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 Copyright

Copyright © 2020 by Anne Glenconner

Cover design by Terri Sirma
Cover photograph © Mirrorpix/Getty Images
Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the
value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers
and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without
permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you
would like permission to use material from the book (other than for
review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank
you for your support of the author’s rights.
Hachette Books
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10104
HachetteBooks.com
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Originally published in hardcover and ebook by Hodder & Stoughton
in Great Britain in October 2019
First US Edition: March 2020
Published by Hachette Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a
subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Hachette Books name
and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that
are not owned by the publisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019951170
ISBNs: 978-0-306-84636-6 (hardcover), 978-0-306-84635-9 (ebook)
E3-20200213-JV-NF-ORI
 Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue

1: The Greatest Disappointment

2: Hitler’s Mess
3: The Traveling Salesman
4: The Coronation
5: For Better, For Worse
6: Absolutely Furious
7: The Making of Mustique
8: A Princess in Pajamas
9: Motherhood
10: Lady in Waiting
11: The Caribbean Spectaculars
12: A Royal Tour
13: A Year at Kensington Palace
14: The Lost Ones
15: A Nightmare and a Miracle
16: Forever Young
17: The Last Days of a Princess
18: Until Death Us Do Part
19: Whatever Next?

Photos
Acknowledgments
Picture Acknowledgments
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For my children, grandchildren, and great-
grandchildren
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 PROLOGUE

ONE MORNING AT the beginning of 2019, when I was in my London flat,

the telephone rang.
“Hello?”
“Lady Glenconner? It’s Helena Bonham Carter.”
It’s not every day a Hollywood film star rings me up, although I
had been expecting her call. When the producers of the popular
Netflix series The Crown contacted me, saying that I was going to
be portrayed by Nancy Carroll in the third season, and that Helena
Bonham Carter had been cast as Princess Margaret, I was delighted.
Asked whether I minded meeting them so they could get a better
idea of my friendship with Princess Margaret, I said I didn’t mind in
the least.
Nancy Carroll came to tea, and we sat in armchairs in my sitting
room and talked. The conversation was surreal as I became
extremely self-aware, realizing that Nancy must be absorbing what I
was like.
A few days later when Helena was on the telephone, I invited her
for tea too. Not only do I admire her as an actress but, as it
happens, she is a cousin of my late husband Colin Tennant, and her
father helped me when one of my sons had a motorbike accident in
the eighties.
As Helena walked through the door, I noticed a resemblance
between her and Princess Margaret: she is just the right height and
figure, and although her eyes aren’t blue, there is a similar glint of
mischievous intelligence in her gaze.
We sat down in the sitting room, and I poured her some tea. Out
came her notebook, where she had written down masses of
questions in order to get the measure of the Princess, “to do her
justice,” she explained.
A lot of her questions were about mannerisms. When she asked
how the Princess had smoked, I described it as rather like a Chinese
tea ceremony: from taking her long cigarette holder out of her bag
and carefully putting the cigarette in, to always lighting it herself
with one of her beautiful lighters. She hated it when others offered
to light it for her, and when any man eagerly advanced, she would
make a small but definite gesture with her hand to make it quite
clear.
I noticed that Helena moved her hand in the tiniest of reflexes, as
if to test the movement I’d just described, before going on to discuss
Princess Margaret’s character. I tried to capture her quick wit—how
she always saw the humorous side of things, not one to dwell, her
attitude positive and matter-of-fact. As we talked, the descriptions
felt so vivid, it was as though Princess Margaret was in the room
with us. Helena listened to everything very carefully, making lots of
notes. We talked for three hours, and when she left, I felt certain
that she was perfectly cast for the role.
Both actors sent me letters thanking me for my help, Helena
Bonham Carter expressing the hope that Princess Margaret would be
as good a friend to her as she was to me. I felt very touched by this
and the thought of Princess Margaret and I being reunited on-screen
was something I looked forward to. I found myself reflecting back on
our childhood spent together in Norfolk, the thirty years I’d been her
Lady in Waiting, all the times we had found ourselves in hysterics,
and the ups and downs of both our lives.
I’ve always loved telling stories, but it never occurred to me to
write a book until these two visits stirred up all those memories.
From a generation where we were taught not to overthink, not to
look back or question, only now do I see how extraordinary the nine
decades of my life have really been, full of extreme contrasts. I have
found myself in a great many odd circumstances, both hilarious and
awful, many of which seem, even to me, unbelievable. But I feel
very fortunate that I have my wonderful family and for the life I
have led.
 CHAPTER ONE

