The Real Life Downton Abbey. Jacky Hyams

the Downton Abbey marriage, the Earl of Grantham believes he has secured the future of his estate this way by marrying the wealthy American heiress, Cora, Countess of Grantham. They wind up with three daughters and no male heir. Yet theirs is very much a love match rather than a mere merger of interests. Was this typical? Maybe not. Consider the story of the marriage of the fabulously rich railroad heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt and her marriage to ‘Sunny’, Charles Spencer Churchill, the ninth Duke of Marlborough and owner of the 187-room Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, in 1896.

      THE GIRL WITH THE DIAMOND-ENCRUSTED GARTERS

      Eighteen-year-old Consuelo’s dowry (part of which was paid in railroad stocks and shares) is equivalent to US $100 million today. Newspaper stories at the time carry gushing reports about her bridal undies: her pink lace corset (with real gold hooks) and her silk stockings (held up by diamond-encrusted garters).

      Yet Consuelo is a very unhappy bride. For starters, she’s in love with someone else. However, so desperate is Consuelo’s conniving mother Alva to up the ante socially by being mum to a duchess that Alva pretends to be dying in order to convince Consuelo to go through with the match.

      Consuelo cries all the way to the glittering wedding ceremony. Some stories claim she’s seen weeping at the altar. In their carriage afterwards, the Duke, close to bankruptcy, blithely informs her he’s given up the woman he loves to marry her money. The honeymoon isn’t even over when he orders a hugely expensive refurbishment of Blenheim.

      Two sons are born. But the couple separate, a great society scandal in 1906 – even the King has insisted they should not divorce – and it isn’t until 1921 that a divorce is finally granted.

      So has the cash from the American heiresses ‘saved’ the British cash-poor, land-rich aristocracy from financial ruin? It certainly helped. Once you’ve sold off the family silver, your valuable art collection and other costly items to pay your debts the last thing you want to do is give up the house and the land.

      THE WIND OF CHANGE

      But the big social changes that are already starting to bubble underneath the surface in the Edwardian years – the rise of socialism, the suffragette movement with its push towards women’s rights, and the growing political awareness of the needs of working people, pushed forward by the dawn of World War I – are far more significant in changing the entire landscape for the many, a tidal wave of change, if you like, than big windfalls of cash for the small but privileged minority.

      And yet the innate snobbery of the aristocrats still prevails: many families still can’t help looking down their noses on these rich, youthful, usually high-spirited American girls whose manners are perceived to be ‘something between a Red Indian and a Gaiety Girl’.

      In addition, the huge spending power of the American heiresses easily surpasses anything the British aristocrats have known. So there’s an envy factor in there, too. The American girls are much better dressed, for starters. They think nothing of ordering 90 dresses at a time in Paris, only to wear them just once. (Wearing things once, of course, means no one can ever criticise you for donning the same garment again.)

      By 1914, 60 peers of the realm and 40 sons of peers have married American women. So some of those balls, lavish parties, champagne-spouting fountains and the other many indulgences of the ‘smart set’ that followed Edward VII were indirectly underwritten by the millions flowing from the coffers of the American heiresses, as well as propping up the existence of some of the country’s greatest estates.

      In the time-honoured tradition of the ‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it’ set so follows the mantra: ‘If you haven’t got it any more, use other people’s money’. After all, with so much hectic social networking at stake, who was going to let the outdated rules and snobbery of the older generation stop them?

      BEING LADY BOUNTIFUL

      Yet despite all this big spending and trading of money for status, the mega-rich are not completely oblivious to the world beyond their own.

      Outward appearances are everything. And while aristocratic families often treat their servants and those living on their estate as inferior beings from a separate planet, they are, at the same time, obliged to foster the general idea that they are moral guardians of the needy and less well off. They have to be seen to be conscious of their responsibilities to others. It is called noblesse oblige: if you are privileged and rich, you have a moral duty to public service and charity; it means you are seen to be putting your money to good use.

      This idea – of patronising the poor with one hand, dispensing charity and goodwill from the Big House, and exploiting them with the other by using them as an astonishingly cheap labour force – promotes the centuries-old view of a paternalistic lord and master who is concerned about the wellbeing of his tenants. And in fairness, not all the big landowning families are cynical in their treatment of the poor people living on their estates; some genuinely do form good relationships with their tenants and want to help them.

      Consuelo Vanderbilt, for instance, becomes well known for her devotion to the welfare of the poor people on the big Blenheim estate, and her concern for the wellbeing of her 40 live-in servants – a dedication to charitable works that manifests itself throughout her life. Yet the truth is, Consuelo is behaving according to all the rules and traditions that dictate the every move of a very wealthy aristocratic woman: the Edwardian mistress of a country estate is a key player in this demonstration of concern for the needy. It is her role and hers alone to be Lady Bountiful, dispensing goodwill locally, making visits and perhaps giving advice and hand-me-downs to the needy tenants.

      Whatever her own feelings or views, the wealthy country-house wife is obliged, as an important duty, to visit the estate’s tenants regularly, raise money for good causes like hospitals or for the sick and needy, and involve herself in fund-raising for local events such as bazaars, in garden parties and important dates on the estate social calendar. Many throw themselves into their charity work – it is, after all, the only route for independent initiative and action available to them. Everything else in their life is determined by a rigid series of rules and regulations – even their socialising and lavish entertaining follows a very specific set of rules.

      They can’t be housewives or mothers, even if they want to, because they have armies of servants to do all their work for them. Their family relationships, including those with their husbands, are all conducted in a rigid, pre-determined way. So while the Lady Bountiful role is a must for someone in this elevated social position – the other women in her social circle are usually equally involved in charitable works – it winds up serving a useful purpose: in the absence of a fully formed Welfare State, there is, at least, one resource for helping the poor.

      Though both husband and wife have this duty to the community to fulfil, aristocratic men and their male heirs do not, as a rule, get very involved in the day-to-day detail of charity work. It’s very much seen as women’s territory. So in the midst of all the planning, running the household, socialising and emphasis on status, the mistress of the house must allocate time, in between shopping in Paris or organising (with a lot of help) extraordinarily extravagant, money-no-object dinners, to be a visible charitable presence.

      Yet when you look at the tiny salaries the toffs are quite happy to pay their servants, you can only scratch your head and wonder about the hypocrisy of it all.

      SERVANTS WAGES: SLAVE LABOUR?

      Servants are always seriously underpaid and over-exploited. Over hundreds of years, the poorest people are expected to be grateful for food and shelter, in return for what is usually incessant, hard physical labour.

      They accept that their masters and betters rule their lives, simply because there are no other avenues of work. If you are at the bottom of the heap, you either starve or get on with the job in hand. And if you are fortunate, you get an employer who treats you with a degree of consideration.

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