The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse by Piu Marie Eatwell

The Duke carved extensive tunnels and underground rooms under his estate of Welbeck Abbey to hide from the sun, and preferred the company of servants to that of other noblemen (though he communicated with them only through notes at various points). Druce (who died in 1864) was a notorious womanizer who lived with various women out of wedlock, and was something of a pariah because of it, beyond his general standoffishness.

The reason that this was even conceivable was that both Druce and the Duke were notorious recluses and eccentrics who shunned the company of others and otherwise led strange social lives.

Years of off-and-on legal drama and press attention followed, until the matter was put to rest in 1907. After the Duke died in 1879 at the age of 79, the title passed to a distant relative but in 1897 Druce’s daughter-in-law alleged that the title should have passed to her son, as Druce and the Duke had been the same person. The Druce case involves the Earldom of Portland the claim is that the 5th Duke of Portland, William Cavendish-Bentinck-Scott, lived a double-life as Thomas Charles “T.C.” Druce, an affluent furniture merchant in London. In both cases, an Australian came to London to try to stake a claim to a noble title, and lost after extensive legal wrangling. This book is about the Druce case which bears the most resemblance to another Victorian case that I was only recently made aware of, the Tichborne case. There were all of Oscar Wilde’s sad cases. There was the Royal Baccarat Scandal, which established that if the Prince of Wales said you cheated, then you cheated. Dudley & Stephens, which established that sailors weren’t allowed to eat each other even if they were hungry. The Victorians had a number of famous legal cases. This historical mystery story bills itself as Edwardian, because that is when a lot of the investigation and legal activity took place but the story goes back deep into the Victorian era, and even beyond. True crime seemed like a good way to dip the first toe in, especially since I only pursue true crime that is old enough to be my grandparent. I’m planning on reading The Proud Tower soon, so I am trying to immerse myself in turn of the century Europe as best as I can.

The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse by Piu Marie Eatwell