Sandringham Days by John Matson

Author:John Matson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752483115
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-05-30T04:00:00+00:00

The Duchess had married into a family which for years had been self-sufficient, a family which the Princess’s genius for affection had turned into something that was certainly a closely-guarded clique and was not far short of a mutual admiration society. It was a family little given to intellectual pursuits, without much in the way of artistic tastes or taste, a family not easily to be converted to any other manner of life than that which they had found all-sufficing in an age wherein privilege vigorously survived.

The Duchess was intellectually on a higher plane; she was already well educated – well read and interested in the arts, and was constantly seeking to increase her store of knowledge in many fields beyond the range of the Princess of Wales and the family in the Big House. She was full of initiative, of intellectual curiosity, of energy, which needed outlets and wider horizons.

Their recreations were not hers. Their manner of life could not satisfy her notions of the ideal in the intellectual life of those days. And she was living in a small house on an estate which drew its inspiration wholly from the Prince and Princess, whereon every smallest happening or alteration was ordered and taken note of by the Prince. The very arrangement of her rooms, the planting of her small garden, were matters which required reference to Sandringham House, and the smallest innovation would be regarded with distrust…

Sometimes the Duchess’s intellectual life there may have been starved and her energies atrophied in those early years… For many women, then as now, the daily call to follow the shooters, to watch the killing, however faultless, to take always a cheerful appreciative part in man-made, man-valued amusements, must have been answered at the sacrifice of many cherished, many constructive and liberal ambitions. It is fair to assume that the self-effacement which conditions at Sandringham in those days demanded of a fine and energetic character must have fallen hardly on the Duchess; and fair also to suggest that the Prince and Princess (of Wales) might have done more to encourage her initiative and fill her days.151

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