BL-24 - Flipbook - Page 30
TA B L E TA L K
And aristocrats, perhaps led by the
royals, began marrying into the
lower classes. It was not just because
snobbery was dead again and the
class system irrelevant, it was partly
a hybrid-vigour thing, and partly a
new-money, old-name thing. Our own
Royal Family is the most downwardly
mobile in the world (and the Royals,
ironically, the least snobbish or racist
of any group) but in England we have
always welcomed new blood.
At Foxhill, with its eight double
bedrooms, everything seemed to be
signalling that the class system was
over, and you too could stay in this
beautiful, stone-built house with open
log 昀椀res crackling (dogs welcome)
and pretend you were at a Cotswolds
house party.
There was no butler, no housekeeper;
in their place, two staff called Rebecca
and Ed, who wore clean trainers
and jeans and – without a trace of
obsequiousness – would get you
anything you wanted: as long as you
could pay, of course. £1,195 a night
for two. And no snobbery evident
anywhere. Fortunately, the aristocracy
still retains a few such houses in
which some lucky folk can stay for
free.
This is unlike the French system, in
which the aristocrats became so feeble
by intermarriage that a defective,
interbred stock resulted. Look today
at the Duke of Rutland and the Earl of
Carnarvon, both married to capable,
middle-class women who are keeping
their shows on the road.
“Why else do you think they
employ English aristocrats as
glori昀椀ed servants? They want
to buy into that endangered
commodity: class.”
But are we still obsessed by class?
Well yes, but we keep quiet about it
now, even though we all fall on Nicky
Haslam’s tea towels at Christmas
because we can pretend we are
just laughing at what Nicky 昀椀nds
“common”. In fact, the tea towels can
still trigger social anxiety.
Yet like recusant Catholicism,
snobbery still exists, but behind closed
doors. It is the truth that dare not
speak its name.
Recently, my husband and I went
to stay at Foxhill Manor in the
Cotswolds, a country house hotel of
the sort that would have, forty years
ago, posed as a mini-Downton with
butlers and maids. This one is allinclusive, so you don’t need to 昀氀ash
money or tip anyone.
The big houses and big families may
have had to sell up, but we are still
snobs about the looks, manners, styles
and codes of honour of the people that
centuries of selective breeding have
produced. And an international group
of oligarchs are just as snobbish and
obsessed by class.
Why else do you think they employ
English aristocrats as glori昀椀ed
servants in the form of lawyers, art
dealers, party planners, estate agents,
decorators and 昀椀nancial portfolio
managers? They want to buy into
that endangered commodity: class.
Read Butler to the World by Oliver
Bullough if you want to immerse
yourself in the embarrassing truth.
Foxhill House
30
BOISDALELIFE.COM
ISSUE 24
Mary Killen collecting her Feature Writer
of the Year 2024 Award
