The Dukes (25 page)

The most famous of the Buccleuch houses is Boughton House, near Kettering in Northamptonshire, with its seventy miles of avenues, and 100 acres of garden, modelled after Versailles. The estate covers 11,000 acres. When Chips Channon saw it in 1945 he was aghast with wonder; he wrote in his diary :

"It is a dream house with a strange, sleepy quality, but its richness, its beauty and possessions are stupefying. Everything belonged to Charles I, or Marie de Medici, or was given by Louis XIV to the Duke of Monmouth. Every 'enfilade' is elegantly arranged with Buhl chests, important pictures, Caffieri clocks, and the whole house is crammed with tapestries and marvellous objects ... It has hardly been lived in for 200 years. There is a writing-table which belonged to Cardinal Mazarin and 14 small Van Dyks in Walter Buccleuch's 'loo'. Over all this splendour Mollie reigns delightfully and effortlessly."
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Mollie was the Duchess, mother of the present Duke; elsewhere Channon says she has difficulty deciding which of her five tiaras to wear. Her predecessor was the Duchess of Buccleuch, whom the Duchess of Marlborough shocked by seating her housekeeper next to her in the pew of Westminster Abbey. Lady Warwick said that "Society for her consisted only of those upon whom she permitted herself to smile. The unfavoured were all of the outer darkness."
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'Boughton House came to the Buccleuchs through the Duke of Montagu, who built it. Through the Duke of Queensberry came the other impressive property, already mentioned, Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire. If Boughton is the most beautiful house in England, then Drumlanrig is the most romantic in Scotland. It stands on a lofty hill, alone and dominant, and is built in local pink sandstone which glows in the sunset. Above the main entrance, clustered with turrets and towers, is a huge ducal coronet in stone. It is a breath­taking sight. It has been described as standing on a teacup inverted in a washbasin, the rim of which is the ring of mountains which the 5th Duke told Miss Gladstone were his park walls.

Then there is Eildon Hall in Roxburghshire, and Bowhill in Selkirk. Dalkeith House in Edinburgh is let to International Computers. The other houses are lived in.

The man who has recently succeeded to this daunting inheritance, currently amounting to a quarter of a million acres, is the 9th Duke of Buccleuch (born 1923), an unassuming cheerful former M.P. known to the House of Commons as "Johnny Dalkeith". While styled as the Earl of Dalkeith during his father's lifetime, he repre­sented Edinburgh North in the Commons, where he was warmly regarded. He was the first of his family for generations to marry out­side the aristocracy, choosing a pretty and enchanting model then known as Miss Jane McNeil. (His aunt Alice, daughter of the 7th Duke, married into the Royal Family, and is now H.R.H. Princess Alice, Dowager Duchess of Gloucester.)

Dalkeith's political career was interrupted by a serious riding accident which occurred in 1971, and which left him completely paralysed from the chest down. The horse fell on him and broke his spine. He did not lose consciousness, and remembers clearly his imme­diate thoughts. "The moment the horse fell on me, I knew my back was broken. I realised quite clearly that I was paralysed from the chest down and that I would have to learn to adjust to a completely new way of life. It was five minutes before anyone reached me. By this time I had weighed up the situation and was ready to start the process of recovery."
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After convalescence, Dalkeith returned to the House of Commons in a wheelchair.

He might well have been able to continue service in the House for many years, but the decision not to was made for him by his father's death in 1973, when he became 9th Duke of Buccleuch and 11th Duke of Queensberry, as well as succeeding to ten other titles, with such romantic Scottish names as Earl of Drumlanrig and Sanquhar, Viscount of Nith, Torthorwald and Ross, and Lord Douglas of Kinmount, Middlebie and Dornock. His English titles are Earl of Doncaster and Baron Scott of Tindal. There is no reason in law or logic why he should not also be Duke of Monmouth, but only the 1st Duke held that title. When he was beheaded for high treason in 1685 Monmouth's English titles were forfeited. His grandson, the 2nd Duke of Buccleuch, was restored by Act of Parliament in 1742 to the English peerages of Doncaster and Tindal, but not to the dukedom of Monmouth. The reason was presumably that there was already then living an Earl of Monmouth; this earldom became extinct in 1814, since when the way has been open for the Duke of Buccleuch to be restored as Duke of Monmouth. It is still within the Queen's power to reverse the attainder and resurrect this historic title.

