Tuesday, 20 June 2023

Prince Victor Duleep Singh and The Curse of the Carnarvons : A Talk from William Cross. FSA Scot

                                       Prince Victor Duleep Singh 

                      and The Curse of the Carnarvons

OR

The Countess and The Maharajah

Synopsis of a talk by William Cross, FSA Scot

Almina and Victor at Highclere, 1895

Almina Wombwell,  the 5th Countess of Carnarvon (1876-1969)  was born in London on 14 April 1876, but her birth was not registered in England until four years later.  Christened Almina Victoria Marie Alexandra Wombwell later Herbert, finally Mrs Dennistoun, she termed herself Almina, Countess of Carnarvon.  Her mother was a pushy  Frenchwoman, her father probably English. Almina’s childhood was spent among the decaying vestiges of  the old French and Spanish  aristocrats living in exile.  Almina grew up in Paris, spoke fluent French and was later a debutante in the London Season of 1893.  She lived and loved for nine decades – married the 5th Earl of Carnarvon in 1895 and then the caddish Lt. Col Ian Onslow Dennistoun in 1923. Lord Carnarvon died in 1923 (in Egypt). Ian died in 1938 (in London). Almina was chatelaine of Highclere Castle (the back drop to TV’s Downton Abbey)  from 1895 until 1923. Every inch a Countess,  Almina spent a King’s ransom and died a horrendous death in Bristol in 1969.

Victor and George Carnarvon at Highclere, 1895

Prince Victor Duleep Singh (1866-1918) was born in London on 10 July 1866. He was the grandson of Maharajah Ranjit Singh of Lahore, the Lion of the Punjab and the founder of the great Sikh empire.   Victor’s father was also  Maharajah of Lahore, although he was brought up as an English gentleman, as was Victor.  The Duleep Singh family history is one that highlights the “horrors” of the British conquest of India. The prized  Koh-i-Noor diamond   was one of the Duleep Singh assets seized by Queen Victoria’s agents.

With his handsome half-Indian, half-European appearance,  his mother Bamba Muller was of German- Abyssinian descent, Victor (nick named ‘Tulip’) stood out as an attractive male figure in Society circles in  Victorian/ Edwardian days, he died in Monte Carlo in 1918.  Educated at Eton College, Cambridge University &  Sandhurst Miltary Academy, Victor’s closest life  long friend was George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, who married Almina Wombwell in 1895. George and Victors’s  youth and early adulthood were of the playboy type,  wild &  irresponsible, they were gamblers, risk takers. George’s health was blighted, leading to consequences that endure  for the Carnarvons to this day.   

     


Almina and the Carnarvon Heir, Henry, Lord Porchester, at Highclere 1899
                                                          

A secret truth –almost a curse- links the Countess Almina and the Maharajah Victor together,   a  legacy within  the  British Peerage  exposed in books and in a recent TV documentary.  William Cross, FSA Scot ( biographer of Almina),  was first to reveal the secret in his book “ The Life and Secrets of Almina Carnarvon” ( 2011).  In this talk Cross offers some of the latest evidence from his researches that still sends ripples through High Society.  In 2022 Will added further analysis of the whole story in his book “ More on Prince Victor Duleep Singh and the Curse of the Carnarvons : The Final Twists”.

 NB Will’s latest book is “ Lies, Damned Lies and the Carnarvons” issued for last year’s centenary of the discovery of Tutankhamun in 1922. 

Will Cross is a retired civil servant, writer & lecturer based in Newport, South Wales.  He is  the author of several books on Scottish history, on the Carnarvons of Highclere Castle, on Tutankhamun, and many on the Morgans of Tredegar House, Newport. Will  has had a long standing interest  on Society scandals and cover ups in the British aristocracy. Contact Will  directly about his books, talks etc,  at  58, Sutton Road, Newport, South Wales, NP19 7JF.  


E-mail Contact Welcome

willicross@aol.com





The  weeping figure of Almina,  in black, at the grave of Prince Victor Duleep Singh every summer at Monte Carlo.

“It was a duty undertaken out of respect and regard & perhaps a token of her love”   

The Story Has Not Ended…..


Photographs reproduced  by permission of the family of the photographer J W  Righton of Newbury, Berkshire


Thursday, 1 June 2023

Lies, Damned Lies and the Carnarvons from William Cross, FSA Scot

 

Lies, Damned Lies and the Carnarvons

 


           A BOOK FROM WILLIAM CROSS, FSA SCOT

Among the lies flushed out is the chronology of the near fatal car accident in Germany that was deemed the reason Lord Carnarvon first went to Egypt, discredited here with the real influence given for the Earl taking up digging for Royal tombs.

 

The  funding for digging & many years work in the sand dunes at Luxor from the Countess Almina’s access to Alfred de Rothschild’s money rightly celebrates what Almina brought to the discovery, but why did Rothschild pay up when he was certainly NOT her father (as defiantly – but quite wrongly claimed by Highclere)?

 

The reality of the 20-year relationship between Lord Carnarvon and his devoted physician ‘Dr Johnny’ is revealed – the good doctor knew all about the family secrets. But in old age his  tongue was too loose for comfort that he was shipped off to a lunatic asylum. Other lies surround Lord Carnarvon’s alliance with Howard Carter. Were they an item?    

 

Not least is the mystery surrounding the circumstances of Carnarvon’s death in a hotel room in Cairo after a mosquito bite. Unconscious, dying, with the Great Sword of Damocles hanging over him until his wife Almina, the nurse, arrived with a bag full of morphine.

 

In the shadow of the  centenary of the great find  it demands that any incorrect  elements in the historical record are expunged.   Truth matters!

 

Endorsements:  Dr Nicholas Reeves (British Egyptologist)  : “ I have followed your new dating in my book  ‘The Complete Tutankhamun’, and also your remarks on Carnarvon's health.”

 

Dr Carola Vogel (German Egyptologist):   “Be assured, I will support your  investigations into the date of Lord Carnarvon’s motor car  accident in Germany  and try to convince my colleagues to change their minds!” 

 

Professor Brian Fagan  ( Author or "Lord and Pharaoh: Carnarvon and the Search for Tutankhamun" ( 2015). )  “ I hope that it is a success for you.”

 

COMMENTS FROM READERS : “The book is a real potpourri—not all of it fragrant—of well researched tittle-tattle and gossip, totally gripping…”  MK , Historian / Author, Monmouth
 
 Mr. Cross has proven to be an author of excellent talent; who possesses a tenacious bent for investigating what has always been accepted as fact, with the intent of upturning those inaccuracies of history, with a passion for rooting out the truth.”  NR, Writer and Historian : California, USA

An absolutely superb book, very enlightening, beautifully written.  Highly recommended……” J D W, Oldham Businesswoman

I enjoyed reading the book immensely. I've also watched a few TV  programmes on King Tut and read a few newspaper articles and none of them have contradicted your book. ”  BB, St Albans, Author and Historian.

I admire your thoroughness in rooting out error &  pleased  that Will Cross' voice in the wilderness is cutting through. PW, Cambridge, Writer & Academic.


ENQUIRIES

CONTACT WILL CROSS  by email williecross@aol.com