Death at the Abbey (27 page)

A
UTHOR'S
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OTE

Located south of Worksop—the largest town in Nottinghamshire's northernmost district—the Dukeries is a district so named because it once contained four ducal estates totaling some eighty-eight thousand acres: Worksop Manor, seat of the Dukes of Norfolk; Clumber Park, seat of the Dukes of Newcastle; Thoresby Hall, seat of the Dukes of Kingston and later the Earls Manvers; and Welbeck Abbey, seat of the Dukes of Portland. The parklands of these four magnificent estates are largely contiguous, making this area notable for the number of English ducal families who once lived in such close proximity.

The Duke of Norfolk sold Worksop Manor to the Duke of Newcastle in 1839, preferring to spend more time at Arundel Castle. Newcastle demolished the main part of the house. Later, in the 1930s, Newcastle demolished Clumber House because of the expensive upkeep, although the park now belongs to the National Trust. Thoresby Hall is today a country house hotel.

Welbeck Abbey was built as a religious house in 1153 to 1154. It flourished, but by February 1539 it was largely destroyed under the order of Henry VIII, who waged a war against the Vatican to assert his own supremacy over the church in England. In 1584, it came into the possession of Gilbert Talbot, who later became the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury. He was a stepson of the infamous Bess of Hardwick, who arranged his marriage with her daughter. Through Bess's machinations, Welbeck Abbey came into the hands of her third son, Sir Charles Cavendish. Sir Charles's son, William Cavendish, was the father of Jane, Elizabeth, and Frances Cavendish, who grew up at Welbeck Abbey and who would courageously defend it during the English Civil War when their feckless father abandoned them there. The story of the girls burying silver on the estate is my own invention.

Lady Margaret Cavendish-Holles-Harley inherited Welbeck in 1741, and brought the home into the Bentinck family by marrying William Bentinck, the 2nd Duke of Portland. The Bentincks were a noble Dutch family descended from Hans Wilhelm Bentinck, groom of the bedchamber (a highly coveted position) to William of Orange, who made him Earl of Portland.

The 3rd Duke of Portland, William Henry Bentinck, became prime minister twice during the reign of George III. He inherited Welbeck from his mother, and married Lady Dorothy Cavendish, daughter of the 4th Duke of Devonshire and herself also a descendant of Bess of Hardwick. It was at this point that the family adopted the name Cavendish-Bentinck.

The home went through various stages of repair and expansion through the nearly three centuries between the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury and William John Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, the 5th Duke of Portland (1800–1879). It was this duke who launched one of the most remarkable building projects in England, mostly underground. Over the years, he added a ballroom, a warren of guest rooms, a chapel, and a library—all underground. He also built miles of tunnels to take him to various places, including the train station in Worksop, and these tunnels were always built in pairs—one side large enough for workers to walk four abreast, and the other side large enough to accommodate the ducal carriage. It is estimated that the duke spent £2 to £3 million on all of his projects.

Portland served in the Grenadier Guards prior to his elevation as Marquess of Titchfield upon the death of his elder brother, William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, in 1824. The Grenadier Guards is the most senior regiment of infantry in the British Army and traces back to the mid-seventeenth century. During the Victorian era, the regiment took part in the Crimean War. It was involved later in the Anglo-Egyptian War, the Second Boer War, World War I, and World War II, and has been involved in various peacekeeping missions since then. Portland reached the rank of captain in this prestigious regiment. For the sake of the story, I portray the guards as having participated in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826), which resulted in British control over Burma.

Portland was one of nine children, of which three died prior to 1869. I have chosen to include three of his remaining siblings in the story.

One of Portland's younger brothers, Lord Henry William Scott-Bentinck (1804–1870), was an enthusiastic hunting man and as much an authority on hounds as his brother was on horses. Lord Henry sat as a Conservative Party member of Parliament for North Nottinghamshire from 1847 to 1857, and was also a trustee of the British Museum.

