“Wealth does not sustain beyond three generations.”
If you’ve read this column since I started out at the end of 2020, you’ll know that I’m not one to quote Chinese proverbs but the pattern in the proverb is very common. It often plays out in episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? as a celebrity discovers that their forebears are poor, but become prosperous. A bright young thing has a good idea, sees an opportunity and builds a business. The next generation take it on and build a franchise or empire. But their children assume that life is easy and money is plentiful and are more interested in spending money or fighting over it than earning it.
Times and tastes change. Others innovate. The business is slow to adapt. There is a plague. There is gin. There is inheritance tax. There is the horse that falls at the first at Haydock Park.
Why are we so fascinated by these stories? And what do we learn?
“How the mighty have fallen!” (1 Samuel 2:19b)
These words are spoken by David lamenting Saul, the disastrous king of Israel. Let’s draw a line under Saul. David is the first of three generations where it all goes wrong. David builds the palace. Solomon builds a Temple and his wisdom is acknowledged by the Queen of Sheba. But the empire splits and collapses. Sons from multiple wives tear it all apart and throw is all away in the quest for power.
I mention it because I was on holiday last week, visiting several stately homes: Chatsworth House, home of the Devonshires (in the Peak District, not Devon, confusingly); Kedleston Hall; Hardwick Hall; and Waddesdon Manor (pictured above).
If you’ve got it, flaunt it
Initially, these grand country piles look like they’ve bucked the trend, standing proud at the end of long drives and in the middle of manicured lawns. But they are mountains of mammon, more like mausoleums to where great wealth once lay. The houses are owned by trusts, charging middle class gawpers like me to ogle the family silver so someone can be paid to clean the tapestries or repoint the masonry. Some surviving relatives may live in flats or stables or cottages in the grounds, but the wealth has gone.
These houses we can visit are just the ones that have survived. According to Giles Worsley, over 1,000 country houses have been demolished in England since 1900. Not a hundred. A thousand.
These country estates that survive operate with dozens of employees and hundreds of volunteers looking for ever more creative and brazen ways to make money. I was impressed by one such ploy at Chatsworth House. We had arrived early for our timed entry so the lady at the gate pointed us to the café and shop saying, with a big grin, ‘Spend money!’ It’s not subtle, but it was effective. We bought a few books. That way, we get books. And the Trust get the margin rather than Amazon. (Which is why you should buy my new book The Gospel According To A Sitcom Writer from me directly if you’re in the UK, rather than Amazon).
I bought and devoured Black Diamonds: The Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty by Catherine Bailey. It was about the fortunes of the family who lived in biggest house in the country, Wentworth Castle.
Wentworth Castle is gigantic. In 1900, it was said to have 365 rooms, being maintained by dozens of staff, making Downton Abbey look modest. Two people were fully employed just to light candles and lamps. Like many families, the wealth came from coal production from mines that the estate ran themselves to a considerably higher standard compared to profiteering neighbours. But the events of the 20th century would pull down the fortunes of the super-rich and eventually, sadly, the miners themselves.
The benefit of hindsight
It’s easy to look back and see the unfolding of events as inevitable. But the Fitzwilliam family, owners of Wentworth Castle, were undone by World War Two and its aftermath more than anything else. A newly-elected socialist government and a vindictive Minister of State were determined to make examples of the Fitzwilliams. They insisted on open-cast coal-mining right up to the back door of the house, ripping up trees and plants tended over the centuries. The grounds were regularly opened to the locals to enjoy and they were against the posh family being essentially punished. But the radicals saw their opportunity to change things forever, and they were determined to take their chance.
Rags to riches and back again
Stories of rags to riches, and riches to rags, fascinate us. Why? The obvious reasons would be our love of the underdog making it rich, and our schadenfreude of the rich man being humbled. But fundamentally, I think the stories are exhilarating because they demonstrate radical change.
These stories bump up against our lived experience. We get tunnel vision very quickly. If we are in living in hard times, we quickly despair that we will be forced to live that way for ever. When you’re sick, you forget what it is even like to be well.
As we trudged around the spectacular grounds of Chatsworth House in late May, it felt like November. It was miserable since it felt like the summer would never come and that the Spring had never even made it. Would the sun ever shine again?
We got used to lockdown, masks and social distancing worryingly fast and now we can’t imagine true freedom. Watching people standing next to each other on TV shows made before 2020 is alarming. We imagine how things are is how they will always be.
Run the race
We should not be surprised, therefore, to find warnings about those who assume that the good life will continue indefinitely. There are also many parables and words of encouragement in scripture, urging those who feel low to keep going, to press on to the goal. Our heads drop quickly but the race we are running has an end point and a victor’s crown (and on this occasion, it doesn’t matter who wins. It really is the taking part that counts).
Events change very quickly. Fortunes rise and fall. The story of Joseph in Genesis is staggering and thrilling but eminently believable. Joseph went from the being the father’s favourite to despised, precocious little brother, thrown into a pit and sold into slavery. He runs a household but is then wrongfully accused and locked in prison. Through interpreting dreams, the very thing that caused his brothers to despise him, he gets out. At the age of thirty, he is Prime Minister of Egypt and the second most powerful man in the known world. Meanwhile, his father and brothers are forced to beg for food in Egypt. How the mighty have fallen.
What do we do now?
The seven years of plenty that occurred in the land of Egypt came to an end, and the seven years of famine began to come, as Joseph had said. There was famine in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph. What he says to you, do.” (Genesis 41:53-55)
We can go to another like Joseph who set bread before the hungry and ask him as he taught us to pray, “Give us today our daily bread.” That’s a prayer for everyone, and good advice for the rich and the poor.
If you want to support this weekly endeavour, please consider sharing it on social media, recommending it to a friend, and if you are in the UK buy a signed copy of my new book (and my previous one). Click here. In the words of the lady at Chatsworth House, “Spend money.”