Blood Will Tell

My name is George Nathaniel Curzon,
I am a most superior person.
My cheeks are pink, my hair is sleek,
I dine at Blenheim twice a week.

In some ways, George Nathaniel Curzon is the model of the British Imperial aristo. Eton. Oxford. Viceroy of India. Foreign Secretary. Should have been Prime Minister. And with a blood line that stretches back into the mists of time.

And, as Curzon himself almost said, almost entirely worthless.

My ancestors were a feeble lot. No family could have remained in possession of the same estate since the twelfth century had they manifested the very slightest energy or courage.

To find anything noteworthy at all, David Gilmore in his biography (from which all this is quoted this is quoted) had to hoik up a couple of illegitimates and one younger son who took up careers in the military. Aside from these, however, Nineteenth Century Curzons

...remained on their estates except for brief appearances at Westminster, their immobility and lack of adventure symbolized by the family’s strikingly unambitious motto, ‘Let Curzon holde what Curzon helde.’

Except for the Great Man Himself, the Curzon’s almost notorious lack of achievement extended even into his own generation:

Blanche Scarsdale [Curzon’s mother] had eleven children in all, one of whom did not survive, before she died in 1875 at the age of 37 [!!!—Buce] Most of them belonged to that unambitious family strain so dramatically challenged by their eldest brother. ‘Albert does nothing but is an excellent fellow,’ George remarked when his brother was 34. Sophy, his eldest sister, was married to an ‘excellent clergyman, while young Blanche kept house for [their father].

Curzon and his brother Frank

...were several times forced to bail out their other brothers, especially the youngest one, Assheton, who earned himself a reputation as the family’s ‘black sheep’. In 1914, after various other transgressions, Assheton was caught stealing securities from his office … . The only solution for Assheton, declared his eldest brother, was the classic remedy for black sheep: exile to the colonies.

Evidently the habits and customs extend beyond the great man himself. Many years after his death, his widow

...damaged her husband’s reputation by publishing her Reminiscences, the sort of book that makes people wonder why Britain never experienced a revolution: it describes inspections of the wrists of aspirant footmen to appraise their elegance when holding plates, and recounts how in her widowhood she canvassed for her Conservative son in East London accoutredf with fur coat, French maid, Rolls-Royce and hampers from Fortnum and Mason.

I will spare you the People-Magazine dope on their three daughters, but if you care, look here. As my friend Larry would say, they are descended form A Long Line of Dead People.

All quotations are from David Gilmour, Curzon xiii, 1-7 (1994).