeoisie and aristocracy, and was known to host lavish dinner parties in his Parisian apartment on the Champs Elysees (Bordeaux was his wine of choice). He employed four French chefs and had his slave, James Hemings, learn the art of French cooking." 

A new biography of Cleopatra

I have to say I agree with Elena Maria Vidal in being excited about Stacy Schiff's new biography of Cleopatra VII, the last Pharaoh of Egypt, whose suicide on August 12th 30 B.C. marked the capitulation of Egypt to Roman rule.

Interestingly, I can't help but feel that the late Roman Republic's obsession with fiscal virtue and its demonisation of Cleopatra's Egypt as "decadent" has a lot in common with the recent republican/Tea Party obsession with lambasting America's present elite, via the route of criticising people for being educated at an Ivy League university. This excellent education somehow allegedly makes them either a corrupting or alien influence. (Here's looking at you Christine O'Donnell and Glenn Beck...) The fact that many of the critics of "the elite" are themselves people who work in television, drive SUVs, have disposable incomes, take regular holidays, have private health insurance and send their children to private schools does not seem to have occured to them. They too are a long away from the economic reality most Americans live with. Not that they seem to be in anyway aware of this... too much self-reflection is alas apt to get in the way of a rant. Anyone who has ever seen Glenn Beck try to explain the Divine Right of Kings or medieval history on his show will attest that a knowledge of any elite - or indeed common sense - is not his in abundance ...

Equally, the ancient patriotic republican idea that Rome equated with virtue and hard-work, while the East was saturated with corruption, laziness, extravagance and moral degeneracy also seem to echo the Tea Party or radical Right's bizarre interpretation of "American values," in which the noun "European" has somehow become the political insult de jour and has been extended as a definition to include the entire north-east coast.

To quote Cleopatra's new biographer: -

"In the late republic, that outsized wealth impugned her morals. To wax eloquent about someone's embossed silver, sumptuous carpets or marble statuary was to indict him. In the Roman view, Cleopatra quite literally possessed an embarrassment of riches. This meant that every evil in the profligacy family attached itself to her. Well before she became the sorceress of legend—a reckless, careless destroyer of men—Cleopatra was suspect as a reckless, careless destroyer of wealth. Even if she never melted a pearl in vinegar, as legend has it, she could well afford to do so... Gulping down his envy with a chaser of contempt, a Roman found himself less awed than offended by Egypt. He wrote off extravagance as detrimental to body and mind, sounding like no one so much as Mark Twain, resisting the siren call of Europe many centuries later. Staring an advanced civilization straight in the face, the Roman dismissed it as either barbarism or decadence....  The divide between the civilized, virtuous West and the tyrannical, dissolute East began in part with Rome and its Egyptian problem. Cleopatra emerged as stand-in for her occult, alchemical land, the intoxicating address of sex and excess. She wielded power shrewdly and easily, making her that rarest of things: a woman who—working from an original script—discomfited the very male precincts of traditional authority. Two thousand years later, those tensions and anxieties have not relaxed their hold."

The full article can be read here and I would really recommend it. 

The new biography can be viewed here on Amazon.com

"The Enchantments of Romance"

"There is no name in the annals of female royalty over which the enchantments of romance have cast such bewildering spells as that of Anne Boleyn." - Agnes Strickland, author of The Lives of the Queens of England 

Best-selling British historian, Alison Weir (above), reflects on the recent resurgence of interest in Anne Boleyn in an article published on The Anne Boleyn Files. Miss Weir has recently written three highly successful novels - Innocent Traitor, The Lady Elizabeth and The Captive Queen - but she is perhaps best-known for her non-fiction works, which include accounts of the mysterious death of the Princes in the Tower, the Wars of the Roses, the murder of Lord Darnley, the downfall of Anne Boleyn, the mid-Tudor monarchy, and the Tower of London, as well as biographies of the six wives of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry VIII, Isabella of France and Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster.

The Queen and the Tsarina

"Both women were vilified in ways that transcended all reality by their political enemies. In order to pull apart a family, destroy the image of the mother; in order to bring a nation into revolution, then destroy the reputation/ image of the queen/ empress, who was the mother figure of the people. If they could convince the people that the queen/empress was evil and that the king/tsar was an idiot, then it meant the children were no good and the entire family should be gotten rid of. It was a deliberate ploy. Antoinette and Alexandra are tragic because no matter what they did it played into the hands of their enemies.  The Great Catherine outwardly had lovers and no one held it against her and she was loved by the people. Napoleon's Josephine spent more money on clothes in one year than Marie-Antoinette did in her entire life and yet Josephine was popular with the French people. "

- Elena Maria Vidal, author of Trianon, Madame Royale and The Night's Dark Shade

Via the blog The Sword and the Sea comes a report of a recent online debate on the Alexander Palace Forum debating who was more maligned - Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France (1755 - 1793) or the Empress Alexandra of Russia (1872 - 1918.) American novelist, Elena Maria Vidal, herself the author of two novels based on the lives of Marie-Antoinette's family, offers a judiciously even-handed comparison of both women.

The Tsarina's demonisation by the opponents of the Russian monarchy is tragic, as is the breakdown of her own health in the years after 1905. However, in terms of picking who was the more unfairly traduced, my own sympathies would probably lie on the side of Marie-Antoinette. One gains the impression that she was certainly the "nicer" of the two women - if you had to pick which one to have dinner with, I'm sure Marie-Antoinette would top most people's list. However, the fact that Alexandra was a difficult personality is in itself part of the tragedy of her life and death. Alexandra's determination and struggle to remain devoted to her marriage and her belief in absolute monarchy, even as she faced her own health concerns, the terrible tragedy of her only son's life-threatening illness and her inability to like the glittering, high society glamour of life in Saint Petersburg, is truly admirable. That she was eventually consumed by paranoic fantasies of conspiracy theories is tragic, but perhaps unsurprising.

Interestingly, during her first official State Visit as Empress of Russia, Alexandra visited Paris with her husband, Tsar Nicholas II, and stayed in the apartments at Versailles once occupied by Marie-Antoinette. Like many Victorians, Alexandra was genuinely fascinated by the tragedy of Marie-Antoinette and she kept a large portrait of the dead Queen of France in her own apartments at Tsarskoe Selo.