One other distinction the Duke enjoys is Lord of the Manor of the Hundred of Knightlow in Warwickshire. In this capacity he is entitled to claim payment of the "Wroth Silver" on nth November (Martinmas Day) every year. The ceremony has been faithfully con­ducted for about 1000 years. There are twenty-eight parishes involved, and each one sends a representative to drop his contribution to the silver in the hollow of Knightlow Cross. They usually drop mere pennies. But the whole procedure becomes potentially interesting if anyone defaults in payment. He then has to pay £1 for every penny that his contribution is short, or provide and give to the Duke a white bull with a red nose and red ears. When the ceremony is completed, they all repair to the Dun Cow at Stretton to celebrate with hot rum and milk.

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The descendants of the Duke of Grafton have been chiefly remark­able for their indolence and their longevity. The 2nd Duke was "almost a slobberer, without one good quality" according to Dean Swift,
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while Lord Waldegrave said he was "totally illiterate; yet from long observation and great natural sagacity he became the courtier of his time. . . . He was a great teazer; had an established right of saying whatever he pleased."
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Lord Hervey thought him a "booby" and wrote an unkind verse about him :

"So your friend, booby Grafton, I'll e'en let you keep, Awake he can't hurt, and he's still half asleep. Nor ever was dangerous but to womankind, And his body's as impotent now as his mind." However, he was Lord Chamberlain to George II, and an influential man. And he built Euston Road. Walpole tells an amusing story about Grafton when he was old and ill, covered in sores. The Duke of Newcastle was forever "popping in", and had a disconcerting habit of throwing his arms around men and kissing them repeatedly and passionately. Grafton's doctors thought Newcastle a nuisance and a pest, and ordered that he should not be allowed in the house. But he forced his way in, and

"The Duke's gentleman would not admit him to the bedchamber, saying His Grace was asleep. Newcastle protested he would go in on tiptoe and only look at him - he rushed in, clattered his heels to waken him, then fell upon the bed, kissing and hugging him. Grafton waked; 'God, what's here?' 'Only I, my dear Lord' - Buss, buss, buss, buss.! - 'God! How can you be such a beast to kiss such a creature as I am, all over plasters! Get along, get along!' and turned about and went to sleep."
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Grafton and Newcastle had both been, at various times, lovers of George II's daughter, the Princess Amelia. According to some sources, Grafton had spent time with another royal daughter, Princess Caro­line.

The real torment of the 2nd Duke's life was his son and heir Lord Euston, who by every account was a wicked and repellent creature. The facts are few, and his contemporaries seem too horrified to enter into details when they refer to him, but his evil reputation rests upon his disgraceful treatment of his wife. Lord Euston married Lady Dorothy Boyle on ioth October, 1741. Within seven months, she was dead, and everyone appeared to be glad for her. Lady Dorothy was the daughter of the Earl of Burling­ton (whose house was where the Royal Academy now stands in Piccadilly, and after whom Burlington Arcade is named). She was pretty, good-natured, gentle and quiet, and she had the misfortune when only sixteen to fall in love with Lord Euston. She adored him, fawned upon him, worshipped his every word. She seemed blind to what everyone else knew, which was that he was boorish and cruel, with a fearful temper, inherited no doubt from his great-grandmother Barbara Villiers. At a ball at the Duke of Norfolk's in October 1740 (a year before they married) Euston was seen to treat his fiancée with public contempt. On another occasion, at dinner, in front of assembled guests, he shouted at her across the table, "Lady Dorothy, how greedily you eat! It is no wonder that you are so fat." The poor girl blushed and began to cry. Her mother, Lady Burlington, came to her defence. "It is true, my lord, that she is fat, and I hope she will always be so, for it is her constitution, and she will never be lean until she is less happy than we have always tried to make her, which I shall endeavour to prevent her being." It is not recorded how the bullish Earl reacted to that humiliating riposte, but he was too insen­sitive for it to affect him. Lady Hertford, who was present, said that were the young lady
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daughter, she would sooner prepare for her funeral than for such a marriage.
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Horace Mann recalls another instance when Lord Euston "gave a specimen of himself many years ago here, when he was so rude as to make the mild little Lady Essex say that she would hit him a slap in the face".
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His behaviour must indeed have been unusually provocative to splinter the calm of aristocratic reserve to this extent.

