It's NOT all DOWNTON ABBEY - My Life Marrying into the British Aristocracy

hi everybody and welcome back to my youtube channel american vi countess i'm julie montague the american vice countess and this channel really consists of me obviously going out to historic houses so hopefully you've been able to watch that series above but also vlogging uh about my life here at mapperton and and what it's like marrying into the british aristocracy so um this video is really all about that it's not all downton abbey so i'm gonna start by answering some of your questions so the first time i came to matterton my husband somewhat prepared me in so much that he said just so you know we're going to kind of the family home and i just want to let you know that it's kind of big and i'm like okay well i come from the land of supersize so no problem with um you know how big it is i'm thinking it's probably just like a big american house i'm used to big i'm used to super size but when we drove down um the the drive what he didn't tell me was that it was a historic house and it is of course um a very large historic house these country houses were built with a plan um to basically entertain and everything happened in the house he didn't tell me though that it was 500 years old so the first part of the house was built in the 1540s the library the drawing room um the great chamber that's where we have all the tudor ceilings he didn't tell me any of that so getting my head around not only the history of the house but of course the history of his family i learned about not only the first early sandwich where the title uh firstly presented itself and was given to the family by charles ii edward montague was a great naval officer he was head of the admiralty and he used to be fighting for the cromwells he was part of the cromwellian army and then switzed and became a royalist so he was very instrumental in the restoration and he went on a secret mission um heading the ship over to holland to pick up charles ii from exile and bring him back over to england where charles was um crowned uh king of england and that was the beginning of the restoration so he was given the title of an earl and he was able to pick what he wanted to be earl of sandwich at that period was a great naval port in kent and so he chose sandwich a port sort of that would distinguish him from everybody else so he became the earl of sandwich now of course the favorite snack that we all eat the sandwich was named after my husband's ancestor but that was much later on and that was the fourth earl of sandwich and the rumor is i'm gonna give you the truth here so listen closely the rumor is that he it was named a sandwich because the fourth earl liked to gamble and so at one of his late nights gambling sessions he asked his butler to bring him a piece of roast beef but put it between two pieces of bread so that his cards wouldn't get greasy i'm going to um tell you the truth right now so get ready we believe he was such a great politician and of course head of the admiralty and um very very busy that he was working at his desk all of the time that sometimes he didn't eat and leave his desk and eat lunch in the dining room or elsewhere and so he asked his butler to bring him uh roast beef between two pieces of bread so he went to get his papers greasy and that you've heard it here first now that doesn't mean that he didn't gamble and didn't also of course have that sandwich next to him when he was gambling but we believe that the true story comes from the fact that he didn't want to get his very important papers greasy and that is where the sandwich that we know today actually comes from unfortunately we didn't trademark that so so yes that was a real loss [Music] what's extraordinary about these historic houses is that the ones that we see today we know that they've gone through a lot in order to survive so after or during the second world war many many and i mean many many many many um uh historic houses were requisitioned by the government to be used by the government whether they were prisoner of war camps or they were maternity hospitals or they were red cross centers or even refugee camps but a really good example is pantily castle which i did visit um hopefully you've been able to see those three episodes of pantily castle in my american vi countess series on historic houses but that was requisitioned by the government and it was used as a maternity hospital during the second world war and when i went to go visit sammy um coraton uh who now owns and runs pantily castle she taught me how to do hospital corners um because now pantily castle is a wonderful venue that you can rent out for weddings for any type of events and sam and her family run it but we had a wonderful scene where sammy was showing me how to do hospital corners because of course that's what they were doing um during the second world war when pantily castle was used for a maternity hospital after the second world war when these homeowners came back to their houses these historic houses they found that they were in such a state that they couldn't repair them they had no money also because all the taxes that were put on these landowners these homeowners um you were taxed for the size of your house you were also taxed for the amount of land that you used and these homeowners couldn't afford to pay these taxes they ride back into their houses and some found that their staircases their beautiful historic staircases were chopped up to be used for firewood um their paintings van dykes were used for dart boards and so many of the houses were either just demolished so that they didn't have to pay taxes