Rosemary Verey by Barbara Paul Robinson

Author:Barbara Paul Robinson [Robinson, Barbara Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781567924862
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
Published: 2012-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Leaving Barnsley House;

Prince Charles Arrives

Late 1980s

And now, he’s absolutely one of my best friends.

FOUR YEARS AFTER David’s death, as she was about to turn seventy, Rosemary decided to give Barnsley House to her oldest son, Charles. She moved into The Close, following the pattern set by David’s parents when they gave Barnsley House to David, and then moved into the renovated adjacent stable-cum-garage and called it The Close. Unlike Cecil and Linda Verey, who had only one son, Rosemary had four children, so it is hard to fully understand this decision. Some of her closest friends tried cautioning her against it; one of them advised her to take proper financial advice before giving away the house.1

It may well be that her decision was indeed partly the result of professional advice; taxes probably had something to do with it. Under the applicable English gift and estate tax rules, if someone made a gift and lived at least seven years thereafter, there would be no gift or estate tax on the transferred property. One would have expected the solicitors handling David’s estate to raise this tax strategy. But one has to wonder why Rosemary didn’t give Barnsley House to all her children, or at least to a trust for their benefit. Why did she choose to give it solely to Charles?

David’s will did not favor Charles above his other children. To the contrary, he provided for all four of them equally. His will did not require or request Rosemary to give the house to Charles, nor did it give the house to Charles in the event Rosemary failed to survive David.2 In his will of April 29, 1984, signed just days before he died, he bequeathed Barnsley House and its gardens to Rosemary but oddly he excluded The Close and his other land holdings; he also excluded his interest in the Arlington Mill partnership, which he held with his daughters, Veronica and Davina. The will also left Rosemary all of his personal belongings but, in a rather old-fashioned way, left all the rest of his estate in a trust for Rosemary’s benefit for her life, rather than giving her outright ownership. On her death, the will directed the trust to end and pass to all four children in equal shares (or to their issue if any one of them was not then living).3 David named Rosemary and his lawyer, John Humphrey Colquhoun, to be his executors and trustees.

Even though David appeared not to favor Charles above his other children, Rosemary’s daughter Veronica believes that by giving Barnsley to Charles, Rosemary felt she was carrying out David’s wishes. Whether carrying out David’s wishes or not, she was following a well-established British tradition of primogeniture, a custom still prevalent in certain British circles to favor the oldest son with the lion’s share of the family’s fortune. To modern observers, it seems positively Dickensian to leave the family estate to the oldest son, with the younger sons forced to earn their own way in the army or the church and the daughters expected to marry well to restore the family coffers.

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