The Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted Castle, a Plotting Duchess, and a Family Secret

I did not select this book because of the author or any reasons I would normally select a book for general reading. I am an avid researcher and genealogist and was looking for a book or information on Rutland Vermont. As always when you do a search you get information of similar names or sounds. The first thing about this book that caught my interest was the word “Rutland” appearing in the review, then the title itself “The Secret Room”. Who doesn’t like a good mystery and a true story at that? Many of the early settlements in this country were named after persons who founded it or after persons or places the settlers had known from their homeland. My question was, is there a connection? As of this date, the question of a link between Rutland VT and Dukes of Rutland has not been answered for me. I did however, continue to read and was not disappointed. It has taken me years to prove the history of what was only handed down information to one family line. Other family lines and researchers believed and were following the created false public perception of our family’s history. The false story was so entrenched it was included as true information into the county history of one of our states. Years of research, was conducted, looking for documentation to prove the truth not the perception of our families migrations and why. Often I tell fellow researchers to look at all possibilities even if it flies in the face of long standing family beliefs. As humans, we often feel embarrassment of our past or the past of family members and try desperately to change reality to a more interesting, less offensive or more acceptable perception in an attempt to elude or distort our history completely. I would recommend this book for its readability and content, however, I especially would recommend it to anyone studying history, genealogy or teaching how to research and write family histories. It is a fine example of why and how information in families become misleading or convoluted no matter how well intended. From time to time even in the “best” of families, deception happens.

Ninety-nine years have passed since the beginning of WW1, or as it was called at the time, "The Great War". Nearly a century ago, war was sparked by the assassination in Sarajevo in June, 1914, of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. Because of the tangled web of alliances, most of the nations in Europe went to war. In Great Britain and the imperial territories, hundreds of thousands of young men gaily joined up to fight for their king and country in a war that was supposed to last only a few months. Four long, dreadful years later, with the fields of France and Belgium turned into trench-laced killing fields, the war was over. An entire generation of young men and the cities and villages they had come from were starkly reminded of the toll the war had taken. British historian Catherine Bailey has written one of the finest books on WW1 that I've read. Her new book, "The Secret Rooms" is a rather melodramatically-titled book about the Manners family - the Dukes of Rutland - and their castle "Belvoir" (pronounced "Beaver"). Bailey had intended to write a book about the Belvoir estate and the affect the war had on its thousands of tenants. However, once she got to work, perusing the war records at the castle, she stumbled upon a more interesting, more personal story. And that's the story she tells in "The Secret Rooms". John Manners, the 9th Duke of Rutland, died in 1940 in a back part of his huge castle. He had sequestered himself in these rooms for a few months before his death at the age of 54, working frantically on his family's legacy. The British government had sent a huge number of boxes of archives to be protected from the German bombing of London, but it was not these records the Duke was interested in. He was interested in his own family's records and he tried to weed out letters and diaries that would obscure a smallish part of his own life and how it related to the lives of his parents and siblings. But what was Rutland trying to hide, and why was he trying to hide it? In her fascinating book, Bailey takes the reader though the last 30 years or so of the 19th century and into the first half of the 20th. By looking at these years through the mysteries of the Manners family, the reader is exposed to an amazing recap of both family and societal history. I think the sub-title of the book, "A True Gothic Mystery" might scare some potential readers away. Bailey's book is more - so much more - than a silly story. She truly tells the story of a time and a place and a family. It's a great read. If you're a WW1 buff, please put this on your list.

