Blenheim and the Churchill Family
Blenheim and the Churchill Family

Author: Henrietta Spencer-Churchill

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13:

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Every history buff wishes that walls could talk. In this first book ever written about Blenheim and the Churchills by a family member, Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill explores the relationship between one of history's most important families and its ancestral home. As though perusing a family album, she conveys the family's exceptional history and how each generation changed the estate and how it changed them. Momentous events that changed the course of history are recounted as family reminiscences. Blenheim was a reward from Queen Anne to the first Duke of Marlborough for saving much of Europe from the domination of Louis XIV, and instantly became the family's center stage. Sir Winston Churchill was born in a back bedroom to his American-born mother, Jennie Jerome. Later, he directed Britain's World War II efforts from its study. Blenheim has witnessed some of history's most colorful characters including the ancestors of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, and Consuelo Vanderbilt, the American heiress who conquered British high society.Widely considered England's finest example of baroque architecture, this is a rare glimpse into parts of the house never seen on public tours, and no history buff or visitor will want to be without this remarkable guide.

Blenheim and the Churchills
Blenheim and the Churchills

Author: Henrietta Spencer-Churchill

Publisher: McArthur & Company

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9781552785287

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The first book ever written by a family member about one of England's best-known dynasties, BLENHEIM AND THE CHURCHILL FAMILY is a unique record of the private life of the Marlboroughs behind the scenes of a great house. A palace in England that is also a family home, Blenheim Palace is one of Europe's most important pieces of Baroque architecture and a World Heritage site. Built by a grateful nation to celebrate John Churchill's famous victory of Louis XIV at the Battle of Blenhheim in 1704, this spectacular historical monument is also the birthplace of the Greatest Briton of them all, Winston Churchill. Packed full of previously unseen private photographs, paintings, and family papers and letters, Henrietta Spencer-Churchill provides us with the behind-the-scenes view of her ancestors' personal lives from 1700 to today. Moving through eleven generations of dukes, Henrietta reveals the scandals, debts and extravagances of her forefathers, as well as their additions to Blenheim.

The Churchills: In Love and War
The Churchills: In Love and War

Author: Mary S. Lovell

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2012-05-14

Total Pages: 640

ISBN-13: 0393342255

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Lovell presents the epic story of one of England's greatest families, focusing on the towering figure of Winston Churchill.

The Churchills: In Love and War
The Churchills: In Love and War

Author: Mary S. Lovell

Publisher: W. W. Norton

Published: 2012-05-14

Total Pages: 672

ISBN-13: 9780393342253

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"Meticulously detailed…Eminently readable." —New York Times Book Review Mary S. Lovell brilliantly recounts the triumphant political and military campaigns, domestic tragedies, happy marriages, and disastrous unions throughout generations of Churchills. The first Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722) was a soldier of such genius that a lavish palace, Blenheim, was built to honor his triumphs. Succeeding generations of Churchills sometimes achieved distinction but also included profligates and womanizers and were saddled with the ruinous upkeep of Blenheim. The Churchills were an extraordinary family, and they were connected with everyone who mattered in Britain. Winston Churchill—voted "the Greatest Briton" in a nationwide poll—dominates them all.

Blenheim
Blenheim

Author: Henrietta Spencer-Churchill

Publisher: Rizzoli International Publications

Published: 2024-09-03

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 084783350X

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The most important, most visited, and most renowned of all of Britain’s stately homes, Blenheim has been home to the Churchill family for more than 300 years. Regarded as perhaps the greatest of the stately homes and the finest example of baroque architecture in Great Britain, Blenheim is a treasure of English heritage. In this stunning volume, Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill, the twelfth generation of the family, takes us on a privileged tour of the palace. Designed by John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor (a protégé of Christopher Wren) in the early 1700s; with stonework, furniture, and tapestries crafted by the best talents of the age; and art and statuary by such notable artists as John Singer Sargent and Joshua Reynolds, Blenheim is filled with artistic commissions that provide a window into the history of England. In addition to the gilded staterooms and acres of landscaped gardens, Spencer-Churchill shows us the family’s private apartments, with their secret corridors and history of illustrious guests, as well as the “downstairs” staff area with its iconic bell system. With beautiful photography of the magnificent interiors and priceless collections, and Spencer-Churchill’s fascinating text, this volume illuminates Blenheim as it's never been seen before.

