On Friday, Andrew O'Shaughnessy and I gave a talk in Antigua about his life, and it suddenly struck me that it was the first time that we had given our talk in a commonwealth country that has benefitted from his Abolition Act of 1833 that abolish slavery in all the colonies of the British Empire. It was humbling to share the story of a man that is barely known to the people of Antigua, who benefitted from his passion to make the world a better place in his life time.

It was particularly poignant to share the last page of the appendix in our book that shows his notes on the commerciality of slavery. An algorithm that he used to identify the cost to the Treasury to give each individual slave their freedom and an apprenticeship scheme in place of being owned by plantation owner.

There’s something very special about seeing the connection go far beyond Britain, and about bringing his voice back, through his writings, unlocking the past to bring clarity into the present day.
On his birthday, I am remembering the man and his achievements, but appreciating the enduring power of his story. I have made a documentary called 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒂𝒏 which I will share soon.

Knowsley Hall Anti-Slavery International The Anti-Slavery Collective Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Live Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office @millreefclub
#Knowsley Hall #EarlOfDerby #OnThisDay #BritishHistory #LivingHistory #KnowsleyHall #DerbyFamily #HistoryMatters #19thCentury #PoliticalHistory #AntiSlavery

#johnburgoyne #americanrevolution #SiegeofBoston #revolutionarywar #livinghistory #HistoryDiscovery #ArchiveFind #knowsleyhall #britishhistory #AmericanHistory #HiddenHistory #militaryhistory #18thcenturyhistory #historymatters #burgoynejournal

I realised this year, on the 250^th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence, that I have a uniquely personal link to both General John Burgoyne and General Charles Cornwallis. The coincidence was not lost on me that in a bizarre twist of fate, I grew up at Audley End House where Jane Cornwallis lived (granddaughter to Charles Cornwallis) and now I live in Knowsley Hall (which John Burgoyne called home). Both Generals were pivotal in the key defeats of the American Revolutionary War, namely the Battle of Saratoga on 17 October in 1777 and the Surrender at Yorktown on 19 October 1781. It is yet another example of the spine-tingling realisation that my life has been one of several coincidences of Living History. As Mark Twain says, ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes’.

Firstly, I am a Neville married to a Stanley, both powerful families in the turbulent Plantagenet era. Anne Neville was the Queen to King Richard III who was killed at the Battle of Bosworth and upon his death, according to Shakespeare, Thomas Stanley picked up his crown from the battlefield and put it on the head of his stepson Henry Tudor, Duke of Richmond. In return the new King Henry VII gave his stepfather Thomas Stanley the Earldom of Derby on 22 August 1485.

Secondly, there is a connection with Shakespeare and the authorship question. It has been debated and questioned for centuries who actually wrote the Shakespeare plays. Again, by coincidence, I am the descendant of Sir Henry Nevile who lived at Audley End House and I am now married to the descendant of William Stanley, 6^th Earl of Derby, who lived at Knowsley Hall. Both of these educated and well-travelled aristocratic men from Elizabethan times have their promoters who are adamant they should be considered as the real authors of the plays rather than Will Shakespeare himself, the hardworking and talented son of a glove maker as they found it hard to believe that such diverse and erudite plays could come from the quill of a man who had never travelled abroad.

Thirdly, imagine my excitement when another coincidence dawned on me that I was connected to both General John Burgoyne and General Charles Cornwallis. Burgoyne was at Westminster school with Lord Strange, the son and heir of the 11^th Earl of Derby. Later as a young commissioned officer he eloped with his school friends young sister, the 15 year old Charlotte Stanley, daughter of the 11^th Earl of Derby. Lady Charlotte was estranged from her family after running off to France with Burgoyne but welcomed back into the family when she gave birth to a daughter in 1754 aboard. Charlotte’s brother and Burgoyne’s friend, Lord Strange died in 1771 and Burgoyne becomes a mentor to his heir, Edward Smith Stanley, his nephew by marriage, taking him on a mini grand tour to the continent for two months.