Nothing was able to prevent Lady Dorothy's rush into disaster. After the marriage, Lord Euston forbade his mother-in-law to enter his house. Scandal exploded immediately. Walpole wrote in a tizzy only a fortnight after the wedding,

"I wrote you word that Lord Euston is married: in a week more I believe I shall write you word that he is divorced. He is brutal enough; and has forbid Lady Burlington his house, and that in very ungentle terms. The whole family is in confusion; the Duke of Grafton half dead, and Lord Burlington half mad. The latter has challenged Lord Euston, who accepted the challenge, but they were prevented ... in short, one cannot go into a room but you hear something of it. Do you not pity the poor girl? of softest temper, vast beauty, birth, and fortune, to be so sacrificed! "
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There is total obscurity about what happened in those seven months of marriage. Hanbury Williams asserted that the marriage was never consummated.
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Euston had had another bride in view, and we do not know what made him switch to Dorothy Boyle. Certainly, all the love was on her side. Walpole says above that Euston was "brutal . . . ungentle". Lady Orrery says that Dorothy "died from his ill- treatment of her", but does not specify in what way his treatment was ill.
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Another writer can only bring himself to say that Lord Euston's behaviour was "almost too revolting to be believed", without telling us what it was so that we may be given the chance to believe it or not.

In fairness, Lady Dorothy's health had never been vigorous. When she was twelve years old she wrote to her mother

"This is to let you know that I was took with a swimming in my head last Saturday and they told me on Sunday that I had a sort of fit in the night but I was asleep and knew nothing of it and they sent to Mr Terry to come and he went next morning to consult Dr Mead who ordered Mr Dickens to come and bleed me which he did and at night Mr Terry gave me a vomit."
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It might well be that the "swimming" in her head was old-fashioned intoxication, to judge by the liquid nourishment she was served. "Pray mama send me word what you would have me drink with my dinner", she wrote, "for the Barrel Beer is so thick and so bitter that I cannot drink it."
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Medically, her death was caused by smallpox, for which Euston cannot in all justice be blamed. Yet contemporaries were in no doubt that he had contributed in some way.

After her death, her mother painted a portrait of her from memory, and placed beneath it this telling inscription :

LADY DOROTHY BOYLE

born May the 14th 1724

She was the comfort and Joy of her parents, the delight of all who knew her angelick temper, and the admiration of all who saw her beauty. She was married October the 10th, 1741, and delivered (by death) from misery
May the 2nd, 1742

The portrait is in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire.

A print was also published of Lady Dorothy, beneath which was appended this fulsome poem :

"View here ye Fair the boast of Female life,

The faultless virgin, and the faithful wife;

Once her fond parents' comfort, joy and pride,

Who never gave them pang, till made a bride;

In virtue, as in Beauty, she excelled,

Yet Nature equally the balance held;

When seen, all hearts her willing slaves became;

When known, that knowledge damp'd each kindling flame :

The wish of every noble Youth she shone,

Till Love and Honour gave her all to One;

To one - alas! - unworthy such a prize,