The Greatest Disappointment

HOLKHAM HALL COMMANDS the land of North Norfolk with a hint of

disdain. It is an austere house and looks its best in the depths of
summer when the grass turns the color of demerara sugar so the
park seems to merge into the house. The coast nearby is a place of
harsh winds and big skies, of miles of salt marsh and dark pine
forests that hem the dunes, giving way to the vast stretch of the
gray-golden sand of Holkham beach: a landscape my ancestors
changed from open marshes to the birthplace of agriculture. Here, in
the flight path of the geese and the peewits, the Coke (pronounced
“cook”) family was established in the last days of the Tudors by Sir
Edward Coke, who was considered the greatest jurist of the
Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, successfully prosecuting Sir Walter
Raleigh and the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. My family crest is an
ostrich swallowing an iron horseshoe to symbolize our ability to
digest anything.
There is a photograph of me, taken at my christening in the
summer of 1932. I am held by my father, the future 5th Earl of
Leicester, and surrounded by male relations wearing solemn faces. I
had tried awfully hard to be a boy, even weighing eleven pounds at
birth, but I was a girl and there was nothing to be done about it.
My female status meant that I would not inherit the earldom, or
Holkham, the fifth largest estate in England with its 27,000 acres of
top-grade agricultural land, neither the furniture, the books, the
paintings, nor the silver. My parents went on to have two more
children, but they were also daughters: Carey two years later and
Sarah twelve years later. The line was broken, and my father must
have felt the weight of almost four centuries of disapproval on his
conscience.
My mother had awarded her father, the 8th Lord Hardwicke, the
same fate, and maybe in solidarity, and because she thought I
needed to have a strong character, she named me Anne Veronica,
after H. G. Wells’s book about a hardy feminist heroine. Born
Elizabeth Yorke, my mother was capable, charismatic, and absolutely
the right sort of girl my grandfather would have expected his son to
marry. She herself was the daughter of an earl, whose ancestral seat
was Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire.
My father was handsome, popular, passionate about country
pursuits, and eligible as the heir to the Leicester earldom. They met
when she was fifteen and he was seventeen, during a skiing trip in
St. Moritz, becoming unofficially engaged immediately, he apparently
having said to her, “I just know I want to marry you.” He was also
spurred on by being rather frightened of another girl who lived in
Norfolk and had taken a fancy to him, so he was relieved to be able
to stop her advances by declaring himself already engaged.
My mother was very attractive and very confident, and I think
that’s what drew my father to her. He was more reserved so she
brought out the fun in him and they balanced each other well.
Together, they were one of the golden couples of high society and
were great friends of the Duke and Duchess of York, who later,
because of the abdication of the Duke’s brother, King Edward VIII,
unexpectedly became King and Queen. They were also friends with
Prince Philip’s sisters, Princesses Theodora, Margarita, Cecilie, and
Sophie, who used to come for holidays at Holkham. Rather strangely,
Prince Philip, who was much younger, still only a small child, used to
stay with his nanny at the Victoria, a pub right next to the beach,
instead of at Holkham. Recently I asked him why he had stayed at
the pub instead of the house, but he didn’t know for certain, so we
joked about him wanting to be as near to the beach as possible.
My parents were married in October 1931 and I was a
honeymoon baby, arriving on their first wedding anniversary.
Up until I was nine, my great-grandfather was the Earl of
Leicester and lived at Holkham with my grandfather, who occupied
one of the four wings. The house felt enormous, especially seen
through the eyes of a child. So vast, the footmen would put raw
eggs in a bain-marie and take them from the kitchen to the nursery:
by the time they arrived, the eggs would be perfectly boiled. We
visited regularly and I adored my grandfather, who made an effort to
spend time with me: we would sit in the long gallery, listening to
classical music on the gramophone together, and when I was a bit
older, he introduced me to photography, a passion he successfully
transferred to me.
With my father in the Scots Guards, a regiment of the British
Army, we moved all over the country, and I was brought up by
nannies, who were in charge of the ins and outs of daily life. My
mother didn’t wash or dress me or my sister Carey; nor did she feed
us or put us to bed. Instead, she would interject daily life with treats
and days out.
My father found fatherhood difficult: he was straitlaced and
fastidious and he was always nagging us to leave our bedroom
windows open and checking to make sure we had been to the
lavatory properly. I used to struggle to sit on his knee but because I
was too big he would push me away in favor of Carey, whom he
called “my little dolly daydreams.”
Having grown up with Victorian parents, his childhood was typical
of a boy in his position. He was brought up by nannies and
governesses, sent to Eton and then on to Sandhurst, his father
making sure his son knew what was expected of him as heir. He was
loving, but from afar: he was not affectionate or sentimental, and
did not share his emotions. No one did, not even my mother, who
would give us hugs and show her affection but rarely talked about
her feelings or mine—there were no heart-to-hearts. As I got older
she would give me pep talks instead. It was a generation and a class
who were not brought up to express emotions.
But in many other ways my mother was the complete opposite of
my father. Only nineteen years older than me, she was more like a
big sister, full of mischief and fun. Carey and I used to shin up trees
with her and a soup ladle tied to a walking stick. With it, we would
scoop up jackdaws’ eggs, which were delicious to eat, rather like
plovers’. Those early childhood days were filled with my mother
making camps with us on the beach or taking us on trips in her little
Austin, getting terribly excited as we came across ice-cream sellers
on bicycles calling, “Stop me and buy one.”
The epitome of grace and elegance when she needed to be, she
also had the gumption to pursue her own hobbies, which were often
rather hands-on: she was a fearless horsewoman and rode a Harley-
Davidson. She passed on her love of sailing to me. I was five when I
started navigating the nearby magical creeks of Burnham Overy
Staithe in dinghies, and eighty when I stopped. I used to go in for
local races, but I was quite often last, and would arrive only to find
everyone had gone home.
Holkham was a completely male-oriented estate and the whole
setup was undeniably old-fashioned. My great-great-grandfather, the
2nd Earl, who had inherited his father’s title in 1842 and was the
earl when my father was a boy, was a curmudgeon and so set in his
ways that even his wife had to call him “Leicester.” When he was
younger, he apparently passed a nurse with a baby in the corridor
and asked, “Whose child is that?”
The nurse had replied, “Yours, my lord!”
A crusty old thing, he had spent his last years lying in a trundle
bed in the state rooms. He wore tin-framed spectacles, and when he
went outside, he would go around the park in a horse-drawn
carriage, with his long-suffering second wife, who sat on a cushion
strapped to a mudguard.
Influenced by the line of traditional earls, Holkham was slow to
modernize, keeping distinctly separate roles for the men and
women. In the summer, the ladies would go and stay in Meales
House, the old manor down by the beach, for a holiday known as
“no-stays week” when they quite literally let their hair down and
took off their corsets.
From when I was very little, my grandfather started to teach me
about my ancestors: about how Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester
in its fifth creation (the line had been broken many times, only
adding to the disappointment of my father at having no sons), had
gone off to Europe on a grand tour—the equivalent of an extremely
lavish gap year—and shipped back dozens of paintings and marble
statues from Italy that came wrapped in Quercus ilex leaves and
acorns, the eighteenth-century answer to bubble wrap.
He told me all about when the ilex acorns were planted,
becoming the first avenue of ilex trees (also called holm oak, a
Mediterranean evergreen) in England. My grandfather’s father had
sculpted the landscape, pushing the marshes away from the house
by planting the pine forests that now line Holkham beach. Before
him, the 1st Earl in its seventh creation became known as “Coke of
Norfolk” because he had such a huge impact on the county through
his influence on farming—he was the man credited with British
agricultural reform.
Life at Holkham continued to revolve around farming the land, all
elements of which were taken seriously. As well as dozens of tenant
farmers, there were a great many gardeners to look after the huge
kitchen garden. The brick walls were heated with fires all along,
stoked through the night by the garden boys, so nectarines and
peaches would ripen sooner. On hot summer days I loved riding my
bike up to the kitchen gardens, being handed a peach, then cycling
as fast as I could to the fountain at the front of the house and
jumping into the water to cool down.
Shooting was also a huge part of Holkham life, and really what
my father and all his friends lived for. It was the main bond between
the Cokes and the Royal Family, especially with the royal estate of
Sandringham only ten miles away—a mere half an hour’s drive.
Queen Mary had once rung my great-grandmother, suggesting she
come over with the King, only for my great-grandfather to be heard
bellowing, “Come over? Good God, no! We don’t want to encourage
them!”
My father shot with the present Queen’s father, King George VI,
and my great-grandfather and grandfather with King George V on
both estates, but it was Holkham that was particularly famous for
shooting: it held the record for wild partridges for years and it’s
where covert shooting was invented (where a copse is planted in a
round so that it shelters the game, the gun dogs flushing out the
birds gradually, allowing for maximum control, making the shoot
more efficient).
It was also where the bowler hat was invented: one of my
ancestors had got so fed up with the top hat being so impractical
that he went off to London and ordered a new type of hat, checking
how durable it was by stamping and jumping on it until he was
content. From then on gamekeepers wore the “billy coke,” as it was
called then.
There were other royal connections in the family too. It is well
documented that Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII,
had many love affairs with married, often older glamorous
aristocrats, the first being my paternal grandmother, Marion.
My father was Equerry, an attendant to the Duke of York, and his
sister, my aunt Lady Mary Harvey, was Lady in Waiting to the
Duchess of York after she became Queen. When the Duke of York
was crowned King George VI in 1937, my father became his Extra
Equerry; and in 1953 my mother became a Lady of the Bedchamber,
a high-ranking Lady in Waiting, to Queen Elizabeth II on her
Coronation.
My father especially was a great admirer of the Royal Family and
was always very attentive when they came to visit. My earliest
memories of Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret come from
when I was two or three years old. Princess Elizabeth was five years
older, which was quite a lot—she was rather grown-up—but Princess
Margaret was only three years older and we became firm friends.
She was naughty, fun, and imaginative—the very best sort of friend
to have. We used to rush around Holkham, past the grand pictures,
whirling through the labyrinth of corridors on our trikes or jumping
out at the nursery footmen as they carried huge silver trays from the
kitchen. Princess Elizabeth was much better behaved. “Please don’t
do that, Margaret,” or “You shouldn’t do that, Anne,” she would scold
us.
In one photograph we are all standing in a line. Princess Elizabeth
is frowning at Princess Margaret, suspecting she is up to no good,
while Princess Margaret is staring down at my shoes. Years
afterwards, I showed Princess Margaret the photo and asked,
“Ma’am, why were you looking at my feet?”
And she replied, “Well, I was so jealous because you had silver
shoes and I had brown ones.”
In the summer the Princesses would come down to Holkham
beach where we would spend whole days making sandcastles, clad
in the most unattractive and prickly black bathing suits with black
rubber caps and shoes. The nannies would bundle us all into the
beach bus, along with wicker picnic baskets full of sandwiches, and
set up in the beach hut every day, whatever the weather—the
grown-ups had a separate hut among the trees at the back. We had
wonderful times, digging holes in the sand, hoping people would fall
into them.
Every Christmas, my family would go to a party at Buckingham
Palace, and Carey and I would be dressed up in frilly frocks and the
coveted silver shoes. At the end of the parties, the children would be
invited to take a present each from the big table in the hall near the
Christmas tree. Behind the table stood the formidable Queen Mary,
who was quite frightening. She was tall and imposing, and Princess
Margaret never warmed to her because every time she saw her,
Queen Mary would say, “I can see you haven’t grown.” Princess
Margaret minded frightfully about being small all her life, so she
never liked her grandmother.
Queen Mary did teach me a valuable life lesson, however. One
year Carey rushed up to the table and clasped a huge teddy bear,
which was sitting upright among the other presents. Before I chose
mine, Queen Mary leaned down towards me. “Anne,” she said
quietly, “quite often rather nice, rather valuable things come in little
boxes.” I froze. I’d had my eye on another teddy bear but now I was
far too frightened to choose anything other than a little box. Inside it
was a beautiful necklace of pearl and coral. Queen Mary was quite
right. My little box contained something that is still appreciated to
this day.
Our connection to the Royal Family was close. When I was in my
late teens, Prince Charles became like a younger brother to me,
spending weeks with us all at Holkham. He would come to stay
whenever he had any of the contagious childhood diseases, like
chickenpox, because the Queen, having never gone to school, had
not been exposed to them. Sixteen years younger than me, Prince
Charles was nearer in age to my youngest sister Sarah, but all of us
would go off to the beach together.
My father taught him how to fish for eel in the lake, and when he
got a bit older, my mother let him drive the Jaguar and the VW Mini
Minor around the park, something he loved doing, sending great
long thank-you letters telling her he couldn’t wait to return. He was
such a kind and loving little boy and I’ve loved him ever since—the
whole family have always been deeply fond of him.
As soon as I was old enough to ride, I made the park at Holkham
my own, riding past the great barn, making little jumps for Kitty, my
pony. When we were a bit older, Carey and I would follow one of the
very good-looking tenant farmers, Gary Maufe, on our ponies. Many
years later I became a great friend of his wife, Marit. He used to
gallop across the park on a great big black stallion, and after him we
would go on our hopeless ponies, giddying them up, desperately
trying to keep up.
It wasn’t just my family who were part of Holkham but everybody
who worked on the estate, some of whom had very distinctive
characters. Mr. Patterson, the head gardener, would enthusiastically
play his bagpipes in the mornings whenever my parents had friends
to stay, until my mother would shout, “That’s quite enough, Mr.
Patterson, thank you!”
My early childhood was idyllic, but the outbreak of war in 1939
changed everything. I was seven, Carey was five. My father was
posted to Egypt with the Scots Guards so my mother followed to
support him, as many wives did. Holkham Hall was partly occupied
by the army, and the temple in the park was used to house the
Home Guard, while the gardeners and footmen were called up, and
the maids and cooks went off to work in factories to help with the
war effort.
Everybody thought the Germans would choose to invade Britain
from the Norfolk coast, so before my mother left for Egypt, she
moved Carey and me up to Scotland, to stay with my Great-aunt
Bridget, away from Mr. Hitler’s U-boats.
 When she said goodbye, she told me, “Anne, you’re in charge.
You’ve got to look after Carey.” If we had known how long she was
going to be away, it would have been even harder, but no one had
any idea how long the war would last and that, in fact, she and my
father would be gone for three years.
 CHAPTER TWO