The theatrical associations then continue at Knowsley Hall as John Burgoyne was a playwright as well as a fearless soldier. In 1774 he wrote The Maid of the Oaks which was performed at the Fete Champetre celebrating the wedding of his protégé Lord Stanley to Lady Elizabeth Hamilton. Evidence suggests that a version of this play was read or performed during the British occupation of Boston in 1775/76. In 1776 Burgoyne allegedly wrote a satire called The Blockade of Boston, written during the siege. Gareth Williams, our Curator of Collections, discovered a pamphlet in a cupboard in our Library at Knowsley Hall on 12 January and I immediately realized that it was John Burgoyne’s own battle diary of the Siege of Boston. So I asked my dear friend and colleague Professor Andrew O’Shaughnessy to come up to authenticate it – which he did on Thursday 12 February.

Play the video to see the newly discovered journal with myself and Professor Andrew O’Shaughnessy in the library at Knowsley Hall.

General John Burgoyne by Reynolds

Imagine the thrill when on the 11^th of March, I stumbled upon this innocuous leather exercise book which I immediately realised is the original manuscript of John Burgoyne’s play ‘The Heiress’ written in 1785. Link: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36570/36570-h/36570-h.htm

1776 was the important year of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence by the Founding Fathers of the later United States of America. The same year was also an important milestone for the Stanley family as Burgoyne’s wife, Lady Charlotte died that year and tragically their daughter Charlotte Elizabeth, had already died aged 10 in 1764 in London. Lord Stanley also accedes to the earldom in 1776 on the death of his grandfather.

12^th Earl of Derby by Romney

My maternal family links

I have always felt a very close kinship to my forebear General Charles Cornwallis as I have always grown up listening to the stories about him from my father and grandfather. The Lord Cornwallis sword was kept in an umbrella stand in my father’s dressing room and was always held by family tradition to be the sword surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, marking the beginning of the end of the American Revolutionary War. General Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, surrendered to combined American and French forces commanded by American General George Washington and French Commander Comte de Rochambeau on 19 October 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia. The significant ceremonial event of the capitulation was the surrender of a ceremonial sword by the British. There are various accounts of what transpired on the day and what became of the sword but, until recently, the British and American accounts have dominated the interpretation.

General Charles Cornwallis by Gainsborough

Cornwallis is famously labelled as too proud to attend the Surrender and allegedly pleaded illness. However, Admiral de Grasse, the head of the French Navy, also missed the surrender due to illness. Far from a vanishing act, Cornwallis’s absence may have represented exhaustion, not avoidance – an example of human frailty rather than political contempt and also concern for his injured troops after such a brutal siege. So, Cornwallis sent his second in command, Brigadier General Charles O’Hara, to carry out the formalities. Malaria, smallpox and yellow fever were all rife on the battlefields of North America and Cornwallis had suffered from bouts of malaria since the battle of Trenton. The Irish General O’Hara, fighting with the British, was ultimately instructed to surrender the sword to Major General Benjamin Lincoln, Washington’s second in command, after having attempted to first surrender it to Rochambeau and then to Washington. The sword extended by O’Hara to Lincoln was then held symbolically by Washington and before being immediately returned to O’Hara who returned it to his commanding officer.

The fresco frieze from the Rotonda of the Capitol building Washington

The frescoed frieze, which traces America’s history from the landing of Columbus to the birth of aviation, was painted to give the illusion of a carved stone relief. Scenes designed and painted by Constantino Brumidi were completed after his death by Filippo Costaggini. The last three scenes were designed and painted by Allyn Cox in 1953.

Here General George Washington, on horseback, receives the sword of surrender from Major General O’Hara, who represented Lord Cornwallis after his defeat at Yorktown, the last battle of the American Revolution (1781).

The fact that the surrender at Yorktown is included in these nineteen images celebrating the history of America shows how iconic the Lord Cornwallis sword is. It is the very symbol of the surrender, identifying the actual moment that marks American Independence.