Before it runs into a boring brick well. All the build-up about missing letters for various periods in the life of the son of the Duke in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century is overblown to reveal a whole lot of nothing. The cause of death of the oldest son of the Duke at age nine was apparently "covered up"...an accident listed as illness. So what? Nothing came to light that the accident was anything sinister. The aristocrats always had their own rules and ways and people did as they were told. The author goes on and about the cruelty and savageness of the younger son, John, being sent away after this death, when sending boy children away at young ages was almost obligatory in the era. Yes, the timing was cruel, yes they resented his living over the favored child, but again, this was not so unusual in the period. It was freely acknowledged that families had "favorite" children at the time. Now, gasps of outrage and probably charges or removal would ensue. It is important to see things in relations to the times. The great big mystery as to why the remaining son John somehow managed to sit out any danger during WWII turns out to be a big yawn...Mama Duchess set out on a campaign to make sure of it. Wow what a shocker-not. Not much different that rich Americans protecting their darling bound-for-Harvard sons during Viet Nam. Why it should be shocking that a young aristocrat is able to avoid danger thanks to Mama? The author tries to make this revelation far more dramatic than it really is. I was expecting a hidden murder, a singular act of cowardice in battle, or a revelation of an improper relationship with his Uncle Charlie, at least. Also, the daughter, Diana Manners, is portrayed as a helpless victim of her scheming mother, when everything else I have read about her shows her well able to control and manipulate people all on her own, no help from Mama needed. The author makes use of italics every time she wants to stress something or make a point, which is annoying, as if the reader is too stupid to recognize important details without being told in this way to take note. This got tedious for me. Overall, though, it is well-written and suspenseful at least in the early portions.

The author had me until she felt the need to dazzle me with her research skills by forcing down my throat unnecessary letters and information that wasted my time. She had me in her hand for the first half of the book. I was intrigued. I was mesmerized with the story she was telling and her talent as a historical researcher. But then she lost me. I think she let her interest in World War I get the best of her. The first half of this book is excellent. But then it just gets lost and so completely bogged down with unnecessary letters and tributaries that the reader can't remember what happened in the first half. I blame the publisher's editor for not informing this author that this book should have been cut down to 1/3 of its size. Worse, after the author tortures us with unnecessary, unrelated details about nothing in the second half of the book, she fails to go back at the end and tie it all together. Like, how about just one page that reminds us about what the final verdict was about the three missing periods in Duke's life he sought to cover up. But, no we get none of that. Had the publisher's editor insisted on cutting out all the wasted trivia about nothing, this book could have been good. Oh, and those hauntings? Try a half a page and that's it...just about one single staircase that one person says she was pushed down by someone who wasn't there and some dogs that wouldn't go down it. That's it. In the end, don't bother with this one.

I didn't want to read this, I wanted to absorb it through osmosis. Completely and utterly fascinating. I know the references to Downton Abbey are overused to describe this book, but they do apply. Reading about that period of time is fascinating and hearing it described through letters, documentations and household accounts made it very real. The pomp and circumstance seems so foreign today and the lavish lifestyle completely alien. The distractions and machinations going on behind the scenes during war time defy belief. It would be easy to believe that the accounts of time and energy expended on behalf of a few select aristocrats would be exaggeration, but it's not. The amount of documentation that survived is mind boggling. I hope it is all getting scanned for history's sake. I had to keep reminding myself that this was not a work of fiction. I enjoyed reading the author's explanations that accompanied letters. It enabled me to keep the timeline and characters in order. This could have been so confusing but it was not. It was extremely well written and researched. The accompanying photos were wonderful. They do not come across on a regular Kindle well so I used my Kindle for PC app to get a better look at them. I cannot recommend this book enough. It is definitely on my favorite's list. Read. This. Book.

To begin with, I feel the title is misleading which no doubt contributes to disappointment/confusion. The end result is a sad tale of wasted potential; sad in that it deals with rather purposeless, self-centered people who inherited privilege which seemed not to have given them depth or compassion. The exception would be Lady Diana Manners who did become a nurse, working very hard to do her patriotic duty when the times certainly did not encourage young aristocratic women to do such. As a researcher/writer, I would be in pure heaven if given the opportunity Ms. Bailey was by the current Duke of Rutland; I would be literally beside myself with glee if I could comb through all those private correspondences and war records. Thank goodness people once wrote copious letters and kept them all for how else would we have a personal take on history? However, if one is not inclined toward this, the very premise of the author’s work to uncover the “mysteries” could become tedious. There is repetition and the author's habit of Italics for emphasis which I found distracting in that I am able to decipher on my own when a moment is pertinent. As for the Downton Abbey tie in, this is not a fictional drama or a novel but it does offer insight on how the household of a ducal system operated and good descriptions of the castle and the land. I found the photographs especially enlightening. If one is a history buff as I am, the significance of Belvoir Castle remaining in the hands of the same family and their ability to trace their ancestry to the man who carried the banner for William the Conqueror compelling. Having an interest in World War One and the details of the horror of life in the trenches would go a long way toward finding this a good read.