Hitler’s Mess

WE WENT TO live with our Ogilvy cousins in Downie Park, one of the
Ogilvys’ shooting lodges in Angus: their main house, Cortachy
Castle, had been requisitioned and was being used as a hospital for
Polish officers.
Although Carey and I were unsettled by the separation from our
parents, going to Scotland felt like an adventure. I loved my Ogilvy
cousins. There were six of them, and the three youngest—David,
Angus, and James—were all about the same age as me and Carey.
We knew them well because every summer they would come and
stay at Holkham, having great fun together, exploring and making up
games. We watched as the boys played endless rounds of cricket on
the terrace, wearing their special linen kilts that Carey and I wished
we had. Our nanny wasn’t quite so keen on them all because the
best fruit—a valuable treat in those days—was kept for them and
she would say they had come to “take over.”
They were all very welcoming at Downie Park, and I was
especially fond of David, whom I followed everywhere. I adored their
mother, my Great-aunt Bridget, who was born Lady Alexandra Coke
and was my grandfather’s sister.
Great-aunt Bridget was a Christian Scientist—a nineteenth-
century religion established by Mary Baker Eddy, which, during the
First World War, cut a swathe through the aristocracy, converting
many to it. It operates on the belief that sickness is an illusion that
can be corrected by prayer. This provided comfort for Great-aunt
Bridget and her husband, my Great-uncle Joe, the Earl of Airlie,
because he, like many men, was suffering from the effects of the
Great War. Great-aunt Bridget practiced her beliefs and passed on
many useful pieces of advice to me. Perhaps the advice that stuck
with me most is “Things have a habit of working out, not necessarily
in the way you expect, and you must never force them.” Her
grounded approach served Carey and me well, because we both
found it very disconcerting to be away from our parents, with the
outbreak of war.
On September 3, 1939, Great-aunt Bridget brought us down to
the drawing room in Downie Park, where we listened to Neville
Chamberlain’s declaration of war on the ancient wireless. There was
something heavy and serious in the Prime Minister’s voice, which
mirrored the atmosphere in the room. I stared at the carpet as I
listened, not really knowing what was happening, wondering when
we would be able to go home.
There was a very different atmosphere when, in 1940, Princess
Elizabeth directly addressed the children of Britain. Again, we sat on
the carpet in the drawing room, huddled round the wireless craning
our necks towards Princess Elizabeth’s voice, excited that we all
knew her. It felt as if she was talking directly to us. At the end,
Princess Elizabeth said, “My sister is by my side and we are both
going to say goodnight to you. Come on, Margaret.” And Princess
Margaret responded, “Goodnight, children.” We all answered back,
thinking they could hear us, somehow imagining they were in the
wireless. The Princesses were our heroines. So many children of our
parents’ friends had been sent off to America in order to escape the
war and there were the two Princesses, still in England, in as much
danger as us all.
The war meant that Carey and I and the Princesses were no
longer in Norfolk together and the only time we saw them was when
Carey, the Ogilvys, and I visited Glamis Castle—Queen Elizabeth the
Queen Mother’s family estate, where Princess Margaret had been
born.
Glamis is said to be the most haunted castle in Scotland and
Princess Margaret knew every nook, cranny, and ghoul. As we were
exploring the grounds, she told us stories about the ghosts, the gray
lady who is said to haunt the chapel and the tongueless lady who
runs across the lawn. The Ogilvys relished the stories and told their
own, all about how there was a ghost at Cortachy, who would beat a
drum whenever someone in the family died, leaving me relieved that
Cortachy had been requisitioned. Just before we left, Princess
Margaret took us down to see the train, which puffed along the edge
of the grounds, standing on the bridge over the railway line, being
enveloped in steam.
Apart from that, we didn’t see them and life was quite limited.
With no petrol and living in a big house far from the nearest town or
city, we stayed within the grounds of Downie Park, only once going
to Dundee when Uncle Joe took us to the theater.
In the winter we would skate on the frozen lake, and when we
weren’t having lessons with our governess, we would do our “war
work,” collecting sphagnum moss for the Red Cross, who used it to
help dress wounds, knitting gloves for the sailors on the
minesweepers, and entertaining the Polish officers at Cortachy
Castle by playing snakes and ladders on their beds and putting on
amateur dramatics for them.
Every afternoon, we would take our fresh air and exercise by
walking down the long drive, then return to the house where a man
from the nearby town of Kirriemuir would teach us to dance. Carey
and I put on our black dancing shoes and in the vast dining room,
with our cousin James, who was the same age as Carey and always
wore a kilt, learned how to do the Highland Fling and the Sword
Dance.
James was not always so beguiling. He and Carey would regularly
gang up on me. This might have been because I spent a great deal
of time, rather pathetically, hugging trees, climbing up them, and
pretending they were my friends. Once up them, however, I would
be too frightened to come down, so Carey and James would stand
below, teasing me with their particular catchphrase: “Cowardy,
cowardy custard!” I had arrived at Downie Park a rather shy child,
but I gradually came out of my shell. Being in a big pack of Ogilvys
and part of a boisterous group soon toughened me up.
My parents had sent our own governess to Downie, my mother
telling me before she left for Egypt: “You’re now too old to have a
nanny, so Daddy and I have chosen a governess for you called Miss
Bonner and she is very nice, and you will be very happy with her.”
Well, it turned out that Miss Bonner was not very nice. She was fairly
all right with Carey, but really cruel to me. Every night, whatever I
had done, however well I had behaved, she would punish me by
tying my hands to the back of the bed and leaving me like that all
night. I was too frightened of Miss Bonner to ask Carey to untie me,
and Carey would have been too frightened to do it anyway. Both
Carey and I suffered badly through this. I wanted to protect Carey,
fearing Miss Bonner might do the same to her, so neither of us told
anyone. While Miss Bonner did not do the same to my little sister,
Carey witnessed this inexplicable behavior towards me and felt
powerless that there was nothing she could do. Her distress would
manifest itself in high temperatures linked to no specific illness.
Because my mother had chosen Miss Bonner, I thought she knew
what the governess was doing to me and didn’t mind, or even
thought it was good for me. It caused me terrible confusion because
I couldn’t understand why my parents would want me to be treated
like that.
Fortunately, Great-aunt Bridget’s Christian Science saved me.
Eventually, Miss Bonner was sacked, not because of her ill treatment
of me (which I am sure Great-aunt Bridget knew nothing about) but
for being a Roman Catholic and taking me to Mass. There was
nothing worse than Catholicism, as far as Great-aunt Bridget was
concerned. When Miss Bonner left, I made a big fuss, pretending to
be really upset that she was going, fearing she might somehow
blame me and do something even more horrible.
Miss Bonner left an invisible scar on me. To this day, I find it
almost impossible to think about what she did to me. Years later, she
sent me a card congratulating me on my engagement, which
triggered the most unpleasant rush of memories and made me
physically sick.
Luckily, Miss Bonner was replaced with Miss Billy Williams, who
was wonderful, although she looked rather daunting with a nose that
was always running and one leg longer than the other so she had a
limp. But she twinkled with kindness.
The minute Billy Williams set foot in Carey’s and my lives,
everything changed, and within days, we were devoted to her. I
think she realized I’d had a difficult time with her predecessor,
because she often gave me treats, taking me on fun days out. One
of my favorite places was an Ogilvy shooting lodge, which was
tucked into the hillside, surrounded by heather. She’d take us all off,
walking along a pretty stream that ran through the bottom of the
garden, stopping for a picnic, during which we would roll heather in
a piece of newspaper and pretend to smoke it. We thought that was
frightfully dashing.
As the months turned to years we became more aware of the
horrors of the war, overhearing conversations referring to the
increasing attacks on Britain. Even though we had been sent up to
Scotland to get away from danger, we weren’t far from Dundee,
which was targeted heavily. In fact, there were more than five
hundred German air raids on Scotland so we would probably have
been safer staying in Norfolk. Once a German plane was shot down
just above Tulcan lodge and, as a “great treat,” Billy Williams took
me up to the wreckage to have a look. It was still smoking, although
we saw no body, and I still have a piece of map I took from the
plane, which was scattered in the heather.
As Carey and I absorbed more information, mostly through the
wireless that James’s nanny listened to tirelessly, we became
convinced that Hitler and all his henchmen would come to England
and each choose a stately home to live in. We had some idea that
Hitler was going to Windsor and presumed, rather grandly, that
either Himmler or Goering would choose Holkham. We weren’t far
wrong. It transpired that the Nazis had indeed planned to take over
the country estates, although Hitler had his sights on Blenheim.
Carey and I, I suspect like many other imaginative children of the
time, felt helpless in the face of the war. Knitting gloves and playing
board games with Polish officers somehow didn’t feel helpful
enough. Our father was fighting and our mother, we had been told,
was doing “war work,” but we were doing nothing to stop Hitler.
Discussing the dire situation, Carey and I became convinced
Hitler was bound to visit Holkham at some point, so we decided that,
somehow, we would go back there to kill him. In preparation for the
assassination, we created a poison that we called “Hitler’s mess,” a
collection of jam jars containing anything really disgusting—scraps of
food and medicine, muddy water, and bits of fluff from the carpet.
We hid it under our beds until it became so smelly that Billy Williams
made us throw it away and, determined, we were forced to start
again.
We had decided to make Hitler fall in love with us, which, when I
think about it now, was rather like the Mitfords. But, then, we were
going to kill him—which, I suppose, was rather unlike the Mitfords.
Of course, we had no real understanding of the situation and even
less control over our own lives. That was why we devised our plan.
We had heard he liked the Aryan look and we were both fair-haired,
especially Carey, who was the blondest little thing with huge blue
eyes. We thought we must take advantage of this in order to save
Britain.
We used to practice by pretending our teddy bear was Hitler,
sidling up to him and saying things like, “How lovely to see you.
We’re so pleased you’ve come to Holkham,” and “Do you enjoy
staying here? We’ve got a lovely drink for you, Mr. Hitler—we’ve
been saving it especially for you.” We didn’t quite think through what
would happen if we did actually manage to kill Hitler, but then I
suppose we didn’t get that far. We were absolutely convinced,
however, that we could and would do it.
In 1943, when I was ten and Carey was eight, our parents
returned from Egypt and we returned to Norfolk. It was an
underwhelming reunion—our parents were like strangers to us and,
instead of a warm embrace after so many years, Carey and I clung
to Billy Williams, hiding behind her, out of sight. It was only a day or
so before our mother won back our affection, but it took longer to
build a rapport with our father, who wasn’t as open and friendly and
never hugged us like our mother.
By then my great-grandfather had died and my grandfather had
become 4th Earl of Leicester. For a little while we lived in the Red
House in the village at Holkham, with one ancient maid nicknamed
