5
The Heir Is Christened

On 19 January 1924 Catherine was safely delivered of a healthy baby boy. He was named Henry (for his father) George (for both his late grandfather and his godfather) Reginald (for his uncle, Catherine’s beloved brother and Porchey’s great friend) Molyneux (a family surname).

An ecstatic Porchey declared he had won the champagne stakes and telephoned the news to Eve and Brograve, Almina at Seamore Place and to Fearnside, newly installed as house steward, so that he could inform all the staff at Highclere. All trace of rancour between Porchey and Almina was temporarily set aside amidst the general rejoicing.

Catherine and Porchey had been in town since the beginning of January, staying in a house in Mayfair they had taken for the duration of Catherine’s confinement. Dr Johnnie, Almina’s friend and colleague, spent Christmas at Highclere in order to be on the spot just in case. Once the New Year’s celebrations were concluded, Catherine was anxious to travel while she still could, conscious that her baby might arrive at any moment. She had asked her mother to come to stay with her.

Porchey consulted Dr Johnnie, whom he had known all his life, on the engagement of nurses and doctors to attend Catherine. He also asked his mother and sister for their thoughts. Both Almina and Eve suggested Dr William Gilliatt, a renowned gynaecologist and obstetrician whom Almina had met as a result of her nursing work. Dr Johnnie concurred. Catherine had experienced no problems during pregnancy but, naturally, both she and Porchey were apprehensive.

Quite aside from the nerves common to all first-time parents, the fact was that childbirth in the 1920s was almost as risky for the mother (though not for the child) as it had been when Queen Victoria had ascended the throne in 1837. It wasn’t until the mid-1930s that maternal mortality began to decline dramatically, due principally to the rigorous use of antiseptics, which massively reduced the risk of puerperal fever, the greatest cause of death in childbirth.

Counter-intuitively, an upper-class woman in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s was more at risk of dying during childbirth than a working-class one. She was typically attended by a physician, who tended to advocate more interventionist methods that carried greater risk of infection, rather than a midwife, who from the 1920s onwards had increasingly received excellent specialist training in obstetrics, and favoured natural birth.

Fortunately, the birth went smoothly, and she and Porchey were jubilant over the arrival of their son. Two days later, Catherine began to receive visits from family and close friends. She had been advised by her doctor to take at least ten days of complete bed rest, so Doll ushered the visitors into Catherine’s bedroom. Doll was kept very busy bringing in the endless flowers and messages of congratulation, and liaising with nurses and the temporary household staff. Philippa and Eve were constantly at the house, enchanted with the baby and eager to help. Porchey, one suspects, probably availed himself of the opportunity to slip away to his favourite club, the Portland, to celebrate with friends over brandy, cigars and a game of bridge.

After the customary period of lying-in, Catherine was eager to return to Highclere. The bustle of well-wishers was joyous but also tiring, and she was longing for the peace of what she now thought of as home. All her married life, Catherine preferred to be at Highclere rather than in town.

At the end of February, Lord and Lady Carnarvon set off with the new Lord Porchester. They arrived at Highclere to a repetition of the chorus of delight they had left behind, from friends, neighbours, tenants and employees alike. For the many staff who had given years of service, this birth was an occasion for sincere happiness. For everyone, downstairs as well as up, the significance of His Lordship’s arrival was clear. The world was changing at a pace, but even so, the birth of a healthy baby boy was hugely significant when a complex succession could still feel as tortuous as a medieval saga.

Highclere and its inhabitants were far more modern than, say, the fabulously wealthy Earls Fitzwilliam at Wentworth House in south Yorkshire, who cultivated the lifestyle of a feudal clan. It was the Fitzwilliams’ custom to celebrate the arrival of an heir with a spectacular party for their tens of thousands of tenants and employees. They spurned such luxuries as electricity and sanitation well into the twentieth century and were still squabbling over the 1902 succession of the 7th Earl seventy years after the event. Such lavish melodrama was quite alien to Porchey and Catherine, but there was still a whiff of the seigneurial about the summoning of the staff to the Library to receive at Lord Carnarvon’s hand a drawstring purse containing a gold sovereign, in honour of his son and heir. One maid recalled that ‘we all had to have spotlessly clean aprons. We were to say, “thank you my lord,” curtsey and go.’

Porchey was very much in favour of maintaining such traditions. In many ways he was a moderniser in his social circle and his personal habits, a man who all his life enjoyed the company of fun-loving, easy-going people, be they duchesses or actors, but he also took his responsibilities seriously. Some aspects of communal life at Highclere were just the same as they had been for generations, and this was a moment heavy with the symbolism of many centuries. For the outside staff, it was the first time they had been in the house, and for the kitchen and scullery maids, it was the first time they had been upstairs. Old-fashioned the gesture might have been, but doubtless the generosity was very welcome.

