March 26, 2024 • 31 mins
Holkham Hall returns this week to discuss some of the notable women that have called Holkham home over the years. Our two experts this week are collections coordinator Katherine Hardwick & Holkham Archivist Lucy Purvis. Enjoy!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today, we're back at Hocombe Hall in Norfolk, a country
house so massive it not only contains a room just
for statues, it also houses several incredible and inspiring stories,
so many in fact, that we've had to revisit it
for a second time to hear them all. Don't get
me wrong, there's a lot of sheep loving silliness, but
(00:21):
Hocumbe Hall is also home to some very impressive women,
speaking of which, you remember this one from our last episode.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm Catherine. I'm collections coordinator at Hookumb, which means basically,
I look after all of the stuff in the house
see paintings, furniture, statues, you name it, I have to
look after it.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
And for this second episode we're adding another specialist because,
unlike Michael Gove, we haven't had enough of experts on
this podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'm Lucy Purvis. I'm the archimist at Holcombe. I've been
here now for about six years and I look after
and research into their history, be that the people that
live here or the people that work here, the buildings
and the collection that's within the hall and anything kind
of oldish on the estate.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Speaking of oldish, Catherine's already told us about Hocumb's famous
Thomas William Cook. But in case you missed it, Tom
was a bit of a lad. He loved a pasty
or three, took a five year long gap year, gambled
his money on cock fighting, and came back with just
about every Roman statue he could find. He also loved
(01:33):
the ladies, especially if they were younger, much younger. There
was a whopping fifty years between him and his wife.
Sounds like he was the DiCaprio of his day, But
was he actually as scandalous as he looks on paper?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
No, I'm afraid Thomas William is actually pretty dull. Really.
He's known for being a farmer, really loved sheep at agriculture.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
He loves sheep.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
But he was a bit of a dish apparently, So yes,
you're right. His second wife was about fifty odd years
younger than him. When he was sixty eight, she was eighteen,
and he wanted to marry her off to his nephew
who was going to inherit the house, and she said, well, well,
actually I'd much rather marry you. I think really great
sacrifice for him to marry the much younger woman.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
What first attracted her to the exceptionally rich older man.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Do you think No, I think it must have been
his conversation personally.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah. Do you know how they both met?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So he was actually her godparent? Ward?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
What does a ward do?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
It's a bit like we would call it a godparent
today and involved god parent?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
I think, bit too involved. Yeah. Do you recket the
marriage was then, ever, sort of consummated?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
They had it was You guys are nodding your heads
very very vigorously, like absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Was it six children, Lucy, oh Jesus Christ. Yeah, it
was very consummated immediately. Yeah, very quick. He wasn't wasting
any time.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
We didn't have much time left anyway.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Did the last child to be born? He was eighty four.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I'm not gonna lie that. I just a man of
his age. How is he doing this?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I'm sure he ate a lot of oysters.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Even though Thomas William Cook was a bit boring, he
still did throw incredible parties. What sort of parties was
he throwing?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah? So he actually, as you say, boring chap, but
loved a good party. So unsurprisingly one of his favorite
parties did involve sheep.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, as the guests or as the sort of fancy dress.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Kind of as a bit of face. Actually, every year
he told something called a sheep sharing, basically a country
fair load of farmers come, they look at sheep, they
talk about sheep, and then they have a great knees
up after talking about sheep.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Amazing, What a theme for the music for these parties,
because they'd been playing music at parties who are like
the big composers, who's like the Drake or the Kanye
of the day.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
You'd have hydn kicking around, wouldn't you writing as London symphonies,
maybe a bit of a saire. We Like Sheep?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Sorry? Is that the name of one of the songs? No?
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yes? In the Messiah there's a movement called for we
Like Sheep?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Is there really?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
That's perfect for this party. Absolutely stick that on and
get the sheep going. I'm gonna be honest, I didn't
at any point in any of my notes for this
episode have anything on sheep, and now it's been eighty
percent of this conversation so far, and I'm not sad
about it. I'm not sad about it at all anyway.
So they're also so sheep is a big party, but
(04:59):
there's also so lots of shooting parties. And this is
where Polly Fishburn comes in. This woman is quite a
tenacious woman. This is a fierce lady. Are you right?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
She's feisty, She's definitely fightsty. Yeah. She started off working
at Holcombe as a housemaid. Her father was a gamekeeper
on the estate. He wasn't the gamekeeper, he was one
of the assistant gamekeepers. And she would have come to
Holcom when she's about ten or so years old. She
would have lived in Church Lodges, which is where the
(05:31):
gamekeeper still lives today on the estate, so she would
have known all the kind of sights and smells of
what being a game peoper was like. But she was
stuck in the kitchen as one of the undermaids. And
there's various accounts of what she did, but one of
the main one that got her out of the kitchen
was when she was hearing the shooting, she suddenly dropped
all the saucepans and jumped out the window to go
(05:52):
and find out what was happening. She could apparently ride
any horse in the stable, and she was a great
breaker of horses. But they realized that and Undermade really
wasn't the career for her, so she was agreed that
she could go and work with the gamekeepers, and in fact,
she was much better gamekeeper than her father was, and
generally thought that she was the equivalent of a man,
except she was obviously wearing ladies' clothes.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I was gonna say that must have been a huge
scandal at the time because they're like, what a woman.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
But then you've also got because at that point the
servants would have been all eating together in the servants hall.
So you've got all the gamekeepers and all the outdoor
men the gardeners all eating together and being very masculine
and very laddish like they would be. You've got Polly
that comes in and none of the female servants want
to have anything to do with her because she's a
bit grubby, she's a bit gamekeeper, and she probably smells
(06:42):
a bit compared to what they do, so she had
to take her nails in their nursery. But there's a
couple of really good little stories about Polly, and the
fact that she was so formidable just comes across each time.
So there was a couple of gentlemen at one point
that should have been eating and were waiting their dinner,
and they thought they'd just take a stroll around the park,
(07:03):
and they walked up to Church Lodge where Polly was living,
and said, oh, could you take us to the church
and show us around the church please? And she happily
took them, but realized that they weren't just wanting to
see the church. She managed to lock them at the
top of the church and went home and they had
to be rescued some hours later when their absence was noticed.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
That's amazing. So she'd have gone, oh, into this this cupboard, gentleman,
and then since you went in at the door, click
legs it away. Yeah, exactly, and then didn't tell anyone.
