Rift at Ragley as heir who wed ‘outsider’ finds himself evicted
AN ARISTOCRAT who married an “outsider” claims he has been evicted from his family’s £85million estate after his aunt branded their wedding invitation “embarrassingly awful”.
William, Earl of Yarmouth, 26, now also fears he might be prevented from taking on Ragley Hall when he reaches 30 as his father, Lord Henry Seymour, 9th Marquess of Hertford, had apparently promised, after his mother warned there were “no funds available for supporting two generations at the same time”.
The trouble is said to have begun when the Earl met his future wife, Kelsey Wells, 34, a City banker and now the Countess of Yarmouth, three years ago. The pair outlined a series of extraordinary allegations in a newspaper interview in which they suggested that the family wrongly believed she had married into the family for money.
They claimed the family had made life difficult and seemed “determined to cast them both adrift”. When they sent out invitations for their wedding last year they said Lady Carolyn Seymour, 58, the Earl’s aunt, could not conceal her contempt.
She reportedly said the design of the invitation was “so embarrassingly awful, it’s almost laughable if it weren’t so tragic”. She went on: “Since when do you start with the groom’s coronet on top of the page? Moreover, you haven’t even used the Ragley blue nor the correct font. And since when does your name come before the bride?”
She reportedly berated the Earl for suggesting how guests might dress, adding: “Good God, what are you? Little Lord Fauntleroy?” before signing off: “You pompous ass/t--/p---k – take your pick… Your ever-so loving aunt.”
After their wedding, the couple settled in a modest cottage on the Warwickshire estate called The Bothy. But on their wedding anniversary last month, shortly after announcing they were expecting a baby, they reportedly received a letter from Lady Carolyn saying the property was needed to accommodate a carer for the Earl’s 86-year-old grandmother, Lady Pamela, the Dowager Marchioness of Hertford. “There are plenty of rooms to let locally and you can become someone’s lodger,” she is said to have written.
The Countess told the Mail on Sunday: “I was devastated. It should have been one of the happiest times in my life. Instead it was the most stressful. I’d tried so hard to be accepted by his relatives but they seemed determined to cast us both adrift.
“Perhaps it’s what I represent, perhaps they feel threatened. I do have the sense there is a pathological need for control and I have upset the control they have been able to exert over their son. I held down a good job, pursued a career and made my way in the world. You don’t have to marry for money and clearly that wasn’t the case. I’m not from their world and, to be honest, I’m afraid I haven’t found much there to aspire to.”
The couple allege that when the Earl had first wanted to bring his girlfriend home for the weekend, his car was lent to a member of staff, preventing him from picking her up from the station.
When he announced he wanted her to stay at Ragley, a Palladian mansion in 5,000 acres, he said his bed was given to a new butler and he had to sleep on an inflatable mattress.
Before their wedding, he said his
‘I’m not from their world and, to be honest, I haven’t found much there to aspire to’
59-year-old Brazilian-born mother Beatriz, Lady Hertford, sent him an email that left him “shocked and confused”. She wrote: “There are no funds available for supporting two generations at the same time and you should prepare for that. There are no obligations as to when or what is handed over. Ragley was passed to your father when he was 33 because your grandfather, then, 61, saw fit… nowadays retirement happens later and people live longer.”
Lady Hertford reportedly “regretted” that such matters had not been discussed within the family. She added: “We’re trying to build bridges.”