Speedy because she moved so slowly. Carey and I enjoyed living
there, playing with the village boys in the wood near the house—we
called it “the donkey wood.”
Then we moved into the family wing at Holkham. It was the first
time, apart from holidays, I had ever lived in the big house and it
felt very exciting to know that it was now our official home.
My grandfather liked to interest me and, wanting to teach me
about Holkham’s treasures, put me in charge of airing the Codex
Leicester, Leonardo da Vinci’s seventy-two-page manuscript, a study
on water and stars. Once a fortnight, I would retrieve it from the
butler’s pantry, where it was kept in a safe along with the Coke
jewels and a Bible picture book.
I used to lick my finger and spin through the pages, frowning
down at Da Vinci’s mirror handwriting, studying the little drawings
and diagrams with interest. Bought on the 1st Earl’s grand tour, it
belonged to my family for at least two hundred and fifty years
before, very sadly, my father had to sell it, needing money for the
upkeep of the estate. Acquired at Christie’s by an American
businessman, Armand Hammer, in the eighties, it was then sold on
to Bill Gates in 1994 for $30.8 million, a record sum, making it the
most valuable book in the world—and covered with my DNA.
Life soon settled down at Holkham. My father continued his
duties with the Scots Guards and my mother became head of North
Norfolk’s Land Girls, directing agricultural tasks. Carey and I spent a
lot of time playing in the house, making dens in the attic out of a
collection of Old Masters deemed too louche for the walls of the
state rooms, oblivious to the value and the subject.
But the estate wasn’t the same as it had been before the war.
There was a prisoner-of-war camp in the park, first for Italians, then
Germans, and the gamekeepers helped guard them. Carey and I
were very curious and whirled around the outside of the camp on
our ponies, spying on the prisoners. The Italians were charming,
always waving and smiling, and became friends with my mother
who, after the war, employed some of their sisters to work at
Holkham: a lot of them decided to settle in England.
The Germans weren’t so friendly, and Carey and I were terrified
of them. They wore patches on their legs and arms—shooting
targets should they escape—which the gamekeepers longed for
them to do so they could put in their game book: “14 pheasants, 6
partridge, 1 German.” As far as I know, the prisoners never tried to
escape—the Germans were far more frightened of the keepers than
they were of the official guards.
Holkham beach wasn’t the same either. We couldn’t picnic on the
dunes because they were being used as a military practice ground,
and the beach was covered with London buses and taxis on which
the Royal Air Force practiced airstrikes. At the end of the war, the
buses and taxis were just left there. There is a big sand dune now
where they were, and I expect most people have no idea they are
still under it, rusting away in their sandy tomb.
The military also practiced drills all the way along the woodland
near the sand dunes and on the marsh. There was a pond at the
edge of the marsh where a wall was built for training the soldiers
who, throwing smoke bombs in front of them, had then to jump
blindly over the wall and into the pond. Carey and I would take great
delight in watching and, getting carried away, we would shout, “Go
on, jump, you cowardy cowardy custards! It’s not at all deep. It’s
only a bit of water.” Within moments, a furious sergeant major would
rush up, red in the face, yelling, “What are you doing, girls? Will you
get away? You’re ruining my training!” at which point, we’d grab our
bikes and scamper off, giggling.
My childhood was a curious mix of carefree adventure in beautiful
surroundings and a pressing fear of the war. By the time I was
eleven, long days of playing with Carey were swapped for boarding
school. In the autumn of 1943, holding a single leather trunk with
my name on it, off I went by train to Downham—a small school in
Essex for girls. Because of the war, most of the teachers had been
called up or moved into jobs to help with the war effort. Left with
slim pickings, I was hardly likely to learn anything at all.
The school was in a big old house where we all had to sleep in
the cellars for the first few terms because of the doodlebugs, which,
overshooting London, would land very close to where we were: the
plaster would fall from the ceiling into our bunks. It was terribly
frightening, and after a strike, I would check to see if I was in one
piece. None of our parents seemed very concerned.
I felt rather alone and unsure. I had been away from my parents
for three years and suddenly I was without them once more, and
also without my governess, Billy Williams, and Carey, both of whom I
adored. Gradually I did settle in, though, making friends, who
included a girl called Caroline Blackwood, later the writer, and wife of
Lucian Freud, who used to walk with me to lessons and lived in a
perpetual daydream. The older I got, naturally, the easier the five
years of boarding school became, and after two years, Carey joined
me, which was a comfort.
The headmistress, Mrs. Crawford, had a gung-ho attitude and,
despite having a husband, lived with another teacher, Miss Graham.
Having played cricket for Scotland, Mrs. Crawford tried to teach us
girls to play. I hated it—I was always fielding a long way out, praying
the ball didn’t come near and dreading the shout, “Quick! Catch,
Anne!” whereupon I would inevitably drop it. The ball was so hard it
hurt if it hit you. I did, however, enjoy lacrosse. A most aggressive
game, it seemed to be made up of us all rushing about bashing
people’s teeth out with our sticks.
Our games mistress was called Ma P., though I thought she was
really half-man. She was always blowing her whistle, whether to her
dog or to us we never quite knew. She was the one who would get
us into the swimming pool. It was always freezing cold but from
June 1, like it or not, we would “jolly well get in.” I quite liked
swimming and got some medals, including one for lifesaving, which
involved Carey volunteering to be the body, wearing clothes and
being dragged halfway along the pool underwater. I passed and she
survived.
Just before the end of the war, when I was twelve, my sister
Sarah was born. Carey and I had known our mother was pregnant
but when my father’s sister Aunt Silvia rang us at school to tell us
the news, we burst into tears. We knew how desperately my father
had wanted a son and heir, and with my mother almost dying in
childbirth, there was no chance of them having any more children,
marking the end of my father’s particular line of Cokes.
 Despite the huge disappointment for the family, we all adored
Sarah, whom we doted on, treating her like a doll. It was great fun
to have another sister although Carey’s and my childhood was
separate from Sarah’s because she was so much younger than us.
Once the school term had finished, we would rush home to see her,
our mother proudly showing off the rabbit-skin coat she had made
for Sarah. She obviously hadn’t cured it properly because the coat
was completely stiff, so Sarah would sit in her pram, her arms stuck
straight out, rather as if she was in a straitjacket.
When we were home, my mother took charge, organizing every
day with something active and fun that she would do with us all, an
attitude that was rare. My school friends would remark on how
amazing they thought she was, saying things like “I wish I could
have a mother like yours. My mother never plays with me.” But after
the holidays, Carey and I would return to school on the train, waving
goodbye to our mother, knowing it would be months before we saw
her again.
In those days parents only came down to the school once a year,
in the summer. There would be things like a “fathers’ cricket match”
and a “mothers’ tennis match.” At one of these parents’ open days,
after the assembly, the headmistress summoned all the girls to her
study. Looking extremely cross, she said, “Something very serious
happened during assembly, and unless the girl owns up, you will all
be punished. A parent, Sir Thomas Cook…” the founder of the
package holiday, incidentally “… was squirted in the back of the neck
with a water pistol.”
There was silence as everybody looked at each other, wondering
what would happen next. But then Caroline Blackwood put her hand
up rather slowly and said, “Well, actually, it was my mother who did
it.”
Her mother, Maureen, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, had been
wearing a hat with a sculpture of a duck in a pond with water in it.
Every time she put her head down, the duck dipped its beak into the
pond and, as she moved her head, the water sprayed the
unfortunate Sir Thomas. Her hat was not the only extraordinary
thing she wore: her shoes had see-through plastic heels with fish in
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
character of John Sullivan know, as we do, that when he got through
with the Indians and their worthless white associates they had no
more thirst for blood. Sullivan served notice on them and carried it
out that if there was any more blood shed in that part of the country
the Indians would furnish the blood.
“So perhaps, in an humble way, I have alluded to that feature of
Sullivans’ life—his closing campaign, which identifies him with
Northern Pennsylvania and Central New York.
“With the close of the campaign of 1779, which may be said to have
terminated his military career, General Sullivan resigned his
commission and retired from the army. The constant strain of five
years almost constantly in active and perilous service had wrecked a
constitution never of the strongest, and he felt he had given all of his
life and strength to the cause of Independence.
“His resignation was accepted with profound regret, although it
was universally felt that the reasons for his retirement were
imperative. Although he lived for fifteen years after his resignation,
his health was not robust and he died in 1795 at the early age of fifty-
four, universally admired and lamented. He had, however, no sooner
left the army than his brilliant legal and forensic talent was seized
upon, for such services to the country as his health would permit, in
the legislative halls of the nation, the executive chair of his own State,
and later upon the Federal Bench.
“In 1780–1781 he was a delegate to Congress. In 1782 he was
appointed the Attorney-General of New Hampshire and was re-
appointed to that office on the adoption of the new constitution of
that State in 1784.
“In 1786–1787 he was President and Chief Magistrate of the State
of New Hampshire, an office equivalent to that of Governor at the
present time.
“In 1788 he was speaker of the House of Representatives of New
Hampshire and President of the Convention that ratified the
Constitution of the United States.
 “In 1789 he was a presidential elector and voted for General
Washington for President of the United States, and in March of the
same year he was elected Chief Magistrate of the State for the third
time.
“Later in 1789 he was appointed by Washington, his affectionate
friend and admirer during his whole life, as Judge of the United
States District Court of New Hampshire, an office which he held with
honor to himself and the Judiciary until his death in January, 1795.
“I have thus briefly sketched the outline of a life which deserves an
autobiography perfect in every detail and of the highest grade.
History shows this man in more varied and brilliant lines than
almost any character in Revolutionary annals. Consider him, my
friends, as a young lawyer, prompt, keen, resourceful and competent,
and you have a model of early professional life. Mark him as an
active officer of the line, reckless of danger, ready to dare all that
could be dared, willing to do all that he had dared. Mark him again as
a commanding general, reliable, faithful, prudent and dauntless,
unswerved by passion, unstained by chagrin, unmarred by envy and
uninfluenced by clamor, steady and well-poised in the hour of peril
or in a moment of undeserved injustice. Consider him again, my
friends, when after years of fierce combat he is chosen for the
command of such an expedition as I have indicated, which needs
great skill in combination and with such resources in provision for
the needs of a frontier army that his success seems impossible.
 HON. THOMAS H. CARTER.

