Category Archives: Aristocracy

Homes proposal effort ‘to line’ Duke of Northumberland’s pockets, inquiry told

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Ralph Percy lost an application in 2021 to build 80 flats on part of his Grade I-listed Syon Park estate

An attempt by the Duke of Northumberland to replace allotments with dozens of new homes on his west London estate is simply an effort to line his “already deep pockets”, a public inquiry has heard.

Ralph Percy, the 12th Duke of Northumberland, lost an application in October 2021 to build 80 flats on part of his Grade I-listed Syon Park estate after the council received more than 900 objections from local residents to the plans.

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Duchess of Argyll sex scandal retold in new BBC drama series

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Admirers of vilified aristocrat say they hope series will allow her to be ‘seen in a different light’

It took the judge more than three hours to read out his damning judgment at the end of one of the longest, most expensive and toxic divorce cases of the 20th century.

Margaret, the Duchess of Argyll, was, he declared with contempt, “a highly sexed woman” who was not “satisfied with normal relations and had started to indulge in disgusting sexual activities to gratify a debased sexual appetite”.

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Kenyan police officers to go on trial accused of British aristocrat’s murder

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Alexander Monson, son of Lord Monson, died in 2012 after allegedly being beaten in a police cell

Four Kenyan police officers will stand trial for murder after a judge ruled they had a case to answer in the death of the British aristocrat Alexander Monson, who died in 2012 a day after allegedly being beaten in a police cell.

The ruling, handed down by a high court judge in Mombasa, follows a years-long legal battle by his family after the 28-year-old died after he was arrested outside a nightclub at the Diani beach resort on suspicion of smoking cannabis.

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Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population

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Research by author reveals corporations and aristocrats are the biggest landowners

Half of England is owned by less than 1% of its population, according to new data shared with the Guardian that seeks to penetrate the secrecy that has traditionally surrounded land ownership.

The findings, described as “astonishingly unequal”, suggest that about 25,000 landowners – typically members of the aristocracy and corporations – have control of half of the country.

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‘Peasant revolt’ at earl’s bid to build flats on allotments

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Anger at attempt by ‘green aristocrat’ Earl Percy to develop wilderness site in London

It is a row that the scion of one of Britain’s oldest aristocratic families could rather do without as he carves out a career promoting his green credentials.

And, gallingly for the Percy dynasty (one of whose ancestors was the inspiration for Blackadder’s half-witted sidekick, Lord Percy) much of it has been self-inflicted. In the one camp is Earl Percy, friend to Wills and Kate and owner of Syon House, a historic Grade-I listed pile in west London where Henry VIII’s body once lay in state.

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