Speaker 1: Today, we're back at Hocombe Hall in Norfolk, a country
Speaker 1: house so massive it not only contains a room just
Speaker 1: for statues, it also houses several incredible and inspiring stories,
Speaker 1: so many in fact, that we've had to revisit it
Speaker 1: for a second time to hear them all. Don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, there's a lot of sheep loving silliness, but
Speaker 1: Hocumbe Hall is also home to some very impressive women,
Speaker 1: speaking of which, you remember this one from our last episode.
Speaker 2: I'm Catherine. I'm collections coordinator at Hookumb, which means basically,
Speaker 2: I look after all of the stuff in the house
Speaker 2: see paintings, furniture, statues, you name it, I have to
Speaker 2: look after it.
Speaker 1: And for this second episode we're adding another specialist because,
Speaker 1: unlike Michael Gove, we haven't had enough of experts on
Speaker 1: this podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm Lucy Purvis. I'm the archimist at Holcombe. I've been
Speaker 3: here now for about six years and I look after
Speaker 3: and research into their history, be that the people that
Speaker 3: live here or the people that work here, the buildings
Speaker 3: and the collection that's within the hall and anything kind
Speaker 3: of oldish on the estate.
Speaker 1: Speaking of oldish, Catherine's already told us about Hocumb's famous
Speaker 1: Thomas William Cook. But in case you missed it, Tom
Speaker 1: was a bit of a lad. He loved a pasty
Speaker 1: or three, took a five year long gap year, gambled
Speaker 1: his money on cock fighting, and came back with just
Speaker 1: about every Roman statue he could find. He also loved
Speaker 1: the ladies, especially if they were younger, much younger. There
Speaker 1: was a whopping fifty years between him and his wife.
Speaker 1: Sounds like he was the DiCaprio of his day, But
Speaker 1: was he actually as scandalous as he looks on paper?
Speaker 2: No, I'm afraid Thomas William is actually pretty dull. Really.
Speaker 2: He's known for being a farmer, really loved sheep at agriculture.
Speaker 1: He loves sheep.
Speaker 2: But he was a bit of a dish apparently, So yes,
Speaker 2: you're right. His second wife was about fifty odd years
Speaker 2: younger than him. When he was sixty eight, she was eighteen,
Speaker 2: and he wanted to marry her off to his nephew
Speaker 2: who was going to inherit the house, and she said, well, well,
Speaker 2: actually I'd much rather marry you. I think really great
Speaker 2: sacrifice for him to marry the much younger woman.
Speaker 1: What first attracted her to the exceptionally rich older man.
Speaker 2: Do you think No, I think it must have been
Speaker 2: his conversation personally.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you know how they both met?
Speaker 2: So he was actually her godparent? Ward?
Speaker 1: What does a ward do?
Speaker 2: It's a bit like we would call it a godparent
Speaker 2: today and involved god parent?
Speaker 1: I think, bit too involved. Yeah. Do you recket the
Speaker 1: marriage was then, ever, sort of consummated?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: They had it was You guys are nodding your heads
Speaker 1: very very vigorously, like absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Was it six children, Lucy, oh Jesus Christ. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was very consummated immediately. Yeah, very quick. He wasn't wasting
Speaker 2: any time.
Speaker 1: We didn't have much time left anyway.
Speaker 3: Did the last child to be born? He was eighty four.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie that. I just a man of
Speaker 1: his age. How is he doing this?
Speaker 2: I'm sure he ate a lot of oysters.
Speaker 1: Even though Thomas William Cook was a bit boring, he
Speaker 1: still did throw incredible parties. What sort of parties was
Speaker 1: he throwing?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So he actually, as you say, boring chap, but
Speaker 2: loved a good party. So unsurprisingly one of his favorite
Speaker 2: parties did involve sheep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as the guests or as the sort of fancy dress.
Speaker 2: Kind of as a bit of face. Actually, every year
Speaker 2: he told something called a sheep sharing, basically a country
Speaker 2: fair load of farmers come, they look at sheep, they
Speaker 2: talk about sheep, and then they have a great knees
Speaker 2: up after talking about sheep.
Speaker 1: Amazing, What a theme for the music for these parties,
Speaker 1: because they'd been playing music at parties who are like
Speaker 1: the big composers, who's like the Drake or the Kanye
Speaker 1: of the day.