United States Senator from Montana.

One of the Founders of the Society.

 “And here let me digest for a moment words which, in my own
hearing, fell from the lips of the distinguished General Slocum,
speaking of General Sullivan’s great Indian campaign in the presence
of General Sherman thirty years ago on the one hundreth
anniversary of the same. General Slocum said:
“‘As I have sat listening to the speeches today, I have drawn a
parallel between those two expeditions. Sherman’s march was the
longer of the two, but, in many respects, he had greater advantages.
While he had a great distance to travel he had roads made for him by
the enemy; he had his produce brought by mule trains; while General
Sullivan made his march through trackless woods and carried his
provisions upon the backs of his soldiers. Sherman had good arms;
General Sullivan had the old flintlock musket. But after all, the spirit
which prompted both expeditions was the same. It was bold and
daring, and, although there was no great loss of life in either, yet the
results of both were far greater than many battles in which lives by
the thousand and tens of thousands were lost.’
“And on the same occasion—it is my excuse for quotations, my
friends, that I want you to hear these words from two of the greatest
Generals we have ever known—on the same occasion, remembering
then, as we remember today, how unjustly General Sullivan was at
one time criticised for the harshness of his treatment of the Indians
on the Susquehanna expedition, remembering, too, that he suffered
these criticisms in silence rather than to lay the blame upon his
beloved Chief, Washington, who had given him the orders which
were condemned, I quote from the words of General Sherman,
spoken also in my hearing on the same occasion:

“‘Our fathers, when they first landed upon this continent, came to
found an empire, based upon new principles, and all opposition to it
had to pass away, whether it were English or French on the north, or
Indians on the west; and no one knew it better than our father,
Washington. He gave General Sullivan orders to come here and
punish the Six Nations for their cruel massacre in the valley of
Wyoming, and to make it so severe that it would not occur again.
And he did so. General Sullivan obeyed his orders like a man and like
a soldier, and the result was from that time forward your people
settled up these beautiful valleys around here, and look at their
descendants here, a million almost. If it had not been for General
Sullivan and the men who followed him from Easton, and Clinton’s
forces that came across from Albany, probably some of you would
not have been here today.’
“I still read: ‘Battles are not measured by their death roll, but by
their results, and it makes no difference whether one man was killed
or five hundred if the same result follows. This valley was opened to
civilization. It came on the heels of General Sullivan’s army, and has
gone on and gone on until today. The same battle is raging upon the
Yellow Stone. The same men endowed by the same feelings that
General Sullivan’s army had today are contending with the same
causes and the same races two thousand miles west of here, not for
the purpose of killing, not for the purpose of shedding blood, not for
the purpose of doing wrong at all, but to prepare the way for that
civilization which must go along wherever yonder flag floats.’

