...as this one from the London News Telegraph:
Lady Sibell Rowley
Lady Sibell Rowley, who has died aged 98, was the last surviving daughter of the 7th Earl Beauchamp, KG, and thus a member of the family that inspired Evelyn Waugh to write his celebrated Roman Catholic novel Brideshead Revisited.
Sibell Lygon, the second of the four Lygon daughters, was born on October 10 1907. The eldest girl, Lettice, married Sir Richard Cottrell. The third daughter, Mary (or Maimie) Lygon, a beautiful blonde, married Prince Vselvolde of Russia, and ended her days as an alcoholic stroking a Pekinese; while the youngest daughter, Dorothy (Coote), endured an unfortunate late-life marriage to Robert Heber Percy, known as "Mad Boy", the eccentric squire of Faringdon and former boyfriend of Lord Berners. Of Sibell in childhood, Dorothy recalled: "She was rather a stormy petrel - and a great wielder of the wooden spoon; if mischief was going to be made, she made it."
In the early years their family life enjoyed a degree of stability, as they moved between Madresfield Court in Worcestershire, Walmer Castle (where their father was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports) and Halkin House in Belgrave Square, London. Their father read them stories from Victorian historical novels. Their adolescence was less secure, and the tensions of this period provided Evelyn Waugh with the raw material for Brideshead.
The daughters, aware of their father's nocturnal prowlings, would sometimes advise their boyfriends to lock their bedroom doors. Lord Beauchamp once complained at breakfast: "He's very nice that friend of yours, but he's damned uncivil!" Unfortunately, the problems proved more serious, concerning incidents with footmen, and as a result of a campaign instigated by his brother-in-law, Bendor, Duke of Westminster, Lord Beauchamp was forced into exile in Europe. The Duke tried to explain the circumstances to his sister, Lady Beauchamp, who failed to grasp the essentials. "Bendor says that Beauchamp is a bugler," she announced.
Lady Sibell's own career was not without notoriety. She acted as receptionist at the hairdressing and beauty establishment in Bond Street run by Violet Cripps, one of the former wives of the Duke of Westminster, her maternal uncle. When not behind the counter, she tended to eschew society parties, though she relished hunting. She was heard to moan: "The time is coming when there will be no idleness in Mayfair. We shall all work."
Presently she became a Socialist and tried her hand at journalism, contributing stories to Harper's Bazaar. She fell foul of the Duke of Westminster in 1934, when she allegedly libelled him in an article in the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, causing him to issue a writ; the matter was settled with an apology. She also contributed occasional pieces to the Daily Express, though she later confessed that most of them were written by Lord Beaverbrook, with whom she had an on-off affair. He once told her: "For all the awful things I've done in my life, I am paid back by my children's behaviour." Beaverbrook introduced her to the rising politician Aneurin Bevan, who was much taken with her and at one time possibly wanted to marry her.
On another occasion a policeman called at Madresfield, suspecting that Lady Sibell did not possess licences for her dogs. He was told that it was inconvenient for Lady Sibell to receive him. When he called again, he discovered that the licences had been taken out a few hours after his first call. The matter went to court and Lady Sibell was fined 30 shillings.
Her father died in November 1938, after which she moved out of Madresfield, returning there only once during the reign of Mona, Countess Beauchamp, her brother's Danish wife, with whom she was not in sympathy.
In February 1939 she married Michael Rowley, an aircraft designer eight years her junior, at the Brompton Oratory. Curiously, he was the son of George Rowley and his former wife, Violet Cripps, who had subsequently married Sibell's uncle, the Duke of Westminster. The business of marrying was far from uncomplicated, and was later the cause of another court case. The first attempt was to marry on January 7 1939 at Caxton Hall, but this was postponed, with the groom's father professing never to have heard of Lady Sibell. The next plan was for the Oratory on January 31, again cancelled. Another idea was St Peter's Catholic Church at Marlow, also put off. Finally, they married in the Brompton Oratory on February 11 in the presence of a few friends and relatives.
Their problems were, however, far from over. A few weeks after the wedding, Rowley revealed that the previous year he had married a German girl called Eleonore. Rowley had then been in love with the girl, and they were secretly engaged, but had no intention of marrying. Then, while in Mexico together they had enjoyed a substantial liquid lunch before spotting a sign outside an office proclaiming "Get Married Here". They had entered to find a young American couple in the process of marrying. This couple offered to be witnesses for them, and so they got married too. On his return to England, Rowley met and fell in love with Lady Sibell.
On hearing this story, Lady Sibell was far from amused, and in June 1939 the pair went over to Germany to see the first Mrs Rowley. The rejected wife appeared to accept her lot, although her marriage was still valid (as technically the second marriage was not).
Matters deteriorated during the war, when Rowley served as a fighter pilot with 601 Squadron. In 1940 he developed a tumour on the brain, and Lady Sibell took him home, doing her best to keep his life stress-free.
The following year, on receiving an enquiry from Eleonore, she replied that Rowley had been killed in the war; in fact, he was still alive.
After the war Eleonore claimed that this dishonest information had caused her considerable shock, and she sued for damages.
The court found that, although Lady Sibell's letter had not been inspired by malice, she should pay Eleonore damages of £814. Following this, Rowley's first marriage was officially dissolved, and he and Lady Sibell married for a second time in 1949. She nursed him faithfully throughout his long illness until his death at the Radcliffe Infirmary on September 19 1952.
A month after his death, Lady Sibell took over as Master of the Ledbury Hunt. She lived at Droitwich, and later at Stow-on-the-Wold. She was cited in the divorce case brought by Mrs Anne Warman, of Salwarpe Court, Droitwich, against her husband, Francis Byrne Warman. Other romantic involvements concerned Lord Rosebery.
Lady Sibell was buried at Madresfield. She had no children.
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1 comment:
The art of writing good obituaries has been lost in this country. They are assigned to green reporters and are considered punishment. In Great Britain, they are assigned to good writers who take it quite seriously. They're the best part of the newspaper. There is a charge for running them in most newspapers in the U.S., so they are short and to the point. She died, she'll be buried, she had some children. That sums up our lives.
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