About book To Marry An English Lord: Or How Anglomania Really Got Started (1989)
Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.-Terry Pratchett, Feet of ClayI wasn't really sure what I was going to get here, since I just grabbed it off the shelf off the library because it looked interesting. The cover claims it's an inspiration for Downton Abbey, but I haven't seen that, so it didn't influence my reading of the book.But I did really like it. It was much different than I was expecting--instead of a dense text packed with names and dates and footnotes like A World on Fire, it's done almost more like a school textbook, with quotes in the margins, lots and lots of pictures, and frequent single- or double-page splashes about topics related to the main area the text is covering, often fashions or questions about daily life. These do severely interrupt the flow of the text, and while I didn't find it a problem, a lot of the other reviews did, so be warned.A lot of what I found interesting was just how different a lot of cultural assumptions were in the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods. A World on Fire deals with this too, but for a large part of America's history we viewed Britain with suspicion and some disdain. We were sober and industrious and hard-working and democratic, and they were imperious and decadent and flashy and, above all, our former enemies. The descriptions of old New York society, where they would order dresses from Paris but then not wear them for a few months because trying to obviously to chase the latest fashion was vulgar, definitely resonated with my own personal behavior as well as showing how much rich New York society has changed. And not for the better, if you ask me.New York society was founded on iron rules of etiquette among the Four Hundred designed to keep out any unwanted arrivistes, and one way that wealthy members of the bourgeoisie dealt with that mostly-closed society was to go abroad seeking matches there. After all, Mrs. Astor was wealthy and had most of the power in New York, but was she a duchess? Definitely not! And the rich heiresses picked England for the simple reason of exclusivity--since English peerage was based on agnatic primogeniture, there were only 27 dukes in all of England in late Victorian times, and supply and demand thus made them more valuable. The relatively small number of peers meant that there weren't that many heiresses in absolute terms seeking marriages, but the press on both sides of the Atlantic covered them in extensive detail, and To Marry an English Lord implies that this did a lot to help thaw relations between England and America. Not only were the goings-on of interest to the public, all of a sudden many of the most powerful men in England had American wives with an interest in keeping things going well for their families back home.Society continually praised the beauty and dress sense of American women as well, comparing it unfavorable to wan complexions of aristocratic English women. Though I have to admit, it's pretty obvious that beauty standards for men and women have changed a lot in the last 150 years. There are a lot fewer walrus moustaches, for one. Not to imply that everything was great. There were actually a lot of downsides that the book goes into detail on. One is that a modern New York home was light-years more comfortable than an ancestral home that dated back centuries, which might still have wood-burning fireplaces and baths drawn by hand. Affairs were not just common but expected among the British aristocracy, with social schedules set up to accommodate them as long as everyone was discrete, and new wives would have to get used to their husbands affairs--as well as having to fend off advances made toward them. Or agree to them, if they desired, but only after they fulfilled their primary function in England: providing the heir and a spare that kept the ancestral titles and lands in the family. There's a section about how shocking this was to a lot of people, because Americans wanted aristocratic titles, and the lavish pomp and lifestyle that goes with it, but not really aristocracy mores, which were decadent and vulgar and not fit for the red-blooded descendants of yeoman farmers. It was also pretty obvious to everyone that the nobility's main interest in America was for the money. This was back when a gentleman did not engage in trade, but an agricultural depression meant that land rents plunged during the 1870s. One example is that the Duke of Manchester's main estates went from a ￡95,000 surplus to ￡2,000 deficit, or in modern American dollars, from nearly $13 million in the black to $150,000 in the red. The incomes of American businessmen looks pretty attractive when changes like that are eating into the family earnings. One other thing I thought was interesting was the discussion near the end of the decline of the Old New York social scene because it was pointless. In Britain, social climbing had an end goal--the favor of the king. But in America, it was just rodents scrabbling around to be at the top of the heap with no real point to it. There were no official functions, just worthless amusements, and eventually everyone realized it.After Edward VII's death, the pull of aristocratic titles started to fade, and many American families got tired of pouring their money into the black holes of the English nobility. Also, the long aristocratic disdain for trade mostly collapsed in the face of increasing debts, and if the duke has to go to work just like everyone else, than how much is that title worth anyway? An interesting account of a little-remembered period of history.
Just after the Civil War, New York City was run by an exclusive group led by Mrs Astor called the Knickerbockers, descendents of the original Dutch settlers. Though very wealthy, they chose to live relatively modestly. Any women who had an up-to-the-moment dress from Europe would put it away for a season or two, as wearing it during its first season was considered gauche. Society was a closed group, comprised solely of Mrs Astor's Four Hundred (the total that could fit into her ballroom), so those who had made their fortunes recently or who weren't part of Mrs Astor's circle were left out in the cold. But there was an easy solution to this problem. Instead of marrying at home, young heiresses chose to cross the pond and snare themselves a titled husband. It was beneficial to both parties: she would finally snare the social recognition she was after, especially if she could catch the eye of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), and he would receive a great deal of money to shore up his nearly bankrupt estate. The book is a fascinating look at the heyday of American heiresses, lasting pretty much from the Civil War, when the Prince of Wales made his visit to the States in 1860, to his death in 1910. It was an amazing, opulent, glittering world, full of new dresses designed by Worth, the most desirable clothier in the world, fancy balls, and extravagant dinners. And it was apparently a world of infidelity as well; as long as a woman was married and had produced the required "heir and a spare," the spouses could go their own ways and keep whatever company they preferred. Living in Newport, I was particularly interested in the people whose names I had heard about for so long when visiting the mansions. I'd already known about Alva Vanderbilt and her daughter Consuelo, and that she was the first of the extremely wealthy to secure a divorce from her husband, William K. Vanderbilt. I suppose I hadn't realized, however, that Newport had such a short heydey in the Gilded Age; that as soon as it became the big thing, the wealthy started heading to Europe for the summer.A lot of reviewers have griped about the layout. I read it on my Kindle, which put the interrupting blurbs at the end of a section. However, it meant the photos were small and anything but crisp. I do agree that it's difficult to keep everyone straight, since the authors chose to format the book chronologically, instead of focusing on one heiress at a time. I found this to be quite an interesting read, and the writing was very engaging. Highly recommend to anyone interested in the late Victorian and Edwardian time period.