According to the diary of Lt. Col. Comte Dupleix de Cadignan (1738-1824), acquired by the Library of the Cincinatti in 2017, General Cornwallis paid a diplomatic visit in full military dress to General Washington at midday on 21 October 1781 “chez lui” and they were left “tout seul” and there was “pas de fierte”. I believe these four words chez lui and tout seul have extraordinary significance, as they can only signify that Cornwallis visited Washington in his oval battle tent which is presently preserved in the Museum of the American Revolutionary War in Philadelphia. I suggest that this extraordinary visit was the first time that power was transferred in an oval space on American soil and was the beginning of the present day tradition whereby the outgoing President is left with his successor, alone, in the Oval Office of the White House on the day of Inauguration in order to discuss, in total confidence, the focus of his past administration and suggest his opinion for possible future priorities. Therefore, the Yorktown Surrender sword, preserved by my maternal family for 200 years, has symbolized a historic transfer of power from empire to republic, from colony to rising superpower. Today the Cornwallis Sword stands as a symbol of reconciliation and diplomacy in a world once again in need of dialogue and diplomacy.

Many of the contemporary paintings that have commemorated the surrender at Yorktown were painted after the events of that week. Since we know that that Cornwallis and Washington never actually met on the day of the surrender it is only the paintings of the two men on foot in front of or inside the tent that are historically accurate according to French eye witness reports.

The discovery of Lt.Col. Comte Dupleix de Cadignan’s diary describes in minute detail this historic meeting on 21 October.

The Lord Cornwallis sword is an English short dress sword with a steel blade, worn by a gentleman at court or in an official capacity and so is ceremonial, unlike the curved blades of swords for use in battle. The steel blade could have been made in Birmingham or Sheffield, both centres of the steel industry in the eighteenth century. The very clear hallmarks on the silver pommel indicate that it was made in London by ‘I. S.’ (though who this may be is not known) and dated 1741. The leather scabbard is modern, but the silver mounts would appear to be mid-18th century. The top mount bears an inscription which reads: ‘The Gift of Genl. Cornwallis 1750’. The inscription references a Genl. Cornwallis and gives a date of 1750 which offers clues to the provenance. It is British aristocratic tradition that a sword was always worn by Pages of Honour to the monarch as an essential part of Court dress when they were on duty at Court and it was also traditional for young Etonians from aristocratic families to carry swords at school, as a mark of status at school. The inscription, describing a gift of `Genl.’ Cornwallis only, refers to his uncle Edward Cornwallis (1713-1776), who was famous enough to be known simply as General Cornwallis, as he had put down the Jacobite rebellion in 1745 and given the position of Governor of Nova Scotia (1749-52) and then Governor of Gibraltar. So, at the time that Charles Cornwallis enrolled at Eton in 1753, his uncle Edward had become his mentor, sharing the same royal appointment of Page of Honour to the same monarch King George II and he encouraged his nephew’s choice of military career. His uncle’s gift of a sword would have had considerable sentimental significance to the aspiring young soldier who did not complete his studies at Clare College, Cambridge (his father Charles, 1^st Earl Cornwallis’ college) but instead left prematurely before matriculating to take up a place at the distinguished Royal Military Academy in Turin, all on the advice of uncle Edward. In Turin, Charles learned an advanced understanding of siege warfare, fortification systems, and continental miliary discipline.

The sword and scabbard

This ceremonial sword from his time as a royal page would have travelled with him throughout his military career, more out of sentimentality than practical use, and thus it is the obvious sword that he would have chosen to hand over at the historic surrender since it had been given to him by his Uncle Edward for Charles to carry when on duty attending King George II at the State Opening of Parliament and Garter ceremonies.

Following the surrender, Cornwallis returned to England in January of 1782. He served as an ambassador to Prussia in 1785 and served as Governor-General and commander in chief in India from 1786-1794 and was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1798. He was reappointed Governor-General of India in 1805 and died in Gauspur in modern-day Ghazipur on 5 October of that year. He is buried there on the banks of the Ganges.

Charles Cornwallis (at the left) wearing the Yorktown surrender sometime after 1786 in India.

The tomb of Lord Cornwallis is located in Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, India, overlooking the Ganges River. Lord Charles Cornwallis, the British Governor-General of India, died in Ghazipur on October 5, 1805, shortly after his arrival. The site is currently protected and maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India.

The monument to Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis (1738–1805), is located inside St Paul’s Cathedral, London. Sculpted by John Charles Felix Rossi, dated 1879

The sword came into the possession of my father Robin Neville, 10th Lord Braybrooke, the direct descendant of Richard Neville, 3rd Lord Braybrooke, who married Lady Jane Cornwallis in 1819, granddaughter of the 1st Marquess Cornwallis. The 2^nd Marquess, also Charles, only had daughters and the eldest was Lady Jane. The family legend surrounding the sword has always been that it was the sword which was surrendered at Yorktown.

