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

Lady Burghclere, Sister of Lord George Carnarvon of Tutankhamun Fame

 William Cross, FSA Scot considers  Winifred, Lady Burghclere, Sister of Lord George Carnarvon of Tutankhamun Fame 

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  in Egypt in a famous death scene at the Continental Hotel Cairo, 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 and mendacity.

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 her beloved brother Lord Carnarvon. 

This long tirade secured a pre-emptive strike, a glamorous, orchestrated sketch before any one else could or  ever 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, Almina'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. Almina always said Aubrey was her lost love, she campaigned for him in Somerset to help him win a seat in Parliament.

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 laffection, 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 snipes. 

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”. 

“Biographical Sketch of the late Lord Carnarvon by Lady Burghclere"

first page of pages 31-72 of the book below:

"The tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen, discovered by the late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter; by Howard Carter and A.C. Mace...." ( 1923)

This article is an update on a previous Blogger posting in 2016.

ANY QUERIES CONTACT THE AUTHOR OF THIS PIECE BY EMAIL

williecross@aol.com

The book " Lady Winifred Burghclere and her Troublesome Daughters", withheld from wider circulation is now available from the Author William Cross, FSA Scot

FURTHER READING

"Lies, Damned Lies and the Carnarvons" 

By William Cross, FSA Scot

A NEW BOOK

Published 1 September 2022

AVAILABLE DIRECT FROM THE AUTHOR

BY EMAIL CONTACT, BELOW

williecross@aol.com

Lord of the Lies: A new book about the eccentric Evan, Viscount Tredegar

Sketches of  Evan, Viscount Tredegar.  ‘Lord of the Lies’As  seen  by  friends, foes and  lovers:  A new  book  William  Cross

A new book about Evan Morgan, Viscount Tredegar  is published in December 2017  by   Newport  writer  William Cross,  FSA Scot,  Evan’s biographer, and the author of seven  other books featuring that notably eccentric Welsh peer and early sex tourist.

“ Sketches of Evan, Viscount Tredegar” subtitled ‘Lord of the Lies’ is a compilation of  reminiscences and impressions   of  how  the last Viscount Tredegar  is   recalled by  regular habitats of the Morgan family seat at  Tredegar House in the 1930s and 1940s, 

The testimonies  come from those who knew Evan Morgan,  his friends, foes and  lovers.  Contributors include   historian  Cyril Hughes Hartmann, novelist  Inez Holden,  travel writer  Robin Bryans,  poet and journalist Charles Graves, Evan’s godson   Desmond Leslie,  the Irish  diplomat  Shane Leslie,  literary editor,  Alan Pryce-Jones and  barrister  Henry Maxwell. 

Cross explains    : "There are many tall stories about Evan Morgan. So called facts  have been  invented around him, in some  cases these  are no better than lies.  Often the  lies are mischievous and deliberately contrived, with Evan himself  being one of the principal  liars. By presenting  these testimonies from Evan's contemporaries  the truth is attempted  at  long last."

The book will be available on Amazon, ebay and direct from the Author

 ISBN 9781905914463            

Limited Edition signed by the Author