LONDON EVENING STANDARD: 29 November 2011
Interview by Emma Soames
‘MATTHEW KICKED HEROIN AND MADE SOME OF HIS BEST ART BEFORE HE DIED’
as a Memorial Exhibition of Matthew Carr’s drawings opens, his widow, Lady Anne Somerset,
tells Emma Soames about their life together.
Until the last two years of his life Matthew Carr’s studio was also the dining room of the west London house he shared with his wife, the historian Anne Somerset and their daughter Ella. When guests arrived for dinner they would find themselves among monkeys’ heads, men’s penises and skulls from the catacombs in Palermo.
The table itself was practically an installation, a revolving still life on a Lazy Susan of ashtrays, lighters, fake roses and curious pepper pots found in junk shops or the attics of Badminton, Somerset’s family home in Gloucestershire...
MAIL ON SUNDAY (YOU MAGAZINE): 14 September 2003
Interview by Louette Harding
THE LADY LOVES A SCANDAL
A passion for the extraordinary and the eccentric has been the driving force in Lady Anne Somerset’s life - both personally and in the historical figures she has chosen to write about. Here she talks to Louette Harding
Lady Anne Somerset would like to pretend that growing up at Badminton House in Gloucestershire inspired her to become a historian: the truth, though, ‘is that I was shamefully indifferent to my surroundings’. The daughter of the 11th Duke of Beaufort, she has published five books, the latest of which, The Affair of the Poisons, is an enthralling account of murder and Satanism at the court of Louis XIV. It’s all sex and scandal in satin dresses - history for those who prefer it full-blooded rather than through the filter of desiccated analysis...
THE OBSERVER LIFE MAGAZINE: 29 September 1996
by Anne Somerset
A SATURDAY NIGHT
In 1973, my elderly cousin, the late duke of Beaufort, offered to give a ball at Badminton House. This was to mark my brother’s 21st birthday and what, even then, it was quaint to describe as my ‘coming out’. While touched by the Duke’s generosity, my mother was appalled. Not only did she see no reason to celebrate either of these events on this epic scale, but she dreaded that the evening itself would be a fiasco.
Despite the splendour of the setting, charity balls at Badminton were traditionally dank affairs. Sedate dancing to uninspired music was permitted in the house, but all drinking and smoking had to be done within the bleak confines of a bare and draughty tent. Inevitably this cast a pall over the proceedings. My mother feared that the same thing would apply to the party now being planned...
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: 21 August 1996
KINGS, QUEENS AND KNAVES
If you meddle with succession to the throne, says Anne Somerset,
you had better first look at what history has to teach us about those who sit on it.
The Queen is said to be contemplating a reform of the constitution whereby, regardless of sex, the eldest child of the monarch will succeed to the throne. Some people will welcome a modification of what they see as outdated laws of succession, devised when England was a fiercely patriarchal society. It can also be argued that such a change would be little more than a natural evolutionary process, easily absorbed by an institution that owes its survival to its ability to adapt to the times...
HARPERS AND QUEEN: July 1991
JUGGLING QUEEN AND KITCHEN
Twenty-five years ago, histrionic cooks debarred Anne Somerset from the kitchen.
Nowadays, Elizabeth I stands between her and her saucepans.
When I was a child, the kitchen was virtually forbidden territory. My parents employed two cooks: in London, a German lady called Leni, who produced excellent food, but who was also quick to take offence and prone to prolonged fits of sulking; in the country, a Spaniard named Celtso. He too was a good cook, but highly volatile, being apt to fly into passionate rages at the least provocation. Both cooks jealously guarded their own domains; so I grew up to be inordinately fond of food, but ignorant of culinary processes...
ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST: Summer 1987
by Anne Somerset
BADMINTON HOUSE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE
In February 1984 my father inherited Badminton House on the death of our cousin, the tenth Duke of Beaufort, and I was appalled to learn that we would be moving in as soon as possible. Thanks to the generosity of the late Duke, for twenty-one years we had lived in a delightful house in the village, and I had assumed that this arrangement would continue even after Badminton became my father’s responsibility. Because of financial pressures, many other owners of stately homes had either withdrawn into conveniently sized flats situated in wings of their houses or had moved out altogether, and I did not think my father would think it feasible to defy this trend...
