Blenheim Palace

I'm going to begin working with this entry despite the fact there are other, earlier posts that need to be updated and fleshed out. There is a method to my madness; I'm working on a paper about Blenheim Palace that's due in the middle of the week. Technically the entire program is scheduled to go to Blenheim in the latter part of the week, but I NEEDED TO GO almost as badly as you need to breathe. I couldn't let this amazing opportunity-- to go and tour the object of my paper-- pass me by. I think of all the papers I have written to date-- on things so far away or so long gone-- Never have I been able to do this.

Now, as to whether my paper will impress my professor, I couldn't say. I'm cracking my knuckles with this post before jumping in. There supposedly exists a link between Pemberley (Mr. Darcy's estates) and Blenheim-- it has been suggested that I use all the new information I have acquired through research to apply interpretative pressure on the scene where Elizabeth Bennet first tours Pemberley-- but, I must say, that I didn't see the link myself before touring the estates, and after having toured them am even further away from understanding that assertion.

As I tiptoed through grand, elegant room after grand, elegant room, I tried to imagine Elizabeth Bennet of the pseudo-gentry, Elizabeth Bennet of comfortable little Longbourne, being mistress of a similar Palace and could not. Well, I could, I forced the image, and it seemed very awkward.

Point being, my paper is far from having a thesis-- but it will be so much better, I assure you, for my having toured this estate.

Blenheim was hosting some sort of a fair on a section of its grounds-- Never hunted before? Let us teach you how to shoot! Let us teach you archery! Fishing! Horseback riding! cried the pamphlet-- and there were rumors of ridiculous crowding that kept anyone else from wanting to go, but Liz, Kathleen and I decided to chance it. (Given we planned on giving the beginner shooters a wide berth.)

We were richly rewarded for our enterprise. The fair was actually limited to a distant part of the grounds, and the crowds were over yonder enjoying it. All we had to deal with was the incessant crackle of rifle fire. A completely fair trade, as we had the Palace and its gardens almost completely to ourselves (in comparison with the other estates and museums I've toured in the past two weeks).

It was a half mile walk up the long, graveled driveway to reach a gateway into the main courtyard.

This? This is just the gate. Just an accessory. Glorious, right? There was actually a lot of controversy about the architect John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, employed to build his palace. Churchill chose John Vanbrugh, who, in Blenheim, built the premiere example of English Baroque. He wanted something huge, "massy" as contemporary reviewers term it, because this Palace was commissioned by Queen Anne as a reward for his military victories in Germany. The Palace was supposed to be a memorial, a national monument for his heroism. He wanted to go big, bigger than anything anyone had ever seen.

His wife, on the other hand, wanted to employ Sir Christopher Wren, whose style was lighter, more elegant. She wanted a home, a place that could be lived in and loved.
In the end, the Duke won, and with his Duchess' support. Anne was supposed to financially back the construction of Blenheim, as it was her gift, but due to political strife the Marlboroughs fell out of her good favor and she quit paying. Work ground to a halt, craftsmen went without pay and starved, Vanbrugh quit, and the Marlboroughs left England.

When the first Hanoverian king, George I, acceded to the the throne, the Marlboroughs came back and the Duke continued the construction at his own expense. He and his wife disagreed as to what, precisely, was within their price range and there are tales about how hard and pennypinching a taskmistress she was. After the Duke's death, his Duchess would supervise the completion of Blenheim entirely in the style he preferred-- her gift to him. 

The official tour heavily stressed her devotion to him throughout her lifetime. The Duke and Duchess had a son, though he died, and four daughters. The eldest, Henrietta, gained the title upon her father's death. The name Churchill disappeared when she married, however, and was only brought back several generations later when the fifth Duke requested the right to hyphenate his last name.
I couldn't take pictures in the house, the rooms of which were amazing-- on a level with Versailles, but somehow more-- tasteful. Not so determinedly overdone. Because I couldn't take any pictures, I bought a guidebook. I think you should ask to look at it the next time you see me; you won't be disappointed.

In the meantime, I COULD photograph the lovely gardens, which are famous. And they've been famous since 1705, when a man named Henry Wise first coordinated them. His style was formal, artificial, as was in vogue at the time-- the carefully trimmed topiaries, placed just so around the square lake, for example. The formal gardens around the Palace have been maintained.
A bank of fountains facing away from the house.

Magically, considering the fact I wear my huge sunglasses every time I go outside (sunglasses that fit comfortably: one of the best investments I made for this trip), there isn't a totally distinctive raccoon pattern around my eyes. I deem this sorcerous because the necklines and sleeves of the shirts that I wear get tattooed into my skin by the sun. I have several different gradations of sunburn decorating my neck and upper arms.
In contrast with the 1705 formal gardens near the Palace, in the 1760s, the super famous gardening genius, Capability Brown, redesigned the further gardens. He wished to create a nature more natural. He was nicknamed "Earthmover" because he transplanted fully grown trees from who-knows-where into the gardens of those nobility who could afford his services.

There was a little rose garden about a mile from the Palace, surrounded by trellises. We entered through a little gate. The smell was so, so good.
The garden had one statue in the center, and rose beds radiating out in a circle around it.
Brown created this lake. It was so beautiful-- How many times have I said that now?-- I didn't want to move! I just wanted to pace its banks, staring out across its surface. From every angle it looked like a painting, a painting, moreover, that I want in my bedroom. 

I know they look a little like algae, but the plants floating on the lake surface are lily pads with lotus blossoms blooming.