The Churchill Who Saved Blenheim
The Churchill Who Saved Blenheim

Author: Michael Waterhouse

Publisher: Unicorn

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781912690220

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History has not been kind to Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, or "Sunny," as he was known. This is because, as Michael Waterhouse and Karen Wiseman reveal, it was largely written by his first wife, the "dollar princess" Consuelo Vanderbilt. Not an easy man, their marriage was indeed an unhappy one. However, he was not entirely to blame for the unhappiness of his marriage to Consuelo; in fact, it would be fair to say that he was sinned against more than sinned. His second wife, Gladys Deacon, proved far too unstable to be the love and companion of his life. Though he needed love, he never found a woman who loved him enough. In The Churchill Who Saved Blenheim, Waterhouse and Wiseman give us the life of a man who lived through a time of great change and felt the responsibility of preserving his home, Blenheim Palace, and the way of life he knew. He was a quiet, well-educated, introverted man who took his role as head of a great estate most seriously. He cared for his tenants and his servants. To those he loved, he was loyal, generous, unfailingly helpful, and courteous, and when necessary, he was also that rare and valuable thing: a critical friend. He left Blenheim in a far better state than he found it. This was his greatest achievement. And this is his story.

Churchill's Grandmama
Churchill's Grandmama

Author: Margaret Elizabeth Forster

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2011-08-26

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 0752469479

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Sir Winston Churchill's paternal grandmother and the mother of Randolph Churchill, the 7th Duchess of Marlborough, has been a slight figure in many other people's biographies yet her own story as a member of a remarkable family has never been fully told, until now. Frances Anne Emily Vane-Tempest-Stewart's family background, as well as her own life, is steeped in great historical names and occasions. She was the eldest daughter of the 3rd Marquess and Marchioness of Londonderry, two well-known, glamorous individuals: her father was a military hero, second in command to Wellington in the Napoleonic wars, and her mother one of the wealthiest women in England. Her godfather was the Duke of Wellington, her uncle Lord Castlereagh, British Foreign Secretary, Queen Victoria was a lifelong personal friend and contemporary and her political circle included both Disraeli and Gladstone. Tsar Alexander I of Russia was a mysterious, romantic figure among the shadows of her childhood. Frances' arrival at Blenheim Palace in 1843 as the bride of John Winston, 7th Marquess of Blandford resulted in the great ancestral seat's regeneration as a family home, as a social and political focus for the life of the nation and for the neighbourhood of Woodstock in Oxfordshire. Frances the Duchess gave loyal support not only to her husband but also her younger son, Randolph, in his political career, and became a stable and abiding influence on her famous grandson, Winston Churchill, shaping his character, ambitions and later achievements. Her own crowning achievement, fully and dramatically told in this book, is her humanity, leadership and skill, through her Famine Relief Committtee, in averting the effects of the Irish potato famine of 1879, which threatened to repeat the wholesale loss of life of the famine of the 1840s, when she was Vicereine of Ireland. Margaret Elizabeth Forster has found new, original material and unpublished family photographs from the Marlborough personal archives to recount this absorbing, remarkable biography and to restore a most gracious woman to her proper place at Blenheim.

Blenheim
Blenheim

Author: Marian Fowler

Publisher: Penguin Mass Market

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13:

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This is a history of a great English house, from its conception and building in the opening decade of the 18th century, to the burial of Winston Churchill in the early 1960s. Not just its famous inhabitants are covered, but also the servants and workmen who kept it functioning.