#malmesbury

[rherlotshadow]

Malmesbury: town on a hill

[lord-aldhelm]

For those of you in the UK, this year is the 1100th anniversary of Athelstan ascending to the throne as King of England. There are celebrations for this going on this week in Malmesbury from July 11-21 and in Tamworth Castle from July 20-28.

I wish I could go! These events look like so much fun!

[ancientsstudies]

The Abbey House Gardens. x

[redundant2]

Random British Royal tidbits

I'm reading "The Vanity Fair Diaries" by Tina Brown and came across this tidbit:

Monday May 26, 1986

"We had lunch with the preposterous Princess Michael of Kent, who looked about fifteen hands high in an orange silk wrap dress. She has developed a mad, false laugh and a new Lady Bracknell voice for dealing with inferiors. "Row-eena," she gushed at the cowed debutante she totes around as her "lady in waiting." "where is the Dom Perignon? It was sitting outside but those fooooools have taken it away! Find it!" (Mad false laugh.) "Isn't the service quite diabolical? Do shut the kitchen door, Rowena. I hate to stare into a kitchen!"

From The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown, p. 199

Princess Michael of Kent, nee' Baroness Marie-Christine Anna Agnes Hedwig Ida von Reibnitz, would have been 41 at the time of this lunch. She was born in the German-occupied Sudetenland in what is now the Czech Republic. Her father, Baron Günther Hubertus von Reibnitz, was a descendant of the ancient Reibnitz family, Silesian landowners, who trace their ancestry back to 1288. He was a Nazi party member and a SS calvary officer during WWII.

Princess Michael's mother was Countess Maria Anna Carolina Franziska Walburga Bernadette Szapary von Muraszombath, Szechysziget und Szapar.  The House of Szapáry is an old and important Hungarian noble family. Members of this family held the title of Imperial Count granted to them on 28 December 1722 by Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor.

Princess Michael's parents divorced n 1948 and she with her mother and eldest brother moved to Rose Bay, Australia. In the early 1960s, she lived with her father on his farm in Mozambique.  She then went from Vienna to London to study History of Fine and Decorative Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  

She first married an English banker in 1971, but divorced in 1977. Once month after her marriage was annulled by the Pope, she married Prince Michael of Kent, Queen Elizabeth II's first cousin. She has said that Lord Mountbatten played matchmaker.

The lady-in-waiting mentioned in the excerpt is The Hon. Rowena Hawke Leatham Sanders, daughter of the 9th Baron Hawke of Towton.

The Baron of Towton peerage title was created on 20 May 1776 for the admiral Sir Edward Hawke (of Scarthingwell Hall in the parish of Towton), responsible for a blockade of all French merchant shipping and the grounding of six French ships, and scattering of the rest, at the Battle of Quiberon Bay.  

Rowena Hawke's sister, Annabel, pictured above.

Rowena's father, Bladen Wilmer Hawke, 9th Baron of Towton, above. He served as a Lord-in-waiting (government whip in the House of Lords from 1953 to 1957 in the Conservative administrations of Churchill, Eden and MacMillan.  

Another of Rowena's sisters, Lavinia, married Nicholas MacLean-Bristol. She became a Justice of the Peace and lives in 15th century Old Breachacha Castle on the Isle of Coll in Scotland. This tower fortress was the stronghold of the MacLean clan. The Isle of Coll was granted to the MacLeans in 1431. There is also a new "castle" on this island, built in 1750, which is available to rent for just £1500 for a party of two for one week.

Castle to rent on the Hebridean Isle of Coll in Scotland

Castle to rent for holidays in the Scottish Hebrides. Breachacha Castle on the Isle of Coll is available to rent for up to 14 guests.

Rowena lives at Hankerton Priory, Malmesbury, Wiltshire, and borrowed a page from her sister's notebook, as her home is also available as an Air BNB rental - hosted by Rowena! Perhaps she will tell you stories about her days with Princess Michael if you stay with her?

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2777181?source_impression_id=p3_1676477115_Gba9bnmOeznlt0af

[allthingseurope]

Malmesbury Abbey, England (by Gerry Lynch)

[thisisengland]

Malmesbury, Wiltshire.

[pintoras]

Esther Blaikie MacKinnon (Scottish, 1884 - 1934): Malmesbury (1922) (via Smithsonian)

[serenamlc]

On the lookout.