Marriage settlement with Jane Cornwallis' signature, 1819, National Archives, PRO 30/11

Based on this documentation the sword was loaned to the Yorktown Victory Centre in Virginia in 1981 for the bicentennial celebration of the British surrender in 1781. The sword was also loaned to the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation of Virginia in 2001 for a special exhibition. That year the sword was considered as the surrender sword and was copied and reproduced by Wilkinson Sword, with 1,000 copies made and sold as collector's items primarily in the United States.

In May 2025, I brought the Cornwallis sword to be exhibited in the National Army Museum at Fort Belvoir and spent time in the Library of the Cincinnati in Washington reading the eyewitness reports of the French officers at the Battle of Yorktown with Dr Iris de Rode. We concluded that the diaries of the Comte’s Chastellux, Dupleix de Cadignan and Rochambeau add nuance and detail to the narrative of events after the capitulation at Yorktown.

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The strength and influence of the Countesses of Derby continued through the centuries. Alice Spencer, the 5th Countess of Derby(1556–1637) was a formidable patron of the arts and a woman of influence during a turbulent Elizabethan age.

Perhaps none embodied resilience more than Charlotte de la Trémoille, the 7th Countess of Derby(1599–1664). During the English Civil War she defended Lathom House, standing firm against the forces of Oliver Cromwell. For months she held the siege with extraordinary resolve, protecting her family and estate even in the face of overwhelming pressure. After the execution of her husband in 1651, she still held the family together with remarkable dignity.

In later generations, Derby women continued to navigate the fragile politics of empire and war. The wife of the 14th Earl of Derby worked tirelessly behind the scenes to keep Britain out of the American Civil War. The 15th Countess used diplomacy in an attempt to temper Britain’s involvement in the Crimean conflict, but in the end the opposing view of Queen Victoria and Benjamin Disraeli initiated Britain’s involvement.

During the First World War, Alice, the 17th Countess of Derby, faced the immense pressures of conflict while her husband served as Secretary of State for War.

Today, as the world feels so fragile - a tinderbox of tensions where small fires never quite go out, I often reflect on the strength of the women who came before us as well as the men who supported the war efforts for their country.

I also look closer to home. I think of my dear friend Sophie, HRH The Duchess of Edinburgh, who quietly and steadfastly travels to some of the most difficult places in the world to support women affected by conflict. Her calm strength, unflinching compassion when she witnesses the horror of sexual violence used as a weapon of war, shows her dedication to women living in war zones and is an inspiration to me.

On International Women’s Day, I celebrate the courage of women past and present, those who stood firm in the face of adversity in the past, and the positive role women continue to play in conflict resolution and building peace.

#IWD2026 #InternationalWomensDay #WomenInHistory #DerbyWomen #WomenPeaceSecurity #EndSexualViolenceInConflict #GlobalSecurity #PSVI #WPS Find out more about the Derby women here: https://online.fliphtml5.com/RushVFX/dbuo/

There is something rather fitting about welcoming the Year of the Horse here at Knowsley Hall.

Horses have always been woven through every part of my life, in portraiture, in racing silks, children’s ponies and my own dressage horses. To me they are not simply a sporting pastime or animals to ride; they are my friends, my soul mates and the heartbeat of my life. My horses set the rhythym, pace and pattern for everything I do.

In a schedule of work that seems to grow by the minute, with longer hours, annoying technology (yes I would swap a laptop for my saddle any day!), I find my moments out at my stables are respite and escapism.

It is my space to take a breath, I have often wondered why.

Perhaps it is the depth of the senses that horses give. When hacking out or schooling I lose myself in the bond we have. Even the depth of sound is noticeable, the woodpeckers right now are so active in the woods behind the house and I notice it is impossible to determine how close or far away they are. There is variation in just about everything, again, so different from being sat at a desk where everything is so measured and predictable. It means I feel completely present. There is no room for distraction, no half-attention.

