A dashing ‘woman slayer’ who became a dutiful duke
David Somerset, who has died aged 89, was a globe-trotting playboy who dated Jackie Kennedy’s sister before settling down to run the Badminton Horse Trials
AS A YOUNG man he was known as one of the most handsome and charismatic aristocrats in England and after he inherited the 52,000-acre Badminton Estate in Gloucestershire, he also became one of the nation’s richest men. But this week, David Somerset, 11th Duke of Beaufort, died in his sleep, age 89.
If he leaves behind an inheritance thought to be worth about £315million, he also leaves a colourful legacy. As chairman of the Marlborough Fine Art Gallery in Mayfair he made his reputation as a connoisseur and businessman, and as president of the British Horse Society and owner of the Badminton Estate, home to the famous horse trials, he became known as a sportsman, champion of country pursuits and lover of fox hunting. But it is his life as a young man that sealed his reputation as one of the most dashing and glamorous figures of the mid-20th century.
Born in 1928 and educated at Eton, he was, in the words of James Lee-Milne, the English diarist who spent time living on the Badminton estate, “born with a handful of silver spoons sticking out of every corner of his mouth”. His family can trace their line directly back to Edward III and David himself was a sixth cousin, once removed, of the Queen. Such is the family’s status that, according to one anonymous acquaintance quoted in 2013, “To understand a dynasty like the House of Beaufort, one has to remember that they are descended from the Plantagenets and genuinely consider themselves to be much grander than the Royal Family, who are just arriviste Windsors.”
After a commission in the Coldstream Guards, he began working at the art gallery in 1950 – and soon established himself as one of the key players in London society. He was tall, athletic, a superb horseman and had classically handsome looks and so his reputation quickly spread beyond the capital. Over the following decades he enjoyed a louche, ultra-glamorous life with the cream of Europe’s super-rich.
Among his friends were Italian playboy Gianni Agnelli, president of Fiat (his grandfather founded the company), Greek socialite and journalist Taki Theodoracopulos, and Aristotle Onassis, the fabulously wealthy shipping magnate who later married JFK’s widow Jackie Kennedy.
TAKI later recalled one of their jaunts in an article for the Spectator. “The present Duke of Beaufort [plain David Somerset back then], Gianni Agnelli and I were the three men who had begun a cruise on Gianni’s boat in July 1967,” he wrote. “All three of us were married, but the ladies on board were not our wives. The cruise started in the South of France, but by the time we reached Lefkas Gianni had got rid of the tarts. ‘Let’s stop by and see old Aristo,’ he said…”
There were also rumours of an affair with Jackie Kennedy’s younger sister Lee – married at the time to publishing executive Michael Canfield, but simultaneously enjoying dalliances with both David and Stanislas Radziwill, who she would later marry.
The novelist Jilly Cooper has cited the duke as the inspiration for her most famous creation, the champagne-swilling, showjumping master seducer Rupert CampbellBlack in her 1985 novel Riders.
“I was having lunch with the publisher George Weidenfeld in London and had just told him I was writing a book about the most handsome man in England,” she recalled after I broke the news of the duke’s death to her yesterday. “And then I looked across the room and there was David. And I said: ‘I’ve just seen him!’ He was very attractive, just so handsome.” Described as “The great woman slayer” by his friend, the politician and journalist Woodrow Wyatt, in 1988, at the age of 60, he even made Vanity Fair’s International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame.
Jilly became friends with the Duke, and through him met others who she describes as “this amazingly glamorous group of men,” whose members included Andrew Parker-Bowles, former husband of the Duchess of Cornwall. “They were a wildly dashing and exciting group and their bravery and charisma were essential elements of Rupert’s character,” she says.
However, throughout this heady time, David was also married to Lady Caroline Thynne, only daughter of the sixth Marquess of Bath, the owner of the Longleat estate. Their wedding in 1950 had been the social event of the year, and among the guests were King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother). Not that the 10th Duke of Beaufort was especially impressed. Upon hearing his heir was to be married, he is said to have inquired: “Does she hunt?”
It seems that, despite his playboy reputation, the duke’s marriage was a success. Lady Caroline, who died of cancer in 1995, is credited with overseeing the restoration of Badminton, transforming it from crumbling relic to one of the most impressive estates in the country. She created a beautiful new garden, planted hundreds of trees in the park and, along with her husband, helped make the Horse Trials one of the foremost equestrian events in the world. After ascending to his title in 1984, David joined her in devoting himself to the estate.
The couple also had four children. Henry, who since his father’s death has become the 12th Duke of Beaufort, Anne, Edward and John.
But there has been heartache too. Henry, 65 – known to his friends as Bunter – is embroiled in a complicated divorce with former actress and environmental campaigner Tracy Louise Ward. After his inheritance, she could suddenly be in line for a much bigger settlement.
And in 2013, second son Edward was jailed for two years after pleading guilty to a 22-year campaign of domestic abuse against former wife Caroline. At his trial the court heard how Edward, who had himself been something of a society figure in the 1980s and was even a guest at Mick Jagger’s 50th birthday party, had used heroin and cocaine and that in 2012 Lady Caroline had required hospital treatment after an argument after he took crack cocaine in front of their youngest daughter.
IT’S ALL a far cry from the impeccably mannered, gentlemanly high-jinx of David Somerset’s heyday. In 2000 he married again, to Miranda Morley, and after his death, those who knew him best say that he remained charming and generous to the end.
“I think I speak for anyone who worked for him when I say he was a very special man,” says former head huntsman Tony Holdsworth, who worked for the Duke for 16 years. “He was one of those people who I imagine was very good at everything he did. He was unfailingly kind and generous – when I left to start my own firm he even gave me a cottage on the estate to live in until I got on my feet properly. He always said it was never really his estate, but belonged to everyone. He believed that we were all just custodians of Badminton, looking after it for the next generation.”
And for Jilly Cooper, the 11th Duke of Beaufort will forever be the dashing, impossibly handsome man she spotted across a busy restaurant and who, for decades, was the toast of high society.
She says: “I hope that he’s up there having a very large drink in Heaven.”