Richard Buccleuch – författare

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.

Bowhill, in the Scottish Borders, started life as a modest Georgian villa, but over generations was transformed into a huge mansion. The art collection was consolidated when Henry, the enlightened 3rd Duke of Buccleuch, and his wife, Elizabeth, united the three families of Montagu, Douglas and Scott circa 1800. The exterior of austere greywacke stone belies rich interiors filled with great treasures - the 4th Duke's Library, with its views of the Ettrick Valley so beloved of his friend Sir Walter Scott, the damask Drawing Room with its masterpieces by Claude and Ruysdael, the Boudoir and its Chinese wallpaper, the Dining Room with its Canaletto of the Thames at Whitehall, the Mortlake tapestries of Mantegna's Triumphs of Caeasar, and the Buccleuch collection of miniatures, second only to that of the Queen.

In this sumptuous portrait of the house known as ‘the English Versailles’, the Duke of Buccleuch sets the scene with a history of his ancestors, the Montagus of Boughton, who acquired the manor in Northamptonshire 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. His son John, the 2nd Duke, was noted for planting long avenues, a love of heraldry, a fondness for practical jokes and the ancient lion he nursed in one of the courtyards.The book showcases Boughton’s magnificent painted ceilings, tapestries and Sèvres porcelain. The celebrated art collection also includes striking portraits of Elizabeth I, Charles II and his son the Duke of Monmouth, another Buccleuch ancestor. Van Dyck’s friends and contemporaries cluster in the Drawing Room in dozen of grisailles. Most eye-catching of all is the portrait of Shakespeare’s muses, the Early and Countess of Southampton. A grand tour takes in the French-inspired façade, the formal State Rooms and the Tudor Great Hall, with their painted ceilings, flamboyant French furniture and the oldest dated carpet in Europe – before moving to the park, with its avenues of soaring limes, network of lakes, and dramatic new sunken pool.