what does the people wonder chalse hooper after the death of duke
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The new Duke of Wellington has household chores on his mind. Carpets are coming up, furniture is being moved around and the builders are in, chipping away at the stonework of Apsley House.
Bar Buckingham Palace down the road, this Robert Adam-designed townhouse on the edge of Hyde Park, where the first Duke and his descendants have lived ever since the Peninsular War, is the capital’s most exclusive address. If one were inclined to post a letter to “Number 1, London”, it would end up here. But inside its magnificent state rooms, things are currently a work in progress.
“You wouldn’t believe all the dust that has come in these past few weeks,” the Duke says, marching briskly through a set of gilded overdoors into a drawing room containing two rococo chairs, and the oldest English grand piano in existence. The blinds are drawn. After fiddling with one – and calling to a member of staff for help – the Duke is informed it is broken. He shrugs and sits down.
The 9th Duke of Wellington, left, with his late father, Arthur Valerian Wellesley (then the 8th Duke of Wellington)
Even in the half-light he is, unmistakeably, a Wellesley: same piercing eyes as the man staring down from the portraits all around us; the same silvery-blond hair as his father before him. One feels, perhaps, the darkness suits. Charles Wellesley is, after all, an intensely private man.
The 9th Duke of Wellington became so this New Year’s Eve, when his father, Arthur Valerian Wellesley, passed away at the family’s Stratfield Saye estate in Hampshire, at the age of 99. He has not given an interview since becoming the head of one of the country’s most distinguished families, and in his 69 years has rarely done so even prior to that. His wife, Princess Antonia von Preussen, great-grandaughter of the last German Emperor, and sister Lady Jane, once a former beau of the Prince of Wales, obviously make the Duke’s affairs of keen public interest. Not to mention his daughter-in-law, the former model and socialite Jemma Kidd, who is married to his eldest son and heir, Arthur, now the Marquess of Douro.
But he is intent on keeping their lives in the grand Georgian apartments of Apsley House to themselves, even if the public roam the museum and collection on the lower floors. “I’m not particularly interested in personal questions,” says the Duke, by way of explanation. “It’s not particularly in my nature.”
He is, however, happy to talk endlessly and with great authority on one subject. One which, for the Wellesley family, is the most important of them all: Waterloo, the final battle in the war which created this dynasty and one that still dominates their lives. The bicentenary takes place in June and the descendants of the Duke, and the house where he once lived, will play a central role. On June 18, following a commemoration service at St Paul’s Cathedral, the Duke will recreate Wellington’s Waterloo banquet at Apsley House – which he held every year until his death. Hence, the need for a mammoth spring clean.