And something else happens too. From horseback, I actually see the estate. Not in passing through the windscreen of a car, or between meetings, but properly. The sweep of parkland. The way the light falls across the façade. The deer spotted at the edge of woodland. Riding gives me the rare gift of time to think and process and I notice that so many times I find a new direction or an answer to a question I have been pondering.

There is no performance or judgement from ponies!

No expectation, except the tea-time bucket

Only presence and mutual respect.

And there is something else, too, something deeply human. Children grow. They stretch their wings and, as they should, fly the nest. Their independence is a joy, but it changes the rhythm of a home. Horses, however, remain constant. They rely on me, in rain, in frost, in heatwave or holiday. They need feeding, checking, riding, caring for, no matter the weather or the date on the calendar.

When I speak of highs and lows, I do so knowing how closely intertwined they can be. When she was just 15, my sister Henrietta died following a fall from a horse, something so painfully bound to the very world that has always given me strength.

The consistency is strangely comforting. The horses still depend on my steadiness, and I depend on theirs. We need each other.

At Knowsley, the presence of horses is both historic and entirely alive. The family’s racing legacy still echoes across generations with the journey we travelled on with our homebred classic winners Ouija Board and Australia.

In an age defined by acceleration, horses are a counterbalance. They remind us that connection, real connection is built not through noise but through presence and responsibility.

So as we mark this Year of the Horse, I am grateful. Grateful for the horses in my life and those that are gone but not forgotten.

#yearofthehorse, #ChineseNewYear2026, #LunarNewYear2026 #horsegirlforlife, #equestrian, #horsesofinstagram, #horseracing

𝑷𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒓𝒆: 𝑷𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆, 𝑨𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒔, 𝑫𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒄𝒆, 𝑶𝒖𝒊𝒋𝒂 𝑩𝒐𝒂𝒓𝒅, 𝑷𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒔, 𝒎𝒚 𝒔𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑯𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒂 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒚 𝒅𝒂𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑯𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒂 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒚 𝒑𝒐𝒏𝒊𝒆𝒔.

The surrender at Yorktown is often remembered as the end of one story - Britain defeated, America free. But in reality, it was also the beginning of another: a reshaping of Anglo-American relations that continues to echo today. Andrew O'Shaughnessy joins us to reflect on Cornwallis’s legacy, both as a man and as a symbol of imperial change. Far from a coward, Cornwallis emerges as a complex reformer and loyalist, a man caught between sympathy for the colonies and devotion to empire. What can his story teach us about leadership, defeat, and the rewriting of history?

‘𝑻𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒖𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒘𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒔, 𝑫𝒊𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑫𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒕’

@thecountessofderby
@knowsleyhall
@knowsleyestate

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Corroborated meeting between Generals Cornwallis and Washington at Yorktown USA on the 21st of October 1781. My forebear Charles Cornwallis is too often remembered as the coward who refused to attend the surrender. But behind that caricature lies a more complex man: an officer who had once sympathised with colonial grievances, a pragmatist caught between duty to empire and recognition of change, and a pivotal character in one of history's most significant revolutions.
On Friday 25th of April 2025, I had arranged to have tea with the President of the Society of the Cincinnati, Anderson Morse and, arriving early, asked the librarian Thomas Lannon if I could see any French eye-witness reports between the 17th to 23rd October 1781. I saw the diaries of Lauberdière, Rochambeau and Jean Baptiste Dupleix de Cadignan, but the latters' manuscript tantalisingly revealed that Cornwallis paid a diplomatic visit to General Washington on the 21st October at midday, '𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙯 𝙡𝙪𝙞' and they were left '𝙩𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙨𝙚𝙪𝙡'. We realised the significance immediately, of this symbolic meeting of the transfer of power between two leaders in an oval space - since 'chez lui' can only be interpreted as Washington's battle tent.This also addresses the problem of all the images of Cornwallis and Washington dressed in their full military regalia, which 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻 on the 19th of October but rather, as this French eye-witness report describes, the meeting of these two generals did occur on the 21st of October 1781.

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Andrew O'Shaughnessy Iris de Rode @Thomas Lannon @Roly Walker @Anderson Morse Jeremy Black Andrew Roberts Andrew Roberts Andrew Lambert @FCDOGovUK UK in USA Washington Post
Museum of the American Revolution National Museum of the United States Army

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🌿 Why Knowsley Hall?