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Well know, I think the thing was that they became
the laughing stock, and she wasn't reprimanded at all. In fact,
she was kind of praised for showing dignity and independence.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Who do you reckon found them? Was it just like
the vicar going into like dust off the prayer books
on the Sunday morning and just opened up and there's
these two sad looking n I got this.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Vision of them just standing at the top of Saint
with the Burger's just shouting, what are you.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Two doing in here, well, not what we wanted to
do in here.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Do you want to know the story about it?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I want every single story about Polly.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Okay, Well, Polly was on the marshes. So when you've
got Holkham, you've got the lovely parkland, you've got the wall,
and then you've got the marshes leading up to the sea,
and they used to graze cattle and in fact they
still graized cattle on there, but unfortunately there was a
bull on there that had taken out one of the
laborers and he was dead and he was standing over
the bull was standing over the laborer, and everybody was like, well,
(08:35):
what we're going to do, What we're going to do.
Polly took one look, went into the field and started
walking towards this bull and people were shouting, don't, don't, don't,
don't go body, don't you know Polly? And her reply
was he knows better. And as soon as the bull
saw her he backed off because the bull had had
previous with Polly when she'd shot him in the muzzle
(08:56):
when he'd been misbehaving.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Again, firstly, what's a muzzle and in like the nose
shot the bull in the face I'm not surprised the
bull was quite angry in general, then if I had
been shot in the f I'm starting out a bit
of sympathy with the bull. Actually, I mean, I don't
know between us three, I don't know what the biggest
animal you think you could take in a fight is all.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I've actually answered this recently at a pub quiz. At
a pub quiz, Well, this is session quizz is a
bit too.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yea, there can't be like a definite answer. Then I'll
hear your answer.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I'm a bit hesitant because we've talked about it a
lot already, but I reckon it's a sheep.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Well, you're not going to invite to any any bloody
of Thomas Cook's parties then.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Or maybe I am it's just maybe you are ticket?
Can you take a sheep in a fight?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
And after dessert we will be watching Catherine wrestle a
sheep to death.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah I'm not I'm not the biggest person, but I reckon,
I reckon I could take a sheep.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
How are you taking it? Are you going to kick
it to death?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Or I'm going to flip it over? And then sheep
are really good at dying.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So you just flip the sheep and then pray for
natural causes? Is that? Is that the plan? Solid one?
And Lucy and the advance on sheep.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, I found out today that I'm the same height
as a red kangaroo as I was looking at a
wall chart.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
There's not a chance you're beating up a kangaroo loose.
I mean, I love that is ambitious.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
No, there is no way I would take it to redo,
but I thought it's quite interesting. I was the same
height as well. I think maybe a large tortoise, I
will go that far.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
And are you are you going to do it for
the same same tactic, just flip it over? Yeah, okay,
flipping sounds good. Yeah sure. And myself, I think I
could take a penguin, what sort chocolate chocolate bark, chocolate
bar penguin, flip it over, lift its wing. Read the joke.
See you lay any more Polly stories?
Speaker 3 (11:03):
So yeah. Polly's father died in eighteen twenty seven, which
is the kind of the time when the sheep shearing
had all finished, and she and her mother returned to
Yorkshire and then Polly was employed at Cannon Harller State
And the reason why I'm telling you about cannon Harll
estate was the lady of cannon Horn Estate was Elizabeth Cook,
who had been Thomas William's cook youngest daughter, who very
(11:25):
quickly moved out once Thomas got married again. So they
were given the cottage, went free and had three cows
to look after, which is quind of nice. And the
heir did come that what became the second Earl did
come and recognized Polly, obviously because of her reputation, and
and they reminisced together about life at Holcombe. And then
(11:46):
Polly's supposed to have said, oh, my lord, what a
spree we had over them wild ducks.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Oh what's happened with ducks? We've had sheep, we've had cows,
we've beaten up a kangaroo, a torsses dead, and now
we're going after ducksed what happened with ducks?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I had no idea what happened with the world ducks,
but presumably they were raising them and shooting them.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Shot in the face. She shot a duck in the face.
And then one day they came and there was a
duck stood over a dead farmer. I now want to
(12:26):
talk about Lady Jane Digby, who hopefully hasn't killed any animals,
but is again quite a woman.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Well, she was one of these people that grew up
in Hulcomb, although she was born in Dorset. Her mother
had been another Jane, and she was the Thomas William Cook,
the old man, his eldest daughter.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Her mother was incredibly beautiful. Jane was incredibly, incredibly beautiful.
She would have been in the nursery when Polly would
have been going for her long.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Really, so she'd have met Polly. Yes, Oh that's cool.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
I think they would have known each other. I think
they would have at least walked past each other in
the corridors, if not known each other. She was incredibly beautiful.
She had very long golden hair. Loads of people think
that she is like, you know, the best thing since
sliced bread.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Nice a slice bread inventor by then no slice bread,
slice spread is the best thing since since lady Jane
Digby is actually what it should be.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yes, she really captivated her grandfather, who obviously was Thomas
William Cook. And she had this education which was the
same as the boys in the nursery before they went
off to Eton. She learned lots of languages.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
This make this makes sense why she sort because then
she sort of went around collecting men from different countries,
didn't she Yeah, I can learn a language, and you
might as well grab a bloat from it. How what's
the best way to learn by doing? That's what I think,
Just live it.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
But her grandfather encouraged her to take an interest in
horses and small farm animals, so presumably sheep. She again
would be including that she read the classics, which, of
course at Hulcombe is very important with all the architecture
and the sculptures and the paintings and.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
When you say the classics, so you're talking like sort
of Homer in the Illy Adima, Ancient all that sort
of stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Yes, yeah, yeah, definitely, and wanted to know the stories
behind some of the key pieces at Hulcombe as well,
so she was being educated. She left the school room
at sixteen, but kept her governess, which is really important,
who was called missus Margaret Steele known as Steely, who
they had a friendship for the rest of her life,
(14:46):
and the family outside of Jane also used Steely as
a way of talking to Jane and communicating with Jane
when she was somewhat cut off from them, so Jane
left school in eighteen three at age sixteen, and then
she was a debutante in the following February, and by
(15:06):
the September she was with her first husband, Edward Law,
who was Lord Ellenborough. With him she did have a son, probably,
though it might have been her cousins.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Did she quit her cousins will hang on. You can't
just breeze over that, this potential incest affair that's happening. Oh,
let's just dwell on that a bit.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
It's not quite incest, does it with a cousin.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Well, well, he's their own. Will agree to disagree there
if if you've got your morals on that side, I'm
going to I'm certainly on the side that hooking up
with your cousin is wrong. But Lucy, if that's you,
live your life and your truth.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
She the cousin was a good nine or ten years
older than her, so you know, almost again she was
infatuated with him. But there again, her husband was fifteen
years older than her, so it were you know, there
was quite a similar So now you had a son.
