Tatler Dynasties: Meet the Wellingtons
It was the high-society wedding of the year: a pre-wedding dinner in the Moorish splendour of the Alhambra Palace, royals British and European among the guests at the Granada church. Such an illustrious group of aristos could only have been marshalled by a Wellesley: the Duke of Wellington’s daughter Lady Charlotte, as she married Columbian billionaire Alejandro Santo Domingo in 2016 – scoring the Emilia Wickstead-clad bride a spot as one of the youngest entries on the Sunday Times Rich List.
Not that she was lacking, financially – her father, the ninth Duke of Wellington, is a phenomenally successful businessman and member of the House of Lords, who lost the Tory whip this September for rebelling against the government over Brexit. His wife is Princess Antonia von Preussen, a great-granddaughter of Wilhelm II; his sister, Lady Jane Wellesley, a 70s Tatler cover girl, who dated Prince Charles when she was 22, prompting feverish speculation about an engagement.
The joining of those two great dynasties, alas, was not to be; but other Wellesleys have wedded well. The heir to the dukedom, the astoundingly good-looking Earl of Mornington (technically Marquess of Douro but he decided against upgrading his title; drooled over regularly by early Noughties Tatler), married model Jemma Kidd, while Sofia Wellesley, his first cousin and once employed by Colonel Gadaffi, married James Blunt, who, before hitting the big time as a singer, was an officer in the Life Guards.
That Life Guards stint, though, was fitting, as the Wellesleys have always been a prominent military family, beginning with their founding father, Arthur Wellesley, created the first Duke of Wellington in 1814. He conquered Napoleon at Waterloo (earning him and his successors the rather smart title of Prince of Waterloo), served twice as Prime Minister and invented the Wellington Boot. The current Duke is the first not to have served in the army – though his youngest son, Lord Fred Wellesley is keeping the tradition alive in the Household Cavalry. Other Dukes (often called Arthur) were well known for being the rumoured inspiration behind Jane Eyre’s Lord Rochester (2nd Duke), being a member of right-wing, anti-Semitic groups in the 1930s (5th Duke), and being very fat (3rd Duke).
Land
The sand-coloured Stratfield Saye in Hampshire – which used to be owned by the Pitts – and its 7,500 acre estate. They also have a 2,400-acre estate in Granada, given by Spain to the 1st Duke of Wellington for defeating the French occupying forces in the Peninsula War. Grandest of all though is Apsley House, also known as Number One London, packed with Goyas and Velázquezes, plus a naked statue of Napoleon by Canova, whose hand the late eighth Duke would use as a brake when he slid down the bannisters as a child.
Prominent romances
The current duke’s grandmother, Dorothy, was a poet and Yeats thought her one of the greatest of their time – and she was present at his deathbed in 1939 – but her great obsession was Vita Sackville-West, whose lover she became and for whom she left her husband Gerald in 1922.
Legacy
The first Duke of Wellington has at least 90 English pubs named after him. But not, sadly, the one owned by his descendent Sofia Wellseley, who runs the Fox and Pheasant with James Blunt, hard by the Chelsea football stadium. Their first paying customers? Tatler, who paid a visit when they opened their doors last year.