Unconventional Wisdom
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Unconventional Wisdom A COMMONER’S TOUCH Kate Middleton’s dazzling social high-jump—from the pretty middle-class daughter of self-made millionaires to the future queen of England—is spectacular. But singular? Not really, says historian Amanda Foreman, who argues that Middleton’s climb to the top is actually part of a centuries-old—and very (gasp!) American—tradition. Illustration David Hughes For Americans, there is something undeniably Middleton may be the first British commoner to Alexander Baring, the first Baron Ashburton, familiar about Kate Middleton, the 29-year-old marry so spectacularly into the upper echelons in 1798. Bingham was the younger and pret- who, on April 29, will become the wife of Britain’s of British royalty, she is preceded by two centu- tier daughter of Senator William Bingham, Prince William. And although it’s partly her ries of American women who, armed only with the richest man in Pennsylvania and one of polished appearance—her perfect, impossibly their beauty, charm, and new money, periodi- the co-founders of the Bank of North America. straight white teeth and glossy hair—that strike cally sailed to England to find husbands—and By marrying the wildly ambitious Ashburton, a chord stateside, there’s something else about in doing so collectively helped save the nobility the head of Barings, Britain’s oldest merchant her that seems recognizable as well. from its own encroaching irrelevance. It’s some- bank, she was also responsible for the first So what is it? It’s not, of course, that Middleton thing that Middleton now has the chance to do transatlantic corporate merger. is actually, secretly American; in fact, she’s never for the British monarchy itself. The women who followed in Bingham’s wake set foot in this country. But she does represent a were no less wealthy. One of the most dazzling sort of story that is both familiar and treasured The tawdry history of Edward VIII’s marriage American-British marriages of the time was in America: that of the commoner who, through to Mrs. Wallis Simpson (the Baltimore-born Helen Magruder’s nuptials to the third Baron pluck and charm and determination, transcends divorcée) aside, the first Americans to marry Abinger in 1863. Although Magruder was not as her middle-class origins to win the heart of a into British aristocratic circles were, much like rich as her predecessors, her personal story con- future king. Before she and William met at the Middleton herself, confident of their position tained more than enough romance and tragedy University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Middle- and eligibility in any marriage market. Like to seduce British society. Her father was a naval ton may have been a student at the pricey and Middleton they were beautiful, educated, and officer from the South, and her uncle was the socially prestigious Marlborough College, the the first generation of their families to be raised Confederate victor of the Battle of Galveston. Any alma mater of her future cousin-in-law Princess with money. (Her parents live in Oak Acre, a doubts that London society might have enter- Eugenie, but despite her grand education she is $2.5 million mock-Georgian house in the afflu- tained about the Southern belle were dispelled really the daughter of up-by-their-bootstraps par- ent village of Bucklebury, Berkshire, and own once Queen Victoria pronounced her to be “a ents, members of the newly wealthy. an online party supply business, Party Pieces.) beautiful creature.” The queen even stayed with It’s a narrative with a long tradition —and, as it The original alliance, the one that start- them at their castle, Inverlochy—a mixed bless- turns out, a very American one indeed. Although ed it all, united Anne Louise Bingham and ing—during one of her annual Highland tours. 108 | Town & Country These early American invasions into the higher unwittingly encouraged the trend when they American heiress marries an English lord. The echelons of society taught a valuable lesson to tried to regulate New York high society. In 1872, 22-year-old Duke of Manchester was a lying, the British. Not only was the aristocracy forced McAllister, William Astor, his brother John Ja- lazy spendthrift who fled England to escape his to accept that upbringing could make a lady just cob Astor III, and 22 other self-proclaimed blue creditors. Marriage, even to the sensual Yznaga, as much as breeding, it also realized that there bloods (each selected by McAllister) formed failed to change his ways, and as soon as his wife was something about these new comers that set a social committee known as the Patriarchs. produced a son, he disappeared into a life of them apart from traditional women. They were Three times a year the committee held a gala in drunken excess, never