Ahead of my exciting upcoming invitation to attend Sundance film festival next week, it feels like a perfect moment to share this new filming locations reel. A moment for me to take a step back to really see a place - its textures, its light, its history - and let yourself be reminded why a location like this can capture the imagination. As part of my preparation for the festival I have been taking in a number of films and it reminded me of how important the right location can be to a production. Notably Hamnet was a real showcase, such beauty captured in every shot! Watching this reel for the first time reminded me that Knowsley Hall is one of those rare places where elegance isn’t just a visual flourish, it’s embedded in every corridor, garden and vista.

Set just outside Liverpool in Merseyside, Knowsley Hall has been the ancestral seat of the Earls of Derby for over six centuries and is steeped in history and grandeur.

The Jewel of the North West

Knowsley Hall offers a compelling mix of cinematic potential and production practicality:

🎥 Exclusivity & Privacy - Entire estate use means uninterrupted filming.
✈️ Close to Liverpool & Manchester Airports - Easy logistics for cast and crew.
🏛️ Period-Correct Interiors - Authentic historic rooms with rich architectural detail.
🌳 2,500 Acres of Gardens & Parkland - Landscapes that deliver natural variety and scale.
🚗 Miles of Unmarked Private Roads - Perfect for vehicle sequences, tracking shots, and controlled access.
💧 Extensive Lakes & Ponds - Visual interest and scope for outdoors storytelling.
🎬 On-Site Production Support - Including helipad, parking and unit base.

Knowsley Hall has already been featured in major productions - from TV dramas to high-end commercial shoots - and continues to attract creatives looking for timeless and impactful locations.

Want to Find Out More?

To explore filming opportunities or ask about availability, head to:

👉 www.knowsley.com/filming-on-the-knowsley-estate

Whether you’re scouting your next big project or just love cinematic spaces as much as I do, I hope this reel gives you a fresh perspective on one of the North West’s most iconic estates.

Here’s to locations that inspire - both on screen and off. 🎥✨

Filmed by Paul McHugh @the_vp_supe

Charles, 1st Marquess Cornwallis (1738 -1805), was a leading figure in late 18th century Britain. His career spanned both the American and French Revolutionary Wars, the Irish Union and the building of the Second British Empire in India as both General and Governor General for which King George III bestowed up him the Knight of the Garter and elevated him to the rank of Marquess. But despite such honours he was linked inextricably with the unacceptable face of Britain’s colonial past and portrayed as a coward who failed to attend the surrender at the Battle of Yorktown on 19th October 1781. I believe a fresh appraisal is overdue and as his direct descendent - I, Caroline, 19th Countess of Derby seek to give a more balanced nuance as the distinguished Soldier and Statesmen in a Revolutionary world. I was born Caroline Neville, daughter of the 10th Lord Braybrooke whose forbear the 3rd Lord Braybrooke married Lady Jane Cornwallis, granddaughter of General Charles Cornwallis. So I grew up steeped in the history of the Anglo American war and lived with General Cornwallis’s sword in an umbrella stand in my father’s dressing room. In May 2025 I found new evidence in a diary of a French count fighting under General Rochambeau in the Library of the Cincinnati that describes new events on 21 October, 1781- coincidentally my own wedding anniversary.

The real Cornwallis, the most aristocratic of the generals in America, he was also the commander who burnt all his equipment at Ramseur’s Mill in North Carolina in a dogged determination to defeat General Greene. Far from being obsessed with his sartorial elegance as his caricature portrayed in the movie The Patriot, he was admired by his troops for sharing their deprivations and sleeping outside without a tent. Moreover, he had offered the enslaved people who fought for the British their freedom, if he had won the battle.

He was very much the professional soldier, who despite his opposition to the imperial policies that had provoked the war, agreed to serve in America. Cornwallis emerges as a reformer with a deep empathy for those under his command of all creeds and colours and who recognised the limitations of British power in North America, India and Ireland.

Contributors

Lady Derby was born in London and raised at Audley End Estate near Cambridge. A lifelong student of history and art, she studied History of Art at London University before joining the Royal Collection, where she helped preserve and display treasures at Buckingham Palace,Windsor Castle, and other royal residences. She is now a an Ambassador for the English Speaking Union (USA).

