The Accidental Duchess: From Farmer's Daughter to Belvoir Castle

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The Duke and Duchess show no sign of slowing down but they are in their 70s. . The next Duchess of Gloucester looks like being a consultant paediatrician. The Gloucestershire couple have three children: Alexander Windsor who is known as the Earl of Ulster, Lady Davina Windsor and Lady Rose Windsor

This book is the autobiography of her mother, Emma. Born the daughter of a prosperous Welsh farmer, she does have a very upper-middle-class upbringing (boarding school, Pony Club, working as a chalet girl, etc) but doesn't initially realise that the guy calling himself David Granby is a real-life marquess. They meet at a party, end up marrying, and in due course they have five children. When her father-in-law dies, they become the Duke and Duchess of Rutland, owners of the sprawling stately home Belvoir and several hundred acres of land. But as she shows, it's not all ballgowns and shooting parties. Keeping an estate like Belvoir running profitably is very hard work. Both characters come a long way, and even though neither of them ever thought they would suit (and they were together in scenes in past books and you would never know they’d end up married), in the end they both realise it’s exactly what they need. The Duchess of Gloucester toured bombed areas of Coventry after the Nazi air raids. Here she is pictured with the Mayor of Coventry, Alderman J. A. Moseley in 1940. (Image: CT) Madeline Hunter is a fantastic writer. She deserves props for that and I am a huge fan of hers. I have struggled writing this review because I am not used to feeling this way about her work. There’s also time to discover the stunning grounds, which features the rose-studded formal gardens, Japanese Woodland, the Regency-style Duchess Garden plus the remarkable Capability Brown gardens, brought to fruition after his late 18th-century plans were discovered in the castle archives in January 2013.

Rarely have I encountered such interesting and untypical characters nestled in a fabulously unique plot with links to badness, treasonous behavior, and taking advantage of a young woman. In addition the role of male relatives and husbands is explored in regards to their control over their sisters and wives in day to day movement, financial matters and allowed behaviors. But, while the men are in control they don’t act as if the women are dolts. The Duchess does indeed seem a remarkable woman – courageous, a bit batty (she communes with the spirit of the 5th Duchess) and fearlessly unconventional. So this is an engaging book and conceivably useful if you find yourself married to a duke with a 200-room castle to run. I imagine it will sell for years in the Belvoir gift shop.

The Duchess of Gloucester during a visit to Good Hope hospital in Sutton Coldfield (Image: Birmingham Post and Mail) Alexander is next in line for the Gloucester title,, followed by his son Xan Windsor, known as Lord Culloden. But the royal dukedom will devolve into an ordinary one because he will only be the great-grandson of a sovereign.I'm going to sound like I'm letting our side down as another woman, but I really didn't get into Lydia's 'I am woman here me roar' anthem. I don't believe people should think and act like sheep, but I also think at the same time that running on willfulness and emotion doesn't serve the situation well, either. Lydia cultivates this blank look and hides her thoughts. She refuses to communicate vital information to those who could help. I sort of get it, but really I didn't. She didn't have a prayer's chance of solving the problem on her own and I felt like it was pride stopping her, too. When I first started this book, I had high hopes for how it was going to turn out. Yes, Lydia is immature (kind of annoyingly so), but one expects that in a tale about a sheltered virgin. There were some short feminist diatribes I was quite happy to read and highlight, pumping my fist in the air in solidarity while doing so (figuratively, of course, I'm not that big a weirdo).

This won't be my last MH book. I already have another I am over due to read. But I'll be switching genres again for my next read. Just months before ‘Capability’ Brown died in 1783, England’s greatest landscape architect, wrote these poignant words in a rare letter to one of his last patrons, the 4th Duke of Rutland. Also known as Alex Ulster, the heir to the Duke of Gloucester title was educated at Eton and Sandhurst and joined the army. He left in 2008 as Acting Major and is now Director of Transnational Crisis Project a foreign affairs company.

Please note: tour itineraries, hotel entertainment and use of leisure facilities will be subject to government guidelines. I don't think Lydia ever called him anything affectionate. He was never fleshed out as a character. He was just 'There'. A foil used to solve the very boring mystery of Lakewood's "dastardly activities" before his ignominious death. She had to cope with five boisterous children while faced with a vast estate in desperate need of modernisation and staff who wanted nothing to change—it was a daunting responsibility. Yet with sound advice from the doyenne of duchesses, ‘Debo’ Devonshire, she met each challenge with optimism and gusto, including scaling the castle roof in a storm to unclog a flooding gutter; being caught in her nightdress by mesmerised Texan tourists; and disguising herself as a cleaner to watch filming of The Crown. She even took on the castle ghosts... At times the problems she faced seemed insoluble, yet with her unstoppable energy and talent for thinking on the hoof, she won through, inspired by the vision and passion of those Rutland duchesses in whose footsteps she trod, and indeed the redoubtable and resourceful women who forged her, whose homes were not castles but remote farmhouses in the Radnorshire hills.