bothering to contact her independent without being rebellious, confident Delmonico’s in New York, to which each Patri- except when his allowance was late. Randolph without being arrogant. To the British, theirs arch was allowed to invite just 25 people. The and Jennie, on the other hand, married for love, was a wholly modern way of behaving—albeit purpose was to keep the newly rich from insinu- but their union was doomed by his inexorable one whose merits they had yet to accept. ating themselves into the ranks of those whose descent into syphilis-induced insanity (an occu- families had been free from trade—meaning all pational hazard for the young man-about-town By the late 19th century, the trend had gained professions except the law or banking—for at before condoms and anti biotics), which ended even more momentum as oil, mining, railroads, least two generations. McAllister and Mrs. Astor in their eventual disgrace and bankruptcy. They and construction fueled the greatest period of succeeded so well that they drove the nouveau did, however, manage to produce Winston, Eng- economic growth in American history. Known riche to seek social acceptance abroad. As far as as the Gilded Age, it was the era of the first plu- the Europeans were concerned, all Americans tocratic tycoons and the robber barons, such were alike; it didn’t matter how many genera- as the Rockefellers, Dukes, Harrimans, Fricks, tions separated the Astors (who made their first To the Europeans, and Goulds, whose insatiable desire to create fortune in the fur trade) from the Vanderbilts all Americans empires crushed all be- (who had made theirs from railroads). Their fore them. In response money had the same ability to rescue great es- were alike; to these newcomers, tates from the iron grip of high taxes and de- Mrs. William Backhouse clining agricultural profits. it didn’t matter Astor Jr.—the Mrs. It was the 19th-century British aristocracy’s Astor—and her side- inability to distinguish or care about the finer how many kick Ward McAllister, a gradations of self-made fortunes that enabled generations Savannah native whose the exotic Jennie Jerome, daughter of New York lilting Southern accent financier Leonard Jerome, to marry Lord Ran- separated the hid his predilection for dolph Churchill, the younger son of the seventh malicious gossip under Duke of Marlborough and a rising statesman Astors from the a thin veneer of charm, in the Conservative Party. (The small detail of Churchill’s large debts was obscured by the Vanderbilts. glittering political future thought to be ahead of him.) Two years later the ravishing and even land’s greatest prime minister and statesman— more exotic Consuelo Yznaga del Valle, the and arguably the most superb outcome of these daughter of a Cuban sugar mill owner and a alliances. Southern heiress, married Viscount Mandeville, By 1894 more than 80 titled aristocrats had the future Duke of Manchester. Yznaga had been American wives. The following year another nine raised on a Louisiana plantation before being were added to the list. The most celebrated of taken in her teens to New York, where her family these weddings was that of Consuelo Vanderbilt did not fit easily into society; she was sniffed at (Consuelo Yznaga’s goddaughter) to the ninth until her illustrious marriage in 1876. Suddenly, Duke of Marlborough at St. Thomas Church on a British husband, preferably one with a title and Fifth Avenue in New York. The duke was facing a significant estate, became the latest must-have ruin, and the bride was under the sway of her accessory for the daughters of America’s early ty- forceful mother, Alva Vanderbilt, who had sworn coons. It was, after all, the most immediate path to defeat her social rival, Mrs. Astor. The Vander- to social acceptability and legitimacy. A duke was bilts had been dismissed by the Astors as parve- obviously the best catch, followed by a marquis, nus because their $60 million fortune had been then an earl, a viscount, and finally a mere baron. amassed only in the mid–19th century, whereas THE MARRYING TYPES Jennie Jerome (top), Baronets were a last resort. the first John Jacob Astor had made his money Winston Churchill’s mother, married into nobility These marriages were not happy ones of the two generations earlier. (The fact that Mrs. Astor’s in 1874. So did fellow American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt (right, with C.Z. Guest in 1955), who sort depicted in the recent, critically acclaimed husband William had doubled his father’s wealth wed the Duke of Marlborough in 1895. television series Downton Abbey, in which an by becoming a notorious slumlord was somehow Images Archive/Getty top: Classic Image/Alamy; Slim Aarons/Hulton Photographs, from 110 | Town & Country considered less déclassé than the money that had come from the Vanderbilt railroads.) Every year Mrs.