And then quite quickly after that she met her first
(16:04):
royalty and took her first royal lover, which ended up
with her having to leave for Europe.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
What a phrase to say she met her first royal lover,
like you know, you know you always have at least
one or two royal lovers in your time.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
I wouldn't know. So yes, she met Prince Felix and
moved over to Paris, had a really scandalous divorce. And
the divorce was so scandalous from Lord Edinburgh that where
the Times newspaper used to just have classified adverts, it
actually had details of the divorce case on the front page.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Why was it scandalous, Well, she.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Didn't really help herself. She stood on the balcony shouting
out I am Prince Felix's mistress, or somebody caught Prince
Felix getting into her hotel room in Brighton, and you know,
it was just this massive, massive scandal that she was
a sort of unrepentant. So anyway, she leaves for Europe.
(17:04):
She's just about divorced, she has a daughter. Prince Felix
comes over, but then he actually realizes that it's going
to compromise his career being with this scandalous divorced woman,
so leaves her, which is what they're said, sad she's
a completely damaged good She can't really come back and
have her nice life. Her grandfather, who has a very
(17:26):
young wife now doesn't want to have anything to do
with her. It's I think it's really quite tragic.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Is she just like heartbroken and completely bereft?
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah, there's no more balconies to shout anything out.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
So what does she do? How does she bounce back?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
She goes to Munich and meets King Ludwig.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
She's done pretty well, pretty good rebound. How do you
get over that one? A king? No fair enough?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
She also meets Baron Carl von Venigan, who turns out
to be a really good chat Really yeah he does
because she eventually marries Parl and has his child, who's
called Herbert, and he supports her for the rest of
her life, but they're not married for very long. She
(18:15):
has another child, Bertha. There's a suggestion that Paul Bertha
peras mad King Ludwig as her father, because she gets
put into a mental asylum by the age of twenty,
because they'd been prior to that, there hadn't been any
great madness within the Cook line or the Digby line.
The thought is that it might have come from King Ludwig.
A little bit later, she meets Count Spiros Titowsky from.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Corf Does anyone have a normal name? In this entire story,
every blokes called like sounds like a wizard from Dungeons
and Dragons. Exactly what's his name again?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Say that again, Count Spiros theotoki.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Right, okay?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
And she and him would make late night twists on
her trusty mayor, so they would ride out in the
evenings and find each other. Unfortunately, her husband Venegan, finds
out and they have a duel. But Venegan is such
a gentleman. Although he wounds Spiros, he takes him home
and gets him better.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Again.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
That's nice of him though, to patch you all up.
Awkward carriage ride back, I imagine.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Very very Anyway, Spiros decides he wants to go back
to Paris, so Jane leaves Venegon to go to Paris
with him. A little bit later, Jane's last child, Leonidas,
was born, and Leonidas was the one child that Jane
actually really really loved.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I would have pronounced it Leonidas, but.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
He was my favorite Ninja turtle.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yes, So then she gets divorced from Venigan. He decides
that actually he's had enough, and Jane becomes Missus Theotosky
and she gets married in the Greek Orthodox Church. So
this is marriage number three, and she moves to Tinos
inspire Us and learns Greek.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
It just sounds so insane experience. It sounds like a
series of dips. You'd get a posh. And then Tera
Mauthlata came in and said.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
But there's life that she's got in Greece with Spiros.
It's just it seems to be one of the happiest
periods of her life, so happy that they decide to
go to Italy for a holiday and they take their
young son with them, Leonidas.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Leonidas saying yeah, well also so yeah, I'm also basically
off the movie three hundred.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
So they take leonid Us with them to Italy, and
unfortunate Lenia and I just runs to a balcony and
falls off and has the most horrific death, which Jane
never gets over.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
The balconies.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
And their marriage dissolves and we lose track of Jane
for about three years.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
So she goes off the off the grid in Greece. Essentially, Yeah,
it's very sad.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Yeah, you know, she's had a number of children. I
think this was her fifth child. At least two of
other previous children have died really quite young, and you
know this one that she'd got to about four. Then
this happens, which must be horrific for anybody. She then reappears,
you're like this. She then reappears in Athens with a
(21:22):
freedom fighter called Christos.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
God, yeah, Christos excellent.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
And they go and live in the sort of bush
for a while, as it were, and have a very
fun time fighting whichever freedom fighters they're fighting they're fighting against.
