John Manners was an avid historian and, in later life, made
it his mission to preserve and catalog the entire history of the Rutland family.
Letters, menus, household expenses, diaries, etc., all were meticulously sorted
and organized. Manners lived in the records room working on this family history
up until the moment he died of pneumonia in 1940. After his death the damp, uncomfortable room in Belvoir
Castle was sealed up by his son Charles, the 10th Duke of Rutland.
Never used. Never opened.
In time David Manners inherited the title and became the 11th
Duke of Rutland. He did not have his father’s issues about the room and allowed
Catherine Bailey access to it and the documents it contained. Ms. Bailey was
doing research about the area surrounding Belvoir during the years of WWI. The
estate, and the Manners family, played a large part in this history. In 1914,
the estate consisted of thirty villages. The 9th Duke of Rutland
encouraged his tenants to join the war effort, and a fifth of the men answered
the call. 1,700 men went to battle for England, and 249 never returned. One of
the men who went to war was John Manners, Marquis of Granby.
While looking through the documents Bailey discovered a
mystery: three periods of the Manners family archives were gone. There were no
letters, no diaries, no biographical information for a period in August of
1894, a time in June of 1909, and a gap in 1915 during John’s time at the
front. 356 days were missing from John’s life, and the lives of the Manners
family. Bailey set out to discover what had happened during those missing days,
and why the Marquis of Granby, later the 10th Duke of Rutland, was
so desperate to excise them from history.
I was very disappointed by this book. The title, The Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted
Castle, a Plotting Duchess, & a Family Secret, led me to believe it
would be full of ghosts, hidden passages, and intrigue. Instead it is a family
history and war memoir. The secrets aren’t explosive, the plotting and
scheming was not terribly scandalous, and I have no idea why the author used
the word “haunted” when there is nothing ghostly or supernatural. However, the
book was well researched and written, and I kept reading just to see if
anything interesting happened. I think being American, and a few generations removed from this period in history, lessened the impact of the startling revelations Catherine Bailey discovered.
This is not a bad book, its just not for me. Fans of Downton
Abbey may enjoy it, though, as the family and estate involved are in Grantham, a
mere 98 miles from Newbury and Highclere Castle. Those interested in war
memoirs would also enjoy this glimpse into life at home among the aristocracy during the war.
Bailey, Catherine. The
Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted Castle, a Plotting Duchess, & a
Family Secret. Penguin Books, New York: 2013
I think they were marketing this towards Downton fans. I add it to my collection because I knew all our Downton fans would scoop it up and they have!
ReplyDeleteI enjoy Downton Abbey, too, and aspects of this were interesting because of that show. It was also very revealing in what WWI privileges were meted out to the aristocracy, and the power they held over government figures. Also how little choice the children had in the course of their lives...which is kind of sad.
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