Anne Catherine Tredick Wendell : 1900-1977 : 6th Countess of Carnarvon :
Anne Catherine Tredick Wendell
1900-1977
6th Countess of Carnarvon
Catherine Wendell was born Anne Catherine Tredick Wendell, from a family with long and notable history in America and Holland. The Wendells settled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and New York.
Famous for her good looks, Catherine Wendell left America in 1911, homeless at the age of ten. She was brought to Britain by her widowed mother, Marian Fendall Wendell, who was living in much reduced circumstances after her actor husband’s death. Catherine was accompanied by her three siblings, two older brothers and a younger sister.
As Catherine grew up in Britain, marriage to a well-off titled man was a primary goal set by her pushy mother, a talented matchmaker, who was the chief architect in arranging altogether three up-market marital pairings for her offspring. Her two daughters married heirs to British Earldoms.
Marian’s triumph was to match Catherine with Henry ‘Porchey’ Carnarvon, Lord Porchester, heir to the Carnarvon Earldom with a family seat at HighclereCastle, the back drop to TV’s Downton Abbey. ‘Porchey’ was an army officer in the 7th Queen’s Own Hussars, the ‘ Gung-ho’ type and a strong horse rider and later a jockey. But before and after marriage in 1922 Porchey was incapable of being faithful to one woman. He spent his whole life hunting, shooting and flirting.
Although she was miserable and felt betrayed, Catherine carried on her duties as chatelaine at Highclere Castle but she was infuriated by Porchey’s bad behaviour yet she persevered in the abusive and at times violent relationship where she was the victim. She bore Porchey two children but the fringe benefits of the marriage came at a heavy price in terms of own her physical health and mental well-being which at times imperilled her life. She drank heavily and gambled recklessly. At her most depressed Catherine harboured thoughts of suicide and at least once tried to kill herself.
Despite her inner conflict Catherine held on patiently in her coupling with Porchey for thirteen years before she took the decision to divorce a selfish, brutal, womanising spouse, by issuing two High Court writs between 1935 and 1936.
Catherine was no angel, she had affairs with several notable men of the pre-WW2 era including the music maestro Sidney Beer, the conductor Malcolm Sargent and worshipped the doomed Prince George, Duke of Kent her confidante and adviser. The Prince ( also a friend of Porchey, and best man at the wedding in 1922) played a key part in trying to keep the Carnarvons together. Just how intimate Catherine made herself with the Prince is an interesting, mind boggling... " What If...".
Ultimately Catherine had enough of Porchey, she ditched her title of Countess of Carnarvon and remarried twice, weathering the tragedy of losing a second husband in the Second World War. Her third husband survived her by a number of years and proved the most steadfast of all three.
Catherine died in Switzerland on 8 April 1977, aged 77. She is buried in a neglected grave at the graveyard on the Highclere Estate.
Catherine's story is told in full in the book
" Catherine and Tilly: Porchey Carnarvon's Two Duped Wives" by William Cross, FSA Scot
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