But Christos has an affair with Jane's maid, who she's
brought from Paris, who's kind of traveled around Germany and
Italy with her, so she gets rid of him. She
(21:49):
corresponds with Steely, and Steely comes out and visits visits
her in various places around Europe, but won't commit to
living with Jane. And in eighteen fifty three, forty six
year old Jane decides to sail to Syria to buy
horses and they land in Beirute, take a toil of
the desert by caravan to go to Jerusalem and then
(22:11):
up to Damascus and then to Palmira. Wow, and she
just loves Syrian life. She writes in her diary, my
heart warms towards these wild Arabs. They have many qualities
we want in civilized life, and bounded hospitality, respect for
strangers or guests, good faith, simplicity of dealing with themselves,
and a certain highbred innates politeness. So it's kind of
(22:35):
all the things you'd expect, or you might have expected
to have an English society with the society that's completely
said no, we don't want to see you anymore. So
on the last journey bit that she wants to go
from Damascus to Palmira, she was told by the British
consult she needed an escort, and Jane hired some Mezzaabs and.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
The one, sorry, what's the mezb.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
A mezzrab it's one of the tribes, okay, that she
hired by the tribes. And the leader of the tribe
that she hired was called Midjuel, who was the brother
of their sheikh. He was really good because of the
various people that she could have chosen to lead her party,
he was the one that could read and write and
(23:17):
was a thought and authority on desert history. So it
was something that really appealed to her. You could see
the attraction. And he was twenty years younger than her.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That always helps. What did it is she heading.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Towards, Well, she's heading towards Palmira, which is south from Damascus,
I think. And Jane and Madjell just enjoyed horses, They
enjoyed the company of each other, and as you can imagine,
they just fell in love on this journey. A year later,
she'd married Midell in a Muslim ceremony and her title
(23:48):
became sit Mesirab. But they continued to enjoy the next
period of their life together. They would spend six months
in Jane's house in Damascus, and then the other six
months they had in his nomadic tribe traveling around the desert,
and she'd sleep in one of their tents that was
made from black goat hair. Wow, she would completely become
(24:12):
this Arabian woman. She dyed her hair, her lovely golden hair,
she dyed black. She put on the face covering, so
she completely really took on the role. She chose to
do that to show respect to her his family and
his tradition.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, she pretty much like by the end of it,
she really has like fully transformed completely different person from
this golden haired English lady to now a Muslim woman
in a desert.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
So her lovely English house that she had in Damascus,
she contacted Steelee to send out seed catalogs from the
UK and they were trying to make an English garden
in this courtyard that they had with a lily pond,
and they had lots of animals inside, so things like
geese and turkeys and a tame pelican and gazelle's and
(25:01):
over one hundred cats. So she was also this slightly
mad cat woman.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah yeah, but why not in there absolutely one hundred.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Cats, and she built one hundred.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Cat play stank, I've got a maid, I've got a maide,
he's got one cat. His house absolutely.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Reeks, and she built him a lovely stable because he
was breeding Arab horses and then she would help break
them in. And she was known in the region for
being able to treat sick animals, So those sick animals
that she'd learned to look after at Holcombe in her childhood,
she was now then able to look after them. So
in eighteen seventy three there was a false rumor that
(25:38):
she'd been killed, and her obituary was printed in the Times,
which caused quite a lot of scandal because obviously, although
we'd known about what had happened, she wasn't really in
the eye, the public eye when she was over in
Europe doing whatever she was up to. And the family
were a little bit embarrassed about that.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
How does the rumor start and how do they reckon
she died?
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Well, Jane was supplying her husband's tribe with guns and
was leading them into battles because I think things were
still a little volatile up.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
She was leading them into battles, her.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Husband in battle, but she was providing the money for
their guns that they were using. I see hell, so
she was financing it, and she often went into battle
with them. I think you know. She was a keen
camel's woman by this point as well as a horsewoman,
so she could do whatever she wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
A little bit blood thirsty as well. Why not?
Speaker 3 (26:28):
But it's exciting. Can imagine being a nineteenth century woman
and all those layers and just being told why you've
just got to sit still all the time. You want
to be doing exciting things, And if you're in an
exciting country like Syria would be it would be worth
doing so. But no. In fact, she died in eighteen
seventy seven after an attack of dysentery, and she's buried
(26:49):
in the Christian Cemetery in Damascus.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
After all those risk takes, it's dysentery that gets it. Yes,
that's not a glorious way to go. She deserves better
than that she did.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
But it's a kind of quiet way to go after
such a sort of fireworky life, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yes? And how old did you say she was when she.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Well, when she died, she would have been seventeen.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Pretty good innings, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
For a life to have been here, there and everywhere. Oh,
her husband, I.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Think as far as about the most varied life I
think you could possibly ask for.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Lady Jane was a brilliant woman, far ahead of her time.
She had four husbands, she had five children, she had
numerous lovers, and she ended up in Damascus from Little Holcombe.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
From Little Holcomb to Damascus, not a bad trip. Luten
and Katherine, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
It's been incredible and ridiculous and heartwarming. In space, I
(28:03):
wanted to ask you a few quick fire questions before
you go. So, aside from Hocum, what is your guy's
favorite stately home or historical manor house?
Speaker 3 (28:13):
My favorite is Craigside in Northumberland, which is the first
house that has electric lighting in it. Oh, I quite
liked that.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Does that have a big chandelier by any chance?
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Of course? Say?
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Of course it does.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
It's got the earliest dishwasher.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Wow. As far as tourist attractions go, what is it kids,
Alton Towers, Harry Potter World or would you like to
go to see the oldest dishwasher? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Excellent and Catherine, So mine is Wentworth Wood House, which
is a house in South Yorkshire. It is the longest
house in England. It's about six hundred feet long and
it's this great white elephant ruined pile of a thing
with the most fantastic history. There's a Kennedy airess, there
(29:03):
is a scandalous affair, there's plane crashes, there's open cast mining.
It is just the most bonkers place.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
That's cool. And finally, why should people visit Hokum Hall?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
So the official answer is because we are a fantastic
Palladian house that is virtually unaltered since it was built
in the eighteenth century. The artificial answer is because we
are a mile away from the most amazing beach. So
you can come and go in the house, go to
the pub, and go to the beach all in one day.
And where else could you do that?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
What sort of beach is is it? Sandy Beach? Beach?
Sand Sandy Beach as well? Oh god, this is great.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
It goes out for about three miles from Wells when
the tide's out, so you've got a huge amount of
space to bring your horse and jump around on that
on it. I suppose you could always take your sheep
if you had do.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
People ride horses across the beach.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yeah, the household cavalry come every year.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Do they know?
Speaker 3 (29:58):
They have their holiday up here on The horses all
come and everyone gets very excited that the tides are
the right time to see them.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I've always wanted to ride a horse across the beach.
That's one of those box tick dreams.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
We'll come to.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Hokam, come to holme.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Deal with that. I would say, thank you very much
so much for coming, and I guess I'll see you
on a horse in Hokm some point soon. It starts
with a horse in Hokum, and with any luck, it'll
end with a marriage in Damascus, or you know, selling
arms to freedom fighters. I'd be happy with either, to
be honest. That's it for this episode. I'm off to
(30:35):
the local sheep sharing festival. Until next time, shout your
love from a balcony, shoot a bull in the face,
and mind your manners. Thanks for listening to Bad Manners.
If you like the pod, please share it with your friends,
rate it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review and make
sure you spill the tea on any of your favorite
(30:56):
bad Manners that we could feature in future episodes. This
podcast was produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio. It was
hosted by me Tom Horton. It was produced by William Lensky,
Rebecca Rappaport, and Chris Ataway. It was executive produced by
Face Steur and Zad Rogers. Our production manager is Caitlin
Paramore and our production coordinator is Bellasolini.
