Lord Carnarvon’s sister would not admit to having a wayward brother

Biographer William Cross’s first blast of the trumpet on Winifred, Lady Burghclere [ Part 1 of 3 posts ]

Winifred Anne Henrietta Christiana Herbert ( 1864-1933), best known as Lady Burghclere was the bookish older sister of Lord George Carnarvon of Tutankhamun fame. To make certain her brother’s less noble life was relegated to the long grass Winifred quickly and smartly appointed herself his chief protector on earth when she stepped into the shoes of making herself his earliest biographer and champion. All comers thereafter writing anything of his Lordship’s unhealthy, chequered life and times have been muted and left in the shadow of Winifred’s elegantly drafted gloss- over.

In 1923, some months after Lord Carnarvon died Lady Winifred ( by then a widow, with two husbands down) left her London home at Green Street, Park Lane to spend the autumn at the beautiful Lake House at Burghclere, this close proximity to the old family’s seat at Highclere Castle ensured exactly the right setting for literary inspiration.

In the wake of Howard Carter and Arthur Mace publishing the first volume of their narrative on the discovery of Tutankhamun, Winifred had agreed to write an Introduction to the book about Lord Carnarvon. This missive secured a pre-emptive strike, a glamorous, orchestrated sketch before any one else could or would effectively sum up his life. It's content has woven a damaged, flawed chronology as it had been used as gospel by a successive line of history vandals at Highclere Castle to suit their own ends.

It had been a difficult year since Winifred's accomplished half-brother the Hon. Aubrey Herbert, dubbed ‘ The Man Who Was Greenmantle’ died in a London nursing home on 16 September, 1923 aged 43. Aubrey had been an adventurer, soldier and politician, he was one of his sister- in-law's early crushes. Almina ( Carnarvon's wife) always preferred the gallant but caddish Aubrey to the creepy Lord Carnarvon, he [ Aubrey] had been her patient to nurse first hand at Highclere Castle ( when a military hospital) during the Great War. After a series of botched operations to improve his sight, Aubrey’s doctors missed a serious underlying health condition, he suffered a ruptured gall bladder and bled to death.

Grieving for two siblings Winifred sought seclusion and quiet solitude, writing proved the restorative she needed.

As there was a good deal to hide from the public’s knowledge about Lord Carnarvon’s life, death, proclivities and foibles. Winifred ‘s tribute to him had to be manipulated. She records with great love, respect and dignity things she uniquely felt ought to be said but as the whole of the language used is floral and full of terminological inexactitudes its effect was to scorch the truth as seen by others. There were those who knew the real Carnarvon, a sad man tormented by demons who snarled, bullied and never smiled. One witness for the prosecution was a woman whom Winifred detested but who was eminently qualified to contradict her slick treatment on the subject of the Earl, when or if provoked. This onlooker was Almina Wombwell, Carnarvon’s lusty widow, who, although no angel, endured almost 30 years humiliation in a loveless, sham marriage to the 5th Earl of Carnarvon in a commercial deal brokered by the banker Baron Alfred de Rothschild.

Speaking of Lord Carnarvon Almina told her godson Tony Leadbetter that “ all his sisters knew him for being irksome ....he was always shouting at them. My dear husband was moody, he was hell to live with and put his own pleasures first” Almina added “ I was always afraid of him, and so was Howard Carter ”. Carter was less forthcoming in public about the man who as his patron with whom he was often badly treated and ridiculed. As a character who regularly recoiled and bit out at friends and foes he took his Lordship's ear bashings with few back comments.

Winifred Burghclere knew of this too and what family face was saved in her homage, she would not admit to having a wayward brother nor come clean on Almina’s marriage charade or Carter's snides. Lady Burghclere was an experienced scribe, the author of a number of well received yet obscure biographies featuring the exploits of past English noblemen ( as above in her book on George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham) she set their histories in a overly romantic as well as the historic mould. As with in her tribute to Lord Carnarvon, Winifred’s aim was to make her writing convincing; one obituary writer observed that she had style, and “ had edge, but with no acerbity or malice”. [ To Be Continued.]

This is a draft of a Chapter from the new book by William Cross, FSA Scot revisiting the story of Lord George Carnarvon, Howard Carter and the Boy King Tutankhamun. COPYRIGHT WILLIAM CROSS AND TONY LEADBETTER Contact the Author by e-mail. William Cross, FSA Scot is a writer, lecturer and researcher who has wriiten several books on the Carnarvons of Highclere Castle.