I couldn't finish this book. It started out interesting but I got bored and disheartened with the lengthy descriptions of World War I battles and generals and strategies and so on. Such a sad time and the horrors of war were described again and again. Based on the title and description, I was unprepared for this to be such a focus in the book. If you like this time in history, you will probably like this book. The part about the lives of the aristocracy and the description of the castle was interesting but it was only about a fifth of the content of the book. Yes, there was a plotting duchess but it was written about for pages and pages and pages that seemed all the same to me after a while. I will usually plod on to the end of a book hoping it will get better and usually it does. Not this time. I read about 75% of the book. I can't recommend it if you are basing your interest on the description and title as I did. I was disappointed.

Not what I thought it was but read it through because I paid good money so I could donate it. This is a WW 1 story of an over privileged family who thinks they are better than everyone else. This is a helicopter mother of wealth who lost one son at a young age and does her level best to make sure that her remaining adult son doesn't enter the war...and if he must he should have a secure position...while over 200 boys that work on her estate die. She even prostitutes her daughter to an authority figure to save her son. She does all this behind his back while he drives around in a Rolls and has comfort items no one else can have. Later in his life he discovers his mother's actions and is ashamed, then he begins gathering letters to catalogue and hide the fact. There are thousands of letters...who writes any more, who saves letters if you do receive one and how do you get the letters that were written to others. He finally holes up in a room in the estate for years, while his mistress scales a wall and enters through a window to continue their affair. He dies in the room, the mistress sneaks through the window, steals sonething?, exits down the stairs, people see her but do nothing...end of story until the author appears to document this stupid story. Why? Just another story of the elite class and their sordid, special lives. Horrible book, don't waste your time or read it from the library.

a book which tells a fascinating story... and it is well written and fun to indulge into... on top of it all - fascinating to hear all about the house itself ...

Excellent example of historical writing. Author Catherine Bailey treats not only her subject (the early 20th century history of an English aristocratic family) with a keen and balanced eye as befits a first-rate historian, but equally important she treats the very search itself as an historical subject. If History is an attempt to solve a mystery, tracking down the sources that elucidate the mystery, is a detective tale of its own. Such treatment is rare among historians, most of whom bury the story of their searches in footnotes and acknowledgments. Together with her clear and compelling literary style, Bailey has created a work that will appeal to the general reader as well as to the history buff.

Interesting and a gripping story about the Duke of Rutland and why and how he came to miss military action on the fields of Flanders in the first World War. Obviously a clever man but also a sad one and rather a sad ending to his life. But read the book I say no more!

when i purchased this book on kindle , i was fully aware that it is a true story, and i was not expecting a monster of glamis type tale,but iwas a littled influenced by the cover illustation. i was thinking real life downton abbey. not so,i'm afraid. far from being a true gothic tale, it was a deary account of the great war, and just about as exciting as wading grimly through the mud in the trenches.ihad thought that i might go on to read black diamonds,because i do enjoy biographies and social histories, but only if well written, and this was not. it was a stuggle to finish and the only good bit was the photographs.sorry, but i would not recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good yarn, be it true or fictitious.

This is a wonderful book that tells a desperately sad tale of the aristocracy in the early twentieth century, just as their world started to fracture and change forever. The story is gripping and haunting, and the man at the centre of the tale, the 9th Duke of Rutland, is one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters I have ever read about, both sympathetic and infuriating at once. Despite all the wealth and privilege, the loneliness and poignancy of his childhood was heartbreaking. What I particularly enjoyed about this book was the fact that the author shared her research with us, a really interesting insight and an intriguing tale all by itself. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I was riveted throughout, couldn't close the thing, let alone put it down, and none of my family got a word out of me all weekend! I have now bought her book "Black Diamonds" and can't wait to start it.