Today, we're back at Hocombe Hall in Norfolk, a country
house so massive it not only contains a room just
for statues, it also houses several incredible and inspiring stories,
so many in fact, that we've had to revisit it
for a second time to hear them all. Don't get
me wrong, there's a lot of sheep loving silliness, but
(00:21):
Hocumbe Hall is also home to some very impressive women,
speaking of which, you remember this one from our last episode.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm Catherine. I'm collections coordinator at Hookumb, which means basically,
I look after all of the stuff in the house
see paintings, furniture, statues, you name it, I have to
look after it.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
And for this second episode we're adding another specialist because,
unlike Michael Gove, we haven't had enough of experts on
this podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'm Lucy Purvis. I'm the archimist at Holcombe. I've been
here now for about six years and I look after
and research into their history, be that the people that
live here or the people that work here, the buildings
and the collection that's within the hall and anything kind
of oldish on the estate.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Speaking of oldish, Catherine's already told us about Hocumb's famous
Thomas William Cook. But in case you missed it, Tom
was a bit of a lad. He loved a pasty
or three, took a five year long gap year, gambled
his money on cock fighting, and came back with just
about every Roman statue he could find. He also loved
(01:33):
the ladies, especially if they were younger, much younger. There
was a whopping fifty years between him and his wife.
Sounds like he was the DiCaprio of his day, But
was he actually as scandalous as he looks on paper?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
No, I'm afraid Thomas William is actually pretty dull. Really.
He's known for being a farmer, really loved sheep at agriculture.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
He loves sheep.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
But he was a bit of a dish apparently, So yes,
you're right. His second wife was about fifty odd years
younger than him. When he was sixty eight, she was eighteen,
and he wanted to marry her off to his nephew
who was going to inherit the house, and she said, well, well,
actually I'd much rather marry you. I think really great
sacrifice for him to marry the much younger woman.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
What first attracted her to the exceptionally rich older man.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Do you think No, I think it must have been
his conversation personally.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah. Do you know how they both met?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So he was actually her godparent? Ward?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
What does a ward do?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
It's a bit like we would call it a godparent
today and involved god parent?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
I think, bit too involved. Yeah. Do you recket the
marriage was then, ever, sort of consummated?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
They had it was You guys are nodding your heads
very very vigorously, like absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Was it six children, Lucy, oh Jesus Christ. Yeah, it
was very consummated immediately. Yeah, very quick. He wasn't wasting
any time.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
We didn't have much time left anyway.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Did the last child to be born? He was eighty four.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I'm not gonna lie that. I just a man of
his age. How is he doing this?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I'm sure he ate a lot of oysters.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Even though Thomas William Cook was a bit boring, he
still did throw incredible parties. What sort of parties was
he throwing?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah? So he actually, as you say, boring chap, but
loved a good party. So unsurprisingly one of his favorite
parties did involve sheep.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, as the guests or as the sort of fancy dress.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Kind of as a bit of face. Actually, every year
he told something called a sheep sharing, basically a country
fair load of farmers come, they look at sheep, they
talk about sheep, and then they have a great knees
up after talking about sheep.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Amazing, What a theme for the music for these parties,
because they'd been playing music at parties who are like
the big composers, who's like the Drake or the Kanye
of the day.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
You'd have hydn kicking around, wouldn't you writing as London symphonies,
maybe a bit of a saire. We Like Sheep?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Sorry? Is that the name of one of the songs? No?
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yes? In the Messiah there's a movement called for we
Like Sheep?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Is there really?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
That's perfect for this party. Absolutely stick that on and
get the sheep going. I'm gonna be honest, I didn't
at any point in any of my notes for this
episode have anything on sheep, and now it's been eighty
percent of this conversation so far, and I'm not sad
about it. I'm not sad about it at all anyway.
So they're also so sheep is a big party, but
(04:59):
there's also so lots of shooting parties. And this is
where Polly Fishburn comes in. This woman is quite a
tenacious woman. This is a fierce lady. Are you right?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
She's feisty, She's definitely fightsty. Yeah. She started off working
at Holcombe as a housemaid. Her father was a gamekeeper
on the estate. He wasn't the gamekeeper, he was one
of the assistant gamekeepers. And she would have come to
Holcom when she's about ten or so years old. She
would have lived in Church Lodges, which is where the
(05:31):
gamekeeper still lives today on the estate, so she would
have known all the kind of sights and smells of
what being a game peoper was like. But she was
stuck in the kitchen as one of the undermaids. And
there's various accounts of what she did, but one of
the main one that got her out of the kitchen
was when she was hearing the shooting, she suddenly dropped
all the saucepans and jumped out the window to go
(05:52):
and find out what was happening. She could apparently ride
any horse in the stable, and she was a great
breaker of horses. But they realized that and Undermade really
wasn't the career for her, so she was agreed that
she could go and work with the gamekeepers, and in fact,
she was much better gamekeeper than her father was, and
generally thought that she was the equivalent of a man,
except she was obviously wearing ladies' clothes.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I was gonna say that must have been a huge
scandal at the time because they're like, what a woman.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
But then you've also got because at that point the
servants would have been all eating together in the servants hall.
So you've got all the gamekeepers and all the outdoor
men the gardeners all eating together and being very masculine
and very laddish like they would be. You've got Polly
that comes in and none of the female servants want
to have anything to do with her because she's a
bit grubby, she's a bit gamekeeper, and she probably smells
(06:42):
a bit compared to what they do, so she had
to take her nails in their nursery. But there's a
couple of really good little stories about Polly, and the
fact that she was so formidable just comes across each time.
So there was a couple of gentlemen at one point
that should have been eating and were waiting their dinner,
and they thought they'd just take a stroll around the park,
(07:03):
and they walked up to Church Lodge where Polly was living,
and said, oh, could you take us to the church
and show us around the church please? And she happily
took them, but realized that they weren't just wanting to
see the church. She managed to lock them at the
top of the church and went home and they had
to be rescued some hours later when their absence was noticed.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
That's amazing. So she'd have gone, oh, into this this cupboard, gentleman,
and then since you went in at the door, click
legs it away. Yeah, exactly, and then didn't tell anyone.