Lord Porchester was christened on Easter Sunday, 20 April, in Highclere Church, which sits just outside the gates to the western side of the estate. It is a beautiful Victorian Gothic building of flint and brick. The 4th Earl of Carnarvon commissioned Sir Gilbert Scott to design it as the rather larger replacement for the succession of churches that had stood next to the mansion at Highclere since medieval times. Sir Charles Barry and later Thomas Allom had already created the soaring castle but were both undecided on how to redesign the church to complement the new style of architecture. Barry died in 1860 and the 4th Earl then took the simpler option of constructing a wholly separate Highclere Church.

Spring sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows and the building smelled of narcissi and apple blossom. It was already filled to overflowing with the congregation, a sea of neat hats and happy chatter.

The first car to leave for the church contained Lady Evelyn and Sir Brograve Beauchamp, Reggie and Philippa Wendell and Dr Johnnie. Catherine followed in the Rolls-Royce, with her mother and husband. The ubiquitous press reports tell us that she was wearing a ‘crepe marocain in a delicate shade of fuschia’ while her mother wore a ‘smart black and white charmeuse’.

Following tradition, Lord Porchester was to travel in the arms of his nanny, Mrs Sambell, driven by the coachman in the gleaming phaeton. The baby was dressed in the ivory satin christening gown that had been used for both his father and grandfather; the garment had lain carefully wrapped in tissue paper in a trunk since its last outing, a generation previously, at Eve’s christening.

The happy parents stepped out of the car to waiting photographers from the London papers and the local Newbury Weekly News. There was no sign of the phaeton. They waited for a few minutes and then, slightly worried, had just asked Trotman the chauffeur to return with the car to look for it when they arrived, the pony trotting smartly through the church gates. ‘Sergeant Cass, the gallant police officer from Kingsclere’ assisted Mrs Sambell and Lord Porchester’s safe descent from the little carriage.

The service was conducted by the Reverend Isaac James. HRH Prince George had delighted Porchey and Catherine by agreeing to stand as godfather, though Reggie Wendell had to deputise for him when he was held up at a function at Windsor Castle and arrived just as the ceremony was finishing. Marian Wendell acted as proxy for Almina, in her role as godmother. Ian was too unwell to be left alone so she did not attend the ceremony, though she sent a very warm telegram of congratulations. Afterwards a large part of the congregation made for the house and drank Lord Porchester’s health in some of the finest vintages that Highclere’s cellars could provide.

The focus of the event, meanwhile, was laid in the elaborate cradle in which his father and grandfather had slept before him. The nursery was on the second floor, a comfortable series of rooms comprising day and night nurseries, and a bed-sitting room for Mrs Sambell. Catherine had undertaken refurbishments between shooting weekends and house parties during the autumn of the previous year, so the wallpaper was fresh, as were the blankets and quilts and piles of baby clothes. Maud Stratford, the night watchman’s daughter, was taken on as nursemaid.

Catherine’s album contains a series of photos of her and the infant Lord Porchester, taken to celebrate his birth and published, as was now customary for any significant event in her life, by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. In one, she is shot in profile, gazing down at her child, who lies on what appears to be a white rug. They almost fill the photo frame. She is wearing a white fur stole and pearls and a white satin evening gown and looks impossibly glamorous, like the 1920s equivalent of today’s Hollywood goddesses, back in slinky shape just weeks after the birth of their children.

January 1924 was momentous for the country as a whole, as well as for the Carnarvons. There had been a general election in December of 1923, called by Stanley Baldwin, the Conservative Prime Minister, who was effectively seeking a referendum for his controversial protectionist policy. He had assumed the position of PM after the sudden death in May 1923 of the sitting Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law, who, though also a Conservative, had held the opposite view on the vexed question of whether or not to reform Britain’s trade laws. Stanley Baldwin felt it was essential to ask the electorate for its support rather than plunge into a policy for which he had no mandate. The result was the loss of its majority of seats for the Conservative Party, and a collapse among the Liberal vote from which the political descendants of the venerable Whigs never recovered.

The precursor of the modern Labour Party had been founded in 1900 at a conference in Farringdon Street, London, which brought together left-wing organisations to sponsor Parliamentary candidates. It was now the second-largest presence in the House of Commons. When it became clear that there would be a hung parliament, and since Baldwin had suffered a comprehensive defeat and could not therefore credibly continue as Prime Minister, the King sent for the leader of the new opposition. In January, Ramsay MacDonald became the first Labour Prime Minister of Great Britain.

The political scene in the early and mid-1920s very probably struck anxiety into the hearts of Porchey, Catherine and most of the people they knew. As well as the moves towards limited independence for India, the jewel of the British Empire, the Irish Free State Constitution Act had been passed in 1922, granting independence to a dominion that would become, in 1949, the Republic of Ireland. The long and increasingly bloody struggle for Irish Home Rule, independence and full nationhood had taken its crucial turn. For the strong Unionist element in the Conservative Party, it was a betrayal of principle, and a buckling under to terrorism.