Speaker 3: You'd have hydn kicking around, wouldn't you writing as London symphonies,
Speaker 3: maybe a bit of a saire. We Like Sheep?
Speaker 1: Sorry? Is that the name of one of the songs? No?
Speaker 3: Yes? In the Messiah there's a movement called for we
Speaker 3: Like Sheep?
Speaker 1: Is there really?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: That's perfect for this party. Absolutely stick that on and
Speaker 1: get the sheep going. I'm gonna be honest, I didn't
Speaker 1: at any point in any of my notes for this
Speaker 1: episode have anything on sheep, and now it's been eighty
Speaker 1: percent of this conversation so far, and I'm not sad
Speaker 1: about it. I'm not sad about it at all anyway.
Speaker 1: So they're also so sheep is a big party, but
Speaker 1: there's also so lots of shooting parties. And this is
Speaker 1: where Polly Fishburn comes in. This woman is quite a
Speaker 1: tenacious woman. This is a fierce lady. Are you right?
Speaker 3: She's feisty, She's definitely fightsty. Yeah. She started off working
Speaker 3: at Holcombe as a housemaid. Her father was a gamekeeper
Speaker 3: on the estate. He wasn't the gamekeeper, he was one
Speaker 3: of the assistant gamekeepers. And she would have come to
Speaker 3: Holcom when she's about ten or so years old. She
Speaker 3: would have lived in Church Lodges, which is where the
Speaker 3: gamekeeper still lives today on the estate, so she would
Speaker 3: have known all the kind of sights and smells of
Speaker 3: what being a game peoper was like. But she was
Speaker 3: stuck in the kitchen as one of the undermaids. And
Speaker 3: there's various accounts of what she did, but one of
Speaker 3: the main one that got her out of the kitchen
Speaker 3: was when she was hearing the shooting, she suddenly dropped
Speaker 3: all the saucepans and jumped out the window to go
Speaker 3: and find out what was happening. She could apparently ride
Speaker 3: any horse in the stable, and she was a great
Speaker 3: breaker of horses. But they realized that and Undermade really
Speaker 3: wasn't the career for her, so she was agreed that
Speaker 3: she could go and work with the gamekeepers, and in fact,
Speaker 3: she was much better gamekeeper than her father was, and
Speaker 3: generally thought that she was the equivalent of a man,
Speaker 3: except she was obviously wearing ladies' clothes.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say that must have been a huge
Speaker 1: scandal at the time because they're like, what a woman.
Speaker 3: But then you've also got because at that point the
Speaker 3: servants would have been all eating together in the servants hall.
Speaker 3: So you've got all the gamekeepers and all the outdoor
Speaker 3: men the gardeners all eating together and being very masculine
Speaker 3: and very laddish like they would be. You've got Polly
Speaker 3: that comes in and none of the female servants want
Speaker 3: to have anything to do with her because she's a
Speaker 3: bit grubby, she's a bit gamekeeper, and she probably smells
Speaker 3: a bit compared to what they do, so she had
Speaker 3: to take her nails in their nursery. But there's a
Speaker 3: couple of really good little stories about Polly, and the
Speaker 3: fact that she was so formidable just comes across each time.
Speaker 3: So there was a couple of gentlemen at one point
Speaker 3: that should have been eating and were waiting their dinner,
Speaker 3: and they thought they'd just take a stroll around the park,
Speaker 3: and they walked up to Church Lodge where Polly was living,
Speaker 3: and said, oh, could you take us to the church
Speaker 3: and show us around the church please? And she happily
Speaker 3: took them, but realized that they weren't just wanting to
Speaker 3: see the church. She managed to lock them at the
Speaker 3: top of the church and went home and they had
Speaker 3: to be rescued some hours later when their absence was noticed.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. So she'd have gone, oh, into this this cupboard, gentleman,
Speaker 1: and then since you went in at the door, click
Speaker 1: legs it away. Yeah, exactly, and then didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 3: Well know, I think the thing was that they became
Speaker 3: the laughing stock, and she wasn't reprimanded at all. In fact,
Speaker 3: she was kind of praised for showing dignity and independence.
