Julie Montagu/American Viscountess/Mapperton

[verybighouseinthecountry]

She's not on TV so telly addicts board didn't seem apt. Does anyone else watch her/their YouTube channel? So many questions....her husband looks like Boris Johnson's younger brother, is the walking definition of a posho and very politely keeps mocking her. What did she see in him? What did he see in her? Where did they meet?
I think she's quite remarkable, she seems to do absolutely everything and he just seems so...posh....in a very unattractive way. Watched him today constantly insulting her and can't for the life of me see what she sees in him.
And yes, I'm very jealous that she lives in a country estate, but it's falling apart and he appears to have made this her problem to solve!

I really hope Julie is getting paid for all of her apple picking, yoga retreats and renovating Italian apartments. She keeps saying they she need to do a lot of the work themselves as they have no money, I really hope she is lining her own pockets!

@verybighouseinthecountry It depends family to family but a lot of the time the estate will pass with the title if that’s the way it’s set up. In some families where the title has gone sideways estates have had their entails broken so that they can pass separately. I can think of a few cases where this is likely to happen in the next ~30 years, where there’s no direct heir but the current landowner doesn’t want his successor to inherit the estate so he has or plans to split it off.

Re marrying ‘down’, that is a pretty outdated concept tbh. It’s pretty rare for peers or future peers to marry daughters of the same. Society has changed, thankfully. There are plenty of unpleasant people in the landowning community people who look down on supposedly ‘lesser’ people marrying their sons/daughters, just as in all walks of life, but in my experience most parents – even of future peers! – just want their children to be happy and to marry the right person. Marrying into a house like Mapperton isn’t for the faint-hearted and it puts an awful lot of people off, for good reason. It is quite an undertaking.

Julie isn’t the only American wife of a current or future peer, and there is plenty of precedent for this if you look at the turn of the century, the ‘dollar princesses’ etc.

YABU. Yes Julie is a bundle of energy and non stop, but it is pretty much her choice. The Little Italian House is hers, not Luke's. She does not look after the estate or the animals, Luke and his staff do. He is the one making the big decisions because the estate and title is his. Ultimately he bears all the responsibility and it is rubbish to say he has made it her responsibility. They each play to their strengths. Julie enjoys the renovations and the research into the history of the family. She is not put upon.
Before he took over Mapperton, Luke had a career in the film industry, and his 'addiction' was as a result of medical negligence for which he received compensation. He was not an addict in the normal sense and apparently the withdrawal was horrendous and it took a long time for him to recover.
Re Julie's 2 older children, they were very young when Julie and Luke married and have been absorbed into the blended family and it seems to work well. But of course they can't inherit. Doesn't mean Luke is the evil stepfather.
I don't know them personally, but I watch their channels and live not far from Mapperton.

If it's entirely her choice I wonder why she's constantly run off her feet, saying she needs to find ways to generate money? Maybe she needs to pay for boarding school for the older 2? I was off today and binge watched Mapperton Live, it very much comes across that she is much more anxious about money and finding ways to generate an income from Mapperton than he is. Zero chemistry between them, and Julie seems quite desperate to please him. I never once said he's an evil step father, he looks quite ambivalent towards his own DC (well towards anything really). I saw Nestor today, omg can't believe how big he has become!
The point of talking about his addiction was within the context that he was in bed for several years and Julie had to completely take over the reins - financially, physically and emotionally.
@brushingboots I assume these aristocrats have some sort of income via trust, even if they aren't working? How does that work? Where do school fees get paid from?

@verybighouseinthecountry Honestly, you’d be (as would I) keen to find ways to make somewhere like Mapperton pay too! You’d do anything, just as they do. Everything is just SO expensive, and in the big scheme of things it isn’t even a very big house.

Some do have trusts, some don’t – it depends on the family, the family history, and how rich they are. I have several friends whose children's education is paid for by their husbands' family's private office, and very lucky they are too. There are plenty of wealthy trusts around and plenty of people who have a private income. Conversely though, most work. If you want to be technical about it about half of the families in the 793-strong hereditary peerage are landowning families, so for every peer or son of a peer who seems not to have a ‘proper job’, and ‘just’ runs his farm or big house, there’s another who works in a bank or wherever else. There are loads without estates anymore, including those who never really had them to start with.