One of Portland's younger sisters, Lady Charlotte Bentinck, married John Evelyn Denison (1800–1873), Speaker of the House of Commons from 1857 to 1872. Denison is particularly known for having championed
The Bible Commentary,
later known as
The Speaker's Commentary
in his honor, a plain but complete and accurate commentary on the Bible that was assigned to Frederick Charles Cook for producing. Denison also picked up the seat as the member of Parliament for North Nottinghamshire after his brother-in-law, Lord Henry, vacated it in 1857. Denison was made the 1st Viscount Ossington in 1872, a title he only enjoyed for less than a year until his death. As the couple was childless, the title went extinct.

Another of Portland's sisters, Lady Lucy Joan Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck (1807–1899), married Charles Ellis, 6th Baron Howard de Walden. The baron was a British diplomat and politician, and together they had five sons, the eldest of whom was Frederick George Ellis (1830–1899), who became the 7th Baron in 1868. As a young man, Frederick assisted his father in overseeing the family's holdings of Jamaica sugar plantations and later became a major in the 4th Light Dragoons. Unfortunately, the elder Ellis died with his estate in debt, and Frederick inherited this debt.

Lady Lucy managed to discharge her husband's debts, but Frederick's life was not to prove a smooth one. In 1876, he married Blanche Holden, and they had a son, Thomas Evelyn. By 1893, though, the couple had become engaged in a bitter divorce suit. Frederick accused Blanche of “undue intimacy” with Count Jean de Madre of Paris and with a Captain Winter. In return, Blanche accused Frederick of physical abuse and cruelty, alleging that he had threatened to shoot her. Press reports of the trial described testimony of Frederick frequently returning home drunk and vomiting in bed, developing “filthy and hoggish habits” that prevented Blanche from sharing a bed with him. Although these events happened two decades after my story, I chose to use the accusations made against Frederick as the basis for describing him as a younger man. I do not know if Lady Lucy and her son lived at Harcourt House—which was indeed brought into the family through a card game—but I don't think it is unreasonable to think that her brother might have given her the use of his London home since her husband left her essentially destitute. Today, Harcourt House is a mix of commercial offices and medical spaces, as well as several residential units.

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898), a British Liberal politician, had an exceedingly long political career of more than sixty years, of which more than ten years were spent as prime minister in four separate periods. He also served four times as chancellor of the exchequer. Gladstone's administration was most noted for reforming the haphazard poor relief system, and working with charities to instill the Victorian values of self-reliance and self-discipline. An interesting tidbit about Gladstone is that he lost the forefinger of his left hand in a hunting accident while reloading a gun in 1842. After that, he always wore gloves or a finger sheath. Gladstone was also a great admirer of Charlotte Yonge's romantic novels, I suspect primarily because they had religious and moral undertones to them.

Robert Lowe, the 1st Viscount Sherbrooke (1811–1892), was chancellor of the exchequer from 1868 to 1873, and then home secretary from 1873 to 1874. Gladstone appointed Lowe as chancellor, expecting him to rein in public spending. Instead, public spending rose, and Lowe repeatedly underestimated revenue the Crown would receive, thus enabling him to resist demands to implement tax cuts and reduce the national debt. Gladstone pronounced Lowe “wretchedly deficient.”

Portland purchased a vast amount in consols from the British government. Consols are high-grade bonds, or “gilts,” with low risk and low yields, and virtually no maturity date. The consols Portland purchased were issued in order to help the government finance an expedition to Abyssinia to rescue several missionaries and two government representatives from the emperor of the Ethiopian empire, to be followed by a punitive invasion. Portland's investment in these bonds was critical to the success of the British mission. However, his building projects were requiring vast sums for completion, as well, and Portland began calling in the bonds in 1868 during the tenures of both Gladstone and Lowe. This probably caused no end of irritation to the government, which was counting on Portland's money to finance the venture. I used this as a basis for the fictional Jack LeCato's involvement with Welbeck Abbey and his attempt to slow down Portland's building projects to, in turn, prevent the duke from needing so much money at one time.

