CHAPTER VIII

The Eighth Duke

HEN the young Lord Worcester came of age he was already prepared for the duties and pleasures of his great position. In the same year (1845), a few months after his twenty-first birthday, he married Lady Georgiana Curzon, the daughter of Richard, first Earl Howe. This was a fortunate choice, for the eighth Duchess will long be remembered at Badminton for her thoughtful care of her poorer neighbours, and the gracious kindliness with which she fulfilled the social duties of her station.

For a time the young heir was to lead a soldier's life. Love of soldiering was in the blood, and it had fired each successive heir to the family honours, from the day when the first Earl had served his country aboard ship or on land with equal eagerness. I have it on the authority of the Duchess herself, that her husband was anxious to see active service. This however was denied him, though all who knew him will not doubt that he would have greatly delighted in such an opportunity as has come

to the younger English country gentlemen of our day, of showing that they are of the same mettle as their forefathers who won honours in the field.

But Lord Worcester's early life was cast in a time of prolonged peace. We need not therefore dwell on his experiences in the service, which were rather of the nature of discipline and the carrying on of a family tradition, than of more serious work at the profession of arms. He began with a commission in the 1st Life Guards, though most of his service was with the 7th Hussars, then, as now, a regiment famous in sport and war, and remarkable for its smartness. Those were still the days when the cavalryman's weapon was his sword, and when dash and boldness and a certain jovial recklessness were part of the accepted character of the light horseman. Lever has painted the ideal Dragoon of his day, and if Charles O'Malley in point of time belonged to an earlier period than Lord Worcester, the type was the standard at which the Hussar still aimed. A curious incident of the time of which I am now writing was recalled to me by Mr. Alfred Watson, of whose long friendship with the eighth Duke I shall speak more at length later on. A poster was put forward by the then sergeant-major of the 7th Hussars to attract recruits. In this it was stated that a few high-spirited young men were wanted, but as the regiment had lately been remounted on unseasoned blood horses, recruits would not be allowed to hunt more than once a week!

The young Lord Worcester was popular, and he threw himself heartily into the gay life open to a subaltern of Hussars in the late forties and early fifties. All through his life he was distinguished by a real kindness of heart, that made him one of the most thoughtful of hosts, the most considerate of landlords, and the most genial of companions. He had too, as we have seen, a sterner side to his character, that made him very apt to succeed in all he undertook. Possibly in racing he was less successful than at anything else into which he threw himself. But his career on the turf belongs to a period that was certainly not the brightest in the history of racing. The resolute rush to ruin of a few reckless men, and the flourishing condition of the parasites who clustered round them, gave to racing an ill name it has not yet lost, though heavy gambling on the turf is now a thing of the past. The influence of men like Lord George Bentinck and Charles Greville, to whom racing was purely a gambling speculation, soon bore fruit, and men less able and more unscrupulous recognised that the sport might be treated as a business. This made it at once more expensive and less satisfactory to those who, like Lord Worcester and the third Lord Exeter, raced for the love of sport. It made the Marquis, and his friend and contemporary Sir John Astley, often the victims of blood-suckers and parasites masquerading as sportsmen. The generous, frank nature of the former laid him open to

many deceptions, and for a considerable portion of his career he turned aside from the turf altogether. He would have nothing to do with it, till timely penalties, inflicted with unsparing hand, had at least improved the practice of the racing world, if they had not greatly raised its principles. Though no doubt Lord Worcester loved racing, it never engrossed his time and attention as did other forms of sport. I think, indeed, we may say that hunting and soldiering in the early part of his career, and hunting and politics in the later years, had his heart.

It was two years after the death of his father, the seventh Duke, that there came into the eighth Duke's life a period he thoroughly enjoyed. For three seasons he hunted his hounds himself. During this time he kept a journal that is full of touches of interest. It is a relief to turn to its clear-sighted comments and humorous reflections, from the somewhat dry records of Will Long.

Will Long had now been huntsman for many years. In hunting matters the Duke was his pupil, and it may be the old man was somewhat impatient of the control of the master whom he had instructed as a lad. At all events, the Duke one morning found himself without a huntsman, and he resolved for the future to carry the horn. The Duke records the change in the opening words of his diary. Of the pack with which he started, we find there were of old hounds, "dogs, twenty-five couples; bitches,