Speaker 1: Who do you reckon found them? Was it just like
Speaker 1: the vicar going into like dust off the prayer books
Speaker 1: on the Sunday morning and just opened up and there's
Speaker 1: these two sad looking n I got this.
Speaker 3: Vision of them just standing at the top of Saint
Speaker 3: with the Burger's just shouting, what are you.
Speaker 1: Two doing in here, well, not what we wanted to
Speaker 1: do in here.
Speaker 3: Do you want to know the story about it?
Speaker 1: I want every single story about Polly.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, Polly was on the marshes. So when you've
Speaker 3: got Holkham, you've got the lovely parkland, you've got the wall,
Speaker 3: and then you've got the marshes leading up to the sea,
Speaker 3: and they used to graze cattle and in fact they
Speaker 3: still graized cattle on there, but unfortunately there was a
Speaker 3: bull on there that had taken out one of the
Speaker 3: laborers and he was dead and he was standing over
Speaker 3: the bull was standing over the laborer, and everybody was like, well,
Speaker 3: what we're going to do, What we're going to do.
Speaker 3: Polly took one look, went into the field and started
Speaker 3: walking towards this bull and people were shouting, don't, don't, don't,
Speaker 3: don't go body, don't you know Polly? And her reply
Speaker 3: was he knows better. And as soon as the bull
Speaker 3: saw her he backed off because the bull had had
Speaker 3: previous with Polly when she'd shot him in the muzzle
Speaker 3: when he'd been misbehaving.
Speaker 1: Again, firstly, what's a muzzle and in like the nose
Speaker 1: shot the bull in the face I'm not surprised the
Speaker 1: bull was quite angry in general, then if I had
Speaker 1: been shot in the f I'm starting out a bit
Speaker 1: of sympathy with the bull. Actually, I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know between us three, I don't know what the biggest
Speaker 1: animal you think you could take in a fight is all.
Speaker 2: I've actually answered this recently at a pub quiz. At
Speaker 2: a pub quiz, Well, this is session quizz is a
Speaker 2: bit too.
Speaker 1: Yea, there can't be like a definite answer. Then I'll
Speaker 1: hear your answer.
Speaker 2: I'm a bit hesitant because we've talked about it a
Speaker 2: lot already, but I reckon it's a sheep.
Speaker 1: Well, you're not going to invite to any any bloody
Speaker 1: of Thomas Cook's parties then.
Speaker 2: Or maybe I am it's just maybe you are ticket?
Speaker 2: Can you take a sheep in a fight?
Speaker 1: And after dessert we will be watching Catherine wrestle a
Speaker 1: sheep to death.
Speaker 2: Yeah I'm not I'm not the biggest person, but I reckon,
Speaker 2: I reckon I could take a sheep.
Speaker 1: How are you taking it? Are you going to kick
Speaker 1: it to death?
Speaker 2: Or I'm going to flip it over? And then sheep
Speaker 2: are really good at dying.
Speaker 1: So you just flip the sheep and then pray for
Speaker 1: natural causes? Is that? Is that the plan? Solid one?
Speaker 1: And Lucy and the advance on sheep.
Speaker 3: Well, I found out today that I'm the same height
Speaker 3: as a red kangaroo as I was looking at a
Speaker 3: wall chart.
Speaker 1: There's not a chance you're beating up a kangaroo loose.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love that is ambitious.
Speaker 3: No, there is no way I would take it to redo,
Speaker 3: but I thought it's quite interesting. I was the same
Speaker 3: height as well. I think maybe a large tortoise, I
Speaker 3: will go that far.
Speaker 1: And are you are you going to do it for
Speaker 1: the same same tactic, just flip it over? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: flipping sounds good. Yeah sure. And myself, I think I
Speaker 1: could take a penguin, what sort chocolate chocolate bark, chocolate
Speaker 1: bar penguin, flip it over, lift its wing. Read the joke.
Speaker 1: See you lay any more Polly stories?