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Well know, I think the thing was that they became
the laughing stock, and she wasn't reprimanded at all. In fact,
she was kind of praised for showing dignity and independence.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Who do you reckon found them? Was it just like
the vicar going into like dust off the prayer books
on the Sunday morning and just opened up and there's
these two sad looking n I got this.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Vision of them just standing at the top of Saint
with the Burger's just shouting, what are you.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Two doing in here, well, not what we wanted to
do in here.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Do you want to know the story about it?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I want every single story about Polly.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Okay, Well, Polly was on the marshes. So when you've
got Holkham, you've got the lovely parkland, you've got the wall,
and then you've got the marshes leading up to the sea,
and they used to graze cattle and in fact they
still graized cattle on there, but unfortunately there was a
bull on there that had taken out one of the
laborers and he was dead and he was standing over
the bull was standing over the laborer, and everybody was like, well,
(08:35):
what we're going to do, What we're going to do.
Polly took one look, went into the field and started
walking towards this bull and people were shouting, don't, don't, don't,
don't go body, don't you know Polly? And her reply
was he knows better. And as soon as the bull
saw her he backed off because the bull had had
previous with Polly when she'd shot him in the muzzle
(08:56):
when he'd been misbehaving.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Again, firstly, what's a muzzle and in like the nose
shot the bull in the face I'm not surprised the
bull was quite angry in general, then if I had
been shot in the f I'm starting out a bit
of sympathy with the bull. Actually, I mean, I don't
know between us three, I don't know what the biggest
animal you think you could take in a fight is all.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I've actually answered this recently at a pub quiz. At
a pub quiz, Well, this is session quizz is a
bit too.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yea, there can't be like a definite answer. Then I'll
hear your answer.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I'm a bit hesitant because we've talked about it a
lot already, but I reckon it's a sheep.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Well, you're not going to invite to any any bloody
of Thomas Cook's parties then.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Or maybe I am it's just maybe you are ticket?
Can you take a sheep in a fight?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
And after dessert we will be watching Catherine wrestle a
sheep to death.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah I'm not I'm not the biggest person, but I reckon,
I reckon I could take a sheep.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
How are you taking it? Are you going to kick
it to death?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Or I'm going to flip it over? And then sheep
are really good at dying.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So you just flip the sheep and then pray for
natural causes? Is that? Is that the plan? Solid one?
And Lucy and the advance on sheep.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, I found out today that I'm the same height
as a red kangaroo as I was looking at a
wall chart.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
There's not a chance you're beating up a kangaroo loose.
I mean, I love that is ambitious.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
No, there is no way I would take it to redo,
but I thought it's quite interesting. I was the same
height as well. I think maybe a large tortoise, I
will go that far.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
And are you are you going to do it for
the same same tactic, just flip it over? Yeah, okay,
flipping sounds good. Yeah sure. And myself, I think I
could take a penguin, what sort chocolate chocolate bark, chocolate
bar penguin, flip it over, lift its wing. Read the joke.
See you lay any more Polly stories?
Speaker 3 (11:03):
So yeah. Polly's father died in eighteen twenty seven, which
is the kind of the time when the sheep shearing
had all finished, and she and her mother returned to
Yorkshire and then Polly was employed at Cannon Harller State
And the reason why I'm telling you about cannon Harll
estate was the lady of cannon Horn Estate was Elizabeth Cook,
who had been Thomas William's cook youngest daughter, who very
(11:25):
quickly moved out once Thomas got married again. So they
were given the cottage, went free and had three cows
to look after, which is quind of nice. And the
heir did come that what became the second Earl did
come and recognized Polly, obviously because of her reputation, and
and they reminisced together about life at Holcombe. And then
(11:46):
Polly's supposed to have said, oh, my lord, what a
spree we had over them wild ducks.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Oh what's happened with ducks? We've had sheep, we've had cows,
we've beaten up a kangaroo, a torsses dead, and now
we're going after ducksed what happened with ducks?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I had no idea what happened with the world ducks,
but presumably they were raising them and shooting them.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Shot in the face. She shot a duck in the face.
And then one day they came and there was a
duck stood over a dead farmer. I now want to
(12:26):
talk about Lady Jane Digby, who hopefully hasn't killed any animals,
but is again quite a woman.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Well, she was one of these people that grew up
in Hulcomb, although she was born in Dorset. Her mother
had been another Jane, and she was the Thomas William Cook,
the old man, his eldest daughter.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Her mother was incredibly beautiful. Jane was incredibly, incredibly beautiful.
She would have been in the nursery when Polly would
have been going for her long.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Really, so she'd have met Polly. Yes, Oh that's cool.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
I think they would have known each other. I think
they would have at least walked past each other in
the corridors, if not known each other. She was incredibly beautiful.
She had very long golden hair. Loads of people think
that she is like, you know, the best thing since
sliced bread.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Nice a slice bread inventor by then no slice bread,
slice spread is the best thing since since lady Jane
Digby is actually what it should be.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yes, she really captivated her grandfather, who obviously was Thomas
William Cook. And she had this education which was the
same as the boys in the nursery before they went
off to Eton. She learned lots of languages.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
This make this makes sense why she sort because then
she sort of went around collecting men from different countries,
didn't she Yeah, I can learn a language, and you
might as well grab a bloat from it. How what's
the best way to learn by doing? That's what I think,
Just live it.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
But her grandfather encouraged her to take an interest in
horses and small farm animals, so presumably sheep. She again
would be including that she read the classics, which, of
course at Hulcombe is very important with all the architecture
and the sculptures and the paintings and.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
When you say the classics, so you're talking like sort
of Homer in the Illy Adima, Ancient all that sort
of stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Yes, yeah, yeah, definitely, and wanted to know the stories
behind some of the key pieces at Hulcombe as well,
so she was being educated. She left the school room
at sixteen, but kept her governess, which is really important,
who was called missus Margaret Steele known as Steely, who
they had a friendship for the rest of her life,
(14:46):
and the family outside of Jane also used Steely as
a way of talking to Jane and communicating with Jane
when she was somewhat cut off from them, so Jane
left school in eighteen three at age sixteen, and then
she was a debutante in the following February, and by
(15:06):
the September she was with her first husband, Edward Law,
who was Lord Ellenborough. With him she did have a son, probably,
though it might have been her cousins.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Did she quit her cousins will hang on. You can't
just breeze over that, this potential incest affair that's happening. Oh,
let's just dwell on that a bit.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
It's not quite incest, does it with a cousin.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Well, well, he's their own. Will agree to disagree there
if if you've got your morals on that side, I'm
going to I'm certainly on the side that hooking up
with your cousin is wrong. But Lucy, if that's you,
live your life and your truth.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
She the cousin was a good nine or ten years
older than her, so you know, almost again she was
infatuated with him. But there again, her husband was fifteen
years older than her, so it were you know, there
was quite a similar So now you had a son.