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This book, a cultural history of American heiresses marrying English Lords, is just plain fun and fascinating. The Kindle version is currently on sale in the US, but To Marry an English Lord is so lavishly illustrated with photos and drawings on every page that I can’t imagine reading an ebook copy. By the late 1800’s--early 1900’s there was a growing number of young ladies in the US who had lots of family money, but who couldn’t break into proper American “Society” because being nouveau riche they had no social status. At the same time across the Atlantic noble British families were having trouble paying for the upkeep and modernization of their estates--which is understandable since it wasn’t considered proper for the aristocracy to work--so marriage between the two groups made sense, but whoa! The culture shock! All of which is entertainingly recounted in this book.After growing up in a fancy, almost palace-like mansion the American heiress often started married life in her British husband’s dark, deteriorating ancestral manor without indoor plumbing. The large (and very interesting) contrasts in attitudes about married life, gender roles, infidelity, money, servants, and politics further complicated her assimilation into her new life. There were a variety of ways to cope and the book delves into the personal stories of many of the women, including Jennie Jerome Churchill (mother of Winston) and Consuelo Vanderbilt. To Marry an English Lord makes lively use of its rich historical material and is full of fruitful background information for further enjoying fiction and film. Edith Wharton and Henry James used the Victorian-Edwardian era tension between British and American customs in their novels and Julian Fellows, the creator of Downton Abbey, says this book inspired the Cora character in that series.
—Jaylia3
Fans of Downton Abbey and other Anglophiles will enjoy this book, which tells the stories of the American women who married into English aristocracy in the late-1800s. (Usually because the titled British families needed the money from wealthy Americans.) It's filled with photographs and interesting facts about their lives, such as how much it really cost to maintain a country estate, how difficult it was to run a household with servants and how wives adjusted to cold English society. It may spoil your fantasy of marrying a Duke, but it's still a delightful read.
—Diane Librarian
On November 6, 1895 at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church in New York City, a groom waited at the altar for a bride who appeared to be delayed. The groom was no ordinary groom, but Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough; the bride he waited for was the American railroad heiress, Consuelo Vanderbilt. The wedding was considered a triumph for both families, since the Duke would be delivered from his debts by Consuelo's millions, while Consuelo would gain a noble title. It was all the work of Consuelo's mother Alva, who coerced her teenage daughter into agreeing to marry the Duke. Now there have been many arranged marriages between well-to-do people in the history of the world, but usually they were intended to form necessary political alliances. The Marlborough-Vanderbilt marriage had as its main purpose the exaltation of Alva's vanity by enhancing her social status. As for Consuelo, she kept her groom waiting at the altar for twenty minutes as she cried her eyes out in sheer misery.In the re-release of their book To Marry An English Lord, Gail MacColl and Carol Wallace include the stories of many wealthy American girls who went to England in pursuit of a titled husband. Unlike Consuelo Vanderbilt, most were eager to marry into British high society and some, like Jennie Jerome, who married Lord Randolph Churchill with whom she had fallen in love, were very eager indeed. The book traces the tendency of American heiresses to marry abroad to the rigidity of the old New York Knickerbocker aristocrats who would not tolerate new money families like the Vanderbilts, the Jeromes, the Leiters, the Iznagas to join the ranks of the established Four Hundred. All the money in the world could not force certain exclusive doors to open. However, the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, liked American girls; he appreciated their expensive clothes, their willingness to gamble, their pert innocence, and their spontaneous wit. His Royal Highness encouraged the marriages between his subjects and American millionaires' daughters; many a dilapidated country seat was restored to its former grandeur due to money made on Wall Street and in American industries.The troubles which the heiresses had in adjusting to English life as ladies of the manor is described in detail ranging from the hilarious to the tragic. While some marriages, such as Mary Leiter Curzon's, were spectacular successes others, like Alice Thaw's, were disasters. Throughout the narrative, the Prince of Wales makes his appearance; reading the book is like being at a ball where he suddenly arrives. To Marry An English Lord was an inspiration for Julian Fellowes' Downton Abbey. I now have a great deal more insight into the marriage of Lady Cora and her earl as well as into the world of Downton Abbey in general. I also have a deeper understanding of Edith Wharton's and Henry James' novels. Everything from rules of etiquette to life in the servant's hall to the political highlights of the age are explored. Most interesting to me are some of the American heiresses, such as Jennie Jerome Churchill and Consuelo Vanderbilt Marlborough, who ultimately found fulfillment not in bearing a noble name but in political, cultural and charitable activities. As for Consuelo, she eventually walked away from it all, knowing, as she always knew inside, that money cannot buy a happy marriage or peace of soul.
—Elena