Speaker 3: So yeah. Polly's father died in eighteen twenty seven, which
Speaker 3: is the kind of the time when the sheep shearing
Speaker 3: had all finished, and she and her mother returned to
Speaker 3: Yorkshire and then Polly was employed at Cannon Harller State
Speaker 3: And the reason why I'm telling you about cannon Harll
Speaker 3: estate was the lady of cannon Horn Estate was Elizabeth Cook,
Speaker 3: who had been Thomas William's cook youngest daughter, who very
Speaker 3: quickly moved out once Thomas got married again. So they
Speaker 3: were given the cottage, went free and had three cows
Speaker 3: to look after, which is quind of nice. And the
Speaker 3: heir did come that what became the second Earl did
Speaker 3: come and recognized Polly, obviously because of her reputation, and
Speaker 3: and they reminisced together about life at Holcombe. And then
Speaker 3: Polly's supposed to have said, oh, my lord, what a
Speaker 3: spree we had over them wild ducks.
Speaker 1: Oh what's happened with ducks? We've had sheep, we've had cows,
Speaker 1: we've beaten up a kangaroo, a torsses dead, and now
Speaker 1: we're going after ducksed what happened with ducks?
Speaker 3: I had no idea what happened with the world ducks,
Speaker 3: but presumably they were raising them and shooting them.
Speaker 1: Shot in the face. She shot a duck in the face.
Speaker 1: And then one day they came and there was a
Speaker 1: duck stood over a dead farmer. I now want to
Speaker 1: talk about Lady Jane Digby, who hopefully hasn't killed any animals,
Speaker 1: but is again quite a woman.
Speaker 3: Well, she was one of these people that grew up
Speaker 3: in Hulcomb, although she was born in Dorset. Her mother
Speaker 3: had been another Jane, and she was the Thomas William Cook,
Speaker 3: the old man, his eldest daughter.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Her mother was incredibly beautiful. Jane was incredibly, incredibly beautiful.
Speaker 3: She would have been in the nursery when Polly would
Speaker 3: have been going for her long.
Speaker 1: Really, so she'd have met Polly. Yes, Oh that's cool.
Speaker 3: I think they would have known each other. I think
Speaker 3: they would have at least walked past each other in
Speaker 3: the corridors, if not known each other. She was incredibly beautiful.
Speaker 3: She had very long golden hair. Loads of people think
Speaker 3: that she is like, you know, the best thing since
Speaker 3: sliced bread.
Speaker 1: Nice a slice bread inventor by then no slice bread,
Speaker 1: slice spread is the best thing since since lady Jane
Speaker 1: Digby is actually what it should be.
Speaker 3: Yes, she really captivated her grandfather, who obviously was Thomas
Speaker 3: William Cook. And she had this education which was the
Speaker 3: same as the boys in the nursery before they went
Speaker 3: off to Eton. She learned lots of languages.
Speaker 1: This make this makes sense why she sort because then
Speaker 1: she sort of went around collecting men from different countries,
Speaker 1: didn't she Yeah, I can learn a language, and you
Speaker 1: might as well grab a bloat from it. How what's
Speaker 1: the best way to learn by doing? That's what I think,
Speaker 1: Just live it.
Speaker 3: But her grandfather encouraged her to take an interest in
Speaker 3: horses and small farm animals, so presumably sheep. She again
Speaker 3: would be including that she read the classics, which, of
Speaker 3: course at Hulcombe is very important with all the architecture
Speaker 3: and the sculptures and the paintings and.
Speaker 1: When you say the classics, so you're talking like sort
Speaker 1: of Homer in the Illy Adima, Ancient all that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, definitely, and wanted to know the stories
Speaker 3: behind some of the key pieces at Hulcombe as well,
Speaker 3: so she was being educated. She left the school room
Speaker 3: at sixteen, but kept her governess, which is really important,
Speaker 3: who was called missus Margaret Steele known as Steely, who
Speaker 3: they had a friendship for the rest of her life,
Speaker 3: and the family outside of Jane also used Steely as
Speaker 3: a way of talking to Jane and communicating with Jane
Speaker 3: when she was somewhat cut off from them, so Jane
Speaker 3: left school in eighteen three at age sixteen, and then
Speaker 3: she was a debutante in the following February, and by
Speaker 3: the September she was with her first husband, Edward Law,
Speaker 3: who was Lord Ellenborough. With him she did have a son, probably,
Speaker 3: though it might have been her cousins.
Speaker 1: Did she quit her cousins will hang on. You can't
Speaker 1: just breeze over that, this potential incest affair that's happening. Oh,
Speaker 1: let's just dwell on that a bit.