“It might be thought perhaps, my friends, that this

rehearsal of the opinions of General Sherman and
General Slocum, two of the greatest military leaders
of our country, might have been more properly used
here than on the dedication of a tablet somewhat, in
its scope as a memorial, limited to your own State,
but it has been my purpose, my friends, to illustrate
General Sullivan as one of the most admirable
representatives of his race; and when I have set
before you a parallel drawn in the presence of
General Sherman himself between the difficulties
and the success of Sullivan’s march from Wyoming to
the Genesee and Sherman’s own march to the sea,
and have given you the opinions of both General
Sherman and General Slocum, I have illustrated my
proposition that of all the debts which America owes
to Ireland, God bless her, General John Sullivan, in
his varied talents, in that which he accomplished, in
every spot and place in which we put him, is entitled
to rank with the noblest and purest contribution
which we, in America, have from the grand old Irish
race.
“My friends, my words are in substance ended. I
have detained you longer than I meant to, but they
who live around me could have told you that you
have only to mention the name and memory of
Major-General John Sullivan to set going any
thoughtful student of American history who lives in
the magnificent valleys of the Susquehanna, the
Wyoming, and the Genesee. What we owe to this
man we can never repay.
“I am proud and happy to have been allowed to
participate in the unveiling of such a tribute as this.
As I said at the outset, I hope the day will come when
every State House in this land will have one, and yet,
when I think of what he was and what we owe him, I
feel that no monument can make him greater than he
is in the affections of our people a hundred and thirty
years after his death. And yet I am proud for our own
sake, for the uplifting of our own people, that we have
thus recognized that which we know of his worth. I
might have spoken in his behalf with truth the words
of the great Roman: ‘Exegi monumentum aere
perennius’—‘I have builded a monument more
enduring than brass.’”
Former Governor Lippitt was the next speaker,
introduced by the Chairman as follows: “One of our
invited guests, representing the Society of the
Cincinnati, is obliged to go to a neighboring city
within the next hour to deliver an address, and we
will not have the pleasure of his company at our
luncheon or the benefit of any words from him
afterwards. I will therefore introduce him at once.
“As General Sullivan was one of the original
members of the Society of the Cincinnati, it is
singularly fitting that we call on an honored Rhode
Islander, whose father as well as himself has served
the state as Governor, and whose devotion to the
history and affairs of the commonwealth has given
him a well deserved position as an authority on his
subject.
“It gives me great pleasure to introduce Hon.
Charles Warren Lippitt, ex-Governor of Rhode
Island.”
 “Mr. Chairman, Members of the American Irish
Historical Society, Ladies and Gentlemen: I feel
surprised at finding myself somewhat unexpectedly
in this position, but will try to aid in honoring this
occasion.
“Veneration for General Sullivan, for his services
on the Island of Rhode Island, and for his noble
victory, has always been mine. That he was of Irish
extraction, and that his ancestors, like those of all the
rest of us who are not descended from Indians,
emigrated from a home land to this new country in
the western hemisphere, is well known. My descent is
from the English, with a strain of the French and the
German races rather than from the Irish. No one in
any way familiar with American history can hesitate
an instant in according to the Hibernians the honor
of many noble actions and the respect due to sacrifice
of untold value, in every emergency of our common
country.
“General Sullivan came of a sturdy race. His father
was born during the siege of Limerick, away back in
1691, of such good stock that he outlived the century
and did not pass away until 1796, at the age of one
hundred and five. It was his son that gave so much of
his life and energy, his intelligence and ability, to the
cause of American freedom. That he served with
distinction in the Continental Army goes without
question. That he was at Trenton the night before
Christmas and aided in the defeat and capture of that
hated Hessian contingent that had been marauding
up and down New Jersey is also an established fact.
It is equally true that with the three Rhode Island
regiments, forming a material part of Washington’s
army, he braved the elements in that historic night
march from Trenton to Princeton, fought the next
morning in the battle of Princeton, and successfully
assisted in driving Cornwallis out of New Jersey. It
was the crisis of the Revolution. In that time of stress
and doubt John Sullivan, the descendant of an
Irishman, like so many others of his race, stood
shoulder to shoulder with the descendants of the
English and the French in securing for us and the
millions that have inhabited this land the priceless
privileges of liberty.
“His course in the Genesee Valley and the very
proper punishment he administered to the savages
who committed the horrible massacre at Wyoming
has been eloquently traced. His campaign in Rhode
Island has, perhaps, been studied in rather more
detail in this neighborhood than in other parts of the
country.
“History records and practically every American
schoolboy can tell how the Americans fought at the
battle of Bunker Hill. Wherever the Revolution is
known there is an intimate knowledge of that great
conflict. We all of us glory in its story, and remember
with gratitude and sympathy the bravery of those
untrained patriots who administered such a fearful
blow to British power and prestige.
“Compare for a moment the battle on Rhode Island
and the results secured by Sullivan’s generalship with
the circumstances and the issue on that hill near
Boston. The loss of the English at Bunker Hill was
1,054 men, that of the Americans 449. Until the
British entered the redoubt, the Americans fought
behind entrenchments. In the third attack the British
captured the redoubt, drove the Americans from the
hill, and retained undisputed control of the
battlefield.
“In the campaign on Rhode Island the inability of
the French to control the sea obliged the Americans
to retire to Butts Hill. In the valley separating it from
Quaker, Turkey and Anthony hills, immediately
south, a battle was fought, not behind
entrenchments, but in the broad open, where each
army had equal advantages and success was won by
brilliant tactics and skill and spirit in using weapons.
In the retreat and in the battle between the nearby
Rhode Island hills, the English lost 1,023 and the
Americans 211. After repulsing two vigorously and
pertinaciously pressed charges of the English army,
the Americans were obliged in the early afternoon to
face a last violent onset that almost broke the right
wing of Sullivan’s army under the immediate
command of General Greene. Jackson’s regiment
connected with Colonel Livingston’s detachment,
that had contested during the early morning the
British advance up the island, after a needed rest on
the north side of Butts hill were marched around the
rear of the army, by Sullivan’s direction, to the
extreme right of General Greene’s command. The
British and Hessians charged down the slope of
Anthony hill and were met in the valley by Greene’s
somewhat exhausted forces. It was the final struggle
for victory. At this critical moment Colonel
Livingston led Jackson’s regiment, using the cold
steel, in a fierce onslaught against the enemy’s flank
that gave the British the final blow and sent them
scurrying up the slope of Anthony hill to their
entrenchments on the top. The Americans, closely
following the flying foe, captured Brady’s battery as
an evidence of their victory.
“The Americans maintained absolute control of the
battlefield. Colonel Campbell of the Twenty-Second
British Regiment sent to General Sullivan the day
after the battle and asked permission to search
among the dead for the body of his nephew, who had
been killed the day before by his side, but whose body
he could not remove they were so closely pursued.
“The Battle of Rhode Island was a gratifying
success for the Americans. Victory was due to the
skill, the intelligence, the courage and the audacity of
General Sullivan, and to his brave officers and men.
Lafayette characterized it as ‘the best fought action of
the war,’ and the statement accords the highest
compliment to the military skill of General John
Sullivan.
“It is a great pleasure to participate with so many
friends in expressing our high appreciation of the
services of Sullivan that have been so adequately and
happily recognized by the American Irish Historical
Society. It is an intense gratification to contemplate
the success of these ceremonies and to sincerely join
in congratulation and in commendation of efforts
that have resulted in adorning this noble State House
with this beautiful, substantial and enduring tablet to
our heroic dead.”
President-General Quinlan of the Society was then
introduced by the Chairman, as follows: “I have the
pleasure now to call upon the President-General of
the American Irish Historical Society, under whose
careful and enthusiastic administration it has been
possible to erect and dedicate this tablet. There never
has been a time when his efforts, his energy, and all
his powers were not at our disposal. There never has
been a time when we have called on him for anything
since the memorial has been under way that he has
not promptly and vigorously responded. I have the
great honor of introducing to you, ladies and
gentlemen, our President-General, Francis J.
Quinlan, M. D., L. L. D., of New York City.”

President-General Quinlan said:

“Mr. Chairman, your Excellency, Mr. Mayor, Ladies and

Gentlemen: Before I attempt to say a few words in honor of the
auspicious event of this day, I will take occasion to render the tribute
of my personal thanks and of the collective thanks of our Society to
the distinguished assemblage gathered here to do honor to our
illustrious hero by the loyal support of their presence.
“I take occasion, first of all, to thank the Ex-Governors, the present
Governor, the Governor-elect, and the Department of the G. A. R., an
association that to me is representative of the rarest and choicest
texture of the loom of American Independence. (I would rather wear
their button than be decorated by one hundred kings.) To those who
represent the Society of Colonial Wars I extend my heartfelt thanks
for their presence. To the Daughters of the American Revolution and
to the distinguished Sons, as well as to the Sons of Veterans and also
the illustrious Society whose early achievements in this country need
no word of commendation from me,—the Society of the Cincinnati,—
to them and to their representatives I extend my thanks and my
greetings. To the Rhode Island Citizens’ Historical Association I also
offer welcome. To those who are associated with none, but whose
attendance is due to their interest in these exercises, I am thankful
for their presence here today.
 “Now, ladies and gentlemen, you have heard the stirring notes of
welcome that have rung out in this beautiful building, the tributes
that have been paid by those gentlemen, one of them with a line of
nine generations of pure and unsullied English blood. What further
tribute do we need, what other ratification or emphasis do we require
than that which comes from one whose nation held us in
subjugation, with its heel of tyranny upon our neck, for seven
hundred years, when this offspring, eager to forget past enmities,
frankly tells us in tones of eloquence that the Irish have been and
always will remain loyal and true and constant and devoted to every
cause they espouse! We need but little further argument to justify
our existence, but it behooves me, on an occasion of this kind, not
apologetically, but in bold words, to explain the purpose of the
American Irish Historical Society.
“It has been truly said by the Chairman of this meeting that this
Society was born in the City of Boston in the year 1897, for the study
of American history generally, as well as to trace the immigration of
the people of Ireland to this country, to correct erroneous and
distorted views of history in relation to the Irish people in America,
and to encourage and promote the formation of local associations in
American cities and towns as aids in the work of the parent Society.
These purposes have been so enlarged upon by the Chairman that
they need no word of encouragement from me.
“You know that the tide of immigration turned to this country in
the last century. Irish people haven’t always been immigrants. Nine
hundred years before Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, a bishop
of the old faith named Brendan left his home in Galway, sailed over
the sea, visited Iceland and Greenland, and there are today evidences
of this man’s presence in Delaware and Virginia—nine hundred years
before Columbus set foot on this continent. Even in the very crew
which made up the contingent in Columbus’ navy which manned the
three ships there was one to whom, when Columbus left, he gave the
custody of one of those ships, and this man’s record proves he was an
Irishman, William Ayer of Galway. We have historical facts; they
cannot be gainsaid; they stand out in bas-relief today; the story is
plain and intelligent men accept it.
“Immigration! Do you know that as the years have gone by they
have witnessed immigration from many lands? Germany has
furnished us with some of the best bone and sinew of its country.
England, through her unwise laws, through her erring principles of
justice, exacted from the Irish people something that they would not
give—taxation without representation, and surrender of civic and
religious liberty. Deprived of everything that men in common hold
dear, deprived of education, of religious worship, they were driven
from the shores of Ireland and found the arms of Columbia extended
and ready to receive them as children. We came here, and we thank
England for sending us here. If it hadn’t been for the conditions of a
hundred and fifty years ago, we might be toiling there today. It is a
wise Providence that directs and overrules conditions. We came, and
this asylum was beautiful, the flag of freedom and union waved for
us, everything was lovely compared with what we had left behind.
Friends and kindred, religion and society grew up within our own
experiences. The warm heart of the Irishman broadened; he grew,
and when the country rang out the alarm, when the country
announced that it was menaced with danger, in that Irish boy’s ears
rang the traditions and the wrongs of ages. He buckled on his belt; he
took down the flintlock from the wall; he marched forward
anywhere, everywhere, under the command of Washington and
Sullivan,—Washington, the ideal, and Sullivan, the son of an Irish
exile. These were the traits exhibited.
“‘Theirs not to reason why—not to make reply—but to do and die.’
These men made it possible for you and for me to live to enjoy the
conditions of today, to be here in this temple of local pride.
“I am reminded of the story so beautifully told in Roman history of
the mother who once paid a visit to a wealthy matron of that glorious
republic so many centuries ago. After dinner the matron said, ‘Now I
must show you my beautiful jewels.’ They were carefully guarded,
but she displayed them to the eyes of her visitor, and then remarked,
‘You must show me your jewels when I go to your house.’ In turn she
called upon the mother, and stayed a little longer than is usual,
awaiting the exhibition of jewels. Finally she inquired, ‘Have you
forgotten to show me your jewels?’ ‘Oh, no,’ the mother replied.
‘Come this way,’ and as she threw open a door five beautiful children
were revealed. ‘These,’ she exclaimed, ‘are my jewels.’
“People of Rhode Island, these noble patriots and these scarred
flags are your sacred jewels. Guard their memory, defend it, and, as
your blood has the rich central vein of patriotism, so sacrifice all you
have to keep these jewels sacredly enshrined in your hearts forever.
“I would that Sullivan could get a day’s leave from his sacred
parole. I would that he could come back to us today, that he might
obtain from the St. Gabriel of St. Peter’s Gate a day’s leave of absence
to look at these pillars and to gaze about these corridors. We almost
hear the whisper, can almost note the footfall of a strange presence
here. It is the spirit of the Revolutionary hero that communes with
us; it is the lofty emotion that emanates from him, though unseen,
and which commends our spirit of patriotism and ratifies our act, not
to him individually but to the noble band of which he was Captain.
“This is a great day for Rhode Island. This is a great day for
America, because this afternoon and tomorrow the wave of thought
that is ours will extend beyond us and be carried everywhere to
receptive minds. The sunlight will dash it into every possible nook
and corner of the land; the rivers will take it down to the Mexican
slope; the whole country will vibrate with it. You who know the
history of the man we honor, cherish it in your memory, and when
you recall these exercises, congratulate yourself that in assisting at
them you have fulfilled a duty; one and all, you have paid the homage
of a great and noble State.
“One moment more, my friends. I have tarried long. This page
stands out alone in the history of this Society of which I have the
honor and rare privilege of being the Executive. Ladies and
gentlemen, that Society has one purpose; that purpose is written
between the lines of today’s event. We want to know the men who
have lived, who have fought, who have bled, who have given
everything to the cause of the American people. We want to record
their deeds in order that the womb of the future may bring forth a
race, generations distant from us, that will stand up and say, ‘I, too,
am Irish, although I have six generations separating me from that
blood,’ a race that will cherish everything Irish and will extend the
open hand of welcome to everyone who bears the hall mark of
Ireland, whether his religion be Catholic or Protestant.
“We are broad, we are honest, we are liberal. We want to attack no
man, but when we peruse the pages of American history, when we
turn over volume after volume, chapter after chapter, page after
page, and search paragraph after paragraph, line after line, syllable
after syllable, and see no recognition of the services of Irishmen, our
hearts bleed because the omission is culpable and not due to the fact
that the historian could find no achievements to make good his lines.
“We claim our place in this Republic. We have sacrificed
everything in the world for it. We would go further tomorrow and
pledge every security, sever ourselves from home, to protect our
freedom and these flags. The United States is ours, whether on the
shores of California, Maine, Texas, or Washington. There is one
freedom, one brotherhood of man.
“I could detain you longer, friends, but the time allotted me
forbids. I have lingered longer than I should, but I know of no
sentiment with which I might more fittingly conclude than that of
one of your great New England worthies, the man who is enshrined
in the sanctuary of your hearts, John Boyle O’Reilly. He says, in his
own peculiar but grand way:

“‘No treason we bring from Erin, nor bring we shame nor guilt!
The sword we hold may be broken, but we have not dropped the
hilt.
The wreath we bear to Columbia is twisted to thorns, not bays;
And the songs we sing are saddened by thoughts of desolate days.
But the hearts we bring for freedom are washed in the surge of
tears;
And we claim our right by a people’s fight outliving a thousand
years.’”
 At the conclusion of Doctor Quinlan’s address the
Chairman declared the ceremonies of dedication
over, thanking all those present for their attendance.

The several organizations were represented at the

dedication as follows: Society of the Cincinnati, Ex-
Governor Charles Warren Lippitt, Ex-Governor
George H. Utter, Hon. William Page Sheffield,
Edward Aborn Greene, George Humphrey, Thomas
A. Peirce, Rev. Daniel Goodwin; Society of Colonial
Wars, Henry B. Rose, Gen. Hunter C. White, Hon.
John T. Blodgett, Prof. Wilfred H. Munro, E. A.
Burlingame and George C. Nightingale; Daughters of
the American Revolution, Miss Mary A. Greene, Mrs.
Charles Warren Lippitt; Rhode Island Citizens’
Historical Association, T. W. Bicknell, H. A. Atkins,
A. L. Anthony, Ellen R. Jolly, Caroline A. Weeden,
Mrs. Lyons Delaney, B. L. Dennis, Francis Gallagher,
Elizabeth Doyle, J. H. Foster, John R. Richmond,
Elizabeth Halton, C. H. Eddy and Mrs. R. B. P.
Tingley; Rhode Island Historical Society, Professor
Munro, Amasa M. Eaton, Robert P. Brown and
Clarence S. Brigham. Among others present were: Dr.
Francis J. Quinlan of New York, D. H. Tierney of
Waterbury, Conn., John J. Linehan, Worcester,
Bernard J. Joyce of Boston, Michael J. Jordan of
Boston, Edmund O’Keefe of New Bedford, John F.
Hurley, Mayor, of Salem, Mass., Patrick H. Powers of
Boston, John Morgan of New York, Augustin H.
Morgan of New York, P. F. Magrath of Binghamton,
N. Y., T. B. Fitzpatrick of Brookline, Mass., Michael
F. Dooley, Frederick Roy Martin, Dr. James E.
Sullivan, Col. James H. McGann, Col. James C.
Moran, Michael W. Norton, John F. O’Connell,
Patrick Carter, M. S. Dwyer, John McManus, Barnard
McCaughey, William L. Wood, both of Pawtucket;
Gen. Charles R. Brayton, Col. Frank T. Sibley, Mrs.
Chadwick, wife of Admiral F. E. Chadwick; Mrs.
James Chadwick, James C. Collins, Gen. Elisha H.
Rhodes, T. M. O’Reilly, Frederick H. Jackson, Rev.
Austin Dowling, Col. J. Edward Studley, Mr. and
Mrs. J. H. Chandler, Mary A. Darling, Benjamin L.
Dennis, General Treasurer Walter A. Read, Secretary
of States Charles P. Bennett, Attorney-General
William B. Greenough, Mayor-elect Henry Fletcher,
Judge Elmer J. Rathbun, John Dunn, Secretary of the
State Board of Agriculture; Hugh J. Carroll, Mr. and
Mrs. Albert G. Chaffee, John F. McAlevy, Thomas E.
Maloney, V. S., Fall River; Benjamin L. Dennis, Mrs.
Doyle, William J. Feeley, Walter H. Barney, Dr. M. H.
Sullivan of Lawrence, Mass., Dr. Michael F. Kelly of
Fall River and Frank Carter.
 POST-PRANDIAL EXERCISES.