or their land was sold or they just left them in ruin or they sold them to become museums to become schools to become prisons believe it or not um and pantily is also another example that in the 1960s two huge wings of pentile castle were just completely demolished but the same thing happened over here hinchingbrook which is actually my title and was the family home that is the home that the first url of sandwich lived in all of his life and uh all the other uh earls after that up until my husband's grandfather he sold hinchingbrook um again same reason right after the second world war um taxes in fact he even knocked down a wing but luckily hinching brook did survive it's now a school so it's a wonderful school and that means that all of hinchingbrook is still intact as far as the um the extraordinary architecture around that um after the second world war but probably not quite in time um the this country set up something around grade one and grade two listed buildings mapperton is a grade one listed building hinching brook house is a grade 1 listed building and it means that it's of extraordinary historical interest so that is what grade 1 means if you're wondering what grade 2 means it's of special historical interest so both hinchingbrook and mapperton are grade one listed which means we cannot bulldoze it down ever and it also means we actually can't even take out a wall if we want to expand that's how strict the rules have come have become in order to preserve this part of england's heritage so it's actually a good thing first time i wore a hat was at hinchingbrook it was the 200th anniversary of the battle of trafalgar it was the 21st of october 1805 and 200 years later in 2005 i planted a tree at hinchingbrook because custom goes is that it was always when trees were to be planted it was always the lady of the house who would plant the tree and granted we weren't living there but it is called hinchingbrook house my title is vicantus hinchingbrook and so i wore a very smart hat and i was able to plant that tree so i was able to plant a tree there and it was really special and a wonderful moment for me so that was really the first time almost the last time that i wore a hat however if you watched my recent video where i went to plymouth and retraced kind of the steps of the pilgrims and the mayflower in particular i was wearing this hat and this hat actually comes from we believe luke's great-grandmother alberta sturgis who um was the ninth count as a sandwich but also an american like me she came over during the gilded age uh just like downton abbey uh was here during that same period married in 1905 brought her money exchanged it for a title and um and i'll be doing my dissertation um on alberta sturgis but we believe that this was her hat and i was able to wear it for that video many of you watched the video that i did with my husband how not to set the table listen it's honestly it's difficult it still gets me today as you can see we have different opinions on how both my husband and i should lay the table he thought what i did was an absolute disaster i thought it was all right he thought i googled it i don't know i'm going to keep mum on that one but i still again etiquette at the table learning how to set the table it's difficult you it's because setting the table you have to figure out how many courses you're having how many just different glasses you need are you having cheese are you going to have pudding are you going to have salads or you can have soups and these all require a different cutlery for sure so and actually i should say silverware because over in this country your everyday uh utensils that you eat are called cutlery only when you're having a smart dinner and you're actually using silver would it be called silverware whereas in america i'm afraid everything's called silverware so that's another one so learning the etiquette i'm still getting my head around that but i will end with one faux pas that i had and that was passing the salt so somebody at a smart dinner party asked me to pass the salt and the salt was right there in the middle of the table i grabbed the salt stood up and passed it over to the person across the table and that was a never do that so what you have to do is you have to i believe past the salt will it's to the right so i think it's depending well i think it depends on if how close that person is so if the person across from me was you know three away but yet six away there i could pass it to the left if but also if all of a sudden it's three away here and there were six on this side i would pass it to the right i think if it's equidistant you would go to the right but don't hold me to that but you cannot pass across the table anything not just salt water wine um whatever it is you cat gravy you cannot pass it across the table you need to pass it one by one and with that um i hope you enjoyed this video please be sure to comment down below let me know any faux pas that you've had any faux pas that you've had um if you've been over um at a smart dinner party whether it's here in britain or around the world let me know when you if you've ever worn a hat before um and uh i would love to hear that and yeah and let me know if you've ever made a faux pas addressing anybody with a title do comment down below i love hearing about all your comments make sure you subscribe to this channel and do be sure to check out lots of my other channels as well bye everybody

Channel: American Viscountess

Views: 299,270

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Id: tsAb24uh6lQ

Length: 13min 1sec (781 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 19 2021