Speaker 3: It's not quite incest, does it with a cousin.
Speaker 1: Well, well, he's their own. Will agree to disagree there
Speaker 1: if if you've got your morals on that side, I'm
Speaker 1: going to I'm certainly on the side that hooking up
Speaker 1: with your cousin is wrong. But Lucy, if that's you,
Speaker 1: live your life and your truth.
Speaker 3: She the cousin was a good nine or ten years
Speaker 3: older than her, so you know, almost again she was
Speaker 3: infatuated with him. But there again, her husband was fifteen
Speaker 3: years older than her, so it were you know, there
Speaker 3: was quite a similar So now you had a son.
Speaker 3: And then quite quickly after that she met her first
Speaker 3: royalty and took her first royal lover, which ended up
Speaker 3: with her having to leave for Europe.
Speaker 1: What a phrase to say she met her first royal lover,
Speaker 1: like you know, you know you always have at least
Speaker 1: one or two royal lovers in your time.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't know. So yes, she met Prince Felix and
Speaker 3: moved over to Paris, had a really scandalous divorce. And
Speaker 3: the divorce was so scandalous from Lord Edinburgh that where
Speaker 3: the Times newspaper used to just have classified adverts, it
Speaker 3: actually had details of the divorce case on the front page.
Speaker 1: Why was it scandalous, Well, she.
Speaker 3: Didn't really help herself. She stood on the balcony shouting
Speaker 3: out I am Prince Felix's mistress, or somebody caught Prince
Speaker 3: Felix getting into her hotel room in Brighton, and you know,
Speaker 3: it was just this massive, massive scandal that she was
Speaker 3: a sort of unrepentant. So anyway, she leaves for Europe.
Speaker 3: She's just about divorced, she has a daughter. Prince Felix
Speaker 3: comes over, but then he actually realizes that it's going
Speaker 3: to compromise his career being with this scandalous divorced woman,
Speaker 3: so leaves her, which is what they're said, sad she's
Speaker 3: a completely damaged good She can't really come back and
Speaker 3: have her nice life. Her grandfather, who has a very
Speaker 3: young wife now doesn't want to have anything to do
Speaker 3: with her. It's I think it's really quite tragic.
Speaker 1: Is she just like heartbroken and completely bereft?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no more balconies to shout anything out.
Speaker 1: So what does she do? How does she bounce back?
Speaker 3: She goes to Munich and meets King Ludwig.
Speaker 1: She's done pretty well, pretty good rebound. How do you
Speaker 1: get over that one? A king? No fair enough?
Speaker 3: She also meets Baron Carl von Venigan, who turns out
Speaker 3: to be a really good chat Really yeah he does
Speaker 3: because she eventually marries Parl and has his child, who's
Speaker 3: called Herbert, and he supports her for the rest of
Speaker 3: her life, but they're not married for very long. She
Speaker 3: has another child, Bertha. There's a suggestion that Paul Bertha
Speaker 3: peras mad King Ludwig as her father, because she gets
Speaker 3: put into a mental asylum by the age of twenty,
Speaker 3: because they'd been prior to that, there hadn't been any
Speaker 3: great madness within the Cook line or the Digby line.
Speaker 3: The thought is that it might have come from King Ludwig.
Speaker 3: A little bit later, she meets Count Spiros Titowsky from.
Speaker 1: Corf Does anyone have a normal name? In this entire story,
Speaker 1: every blokes called like sounds like a wizard from Dungeons
Speaker 1: and Dragons. Exactly what's his name again?
Speaker 3: Say that again, Count Spiros theotoki.
Speaker 1: Right, okay?
Speaker 3: And she and him would make late night twists on
Speaker 3: her trusty mayor, so they would ride out in the
Speaker 3: evenings and find each other. Unfortunately, her husband Venegan, finds
Speaker 3: out and they have a duel. But Venegan is such
Speaker 3: a gentleman. Although he wounds Spiros, he takes him home
Speaker 3: and gets him better.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: That's nice of him though, to patch you all up.
Speaker 1: Awkward carriage ride back, I imagine.
