The Unlikely ‘Downton Abbey’ WWI Hero
“Have been offered throne of Albania STOP may I accept love Aubrey”
Highclere Castle, famous for being the filming location of several TV shows and movies, including the 1990s comedy series Jeeves and Wooster and the more recent Downton Abbey (both the TV series and the movie) has been the country house for the Herbert family for generations. While most are somewhat familiar with the turreted silhouette of this sprawling country house and its fictional occupants, not many know about the real people that inhabited its opulent rooms.
The most well-known among the real people who lived in Highclere Castle is George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, the noted Egyptologist who in 1922, together with Howard Carter, discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb. He died shortly after, and many — including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — blamed his death to the “Curse of Tutankhamun” or the “Mummy’s Curse”.
But George was not the only remarkable member of the Herbert family.
Aubrey Herbert, George’s half-brother, was an odd bird: scruffy and eccentric, careless with money and physically frail, he had terribly poor eyesight…