And then quite quickly after that she met her first
(16:04):
royalty and took her first royal lover, which ended up
with her having to leave for Europe.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
What a phrase to say she met her first royal lover,
like you know, you know you always have at least
one or two royal lovers in your time.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
I wouldn't know. So yes, she met Prince Felix and
moved over to Paris, had a really scandalous divorce. And
the divorce was so scandalous from Lord Edinburgh that where
the Times newspaper used to just have classified adverts, it
actually had details of the divorce case on the front page.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Why was it scandalous, Well, she.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Didn't really help herself. She stood on the balcony shouting
out I am Prince Felix's mistress, or somebody caught Prince
Felix getting into her hotel room in Brighton, and you know,
it was just this massive, massive scandal that she was
a sort of unrepentant. So anyway, she leaves for Europe.
(17:04):
She's just about divorced, she has a daughter. Prince Felix
comes over, but then he actually realizes that it's going
to compromise his career being with this scandalous divorced woman,
so leaves her, which is what they're said, sad she's
a completely damaged good She can't really come back and
have her nice life. Her grandfather, who has a very
(17:26):
young wife now doesn't want to have anything to do
with her. It's I think it's really quite tragic.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Is she just like heartbroken and completely bereft?
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah, there's no more balconies to shout anything out.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
So what does she do? How does she bounce back?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
She goes to Munich and meets King Ludwig.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
She's done pretty well, pretty good rebound. How do you
get over that one? A king? No fair enough?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
She also meets Baron Carl von Venigan, who turns out
to be a really good chat Really yeah he does
because she eventually marries Parl and has his child, who's
called Herbert, and he supports her for the rest of
her life, but they're not married for very long. She
(18:15):
has another child, Bertha. There's a suggestion that Paul Bertha
peras mad King Ludwig as her father, because she gets
put into a mental asylum by the age of twenty,
because they'd been prior to that, there hadn't been any
great madness within the Cook line or the Digby line.
The thought is that it might have come from King Ludwig.
A little bit later, she meets Count Spiros Titowsky from.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Corf Does anyone have a normal name? In this entire story,
every blokes called like sounds like a wizard from Dungeons
and Dragons. Exactly what's his name again?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Say that again, Count Spiros theotoki.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Right, okay?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
And she and him would make late night twists on
her trusty mayor, so they would ride out in the
evenings and find each other. Unfortunately, her husband Venegan, finds
out and they have a duel. But Venegan is such
a gentleman. Although he wounds Spiros, he takes him home
and gets him better.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Again.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
That's nice of him though, to patch you all up.
Awkward carriage ride back, I imagine.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Very very Anyway, Spiros decides he wants to go back
to Paris, so Jane leaves Venegon to go to Paris
with him. A little bit later, Jane's last child, Leonidas,
was born, and Leonidas was the one child that Jane
actually really really loved.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I would have pronounced it Leonidas, but.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
He was my favorite Ninja turtle.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yes, So then she gets divorced from Venigan. He decides
that actually he's had enough, and Jane becomes Missus Theotosky
and she gets married in the Greek Orthodox Church. So
this is marriage number three, and she moves to Tinos
inspire Us and learns Greek.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
It just sounds so insane experience. It sounds like a
series of dips. You'd get a posh. And then Tera
Mauthlata came in and said.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
But there's life that she's got in Greece with Spiros.
It's just it seems to be one of the happiest
periods of her life, so happy that they decide to
go to Italy for a holiday and they take their
young son with them, Leonidas.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Leonidas saying yeah, well also so yeah, I'm also basically
off the movie three hundred.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
So they take leonid Us with them to Italy, and
unfortunate Lenia and I just runs to a balcony and
falls off and has the most horrific death, which Jane
never gets over.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
The balconies.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
And their marriage dissolves and we lose track of Jane
for about three years.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
So she goes off the off the grid in Greece. Essentially, Yeah,
it's very sad.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Yeah, you know, she's had a number of children. I
think this was her fifth child. At least two of
other previous children have died really quite young, and you
know this one that she'd got to about four. Then
this happens, which must be horrific for anybody. She then reappears,
you're like this. She then reappears in Athens with a
(21:22):
freedom fighter called Christos.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
God, yeah, Christos excellent.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
And they go and live in the sort of bush
for a while, as it were, and have a very
fun time fighting whichever freedom fighters they're fighting they're fighting against.
