The American who became mistress of the real Downton Abbey

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception 

WHEN Catherine Wendell, a beautiful young American, walked down the aisle in the summer of 1922 to meet the heir to the 5th Earl of Carnarvon at the altar she was treading an already well-worn path.

New Yorker Catherine Wendell became Countess of Carvanon when she married Lord Porchester in 1922
 

Her American mother-in-law Almina was prominent among the guests and must have had more than a few flashbacks to her own wedding 27 years earlier in the same church, St Margaret's Westminster.

But when Almina became chatelaine of Highclere Castle - the stately home that has become instantly recognisable on TV as the fictional Downton Abbey - she had brought a magnificent dowry with her just like her screen alter ego Lady Cora.

Given that she was widely known to be the illegitimate daughter of banker Alfred de Rothschild it must have been huge - certainly large enough to persuade a snooty British aristocratic family rather down on its luck to overlook her parents' lack of a marriage certificate.

The Carnarvons immediately set fortune made it possible for her husband to build up Highclere's about spending the cash. Almina's fortune made it possible for her husband to build up Highclere's legendary racing stud and famously help archeologist Howard Carter find the tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun.

But Catherine - who would soon become the new mistress of Highclere - did not come from wealth. It did mean however that she could at least be certain that her own Anglo-American alliance was a true love-match.

And Catherine proved to be quite at home in the elevated level of society that she had married into. When she became countess she had no trouble taking on Almina's role as hostess of one of the finest stately homes in Britain.

Catherine's father had died almost penniless when she was 10 years old, shortly after losing his fortune in a bad business speculation but up to that point the Wendells had been members of New York's super-rich.

His widow, also from a wealthy American family, had just enough money of her own left to afford a private British education for her four children. She accepted an invitation from a well-connected childless cousin to make her home with her in London and moved in with Catherine, her younger daughter Philippa, and her two sons.

When Catherine came out in 1919 a fellow debutante recalled seeing her across a London ballroom - a devastatingly beautiful young woman surrounded by young men determined to party away the trauma of the recently ended First World War with the prettiest girls they could find. Who was she?
"Don't you know?" said the deb's incredulous dance partner. "That's Catherine Wendell. It's said she has had 13 proposals of marriage and I'm thinking of being the 14th!"
In the end Catherine chose Henry George Alfred Marius Victor Francis Herbert, Lord Porchester, known to all his friends - including Edward, Prince of Wales and his younger brother Prince George - as Porchey. Unlike his erudite father he was a young man in the huntin', shootin' and fishin' tradition of aristocracy.

Lord Porchester and his American socialite wife Catherine Wendell pictured together

No one could have accused him of being a romantic. He was blunt and his love letters to Catherine during their engagement mostly issued instructions about how she should get ready to be his wife.

Learn about polo, he told her, so that she would seem interesting and a good sport. "It's awful to be classed a bore or even a nonentity," he warned.

But he was huge fun. While Catherine loved dancing and flirting Porchey was welcomed everywhere because he loved a good party. During the first five happy years of their marriage they became the most popular hosts in the country.

When the 5th Earl died suddenly in Egypt, just a few months after her wedding, the new countess rose to the challenge. Her happiness was cemented by the growing friendship between Porchey and her younger brother Reggie, just two weeks older than her husband. He had the same sunny personality and a subtle wit that he used to smooth out any difficulties between his sweet-natured sister and her sometimes thoughtless husband.
Reggie became a permanent fixture at Highclere as the Carnarvons hosted frequent weekend gatherings.

Regulars included the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and Prince Aly Khan. The Prince of Wales and the Carnarvons' close friend Prince George - younger brother to our present Queen's father - seem to have used Highclere as a venue for meeting up with girlfriends.

The visitors' book shows that on several occasions both Prince George and Poppy Baring, the beautiful and rather promiscuous heiress to the banking dynasty, stayed at Highclere. Since many of the castle's bedrooms had interconnecting doors there was no need to tip-toe along corridors at night. Poppy was also an early girlfriend of the Prince of Wales before he met Wallis Simpson.

Highclere house parties became highlights of the social calendar, particularly at Christmas and in the summer when the races were on at nearby Newbury.

Downton Abbey is filmed at Highclere Castle, which is Catherine's former home

Then tragedy struck. One evening in July 1928 Reggie Wendell collapsed during a party. Catherine sat up with him all night but he died of a brain haemorrhage before dawn aged 32.

In the years to come Catherine said that Reggie's death was not just a personal blow but also a bitter blow to her marriage. He and Porchey had become like brothers and her husband's response to Reggie's death was to spend more and more time in London where he caroused in the circles that surrounded the Prince of Wales and where extramarital affairs seemed to be the norm.

While he was having affairs with actresses and even friends' wives, and making little effort to hide his womanising from his wife, Catherine stayed at Highclere with their young son and daughter in the late Twenties and early Thirties, refusing to join in with high society's rampant game of musical beds.

Eventually he was caught up in more than a dalliance and begged Catherine for a divorce. In 1935 she moved out of the castle with their children, buying a home of her own in London. The fact was that in his time the real Downton Abbey never again had a chatelaine to match Catherine.

After her departure Porchey got a taste of his own medicine. The woman he divorced Catherine for, Guinness heiress Tanis Montagu, made world headlines by jilting him just hours away from the altar. She burst into his hotel room before dawn on the day of their wedding, hurled her engagement ring and jewellery at him and screamed, "I can't do it!" His second marriage, the year after Catherine married a steady, reliable stockbroker who adored her, was to former ballerina and silent movie star Tilly Losch.

Tilly insisted on securing a £600-a-year allowance before she married him in the autumn of 1939 and then went to New York three months later without him. She stayed there for much of the rest of the war while Porchey sat alone at Highclere wondering what his wife was doing during her evenings among the bright lights of the big city.

He divorced Tilly in 1947 and didn't marry again. At Catherine's funeral in 1975 friends observed that Porchey was moved to tears.

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