The Carnarvons of Highclere Castle Have Never Failed
to Look a Gift Horse in the
Mouth
The Carnarvons of Highclere have always
been proficient at cashing in on opportunity, they are also masterful at self-
publicity, with no greater or more lucrative example than the millions they’ve secured
in importuning
the link of the family seat at Highclere Castle as the
backdrop to TV’s Downton Abbey.
Besides the present incumbents a succession
of Earls and Countesses of Carnarvon have rarely
failed to look a gift horse in the mouth. The 4th Earl, a Victorian
politician who was a hard-up Secretary for the Colonies bought up large property portfolios in Canada
and Australia in blatant episodes of insider dealing. One of the two 6th Countesses , the exotic Austrian
dancer Tilly Losch secured a sizable contract with a fat fee promoting Ponds Cold Cream largely
on the strength of her title’s appeal to other ladies. The mischievous,
womanising 6th Earl ( pictured below) invited himself onto TV’s Michael Parkinson
Show in the 1970s in order to promote his memoirs.
With the end of
Downton Abbey the
Carnarvons are now looking to
attract visitors on a wider base
than just links with this past TV fictional show, an association that
saw their fortune change. It’s all
money and revenue related . In fact there
may well be more cash in their new business goal of “
sharing different aspects of what makes Highclere resonate with guests and
visitors.”
The “real”
point, and the “ real history” involved
is the point of integrity : will there
be any greater truth in this era and its new marketing and promotion campaign or just
more Downton Abbey style fiction?
Time Magazine
have recently generated a blast on one of the Carnarvon’s new marketing and
publicity shots turning attention to the so called ‘Egyptian
Stuff” at Highclere. This is the cache
of ancient objects that
were miraculously rediscovered in the Castle cupboards in 1988.
With an
impressive tag line of “At the
real Highclere Castle, there's no shortage of history” this is quite a tall order to maintain .
Time’s generous promotion of
Highclere Castle is slightly incestuous
as, surprise, surprise they also currently have
a Downton Abbey special
edition line to flog in the
shape of a pack of DVDs , so it’s
understandable they should be bed fellows with the Carnarvons and they also have a financial interest with merchandise in keeping the tourist
numbers up at the Castle in the years that
follow.
It has not however started well enough to convince this
writer that truth and integrity will
be seen in the future. One centre piece
quote from the Time article says :
“Most of the Egyptian treasures from the [ 5th Earl’s ] excavations that had led to the discovery of
King Tut’s tomb had, if they left Egypt at all, been donated to the British
Museum. “
Oh dear! This
will just not do as it gives the “Egyptian
stuff” a higher status than is due. The researcher has not done enough homework.
This is why the concern for real history
is justified, especially - to get things right . Without correction and expansion the Time Magazine statement is ill-informed, incomplete in fact it’s yet
another outpouring of not real history, but bad history.
Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon ( pictured above ) was willed the Egyptian Collection by her husband, the 5th Earl . Despite the 5th Earl’s wish that
the Collection be offered to the
British Museum Almina sold
it to the highest bidder, the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Howard Carter, the co-discoverer of King Tut’s
tomb acted as Almina’s middle man in the
deal. The British Museum received only a token piece.
The objects supposedly
relating to King Tut “rediscovered” at Highclere in 1988 coincided
with Henry Porchester, the 7th Earl of Carnarvon ( pictured below) opening up
the house to the public at large,
charging an entrance fee for visitors to
come and see what the dazzling headline
on the front page of London Times labelled
a “lost treasure”.
In fact, for most objects there is a tentative link only to the boy king; the items - many are tiny ones, in matchboxes, were those which Almina, the 5th Countess had not been able to sell off to the Metropolitan Museum in America or which Howard Carter had deemed “unimportant items” and failed to catalogue.
Charles Wilson of The Times set part of the record straight in 1988 when he said : “All the objects found [ at Highclere] were recovered from archaeological digs in the Valley of the Kings before the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Further information came from an Egyptian expert, no less a figure than Harry James, the British Museum’s Chief Egyptian Collection Curator, and later the biographer of Howard Carter who declared: “They’re not immensely valuable. They’re not treasures in the sense that those from Tutankhamun are treasures. This is a less important part of the Carnarvon– Carter Collection.”
That is the real history!
Any queries about this article please contact the Author William Cross, FSA Scot.
William Cross' new book on " Carnarvon, Carter and Tutankhamun Revisited : The hidden truths and doomed relationships " all about the realtionship between Lord George Carnarvon and Howard Carter will be published on 4 November 2016.
The book will also deal with the 5th Earl's Egyptian Collection.
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