Boughton: The House, its People and its Collections

In this sumptuous portrait of Boughton House, known as 'the English Versailles', the present Duke sets the scene with a history of his ancestors who acquired the Northamptonshire manor in the reign of Henry VIII. Ralph, 1st Duke of Montagu (1638-1709), Charles II's envoy to Louis XIV, transformed Boughton into a palatial homage to French culture.