Thursday 16 October 2014

Duke of Marlborough dies at 88.


Duke of Marlborough dies at 88
Jamie Blandford, who was at one time estranged from his father over drug addiction, will inherit the title
Press Association

The Duke of Marlborough has died at the age of 88. A spokesman for Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire said: “With great sadness, we announce that the 11th Duke of Marlborough passed away peacefully this morning … as per his wishes, the palace will be open as normal today.”

The Duke’s full name was John George Vanderbilt Henry Spencer-Churchill.

David Cameron paid tribute, saying: “I am greatly saddened to hear of the death of the Duke of Marlborough. To me, he was not only the vice-president of my association but also a good man and friend.

“His grace will be deeply missed by all those he worked alongside at Blenheim and by the town of Woodstock where he played such a positive and active role in the community he loved.

“My thoughts and prayers are with all his family and friends at this sad time.”

The Duke was a cousin of Winston Churchill, who was his godfather, and he was also distantly related to the late Princess Diana. His death means his once-troubled son Jamie Blandford, currently known as the Marquess of Blandford, will inherit his father’s title and become the 12th Duke of Marlborough.

A Blenheim Palace spokesman said he was unable to comment on whether the marquess will inherit the palace estate, which is worth around £100m.

The palace in Oxfordshire was built in the early 18th century in the opulent baroque style. The birthplace of Churchill, the 4,800 hectare (12,000 acres) estate has 187 rooms, dwarfing Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

The palace was built as a gift to the 1st Duke of Marlborough, John Churchill, as a reward for his military triumphs against the French and Bavarians during the war of the Spanish succession.

The duke had been married four times and has four surviving children – two from his first marriage to Susan Hornby of the WH Smith dynasty, and two from his third marriage to Rosita Spencer-Churchill.

In 2008 he married his fourth wife, Lily Sahni, the daughter of a successful Indian businessman, who was more than 30 years the Duke’s junior.

The marquess spent much of the early 1990s in newspaper headlines because of his drug addiction.

He spent several spells in prison for a string of driving offences, causing some to dub him “the wayward peer”, and was publicly estranged from his father.
In a bid to safeguard the Blenheim Palace estate from the Marquess’s excessive behaviour, his father won a court battle in 1994 to ensure he never won control of the family seat.

After the high court action, the Duke of Marlborough said of his son: “I think there have been black sheep in every family and there’s nothing new about that. We have had some good ‘uns and some bad ‘uns. He’s had every chance, hasn’t he?”

The marquess has a long history of skirmishes with the law.

In 1983 he was fined for assaulting a police officer, and the following year he was sentenced to three months imprisonment for breach of probation.

He was put on probation again in 1985 and fined 1,000 for breaking into a chemist’s shop and in 1986 he was convicted of drug offences. At that time he admitted spending £20,000 on cocaine in four months.

From the late 1980s into the early 1990s he chalked up a record of motoring offences and was repeatedly banned from driving.

In May 1994 he was remanded in custody for three weeks in HMP Brixton after failing to keep appointments with probation officers, and the following month he was put on probation for 18 months and ordered to attend a clinic for drug addiction.

In December 1999 he was rushed to hospital with a missing eyelid, a badly damaged nose, three missing teeth and a broken shoulder after a car ran into his Toyota Land Cruiser in Kiddington, Oxfordshire.

But he reformed his behaviour and in 2012 he featured in a Channel 4 documentary which charted his new relationship with his father.

In a preview for the show, the Daily Mail quoted the late duke saying: “I am fully confident that James will be able to keep this place [Blenheim Palace] going. But over the top of him, and over the top of me, are trustees.

“You can’t predict the future. You never know, God forbid, whether you would get behind the problems again but things are looking much more settled at the moment.


“Trying to keep Blenheim going is a very important part of the family’s history and life at the present time, and so what we’re trying to do is ensure that Blenheim is kept for future generations.”

The Duke of Marlborough, who has died, with his fourth wife Lily Mahtani. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA


Former drug addict and ex-convict Jamie Blandford becomes 12th Duke of Marlborough after father dies
Jamie Blandford, once described by his despairing father as the 'black sheep' of the Spencer-Churchill family, is the new custodian of Blenheim Palace

His father once regarded Jamie Blandford as such a lost cause that he went to court in an attempt permanently to disinherit him.
But today the convicted burglar, drug addict and serial prisoner became the 12th Duke of Marlborough and custodian of Blenheim Palace following the death of his father at the age of 88.
The Spencer-Churchill family announced “with great sadness” that the 11th Duke, John George Vanderbilt Henry Spencer-Churchill, “passed away peacefully” this morning. His funeral will be held next Friday.
David Cameron, a friend of the Duke as well as his local MP, said: “I am greatly saddened to hear of the death of the Duke of Marlborough. To me, he was not only the vice-president of my [Witney Conservative] Association but also a good man and friend.
“His grace will be deeply missed by all those he worked alongside at Blenheim and by the town of Woodstock where he played such a positive and active role in the community he loved.
“My thoughts and prayers are with all his family and friends at this sad time.”
The responsibility of maintaining one of Britain’s grandest country houses for future generations now passes to 58-year-old Jamie Blandford, as he is commonly known, following a remarkable turnaround in his relationship with his late father, who once described him as the “black sheep” of his family.
Blandford, or His Grace as he will now be formally addressed, has more than 20 convictions going back 30 years for drug offences, burglary, criminal damage, numerous driving offences and even punching a police officer.
His well-documented battle with heroin and cocaine addiction – he once admitted spending £20,000 on cocaine in four months – strained his relationship with his father to breaking point, and in 1994 the two men faced each other in court to fight out the future of the dukedom and the £100 million Oxfordshire estate.
The 11th Duke became the first aristocrat for more than a century to attempt to use the courts to deny his direct heir his eventual title, and was ultimately thwarted because the 1706 act of Parliament that gifted Blenheim to the 1st Duke of Marlborough forbade any intervention in the inheritance.
But Blandford’s father managed to persuade the High Court that it had a duty to protect the estate for future generations, and his son was forced to agree to an agreement that ceded all executive power to a board of trustees that look after the estate.
Two years ago it emerged during a Channel 4 documentary about the family that Blandford had stayed clean of drugs for several years, earning something of a reprieve from his father, who agreed that he should inherit overall charge of the estate, though with trustees retaining a power of veto.
The 11th Duke said at the time: “I am fully confident that James will be able to keep this place going. But over the top of him – and over the top of me – are trustees. You can’t predict the future.
“Trying to keep Blenheim going is a very important part of the family’s history and life at the present time, and so what we’re trying to do is ensure that Blenheim is kept for future generations.”
The 12th Duke, who lives in a farmhouse on the estate, has the right to take up residence in the Palace with his family, but a spokesman for Blenheim Palace said it was “too early to say” whether he will choose to live in the house, which is open to the public, or remain in his current home.
The 11th Duke, a cousin of Sir Winston Churchill and a distant relative by marriage of Diana, Princess of Wales, was married four times, and leaves five children. His most recent marriage, in 2008, was to Lily Mahtani, an Iranian-born mother-of-three who was 30 years his junior.





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