Speaker 3: Very very Anyway, Spiros decides he wants to go back
Speaker 3: to Paris, so Jane leaves Venegon to go to Paris
Speaker 3: with him. A little bit later, Jane's last child, Leonidas,
Speaker 3: was born, and Leonidas was the one child that Jane
Speaker 3: actually really really loved.
Speaker 1: I would have pronounced it Leonidas, but.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: He was my favorite Ninja turtle.
Speaker 3: Yes, So then she gets divorced from Venigan. He decides
Speaker 3: that actually he's had enough, and Jane becomes Missus Theotosky
Speaker 3: and she gets married in the Greek Orthodox Church. So
Speaker 3: this is marriage number three, and she moves to Tinos
Speaker 3: inspire Us and learns Greek.
Speaker 1: It just sounds so insane experience. It sounds like a
Speaker 1: series of dips. You'd get a posh. And then Tera
Speaker 1: Mauthlata came in and said.
Speaker 3: But there's life that she's got in Greece with Spiros.
Speaker 3: It's just it seems to be one of the happiest
Speaker 3: periods of her life, so happy that they decide to
Speaker 3: go to Italy for a holiday and they take their
Speaker 3: young son with them, Leonidas.
Speaker 1: Leonidas saying yeah, well also so yeah, I'm also basically
Speaker 1: off the movie three hundred.
Speaker 3: So they take leonid Us with them to Italy, and
Speaker 3: unfortunate Lenia and I just runs to a balcony and
Speaker 3: falls off and has the most horrific death, which Jane
Speaker 3: never gets over.
Speaker 1: The balconies.
Speaker 3: And their marriage dissolves and we lose track of Jane
Speaker 3: for about three years.
Speaker 1: So she goes off the off the grid in Greece. Essentially, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very sad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, she's had a number of children. I
Speaker 3: think this was her fifth child. At least two of
Speaker 3: other previous children have died really quite young, and you
Speaker 3: know this one that she'd got to about four. Then
Speaker 3: this happens, which must be horrific for anybody. She then reappears,
Speaker 3: you're like this. She then reappears in Athens with a
Speaker 3: freedom fighter called Christos.
Speaker 1: God, yeah, Christos excellent.
Speaker 3: And they go and live in the sort of bush
Speaker 3: for a while, as it were, and have a very
Speaker 3: fun time fighting whichever freedom fighters they're fighting they're fighting against.
Speaker 3: But Christos has an affair with Jane's maid, who she's
Speaker 3: brought from Paris, who's kind of traveled around Germany and
Speaker 3: Italy with her, so she gets rid of him. She
Speaker 3: corresponds with Steely, and Steely comes out and visits visits
Speaker 3: her in various places around Europe, but won't commit to
Speaker 3: living with Jane. And in eighteen fifty three, forty six
Speaker 3: year old Jane decides to sail to Syria to buy
Speaker 3: horses and they land in Beirute, take a toil of
Speaker 3: the desert by caravan to go to Jerusalem and then
Speaker 3: up to Damascus and then to Palmira. Wow, and she
Speaker 3: just loves Syrian life. She writes in her diary, my
Speaker 3: heart warms towards these wild Arabs. They have many qualities
Speaker 3: we want in civilized life, and bounded hospitality, respect for
Speaker 3: strangers or guests, good faith, simplicity of dealing with themselves,
Speaker 3: and a certain highbred innates politeness. So it's kind of
Speaker 3: all the things you'd expect, or you might have expected
Speaker 3: to have an English society with the society that's completely
Speaker 3: said no, we don't want to see you anymore. So
Speaker 3: on the last journey bit that she wants to go
Speaker 3: from Damascus to Palmira, she was told by the British
Speaker 3: consult she needed an escort, and Jane hired some Mezzaabs and.
Speaker 1: The one, sorry, what's the mezb.
Speaker 3: A mezzrab it's one of the tribes, okay, that she
Speaker 3: hired by the tribes. And the leader of the tribe
Speaker 3: that she hired was called Midjuel, who was the brother
Speaker 3: of their sheikh. He was really good because of the
Speaker 3: various people that she could have chosen to lead her party,
Speaker 3: he was the one that could read and write and
Speaker 3: was a thought and authority on desert history. So it
Speaker 3: was something that really appealed to her. You could see
Speaker 3: the attraction. And he was twenty years younger than her.
Speaker 1: That always helps. What did it is she heading.