Since her marriage to Edward Stanley, 19th Earl ofDerby, in 1994, she has been dedicated to restoring Knowsley Hall—the ancestral seat of the Stanley family, linked to her descent from General Lord Cornwallis and once home to General John Burgoyne.

An accomplished horsewoman and national champion in dressage to music, Lady Derby is also a committed philanthropist, serving for 25 years as President of Alder Hey Children’s Charity. As custodian of the Cornwallis surrender sword, she is deeply engaged in using Knowsley’s heritage to foster reconciliation and understanding. In hosting the upcoming event Dinners of Diplomacy, she ensures that the history of surrender and reconciliation at Yorktown is remembered not only as a military turning point, but as a lesson in dialogue, civility, and shared humanity.

Professor Andrew O’Shaughnessy is a leading historian of the American Revolution and its global dimensions.

Educated at Oxford University, he is Professor of History at the University of Virginia and Senior Research Fellow at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, where he served as Vice President and Saunders Director from 2003 to 2023. He is the author of award-winning works including An Empire Divided: The American Revoution and the British Caribbean (2000), The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (2013), and The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind: Thomas Jefferson’s Idea of a University (2021). His research has reshaped understanding of British leadership during the Revolutionary era, emphasizing complexity, diplomacy, and the intertwined destinies of empire and republic. As co-organizer of the event Dinners of Diplomacy, Dr. O’Shaughnessy brings unparalleled expertise on Britain’s role in the Revolutionary crisis, helping to frame the event around the theme that Yorktown was not only an end to conflict, but also a beginning for reconciliation and dialogue.

Dr. Iris de Rode is a Dutch historian specializing in the French-American alliance during the American Revolution. A postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy, she has received more than twenty fellowships from institutions including Mount Vernon, Monticello, and the American Philosophical Society. Her prizewinning research—based on her discovery of the private papers of French General Chastellux—has shed new light on the diplomacy, strategy, and transatlantic connections that shaped the birth of the United States.

Beyond her scholarship, Dr. de Rode is a sought-after advisor for museums, cultural institutions, and media projects in Europe and the United States. As co-organizer of Dinners of Diplomacy, she brings academic expertise and public engagement skills, ensuring that the story of Yorktown is told as a shared history—French, British, and American—and framed as a legacy of cooperation rather than division.

© Laura Kunst

Lord (Andrew) Roberts of Belgravia has written twenty books which have been translated into twenty-eight languages and have won thirteen literary prizes. These include Churchill: Walking with Destiny, Napoleon: A Life, Masters and Commanders, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, George III: The Life and Reign of Britain’s Most Misunderstood Monarch, and most recently Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare 1945 to Ukraine, which he co-authored with General David Petraeus. Lord Roberts is the Bonnie and Tom McCloskey Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he hosts the podcast Secrets of Statecraft with Andrew Roberts - https://www.hoover.org/publications/secrets-statecraft-andrew-roberts - a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society, and a visiting professor at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. His website can be found at www.andrew-roberts.net

In conversation with historians Drs Stephen Lloyd, Geoff Hicks, Lisa Francavilla and Professors Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Jeanie Grant Moore and diplomat Patrice Dallaire, we reflect on his early travels, his engagement with ideas beyond Britain’s shores, and the complexity of his political legacy. What continues to resonate with me is how history can quietly recede unless we make the effort to revisit it, to ask not just what happened, but why it mattered, and why it still does.

Listening again to this episode reaffirmed something I care for deeply: history is not static. It lives through conversation, curiosity, and a willingness to look again.

With that spirit very much in mind, I’m also excited to share a personal announcement……

🎙️ My new podcast ‘Season 2 of Tribute on Charles Cornwallis’, will be released on Thursday the 15th of January

This new series has been a labour of care and reflection, and it builds upon the same values that guide Living History: thoughtful dialogue, careful listening, and a desire to discover new research and bring overlooked stories into clearer view. I look forward to sharing this with you next week.

Thank you, as always, for listening, reading, and engaging so generously with this work and especially to my followers, on this new channel. I hope you enjoy this series, especially in this special anniversary year celebrating and revisiting the 250th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence.

