Your Humble Blogger has a bit of a thing for Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West. Y’all may have noticed that. I’m more interested in Mr. Nicolson than in Ms. Sackville-West, actually, although what initially provoked my interest in them was the book of their letters to each other. I’ve read much more of his writings than hers, in part because he was writing about things that interest me more, and besides, with regret to National Poetry Month, I’m not all that keen on her sort of poetry.
Still, I picked up her novel The Edwardians and once I had started it, I found it easy to keep reading and had to quit. Particularly considering how much of a plot fiend I am, and how little plot there is in this thing.
What Ms. Sackville-West is interested in doing rather than telling a proper story (by my lights) is presenting a character, or rather a series of characters, with sketches and telling details. I know a lot of people who like slice-of-life stuff who would likely really enjoy this book, if it weren’t for the veddy English style and the fact that the life depicted is the British upper-crust in its last glittering whatsit. Gentle Readers who liked Gosford Park might want to try reading this book, as it’s the real thing without the faux murder mystery.
The book is at its best when describing Chevron, the ducal seat that is a village in itself. If it hasn’t occurred to you that a Stately Home of England at that level would require, say, a wood-cutter to get up every morning well before dawn to chop wood so that the bath water could be heated, not to mention the tea water, and that the house requires at least one full-time wood-cutter plus seasonal assistance, well, Ms. Sackville-West knows that sort of thing. She was born at Knole, after all.
The other thing that the book does well is show what exactly it means to be a Duke, or what it meant, anyway. There are 28 Dukes in England now (I had to look that up), each with a precise order of precedence. On the occasions that they contribute (such as at the Coronation that ends the book and the titular era) those Dukes have duties. The fictional Duke of Chevron realizes that he has a bit of medieval regalia to present to the monarch. This bit is presented to the monarch by the Duke of Chevron, and was presented to the last monarch by a Duke of Chevron, and the monarch before by a Duke of Chevron, back to Elizabeth. Nobody but a Duke of Chevron can present the thingumbob to a monarch, and the monarch isn’t properly crowned without the thingumbob. It’s all preposterous, but it still exists, and it’s no less a thing for its preposterousness.
By the way, the current Dukes are Edinburgh (Prince Consort Philip, given the duchy by his father-in-law to be on the eve of his wedding), York (Prince Andrew), Gloucester (Prince Richard, Grandson of George V and Mary), Kent (Prince Edward), Norfolk (the Earl Marshal), Abercorn, Somerset (Seymour), Richmond Gordon and Lennox (all three are one person), Grafton (of Euston Hall), Beaufort, St. Albans, Bedford, Devonshire (whose mother was a Mitford), Marlborough (Churchill-Spencer, who own the castle of Blenheim) and Rutland. That’s in order of precedence, although the Royal Family top the list because of their relation to the crown, not through their duchies.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
I don’t see Marma on the list?
With all the peerages for sale, I hadn’t realized there were titles that still had some sort of meaning. Well, Queen and Prince, obviously, but Duke wasn’t obvious. Even after reading this weekend through the wikipedia list of controversial remarks attributed to the Duke of Edinburgh. (It was a slow Sunday.)
One of the things that becomes clear as I read more and more stuff dealing with the English nobility is that there’s nobility, and then there are Dukes. Counts and Barons and Marquesses and Earls and Baronets and Viscounts may be for sale (although not proper English ones, which are for sale only the old-fashioned way), but a Duchy is something else.
Now, the Prince Consort is technically a Duke, with full ducal whatsit, but he’s not really a proper Duke. His father wasn’t a Duke and his children won’t inherit his Duchy. He is a Prince in his own right (and his grandmother was Queen of England), but if he weren’t married to the Queen, he’d have to walk in the back of the line. Of course, if he hadn’t married the Queen, he wouldn’t have been made a Duke. Which is, after all, the old-fashioned way.
Thanks,
-V.