Speaker 3: Towards, Well, she's heading towards Palmira, which is south from Damascus,
Speaker 3: I think. And Jane and Madjell just enjoyed horses, They
Speaker 3: enjoyed the company of each other, and as you can imagine,
Speaker 3: they just fell in love on this journey. A year later,
Speaker 3: she'd married Midell in a Muslim ceremony and her title
Speaker 3: became sit Mesirab. But they continued to enjoy the next
Speaker 3: period of their life together. They would spend six months
Speaker 3: in Jane's house in Damascus, and then the other six
Speaker 3: months they had in his nomadic tribe traveling around the desert,
Speaker 3: and she'd sleep in one of their tents that was
Speaker 3: made from black goat hair. Wow, she would completely become
Speaker 3: this Arabian woman. She dyed her hair, her lovely golden hair,
Speaker 3: she dyed black. She put on the face covering, so
Speaker 3: she completely really took on the role. She chose to
Speaker 3: do that to show respect to her his family and
Speaker 3: his tradition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she pretty much like by the end of it,
Speaker 1: she really has like fully transformed completely different person from
Speaker 1: this golden haired English lady to now a Muslim woman
Speaker 1: in a desert.
Speaker 3: So her lovely English house that she had in Damascus,
Speaker 3: she contacted Steelee to send out seed catalogs from the
Speaker 3: UK and they were trying to make an English garden
Speaker 3: in this courtyard that they had with a lily pond,
Speaker 3: and they had lots of animals inside, so things like
Speaker 3: geese and turkeys and a tame pelican and gazelle's and
Speaker 3: over one hundred cats. So she was also this slightly
Speaker 3: mad cat woman.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but why not in there absolutely one hundred.
Speaker 3: Cats, and she built one hundred.
Speaker 1: Cat play stank, I've got a maid, I've got a maide,
Speaker 1: he's got one cat. His house absolutely.
Speaker 3: Reeks, and she built him a lovely stable because he
Speaker 3: was breeding Arab horses and then she would help break
Speaker 3: them in. And she was known in the region for
Speaker 3: being able to treat sick animals, So those sick animals
Speaker 3: that she'd learned to look after at Holcombe in her childhood,
Speaker 3: she was now then able to look after them. So
Speaker 3: in eighteen seventy three there was a false rumor that
Speaker 3: she'd been killed, and her obituary was printed in the Times,
Speaker 3: which caused quite a lot of scandal because obviously, although
Speaker 3: we'd known about what had happened, she wasn't really in
Speaker 3: the eye, the public eye when she was over in
Speaker 3: Europe doing whatever she was up to. And the family
Speaker 3: were a little bit embarrassed about that.
Speaker 1: How does the rumor start and how do they reckon
Speaker 1: she died?
Speaker 3: Well, Jane was supplying her husband's tribe with guns and
Speaker 3: was leading them into battles because I think things were
Speaker 3: still a little volatile up.
Speaker 1: She was leading them into battles, her.
Speaker 3: Husband in battle, but she was providing the money for
Speaker 3: their guns that they were using. I see hell, so
Speaker 3: she was financing it, and she often went into battle
Speaker 3: with them. I think you know. She was a keen
Speaker 3: camel's woman by this point as well as a horsewoman,
Speaker 3: so she could do whatever she wanted to do.
Speaker 1: A little bit blood thirsty as well. Why not?
Speaker 3: But it's exciting. Can imagine being a nineteenth century woman
Speaker 3: and all those layers and just being told why you've
Speaker 3: just got to sit still all the time. You want
Speaker 3: to be doing exciting things, And if you're in an
Speaker 3: exciting country like Syria would be it would be worth
Speaker 3: doing so. But no. In fact, she died in eighteen
Speaker 3: seventy seven after an attack of dysentery, and she's buried
Speaker 3: in the Christian Cemetery in Damascus.
Speaker 1: After all those risk takes, it's dysentery that gets it. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's not a glorious way to go. She deserves better
Speaker 1: than that she did.
Speaker 3: But it's a kind of quiet way to go after
Speaker 3: such a sort of fireworky life, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yes? And how old did you say she was when she.
Speaker 3: Well, when she died, she would have been seventeen.