There are lots of examples of women who marry into aristocratic families and end up being the energy and power behind the transformation and success of the house and estate. Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, Emma, Duchess of Rutland and Polly, Lady Leicester are good examples.

Emma and Polly certainly weren't from aristocratic backgrounds.

I think you'd find Deborah and Emma's book really interesting OP.

Totally agree @SeaAndStars. It's usually the women that are the power behind the throne, so to speak. You have to be a bit mad to do it but they are all amazing women who work their arses off for, quite frankly, something that isn't theirs, and more power to them. I've been writing about these families for over a decade and you couldn't pay me to be in their position.

I've just thought of another example, Fiona, Countess of Carnarvon. An absolute powerhouse of a woman who has been instrumental in Highclere's (Downton Abbey's) good fortune.

Debo Devonshire was a Honourable, the daughter of the second Baron Redesdale, though. OK, landed gentry only raised to the peerage in the 20thc, and not wealthy, but large inherited estates and landowners.

@verybighouseinthecountry I just don't see why you are determined to put Luke in the wrong here. Julie wears her heart on her sleeve and rarely stops talking, Luke is very different but to say he is indifferent about his wife and children is just ridiculous. All the kids have now left school and the older ones are all working. When you talked about his 'addiction' it gave the impression he was a drug or drink addict whereas his illness was caused by withdrawal of a prescription drug.
He is constantly asking Julie to slow down but she won't. Nobody is making her do an MA, or masses of research into the Guilded Age Heiresses or write books or do so many things. She does it because she loves living life at speed and good on her.

I'm not determined to do anything, this is a chat board and in my OP I was asking if anyone else watched them and what they thought 🙄 You seem to know them intimately - I haven't watched anything where it has even been acknowledged that Julie had DC from a previous relationship, but you are stating that they have been welcomed by the extended family.
Regarding the addiction, the only thing I know about it is an interview that Luke himself gave, and he called it an addiction. Regardless, whatever he was addicted to isn't the issue, it was only mentioned within the context of Julie having to step up. I do however think anyone with any form of addiction is a much less desirable partner.
I have no proximity to aristocrats, which is why this is such an interest to me. The more people are saying the more baffling it seems to me why women like Julie (who have not come from this background) would be drawn to it. Can you imagine her on AIBU:

"I'm working 80 hours a week to support my husband's business, grow the potential income and neither I nor 50% of my DC will see any inheritance".

I think there would be a number of LTBs. Of course, her life her choice. But there must be some common denominator in women like this. I do stand by my claim that he belittles her, often in a roundabout way. Maybe that's just his way? It does seem to agitate her though.

That's why I didn't include her when I said the other two ladies aren't from aristocratic backgrounds.

"The more people are saying the more baffling it seems to me why women like Julie (who have not come from this background) would be drawn to it."

Perhaps they fall in love and she would've married the man if he was a prince or a pauper.

Perhaps the status, title, opportunity to live in a fabulous house and garden, to have your own swimming pool, summer in the South of France and 1,900 acres of glorious West Dorset was the draw. Who knows?

"Can you imagine her on AIBU:
'I'm working 80 hours a week to support my husband's business, grow the potential income and neither I nor 50% of my DC will see any inheritance'."

Julie seems to choose to do this. Many women work as hard for much less reward. Whilst she and her children won't inherit I cannot believe for one moment there is not provision for her. Dowagers are provided for and her children, even if they don't inherit will have all the advantages that come with the lifestyle they have lived, the connections they have made. I expect Julie will have her own money to pass on, much of which will have been made via her connection with Mapperton.

Okay so @SeaAndStars you don’t sound like Julie pretending to be a random on Mumsnet posting on the thread but you do sound like a paid member of their staff. Are you?

@Sweetbeansandmochi Absolutely not. I'm a complete random on MN and all I know about the aristocracy has come from reading Debo Devonshire and Emma Manner's books and a misspent youth with Jilly Cooper's novels.