#LivingHistory #HistoryPodcast #EarlOfDerby #HistoricalReflection
#NewPodcast #PodcastLaunch #Storytelling #HistoryMatters

I have been asked many times over the last five years why I have become so passionately absorbed by the life of the 14th Earl of Derby, Edward Geoffrey Stanley. Why him? Why now? And why with such intensity that I would spend half a decade studying him, publish two books, retrace his journeys, make a podcast, and produce a documentary?

It is a fair question.
And, as I begin this Substack, a place where I want to write in my own voice, freely and from the heart, I realise that answering this why is the only honest place to start.

The Moment Everything Changed

My journey began with a cupboard in the Library at Knowsley Hall. A simple cupboard, and inside it the extraordinary discovery of the Earl’s travel journals, his private accounts of Europe and North America, written long before he became the three-time Prime Minister to Queen Victoria.

They were dusty, forgotten, and utterly alive.

But even then, I felt something deeper. The journals were not the reason I became consumed by him; they were merely the spark. What pulled me in, what kept me in, was a sense that his experiences spoke urgently to our world today.

I did not only want to study what he did.
I wanted to understand why he became who he became.

And, strangely, I wanted to understand why I felt so taken by him.

A Man Who Looked Outward

Edward Geoffrey Stanley was many things: a scholar, a statesman, a political leader of unusual longevity, but also a traveler at a time when travel meant immersion, risk, wonder, revulsion, curiosity, and deep human connection.

He crossed Europe and North America not as a spectator, but as a listener.

He put himself, quite literally in other people’s shoes.
He encountered cultures that challenged him, people who broadened him, and injustices that disturbed him.

Those experiences shaped the policies that later defined his legacy:

• Non-denominational state education

• Parliamentary Reform

• Acts of Religious Toleration

• The Abolition of Slavery in the Colonies of the British Empire

These were not abstract political ideas. They were the direct result of what he had seen, felt, and learned by stepping into the wider world.

This, I slowly realised, was the relevance.

The Modern-Day Echo

Today, on the very day I write this, Australia had begun its first day of banning social media for teens. Here in Britain, we are witnessing our children spend more and more of their lives online, with an alarming decline in basic oracy skills.

Only this week, the radio reported that the government is considering mandatory training for young people on how to make a phone call and even how to shake a hand in an interview. And interviews may soon be renamed appointments so they feel less intimidating.

Somehow, in one generation, real-world interaction has become a specialised skill.

And this is where the Earl’s story feels so strikingly modern.

His entire early life, and later his political vision, was shaped by engagement, not isolation; by seeing the world, not scrolling through it; by listening to others, not remaining inside an algorithmic echo chamber.

There is a message here for young men and women today:
Step into the world. Experience it. Let it shape you.

Understanding how people think, how societies breathe, how cultures perceive one another, is not only enriching; it is foundational to understanding how businesses, governments, and communities function.

It is the great antidote to a life lived behind glass.

Five Years of Following His Footsteps

So I followed him.

I retraced his journeys across Europe and North America to feel, as best I could, what he felt. I wanted to see the landscapes that shaped him, meet people along the way, and observe the world through the eyes of the young man he once was.

Over five years, I:

• Published his European and North American travel diaries

• Produced a podcast series

• Created a documentary

• And, gradually, found my own voice in the process

What began as a historical investigation became something far more personal. I was trying to understand him, yes, but I was also trying to understand why his story had taken such firm hold of me.

And the truth is that I still cannot entirely explain the “why”.
But I do know this:

He reminds me that the world must be experienced, not merely observed.
And that lessons learned through direct human encounter never lose relevance.

A North American Tour Journal 1824-1825: The Making of a Prime Minister

A North American Tour Journal 1824-1825 The Making of a Prime Minister

My Promise for This Substack

This is my first post, and I wanted it to come from the heart.

Here, I hope to share not only the Earl’s remarkable story, but also the reflections, questions, and modern parallels that have emerged from walking alongside him, for half a decade.

As Mark Twain said – “History does not repeat itself. It Rhymes”
But it does speak to us and we should listen.
Edward Geoffrey Stanley has been speaking to me for years.

I’m ready now to share why.

Cazzy, The Countess of Derby

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