![]() ![]() Although the ancestral estate would go to his older brother, preserving and promoting Blenheim became central to Charles’ work, too. He worked as a director of Clark, Nelson, which handled publicity for Blenheim Palace, among other historic sites. Jane Churchill, as she became known, would become one of Britain’s leading interior designers.Ĭharles, meanwhile, lent his name to a line of men’s suits, the “Lord Charles Churchill Line,” which he promoted throughout America, including in a memorable appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Jane and Charles Spencer-Churchill had three sons together. In 1970, Charles married for a second time, to Elizabeth Jane Wyndham, a flatmate of Camilla Rosemary Shand-or, as she’s better known today, Camilla, duchess of Cornwall, and wife of Prince Charles. ![]() While at the Ascot races in 1964, he met 17-year-old Texas oil and sugar heiress Gillian Spreckels Fuller. His mother died in 1961 Consuelo died three years later.īy then Charles was working as a London insurance broker. But he would leave Vanderbilt without a degree at the end of his junior year. Tall (6-foot-6), dark and handsome, Charles studied political science, pledged Beta Theta Pi, played bridge, and ran for a seat on the Vanderbilt student senate. The entire campus would have fit into a corner of the Blenheim estate, and was still very much a Southern university in a segregated South. He also was one of the most generous supporters in university history, three-time winner of the America’s Cup yacht race, and the inventor of contract bridge.Īfter attending Eton, Charles enrolled at Vanderbilt University beginning with the 1959–60 school year. By then Consuelo had long ago divorced the duke, remarried, and had homes in New York, Southampton and Palm Beach.Ĭonsuelo’s brother-Charles’ great-uncle Harold Stirling Vanderbilt-was then president of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust. It would later be said that Adolf Hitler ordered his air force to hold fire on Blenheim because he planned to make it his own.Īt age 14, Charles made his first visit to America to stay with his grandmother. Charles’ birth took place at the Dorchester Hotel in London, which was considered one of the safest buildings. By the time Charles was born in July 1940, Blenheim was housing 400 Malvern schoolboys displaced by war. A year before Charles’ birth, his parents gave his eldest sister, Lady Sarah, a magnificent ball with 900 guests, which would be Blenheim’s last great prewar event. Our man, Charles, was the last of five children resulting from the 10th duke’s marriage to the Hon. Alexandra Mary Cadogan. The elder, John Albert William Spencer-Churchill, became the 10th duke of Marlborough. Consuelo called it her cache-mari, using it to block her view of the duke at the dinner table. One of Blenheim’s treasures was a 100-pound silver centerpiece depicting Marlborough ancestor John Churchill victorious in battle. Theirs has been described as one of the most unhappy and blatantly arranged marriages in history. And he was a Vanderbilt through his grandmother, American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt, daughter of William Kissam and Alva Vanderbilt.Ĭonsuelo’s 1895 marriage to Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, 9th duke of Marlborough, made her a duchess and provided a dowry that kept Blenheim afloat. He was a relative of Winston Churchill and Diana, Princess of Wales. His nickname was “Nutty,” which helped distinguish him from a multitude of forbears also named Charles. Between the two events, he attended Eton and Vanderbilt, acquired three wives, sired three more Spencer-Churchills, raced horses, launched a line of men’s suits, tirelessly promoted Blenheim, and led the sort of life that fascinates Americans with an insatiable appetite for British peerages and palaces. Formally named Charles George William Colin Spencer, he was born in one hotel and died in another. Since the 1700s, Spencer-Churchill’s family has lived at Blenheim Palace, the largest private home in Britain. As it happens, Spencer-Churchill, ’63, a great-great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt and a son of the 10th duke of Marlborough, marked the last direct link between Vanderbilt University and its founder. ![]() When obituaries started appearing about Lord Charles Spencer-Churchill after he died in late 2016, they often mentioned his time at Vanderbilt. ![]()
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