Speaker 1: Pretty good innings, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3: For a life to have been here, there and everywhere. Oh,
Speaker 3: her husband, I.
Speaker 1: Think as far as about the most varied life I
Speaker 1: think you could possibly ask for.
Speaker 3: Lady Jane was a brilliant woman, far ahead of her time.
Speaker 3: She had four husbands, she had five children, she had
Speaker 3: numerous lovers, and she ended up in Damascus from Little Holcombe.
Speaker 1: From Little Holcomb to Damascus, not a bad trip. Luten
Speaker 1: and Katherine, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 1: It's been incredible and ridiculous and heartwarming. In space, I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you a few quick fire questions before
Speaker 1: you go. So, aside from Hocum, what is your guy's
Speaker 1: favorite stately home or historical manor house?
Speaker 3: My favorite is Craigside in Northumberland, which is the first
Speaker 3: house that has electric lighting in it. Oh, I quite
Speaker 3: liked that.
Speaker 1: Does that have a big chandelier by any chance?
Speaker 2: Of course? Say?
Speaker 1: Of course it does.
Speaker 3: It's got the earliest dishwasher.
Speaker 1: Wow. As far as tourist attractions go, what is it kids,
Speaker 1: Alton Towers, Harry Potter World or would you like to
Speaker 1: go to see the oldest dishwasher? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Excellent and Catherine, So mine is Wentworth Wood House, which
Speaker 2: is a house in South Yorkshire. It is the longest
Speaker 2: house in England. It's about six hundred feet long and
Speaker 2: it's this great white elephant ruined pile of a thing
Speaker 2: with the most fantastic history. There's a Kennedy airess, there
Speaker 2: is a scandalous affair, there's plane crashes, there's open cast mining.
Speaker 2: It is just the most bonkers place.
Speaker 1: That's cool. And finally, why should people visit Hokum Hall?
Speaker 2: So the official answer is because we are a fantastic
Speaker 2: Palladian house that is virtually unaltered since it was built
Speaker 2: in the eighteenth century. The artificial answer is because we
Speaker 2: are a mile away from the most amazing beach. So
Speaker 2: you can come and go in the house, go to
Speaker 2: the pub, and go to the beach all in one day.
Speaker 2: And where else could you do that?
Speaker 1: What sort of beach is is it? Sandy Beach? Beach?
Speaker 1: Sand Sandy Beach as well? Oh god, this is great.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It goes out for about three miles from Wells when
Speaker 3: the tide's out, so you've got a huge amount of
Speaker 3: space to bring your horse and jump around on that
Speaker 3: on it. I suppose you could always take your sheep
Speaker 3: if you had do.
Speaker 1: People ride horses across the beach.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the household cavalry come every year.
Speaker 2: Do they know?
Speaker 3: They have their holiday up here on The horses all
Speaker 3: come and everyone gets very excited that the tides are
Speaker 3: the right time to see them.
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to ride a horse across the beach.
Speaker 1: That's one of those box tick dreams.
Speaker 2: We'll come to.
Speaker 3: Hokam, come to holme.
Speaker 1: Deal with that. I would say, thank you very much
Speaker 1: so much for coming, and I guess I'll see you
Speaker 1: on a horse in Hokm some point soon. It starts
Speaker 1: with a horse in Hokum, and with any luck, it'll
Speaker 1: end with a marriage in Damascus, or you know, selling
Speaker 1: arms to freedom fighters. I'd be happy with either, to
Speaker 1: be honest. That's it for this episode. I'm off to
Speaker 1: the local sheep sharing festival. Until next time, shout your
Speaker 1: love from a balcony, shoot a bull in the face,
Speaker 1: and mind your manners. Thanks for listening to Bad Manners.
Speaker 1: If you like the pod, please share it with your friends,
Speaker 1: rate it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review and make
Speaker 1: sure you spill the tea on any of your favorite
Speaker 1: bad Manners that we could feature in future episodes. This
Speaker 1: podcast was produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio. It was
Speaker 1: hosted by me Tom Horton. It was produced by William Lensky,
Speaker 1: Rebecca Rappaport, and Chris Ataway. It was executive produced by
Speaker 1: Face Steur and Zad Rogers. Our production manager is Caitlin
Speaker 1: Paramore and our production coordinator is Bellasolini.