At the termination of the exercises at the State

House the Society and its guests proceeded to the
Narragansett Hotel for luncheon. Chairman Lee
acted as toastmaster, and speeches of an appropriate
nature were made by the following: Gen. Charles R.
Brayton, representing the National Encampment, G.
A. R.; Hon. John F. O’Connell; Prof. Wilfred H.
Munro of Brown University, President of the Rhode
Island Historical Society; Hon. Walter H. Barney,
representing the Rhode Island Bar; Judge Livingston
Scott, whose wife is a direct descendant of General
Sullivan; Hon. Thomas Williams Bicknell, President
of the Rhode Island Citizens’ Historical Association;
Mrs. Ellen Ryan Jolly, President of the Ladies’
Auxiliary, A. O. H.; Gen. Elisha H. Rhodes,
representing the Rhode Island G. A. R. and the
Military Order of the Loyal Legion; Hon. John H.
Hurley, Mayor of Salem, Mass.; and John G. Hardy,
the sculptor who designed and executed the
memorial.
Judge Scott during his address read the following
original letter to Gen. Sullivan from President
Washington:

“Sept. 30th, 1789.

“Sir: I have the pleasure to enclose to you a commission as Judge

of the United States for the District of New Hampshire, to which
office I have nominated, and by and with advice and consent of the
Senate, appoint you. In my nomination of persons to fill office in the
Judicial Department, I have been guided by the importance of the
object, considering it of the first magnitude and the pillar upon
which our political fabric must rest.
“I have endeavored to bring into the high offices of its
administration such characters as will give stability and dignity to
our national Government; and I persuade myself that they will
discover a due desire to promote the happiness of our Country by a
ready acceptance of their several appointments. The laws which have
passed relative to your office accompany the Commission.
“I am Sir with very great esteem
“Your most obedient servant,
“GEORGE WASHINGTON.”

The Committee having in charge the erection and

dedication of the memorial were: Thomas Zanslaur
Lee, Chairman; Patrick J. McCarthy, Secretary;
Michael F. Dooley, Treasurer; Patrick Carter, James
E. Sullivan, William P. Dempsey, James Murphy,
Francis I. McCanna, William J. Feeley, Bernard
McCaughey, Patrick E. Hayes, John McManus,
James Moran, John F. O’Connell, James H. McGann,
Rev. Austin Dowling, James H. Hurley, John F.
McAlevy, James T. Egan.
The entire proceedings at the dedication were
reported verbatim by Miss Viola Follis, the official
stenographer for the Society, and hence we are able
to print the excellent orations in full.

Special Meeting.
At the conclusion of the post-prandial exercises a special meeting
of the Society was held at headquarters, President-General Quinlan
presiding.
A vote of thanks was tendered Col. David C. Robinson for his
efficient services in behalf of the Society.
It was voted that the thanks of the Society be extended Mr.
Michael W. Norton for the use of his automobiles and carriages to
transport members and guests to and from the State House, and in
special recognition of Mr. Norton’s kindness the President-General
appointed him chairman of the Reception Committee to be on duty
at the White House at Washington January 16, 1909, when President
Roosevelt gives a reception to the Society.
The acting Secretary-General was directed to extend Colonel
Robinson the Society’s invitation to be its guest at the Annual Dinner
and President Roosevelt’s reception at Washington.
THOMAS ZANSLAUR LEE,
Acting Secretary-General.

Providence, R. I., December 16, 1908.

 Following is the circular letter which was sent to
members of the Society, informing them of the plans
for the dedicatory exercises:
“To make better known the Irish Chapter in
American History.”

THE AMERICAN IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

(Founded 1897. First President-General, Rear

Admiral R. W. Meade, U. S. N.)

Office of the Secretary-General.

49 Westminster Street.
Providence, R. I., December 8, 1908.

The committee of the American Irish Historical

Society having in charge the erection and dedication
of the Major-General John Sullivan Memorial in
Rhode Island beg to announce that the dedication
will take place in the Rhode Island State House,
Wednesday, December 16, 1908, at twelve o’clock
noon.
The principal address will be delivered by Colonel
David C. Robinson, through whose efforts an
appropriation of ten thousand dollars for a
monument to General Sullivan in the State of New
York was obtained, and whose knowledge of
historical events of the Revolutionary War is most
extensive.
Delegations will be in attendance from the
following organizations: Rhode Island Historical
Society, Rhode Island Division Sons of Veterans,
Daughters of the American Revolution, Society of the
Colonial Wars, Society of the Cincinnati, and Rhode
Island Citizens Historical Association.
Invitations have been extended to the Department
Commander and Staff of the G. A. R., General Tanner
and staff of the Rhode Island National Guard, Hon.
James H. Higgins, Governor of Rhode Island, Hon.
Aram J. Pothier, Governor-elect of Rhode Island, and
other State officers.
The Society’s headquarters will be at the
Narragansett Hotel, where proper provision will be
made for the reception and entertainment of
members and guests during the day.
Shortly before twelve o’clock, the hour of
dedication, the Society and guests will go in a body to
the State House, a short distance from the hotel,
where provision has been made for ample and
comfortable seating of all. After the exercises, which
are planned to last probably an hour and half, we will
return to the Narragansett Hotel, where luncheon
will be served, at which there will be several
interesting addresses. Price of tickets, $1.50, which
may be obtained from the Secretary-General or the
Entertainment Committee.
This is an affair of great importance to the
American Irish Historical Society, and we earnestly
hope every member will be present.
Send back enclosed postal if you intend to be
present so we will know how many to provide for.
COMMITTEE ON THE SULLIVAN MEMORIAL
Of the American Irish Historical Society.

THOMAS Z. LEE,
Chairman.

PATRICK J. McCARTHY,
Secretary.
 RECORDS OF THE ANNUAL
MEETING AND BANQUET OF THE
AMERICAN IRISH HISTORICAL
SOCIETY AT WASHINGTON, D. C.,
JANUARY 16, 1909, AND OF THE
RECEPTION TO THE SOCIETY BY
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES.

It having been voted at the annual meeting at New

York January 29, 1908, to hold the next annual
meeting at Washington, D. C.; the Executive Council
at a well-attended meeting thereof held at the
residence of the President-General, December 5, 1908,
considered the necessary arrangements, and resolved
to make this event a notable one in the Society’s
history. A committee previously appointed by the
President-General to confer with Hon. Theodore
Roosevelt, President of the United States, and
ascertain his pleasure as to a reception to the Society
and attendance later at the dinner, reported that
owing to pressure of official business President
Roosevelt would be unable to attend the Society’s
dinner, but would be pleased to meet his fellow-
members at the White House and there make a short
address.
In accordance with the instruction of the Executive
Council the Secretary-General opened correspondence
with Mr. William Loeb, Jr., Secretary to President
Roosevelt, and the details of the reception were
promptly arranged.
President-General Quinlan thereupon appointed a
Reception Committee to officiate at the White House
and afterwards be on duty at the Society’s
headquarters in Washington, and a Dinner Committee
to arrange all the details of the annual banquet.
The appointees on these committees appear in the
circular letter which follows.
The Dinner Committee carefully looked over the
available places in Washington suitable for the annual
banquet, and decided upon the Hotel Raleigh as most
desirable, not only for this purpose but also for the
headquarters of the Society.
Mr. Thomas J. Talty, the manager of the Hotel
Raleigh, extended the Committee every courtesy and
made their work in the Society’s behalf easy and
pleasant.
HON. EDWARD J. McGUIRE. LL. B.,

New York City.

Member of the Executive Council.

 As soon as all necessary details were completed, the
following circular letter to members was issued:

AMERICAN IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

Program for Annual Meeting, Reception to the Society by the
President of the United States, and Annual Banquet at
Washington, D. C., January 16, 1909.
Our fellow-member, Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, President of the
United States, will receive the Society at the White House at 2.30 p. m.
Secretary Loeb requests us to be on time and provide each member
with a card of identification. Such a card is enclosed and must be
presented to the doorkeeper at the White House. Ladies and guests
may accompany members, and tickets for them can be obtained from
the Acting Secretary-General upon application of any member by mail
or on the day of the Reception.
Members whose convenience will permit will leave New York
Saturday morning, January 16, 1909, from West 23d Street station at
7.50 a. m., or from Liberty Street station at 8 a. m., to take the Royal
Blue Line train leaving Jersey City at 8.12 a. m., arriving in
Washington at 1.12 p. m. Reduced round trip rates have been arranged
for on this line, a dining-car will be attached for our comfort and
convenience, and this is the only train landing us in Washington in
time to get to our quarters at the hotel and be in season for the
President’s Reception.
Immediately after the President’s Reception, the annual meeting of
the Society will be held in the parlors of the Hotel Raleigh, where the
Society’s headquarters will be established, for the election of officers
for the ensuing year, the receiving and acting upon resolutions on the
death of several prominent members of the Society, including our
deeply-lamented Secretary-General, and the transaction of such other
business as may come before the meeting. The resolutions and
eulogies to be offered are of a high order.
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