The Cravens by Clive Williams - book review

     Clive Williams, author of a previous book about the history of Berkshire, The Nabobs of Berkshire, has now written The Cravens, a history of the entire Craven family. He traces it from its first rise to wealth in the Tudor period, to its glory days under the Stuarts and Hanoverians, when Craven earls and barons were among the greatest landowners in Berkshire and among the richest peers in Britain, through to the decline of their fortunes in the twentieth century. 

The Cravens' London house 16, Charles Street, Mayfair

   Williams has put a lot of research into this book, which has many illustrations, and draws on many documents. He tracks down the sources of the wealth that made William, the first Earl Craven under King Charles I, such a powerful player in the wars of the time and in politics at home and abroad. It seems that the financial acumen of his mother was a major factor. Craven volunteered at the age of sixteen to go to the Continent to fight for the Palatine cause, and distinguished himself. He was already a veteran of the Thirty Years War when the English Civil War broke out. By staying abroad he avoided having all his property confiscated under Cromwell, and he went on to build Ashdown House and the now-vanished mansion of Hamstead Marshall for the woman to whom he was devoted - Princess Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.

    In every generation of Cravens there have been characters who were worthy of note - the most outstanding being, of course, Elizabeth Craven, the reluctant wife of the sixth Baron, who went on to become an author. Before that time, there were five barons who got up to all manner of things. In the nineteenth century there was a succession of earls who were remarkably different, apart from the fact that all of them without exception loved country sports - hunting, racing, shooting and so on. The Memoirs of Rupert Craven, a son of the third Earl, provide a wonderful picture of Victorian rural life.

    I learned a lot from this book, which provides ample details of all the Craven estates and holdings in Berkshire, London, Gloucestershire and many more besides. I did not know, for example, that the family ever owned Stoksey Castle in Shropshire, or that they were at one time proprietors of an estate in South Africa. Clive Williams has done excellent detective work in tracking down the London home of the Cravens, once owned by Elizabeth Craven's husband, the sixth baron. This house at 16, Charles Street in Mayfair, owned by the Craven family until 1921, is a very fine, imposing mansion and the Craven crest has survived on one of the mantlepieces, as Williams' photograph shows. 

    Here she entertained writers such as Dr Johnson and William Beckford, the Prime Minister Lord North and the Lord Chancellor Lord Thurlow, most of high society, alongside painters, musicians and opera singers, until her departure from England in 1783. The house has now been bought for restoration by a company who plan to turn it into a high-class restaurant, so it will be accessible to the public, and its façade would surely be given an extra touch of distinction by the addition of a Blue Plaque commemorating Elizabeth Craven. The attention of English Heritage should certainly be drawn to this opportunity. 

    Another good bit of detective work Williams has carried out concerns the burial place of Elizabeth Craven's second husband, the Margrave of Anspach. The parish church of Speen, where he was originally entombed, still has a beautiful marble plaque commemorating him, but where is the body? It seems that this went missing when the church was renovated by a Victorian vicar, and we can only hope that it was suitably re-enterred. Williams points out that Berkshire has a habit of losing royal remains, having done the same with the body of King Henry I!

    Williams' book has got some weaknesses, the main one being that he is rather fond of digression. He provides excessive background material, telling us far too much about the Thirty Years' War, Catherine the Great, Clive of India and Napoleon - all topics that the reader can find out about by referring to other books and websites if necessary. He tends to diverge from the narrative line, and does not always keep to chronological order of events. The main plan of the book is chronological but within each chapter he does jump backwards and forwards in a way that can be confusing. There are poems and excerpts from other texts that are not referenced or explained, some of which appear to be rather dodgy translations. He frequently repeats that Elizabeth Craven after her second marriage "styled herself the Margravine of Anspach". This suggests that he doesn't believe she was, despite being married to the Margrave who seemed to be under the impression that he was her husband. I think that, after the deaths of their respective spouses, there was no cause or just impediment under English law, to prevent or invalidate their marriage. 

    Some of the illustrations in the book are far too small, and they are not always well aligned with the text. The book could have done with a fuller list of sources and acknowledgements, as well as a more correct index (this one for example lists J.R.R. Tolkien under "J" and gives him only two initials, J.R.) Despite these flaws, the book is a useful contribution to the topic and will be of interest to anybody who is keen on the history of Berkshire.