Domestic politics was also undergoing a period of significant change. The interests of the landed classes had traditionally been allied with the Conservative Party, whilst commerce had found its representatives among the Liberals. Those distinctions, both between social classes and allegiance to political parties, had in practice been breaking down since the end of the nineteenth century. During the first three decades of the new century there had been periods of considerable fluidity between the Conservatives and Liberals, who at least viewed each other as known quantities. For six years from 1916, there was a coalition government, formed by the centrist wings of the two parties. But the emergence of the Labour Party, which sought to represent the interests of newly enfranchised working men, was a wholly new phenomenon. Some segments of the media and the people regarded the Labour Party as little better than a front for Soviet Russia but there were many, even among the party’s political opponents, who could see that its existence was both inevitable and necessary.

Duff Cooper reflected on the emotional mood of the electorate in 1923 in his memoir, written some thirty-five years later. He observed that it was a time not of poverty but of plenty, but only for a very few. He was referring at least as much to those new men who entered the House of Commons on the back of the money they had made during the war, as to the aristocracy. There was a sense in political circles that, in the circumstances, the Labour Party deserved to earn its spurs, despite the fear of revolution that was very real in the wake of events in Russia in 1917. Duff Cooper expressed some slight disappointment that the Labour victory demonstration struck a note of ‘respectable middle-class non-conformity’ rather than anything more violent. As he says, he ought to have been relieved, and presumably, despite the rhetorical flourish, he was.

On 14 October 1924, Philippa Wendell, Catherine’s little sister, married Randolph Algernon Ronald Stewart, 12th Earl of Galloway, at St Margaret’s Westminster. The bride and groom had met at Porchey and Catherine’s wedding. He was thirteen years older than her. If Jac Wendell had felt a twinge of misgiving about Porchey as a prospective brother-in-law, it was nothing to the outright suspicion with which he regarded Lord Galloway.

The reasons for Jac’s unease are not obscure. Quite apart from the age gap, there was the fact that Lord Galloway spent a lot of time in London, where he enjoyed a great many women’s company. Jac saw no sign of him giving up the habit. In addition, although the Earls of Galloway are an ancient Scottish family, they had fallen on hard times. They lost their ancestral seat, Galloway House, in 1908, and relocated to what had once been a shooting lodge, Cumloden House, just outside the small market town of Newton Stewart. Of all the Wendell siblings, it had been Jac, as the eldest, who had seen most closely the effect that losing his wealth had on their father. Jacob Wendell’s self-reinvention after his bankruptcy was a brave act, but it had come out of a profound crisis. Perhaps Jac had an instinctive older brother’s fear that Philippa was exposing herself to a burden she did not really understand.

In any case, the wedding went ahead. Catherine kept a photo taken some months later, of the newly married couple sitting on a garden bench. Philippa is in a striking embroidered blouse that looks like the sort of thing the artist Frida Kahlo would wear. Her strong features and the artful curls on her forehead contribute to the impression of Bohemianism. Her expression is intense, almost smouldering. Lord Galloway is far more conventionally dressed, in a three-piece suit. He looks distinctly pleased with himself, as well he might, given the presence of his beautiful young wife by his side.

By the time her sister married, Catherine was pregnant again and Porchey’s debt to the Exchequer now urgently needed to be paid. The trustees had been accurate in their predictions of the sum required. The moment had arrived to take some difficult decisions about what to sell.

There was one particularly tangible and valuable asset, though he was loath to part with it: the famous Carnarvon pearl necklace. It had passed from generation to generation and can be seen adorning the neck of the 1st Lady Carnarvon in her 1638 portrait by Anthony Van Dyck, which still hangs in the Dining Room at Highclere. It pained Porchey greatly to lose the pearls and he felt badly for Catherine, who had worn them only once and would never wear them again. But she was brisk. ‘Don’t be silly, darling. I don’t mind at all and it’s so much better than the alternative.’ So Porchey’s first strategy was to head to Paris. He decided to negotiate in person with Jacques Cartier. In the end he received £55,000 for the necklace, a fantastic sum. Next he sold two farms bordering Highclere and some of the household’s better silver; then Bingham, a smaller estate in Nottinghamshire. It was not enough.

Almost in despair, Porchey went to his mother. To his immense relief, she was quite breezy about everything. ‘We are in a far more fortunate position than many families, darling. It is simply a matter of deciding which pieces to sell. Of course I am happy to help.’ Good as her word, Almina began by gifting Porchey most of the 5th Earl’s collection of racehorses. Highclere Stud had been another of the 5th Earl’s expensive projects but, unlike Egyptology, was an interest that his son shared. Porchey was already something of an expert and was excited about building up the stud as a source of income. He was consequently very reluctant to sell the horses.

Then Almina announced that she was arranging the sale of her husband’s beloved Egyptian collection. Howard Carter would help her catalogue it and it would probably raise the most money if sold to America. The next step would be to hold a sale of works from her father’s outstanding collection of paintings and antique furniture. Almina stipulated that Porchey also had to do his bit and should draw up a list of pieces to sell from Highclere. ‘Why don’t you start by asking Mr Duveen down to give you his opinion?’