Interview by Emma Soames
‘MATTHEW KICKED HEROIN AND MADE SOME OF HIS BEST ART BEFORE HE DIED’
as a Memorial Exhibition of Matthew Carr’s drawings opens, his widow, Lady Anne Somerset,
tells Emma Soames about their life together.
Until the last two years of his life Matthew Carr’s studio was also the dining room of the west London house he shared with his wife, the historian Anne Somerset and their daughter Ella. When guests arrived for dinner they would find themselves among monkeys’ heads, men’s penises and skulls from the catacombs in Palermo.
The table itself was practically an installation, a revolving still life on a Lazy Susan of ashtrays, lighters, fake roses and curious pepper pots found in junk shops or the attics of Badminton, Somerset’s family home in Gloucestershire...
MAIL ON SUNDAY (YOU MAGAZINE): 14 September 2003
Interview by Louette Harding
THE LADY LOVES A SCANDAL
A passion for the extraordinary and the eccentric has been the driving force in Lady Anne Somerset’s life - both personally and in the historical figures she has chosen to write about. Here she talks to Louette Harding
Lady Anne Somerset would like to pretend that growing up at Badminton House in Gloucestershire inspired her to become a historian: the truth, though, ‘is that I was shamefully indifferent to my surroundings’. The daughter of the 11th Duke of Beaufort, she has published five books, the latest of which, The Affair of the Poisons, is an enthralling account of murder and Satanism at the court of Louis XIV. It’s all sex and scandal in satin dresses - history for those who prefer it full-blooded rather than through the filter of desiccated analysis...
THE OBSERVER LIFE MAGAZINE: 29 September 1996
by Anne Somerset
A SATURDAY NIGHT
In 1973, my elderly cousin, the late duke of Beaufort, offered to give a ball at Badminton House. This was to mark my brother’s 21st birthday and what, even then, it was quaint to describe as my ‘coming out’. While touched by the Duke’s generosity, my mother was appalled. Not only did she see no reason to celebrate either of these events on this epic scale, but she dreaded that the evening itself would be a fiasco.
Despite the splendour of the setting, charity balls at Badminton were traditionally dank affairs. Sedate dancing to uninspired music was permitted in the house, but all drinking and smoking had to be done within the bleak confines of a bare and draughty tent. Inevitably this cast a pall over the proceedings. My mother feared that the same thing would apply to the party now being planned...
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: 21 August 1996
KINGS, QUEENS AND KNAVES
If you meddle with succession to the throne, says Anne Somerset,
you had better first look at what history has to teach us about those who sit on it.
The Queen is said to be contemplating a reform of the constitution whereby, regardless of sex, the eldest child of the monarch will succeed to the throne. Some people will welcome a modification of what they see as outdated laws of succession, devised when England was a fiercely patriarchal society. It can also be argued that such a change would be little more than a natural evolutionary process, easily absorbed by an institution that owes its survival to its ability to adapt to the times...
HARPERS AND QUEEN: July 1991
JUGGLING QUEEN AND KITCHEN
Twenty-five years ago, histrionic cooks debarred Anne Somerset from the kitchen.
Nowadays, Elizabeth I stands between her and her saucepans.
When I was a child, the kitchen was virtually forbidden territory. My parents employed two cooks: in London, a German lady called Leni, who produced excellent food, but who was also quick to take offence and prone to prolonged fits of sulking; in the country, a Spaniard named Celtso. He too was a good cook, but highly volatile, being apt to fly into passionate rages at the least provocation. Both cooks jealously guarded their own domains; so I grew up to be inordinately fond of food, but ignorant of culinary processes...
ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST: Summer 1987
by Anne Somerset
BADMINTON HOUSE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE
In February 1984 my father inherited Badminton House on the death of our cousin, the tenth Duke of Beaufort, and I was appalled to learn that we would be moving in as soon as possible. Thanks to the generosity of the late Duke, for twenty-one years we had lived in a delightful house in the village, and I had assumed that this arrangement would continue even after Badminton became my father’s responsibility. Because of financial pressures, many other owners of stately homes had either withdrawn into conveniently sized flats situated in wings of their houses or had moved out altogether, and I did not think my father would think it feasible to defy this trend...