But Christos has an affair with Jane's maid, who she's
brought from Paris, who's kind of traveled around Germany and
Italy with her, so she gets rid of him. She
(21:49):
corresponds with Steely, and Steely comes out and visits visits
her in various places around Europe, but won't commit to
living with Jane. And in eighteen fifty three, forty six
year old Jane decides to sail to Syria to buy
horses and they land in Beirute, take a toil of
the desert by caravan to go to Jerusalem and then
(22:11):
up to Damascus and then to Palmira. Wow, and she
just loves Syrian life. She writes in her diary, my
heart warms towards these wild Arabs. They have many qualities
we want in civilized life, and bounded hospitality, respect for
strangers or guests, good faith, simplicity of dealing with themselves,
and a certain highbred innates politeness. So it's kind of
(22:35):
all the things you'd expect, or you might have expected
to have an English society with the society that's completely
said no, we don't want to see you anymore. So
on the last journey bit that she wants to go
from Damascus to Palmira, she was told by the British
consult she needed an escort, and Jane hired some Mezzaabs and.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
The one, sorry, what's the mezb.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
A mezzrab it's one of the tribes, okay, that she
hired by the tribes. And the leader of the tribe
that she hired was called Midjuel, who was the brother
of their sheikh. He was really good because of the
various people that she could have chosen to lead her party,
he was the one that could read and write and
(23:17):
was a thought and authority on desert history. So it
was something that really appealed to her. You could see
the attraction. And he was twenty years younger than her.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That always helps. What did it is she heading.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Towards, Well, she's heading towards Palmira, which is south from Damascus,
I think. And Jane and Madjell just enjoyed horses, They
enjoyed the company of each other, and as you can imagine,
they just fell in love on this journey. A year later,
she'd married Midell in a Muslim ceremony and her title
(23:48):
became sit Mesirab. But they continued to enjoy the next
period of their life together. They would spend six months
in Jane's house in Damascus, and then the other six
months they had in his nomadic tribe traveling around the desert,
and she'd sleep in one of their tents that was
made from black goat hair. Wow, she would completely become
(24:12):
this Arabian woman. She dyed her hair, her lovely golden hair,
she dyed black. She put on the face covering, so
she completely really took on the role. She chose to
do that to show respect to her his family and
his tradition.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, she pretty much like by the end of it,
she really has like fully transformed completely different person from
this golden haired English lady to now a Muslim woman
in a desert.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
So her lovely English house that she had in Damascus,
she contacted Steelee to send out seed catalogs from the
UK and they were trying to make an English garden
in this courtyard that they had with a lily pond,
and they had lots of animals inside, so things like
geese and turkeys and a tame pelican and gazelle's and
(25:01):
over one hundred cats. So she was also this slightly
mad cat woman.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah yeah, but why not in there absolutely one hundred.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Cats, and she built one hundred.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Cat play stank, I've got a maid, I've got a maide,
he's got one cat. His house absolutely.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Reeks, and she built him a lovely stable because he
was breeding Arab horses and then she would help break
them in. And she was known in the region for
being able to treat sick animals, So those sick animals
that she'd learned to look after at Holcombe in her childhood,
she was now then able to look after them. So
in eighteen seventy three there was a false rumor that
(25:38):
she'd been killed, and her obituary was printed in the Times,
which caused quite a lot of scandal because obviously, although
we'd known about what had happened, she wasn't really in
the eye, the public eye when she was over in
Europe doing whatever she was up to. And the family
were a little bit embarrassed about that.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
How does the rumor start and how do they reckon
she died?
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Well, Jane was supplying her husband's tribe with guns and
was leading them into battles because I think things were
still a little volatile up.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
She was leading them into battles, her.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Husband in battle, but she was providing the money for
their guns that they were using. I see hell, so
she was financing it, and she often went into battle
with them. I think you know. She was a keen
camel's woman by this point as well as a horsewoman,
so she could do whatever she wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
A little bit blood thirsty as well. Why not?
Speaker 3 (26:28):
But it's exciting. Can imagine being a nineteenth century woman
and all those layers and just being told why you've
just got to sit still all the time. You want
to be doing exciting things, And if you're in an
exciting country like Syria would be it would be worth
doing so. But no. In fact, she died in eighteen
seventy seven after an attack of dysentery, and she's buried
(26:49):
in the Christian Cemetery in Damascus.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
After all those risk takes, it's dysentery that gets it. Yes,
that's not a glorious way to go. She deserves better
than that she did.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
But it's a kind of quiet way to go after
such a sort of fireworky life, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yes? And how old did you say she was when she.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Well, when she died, she would have been seventeen.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Pretty good innings, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
For a life to have been here, there and everywhere. Oh,
her husband, I.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Think as far as about the most varied life I
think you could possibly ask for.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Lady Jane was a brilliant woman, far ahead of her time.
She had four husbands, she had five children, she had
numerous lovers, and she ended up in Damascus from Little Holcombe.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
From Little Holcomb to Damascus, not a bad trip. Luten
and Katherine, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
It's been incredible and ridiculous and heartwarming. In space, I
(28:03):
wanted to ask you a few quick fire questions before
you go. So, aside from Hocum, what is your guy's
favorite stately home or historical manor house?
Speaker 3 (28:13):
My favorite is Craigside in Northumberland, which is the first
house that has electric lighting in it. Oh, I quite
liked that.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Does that have a big chandelier by any chance?
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Of course? Say?
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Of course it does.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
It's got the earliest dishwasher.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Wow. As far as tourist attractions go, what is it kids,
Alton Towers, Harry Potter World or would you like to
go to see the oldest dishwasher? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Excellent and Catherine, So mine is Wentworth Wood House, which
is a house in South Yorkshire. It is the longest
house in England. It's about six hundred feet long and
it's this great white elephant ruined pile of a thing
with the most fantastic history. There's a Kennedy airess, there
(29:03):
is a scandalous affair, there's plane crashes, there's open cast mining.
It is just the most bonkers place.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
That's cool. And finally, why should people visit Hokum Hall?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
So the official answer is because we are a fantastic
Palladian house that is virtually unaltered since it was built
in the eighteenth century. The artificial answer is because we
are a mile away from the most amazing beach. So
you can come and go in the house, go to
the pub, and go to the beach all in one day.
And where else could you do that?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
What sort of beach is is it? Sandy Beach? Beach?
Sand Sandy Beach as well? Oh god, this is great.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
It goes out for about three miles from Wells when
the tide's out, so you've got a huge amount of
space to bring your horse and jump around on that
on it. I suppose you could always take your sheep
if you had do.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
People ride horses across the beach.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yeah, the household cavalry come every year.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Do they know?
Speaker 3 (29:58):
They have their holiday up here on The horses all
come and everyone gets very excited that the tides are
the right time to see them.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I've always wanted to ride a horse across the beach.
That's one of those box tick dreams.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
We'll come to.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Hokam, come to holme.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Deal with that. I would say, thank you very much
so much for coming, and I guess I'll see you
on a horse in Hokm some point soon. It starts
with a horse in Hokum, and with any luck, it'll
end with a marriage in Damascus, or you know, selling
arms to freedom fighters. I'd be happy with either, to
be honest. That's it for this episode. I'm off to
(30:35):
the local sheep sharing festival. Until next time, shout your
love from a balcony, shoot a bull in the face,
and mind your manners. Thanks for listening to Bad Manners.
If you like the pod, please share it with your friends,
rate it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review and make
sure you spill the tea on any of your favorite
(30:56):
bad Manners that we could feature in future episodes. This
podcast was produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio. It was
hosted by me Tom Horton. It was produced by William Lensky,
Rebecca Rappaport, and Chris Ataway. It was executive produced by
Face Steur and Zad Rogers. Our production manager is Caitlin
Paramore and our production coordinator is Bellasolini.
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