Victor Duleep Singh's Loyalty to the Carnarvons
In the years that followed the marriage of George Carnarvon to Almina Wombwell, Victor saw the Carnarvons regularly. He was ever loyal and ready to be there if and when they needed him.
In 1913, Lady Almina Carnarvon reached her wits end. Her beloved mother, Marie Boyer, Mrs Fred Wombwell, the only parent she had ever known, was dead. It was a tragic, debilitating death. The women were always close. Almina nursed her dear mother to her very last dying breath. Understandably, as Marie’s life slipped away, Almina felt completely alone in the world. Almina’s only and much loved older brother, Frederick Adolphus Wombwell, had died the previous year, at the age of 42.
The one man whose sympathy and comfort Almina cherished most at this critical time was not her husband, Lord George Carnarvon, and it was not her guardian, Baron Alfred de Rothschild; at this terrifyingly hellish moment in her life Almina’s saviour was Prince Victor Albert Jay Duleep Singh. He had been there as an unrivalled companion and mentor for both Lord Carnarvon and Almina in their good times, and horrendous times. One important example of the bad times being in 1909, when Lord Carnarnon met with a serious motorcar accident in Germany.
Highclere's unworthy version of history, that this motor car accident took place earlier, as early as 1901 or 1902, a fiction created by the 6th Earl of Carnarvon, is totally discredited by William Cross's researches in his book " The Life and Secrets of Almina Carnarvon".
Following Lord Carnarvon's
near death accident in 1909, it was Prince Victor Duleep Singh who rushed from London, the very next day, using a rapid combination of rail and ferry and road transports to be at the Earl’s bedside in order to offer first hand support to his much loved friends, the Carnarvons.
By 1913, although long exiled in Paris, Victor acted with the same speed, as he had done for the Earl four years earlier. Upon hearing of Marie Wombwell’s passing, Victor travelled especially to England to offer Almina his considerable-sized shoulder to cry on.
Leaning on Victor’s shoulder was something Lady Almina had done many times before. In a strange way Prince Victor Duleep Singh held the Carnarvon marriage together from the very start. He was far closer than Almina was to her often cantankerous husband, yet he was placed closer still to Almina, closer even than any parent or sibling, or her husband
If there was ever a moment when Almina felt capable of deserting Lord Carnarvon it was this desolate time following her mother’s death. Almina’s financier guardian, Alfred de Rothschild could see that Almina was suffering under the strain, and whilst Marie lay dying he took a let of Castle Ashby, Northampton as an ample house with beautiful gardens, where Almina could retreat.
Victor had been Almina’s knight in shining armour, often. The Prince’s life in Paris was a lonely, lazy but often leisurely one. He played the tables and occasionally travelled, with his wife, Lady Anne (whose title was Princess Duleep Singh). They frequented the German and Swiss Spas and gambled at Monte Carlo, but his health was crumbling from a past wave of physical and dietary excesses. He persuaded Almina to return to her full place as the Countess of Carnarvon. Soon the Great War changed both their lives, Almina became a war time nurse running a military hospital at Highclere Castle and London, and Victor continued to live in Paris throughout the war and died of a heart attack, aged 52, in his adored Monte Carlo, in 1918. Lady Anne, Princess Duleep Singh returned to England and died in 1956.
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Almina, 5th Countess of Carnarvon
1876-1969
For more information on this topic please e-mail William Cross, FSA Scot author of
“ The Life and Secrets of Almina Carnarvon”
A candid biography of Almina, 5th Countess of Carnarvon
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