At first blush, Portland appears to have been an eccentric among eccentrics, what with his bizarre building projects, extreme reclusiveness, and odd personal habits. However, a closer examination of the duke reveals a man who was kind and considerate, and cared deeply for his workers. Although he is remembered as the “mad duke” and the “prince of silence” who was completely out of touch with the world, it should be noted that he sent out a whole shipload of food and beer for the British troops in the Crimea—an extraordinarily expensive venture—and also gave £4,000 to help Turkish hospitals in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. He was well known for generosity with his money, and did indeed provide all of his estate workers with an umbrella and a donkey to enable them to get to work safely and without fatigue. He also established a widows' and orphans' fund to care for the families of workers who had died, even providing widows with cottages for life after the deaths of their husbands.

Unfortunately, it is mostly his quirks that history notes: the chickens roasting at all hours, the salmon-painted walls of empty rooms, the old-fashioned clothing, and the secret tunnels and bizarre warren of unused, underground rooms.

Portland's involvement with his workers seems excessive to us today, but would have been welcomed and celebrated in his time. He did indeed install a roller-skating rink for his staff, and encouraged them to use it for their good health. He also liked them to row on the lake, and would even coach them in oarsmanship.

He was a keen hunter and a renowned expert in horses, even building a riding school that was second in size only to the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria. He regularly inspected his stables, and enjoyed watching young horses being broken. His naming of rooms after extinct horse breeds, however, is my own invention.

I have described many of his tunnels and structures—the ballroom, the chapel, the skating rink, and so forth—but not everything existed in 1869, as tunneling operations had just commenced in 1864. For example, the ballroom was not completed until 1872. However, I wanted to show the reader the breadth of the duke's building ambitions. The unusual contents of the subterranean ballroom—the drop earrings and chalice from Charles I, the letters from the Stuarts—have been documented.

Sadly, for all of Portland's kindheartedness, he was thwarted in love. Early in his life, he fell for and proposed to Adelaide Kemble, an opera singer and sister of Fanny Kemble, the famous actress. She refused him, and it does not appear that he ever courted another woman after that deep wounding.

An interesting note for history buffs who enjoy the most minute pieces of trivia, as I do: Adelaide Kemble married Edward John Sartoris, a landowner and member of Parliament (being an opera singer didn't close
all
doors to you). In 1874, their son, Algernon, married Nellie Grant, daughter of President Ulysses S. Grant, in the East Room of the White House.

Portland died in 1879 at his London home, Harcourt House, at the age of seventy-nine, and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in London. True to his unprepossessing nature, he instructed that his tomb be surrounded with shrubs, which soon completely obscured it from view, thus rendering the duke completely anonymous in death. Welbeck Abbey passed to his cousin William, who actually used the home and its structures for parties and guest visits. The house was used by the military during both world wars, and from 1953 until 2005, part of it housed an armed forces college.

In his 1907 history of the Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck family, Charles Archard describes Portland as an ogre and a cynic who was nonetheless kind and considerate. I have attempted to portray Portland as the genuinely multidimensional—and unusual—man that he was. I like to think that he would approve.

The Reverend James Appleton was the vicar of Worksop Priory in 1869, but little is known about him, so I was able to have some fun in his characterization.

The Nottingham coalfield was a relatively new coalfield in 1869, having had its first serious mine sunk in 1841. As a result, Nottingham tended to be at the forefront of technological advancements in coal mining, leading the way in mechanization of coal mining and eliminating pit ponies in favor of underground transports for both men and coal.

“Home children” is the term used to refer to the child migration program implemented by Annie MacPherson in 1869, devised to rescue poor and orphaned children in the United Kingdom and send them to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa for a chance at a better life and to alleviate the shortage of labor in those countries.

Such practices began as far back as 1618, with the transportation of a hundred vagrant English children to the Virginia Colony to work. This, of course, led to the kidnapping of other children to work in the Americas, and large numbers of children were forced to migrate until the scheme was exposed in 1757.