Monday, August 31, 2015

Dandy peer and the sex trial that changed Britain

The obligatory bimbos, err, feminists
By the time of his death yesterday, aged 88, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu was one of the great pillars of the British Establishment — a peer, descended from dukes and marquesses, who could have stepped straight out of the pages of a P. G. Wodehouse novel.

‘I was born lucky,’ he admitted. ‘Good-looking, well-connected, tolerably well-off as well as having a title which had and still has an irresistible ring to it.’

Born Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, he lived in a 13th-century stately home in Beaulieu, Hampshire, which had been in his family since 1538.

The treasures on his 9,000-acre estate include the British National Motor Museum, among the greatest car collections in the world. One of the few hereditary peers to remain in the House of Lords, he was head of countless heritage organisations and charities.

A flamboyant dandy who wore a fur coat and old-fashioned racing goggles when driving, he was a regular at society parties, as happy to hobnob with the likes of Diana Dors and Liberace as royalty.

But Lord Montagu never sought his best-known claim to fame. In 1954, he was jailed for homosexual sex.  (more...)


Having attended Canada's version of New College, Oxford, I've had some acquaintance with this culture. You could add, from the Americans, a number of Frankfurt School social engineers. What a witch's brew!



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