Not the Common Seal, not the Sea Eagle and not the Wildcat – but Dukes.
The Telegraph recorded the gathering of 10 of Britain’s current tally of 24 Dukes – and they made the largest gathering of the species since the coronation of the current Queen in June 1953, over 56 years ago.
Society magazine, Tatler, organised the gathering for a photograph for its forthcoming November issue (out on Thursday 8th October) – paying tribute to a group the publication described as ‘diligent yet unpaid guardians of our national heritage’.
The group of ten Dukes ran from the 94 year-old 8th Duke of Wellington to Argyll’s own – and Britain’s youngest – Duke, the 41-year-old 13th Duke of Argyll, Torquhil Campbell. Two of the ten were Scots Dukes – the Duke of Argyll and the Duke of Montrose.
The last duke created in the UK was the Duke of Fife in 1900, an action which was Queen Victoria’s revision of the first creation of the title 11 years earlier in 1889. The 1900 revision allowed the title to pass to a daughter, since the first incumbent had no sons but two daughters.
They’re an interesting species, Dukes – living an experience which spans the seemingly incompatible companions of commercialism and altruism.
A commercial drive and business competence are indispensable for today’s Dukes in preserving and developing what they have inherited. This itself involves a sense of responsibility – to tradition, to family, to place and to a spectrum of dependants.
Great wealth rooted in land has always involved social responsibility whose acceptance, of course, varies in degree from one Duke to another within a family and from one Dukedom to another.
Second only to royalty in the pecking order of who bows to whom – Dukes are largely in a posiiton to take the long view. They are born into a known chronological sequence, giving a sense of continuity most of us cannot imagine.
It can’t all be positive, of course. You can know too much. There has to be a degree of confinement in being set on a path you have not consciously chosen for yourself, however rewarding it may be if you can fit into it. And there has to be a limitation in knowing of long inherited characteristics and expecting them – perhaps even assisting them – to manifest themselves in yourself.
On the one hand Dukes may largely be free of having to make choices that cause most of us to waste a lot of our time in coming to conclusions. On the other hand, the room for self-discovery and self-determination is limited both by the known inheritance of family history and by the weight of responsibility that most, if not all, accept.
Yes, they may know their antecedents as the rest of us know our cousins but they live observed lives from the start. The rest of us have a privileged invisibility that gives us a specific freedom denied to Dukes.
The Dukes who accept what awaits them and turn their energies to a positive engagement with it, are often, as Tatler describes – ‘diligent yet unpaid guardians of our national heritage’.
There is in many cases a productive indivisibility of interests – what is good for ducal estates is also good for the surrounding area and vice versa.
The Duke of Argyll, in mounting major events at Inveraray Castle – such as the Connect Music Festival and the Spirit of the West Whisky Festival – is working to support the financial viability of the Argyll Estates and to contribute to the economic development of the area. The marketing of Inveraray in inseparable from the marketing of Inveraray Castle and the marketing of Inveraray Jail. The brand is an inclusive one.
Inveraray’s first May-long Bluebell festival, created and run by the Inveraray Marketing Group, was a significant success and centrally involved the Argyll Estates, as a member of the Group and as host to many of the events on the programme. This festival, according to John Patrick, Secretary of the Inveraray Marketing Group, resulted in a business increase to the area in excess of £350,000 for the month of May.
While, in his case, the estates and the area are lucky that the incumbent Duke oF Argyll is young, inventive and vigorous in driving development, it would be naive to see only privilege. Such privileges as Dukes have carry responsibilities and a personal price tag. A part of those responsibilities is guardianship of assets – at once private and national – for the common good.
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