Thread by @ajcdeane

This is the 31st instalment of #deanehistory.

Adeline, Countess of Cardigan and Lancastre, (not a typo, albeit it's sometimes anglicised) played fast & loose with naming conventions.

This habit may have stemmed from her father’s use in later life of her mother’s cool maiden name, “de Horsey.” Nicer than the apian cruelty of his own name, Kilderbee.

Briefly engaged to a pretender to the Spanish throne, she scandalised society by being out & about with the notorious rake the 7th Earl of Cardigan, without a chaperone – quelle horreur! After the death of the Earl’s wife, they formalised things by getting married themselves.

They tied the knot in Gibraltar, momentarily away from the censorious eyes of the court and press, for she vacillated between flirting with public attention and ostentatiously shunning it. This doesn’t remind us of anyone in the present day, of course.

Her first husband gets one of the best lines in the history of cinema: played by Trevor Howard, upon being given the order (or not: the question is disputed) to carry out the Charge of the Light Brigade – “Well, here goes the last of the Brudenells. The Brigade will advance!”

She received numerous proposals after Cardigan’s death in 1868. One came from her lifelong acquaintance Benjamin Disraeli, who wasn’t badly placed in terms of the kind of eye-catching public role she liked as he was in post for his first, short stint as Prime Minister that year.

She was certainly fond of Disraeli, but marriage was out of the question given his halitosis. So she married a Portuguese nobleman, Don António Manuel de Saldanha e Lancastre, Conde de Lancastre, in 1873.

It was by whacking the two titles together, which apparently is a no no, that she got the moniker that graces her rather racy memoirs.

After time together in Lisbon & Paris, she parted ways with Don longname, whose bronchitis meant he avoided English weather, & returned to live at the home left to her by Cardigan. For quiet in her twilight years? Oh, no. Fair to say that she didn't go gentle into that goodnight.

Her pursuits scandalised society in ways we might find surprising. She rode a bicycle – modern view straight to sainthood, Victorian view unladylike. She smoked – modern view straight to hell, Victorian view pearl clutching, view in between more sympathetic.

She entertained guests by running steeplechases through the estate’s graveyard, or playing the castinets in full regalia, or by dressing up as a ghost haunting her own house. A nun, in fact. She had a sense of humour. These activities were interrupted only slightly by bankruptcy.

Her approach to death was equally eccentric. In her twilight years, she took to keeping a coffin in her ballroom, and would regularly get in it when visitors came calling, to ask them how they thought she looked.

Though separated, she remained married to the Don until his death and survived him by quite some time. She died at Deene (no relation) Park in Northamptonshire and is buried there with Cardigan.

What lesson..? Well, I haven’t seen her grave, but wouldn't be surprised if it had a cod Latin motto translated as “I did what I liked– so what?” Possibly atop a rococo stylised V-sign. Be yourself, no matter what they say. Unless what they say amuses you, in which case, good.

For this story, many thanks indeed to @pollsstar for the suggestion. Albeit I'm afraid some of the raciest points raised about Adeline, which may well be true, could not be substantiated on my research...!