Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire

Blenheim Palace is one of England's most famous buildings, a sprawling edifice of honey-colored stone surrounded by spacious parks. (picture 1) Residence of the Dukes of Marlborough, the palace is located in the village of Woodstock, near Oxford.       Blenheim Palace was a gift from the British nation and a grateful Queen Anne to John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, after his 1704 victory over the forces of Louis XIV. When Anne died before the house was finished, the royal purse closed. The Duke and his descendants have been paying for the Palace ever since. Blenheim was a nightmare to build and is a monstrosity to maintain. (picture 2)       Sarah, the first duchess, fought with architects John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor from the very beginning. She wanted a comfortable residence. They, after creating the baroque magnificence of Castle Howard, wanted a splendid national monument on the order of Versailles. The subsequent story of Blenheim is an indiscriminate mix of the acquisition and dispersal of great art, the antics of peculiar family members, the real and imagined obligations of the aristocracy, and curiosity of the public.       The fourth duke, who succeeded to the title in 1758 at age 19, was actually the first to make Blenheim his family's principle residence. He found the place cold, forbidding and rundown, never properly completed. (picture 3) He assumed the great honor and burden of rejuvenating its grandeur and surrounding it with an appropriately sublime setting, a park designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown. George III, on a visit in 1786, is reported to have said, "We have nothing to equal this!"       Never plump enough in the pocket, the fourth duke spent millions of pounds on the mansion and grounds, by the 1780's fading into reclusiveness, his obsession with the house nearing insanity. When Admiral Nelson visited in 1802, with Lord and Lady Hamilton, the duke refused to receive them. Upon the fourth duke's death in 1817, his son succeeded.       George Charles Spencer-Churchill, formerly the Marquis of Blandford, lived an extravagant life as fifth duke, dissolute yet brilliant and eccentric, qualities that seem to run in the family. He revised Brown's landscape and sold off non-entailed treasures to finance his high living, even charging visitors by the hour to shoot and fish on the property. The fifth duchess, Susan, daughter of the seventh Earl of Galloway, like her predecessors, sank into the same enslavement to the house. After years of near-bankruptcy, the fifth duke died in 1840, his duchess the next year. (picture 4)       The pattern was established, dukes and duchesses sacrificing themselves and their families to a symbolic vision of Blenheim Palace more important than mere humans. Another famous victim was Consuelo Vanderbilt, who married the ninth duke in 1895, a social coup for her mother, but a lesser triumph for her father, who provided millions to restore and maintain Blenheim. Consuelo later divorced and eventually achieved happiness as Countess Balsan.       The most famous name associated with Blenheim in modern times is Winston Spencer Churchill, grandson of the seventh duke and cousin-in-law of Consuelo. He was born at Blenheim in 1874, son of Randolph Churchill (a second son) and his American wife, Jennie Jerome.       As an archetypical English country house, Blenheim today is a museum of art and historical memorabilia, featuring such attractions as the victory dispatch the first duke wrote to Sarah on a restaurant menu, elaborate tapestries depicting his campaigns, ducal coronation robes, and the bed in which Sir Winston was born. (picture 5) On the grounds are a miniature railroad, a butterfly house, boat rides on Brown's lake, a maze, a model village and assorted special events such as the famous Horse Trials held in September.       Troubles continue to plague the Marlborough family. The present duke has gone to extraordinary lengths to disinherit his oldest son, the Marquis of Blandford. The marquis, who has had many brushes with the law and problems with controlled substances, to be discreet, is not considered worthy and/or capable of overseeing Blenheim and its treasures. The duke and his third wife live in an apartment in the palace part of the year, and are working hard to provide an alternative for its future.       Wandering through the remarkable but sadly bleak trappings of Blenheim, one is struck by how much the Duke of Wellington learned from Blenheim's dominion over the entire Marlborough family. When offered a great Waterloo Palace as a gift from the nation after his victory over Napoleon, Wellington proceeded cautiously. That story, of Stratfield Saye, will appear in a future issue.

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