ninme

Keeping us apprised of interesting (and ennobled) obituaries, Rueful Red sends us the following for this Bonfire Night:

Telegraph – Obituaries – Lord Michael Fitzalan Howard

Major-General Lord Michael Fitzalan Howard, who died on November 2 aged 91, earned an MC in north-west Europe during the Second World War; later he became Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, responsible for easing the tensions and uncertainties in ambassadors and high commissioners as he escorted them in the State landau to present their credentials to the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

Tall, dignified and supremely elegant in cocked hat with white plumes, he had an easy, suggestively ducal manner that led many who saw them together to believe that he, not his elder brother Miles, was the 17th Duke of Norfolk.

Tidbit one:

Michael Fitzalan Howard was born on October 22 1916, one of four boys and four girls, all of whom were given Christian names beginning with M by their parents, the 3rd Lord Howard of Glossop and the 11th Baroness Beaumont.

The children grew up in an atmosphere of piety and frugal economy at Carlton Towers, their mother’s ancestral seat in North Yorkshire, said never to have been bought or sold since the Conquest.

Tidbit two:

As Miles’s brigade became embroiled in a four-day duel with tough SS troops holding an isolated position at La Marvindiere, Michael and Martin were (unknown to each other) engaged a few miles to the south in the same battle. …

In both his Estry attack and in this action, the citation for his MC declared, “Major Fitzalan Howard’s cool leadership and undefeatable determination contributed more than any other single factor to the obtaining of those objectives”.

Shortly afterwards, Michael became brigade major of 32nd Brigade, alongside Miles in the Guards Armoured Division, for the advance on Brussels.

With Miles on the left and Michael on the right, Major-General Sir Allan Adair gave them the objective of capturing Brussels, 70 miles away, declaring that the city’s railway bridge was to be the winning-post in the fraternal race. Michael won.

Later Michael broke through to Eindhoven, where Miles took over from him. Michael’s men then paused for rest and refuelling, and his game book recorded some partridge shooting in the rain before the division pushed on to the Elbe. Looking back on a campaign that covered 1,500 miles and cost 956 killed and 545 missing, Adair wrote: “Special mention must be made of the two brigade majors – the Fitzalan Howard brothers.”

And three:

Michael Fitzalan Howard was a devout Catholic with an unassuming manner and a deep love of the countryside.

He married, in 1946, Jean Hamilton-Dalrymple, daughter of Sir Hew Hamilton-Dalrymple, Bt; but she died a year later, shortly after the birth of their daughter. In 1950 he married Margaret Meade-Newman, daughter of Captain WP Meade-Newman; they had four sons (three of whom were Tom, Dick and Harry) and a daughter. After Margaret’s death in 1995 he married Victoria Baring, widow of Sir Mark Baring.

(That’s the other thing about British journalists (or maybe just those for the Times and Telegraph?), I can’t imagine many American journalists can write that extensive middle section about tank battles and formations and citations, and yet even in these postmodern times it seems like something British journalists still learn how to do.)

As for bonfire night, I’ve got a couple of eucalyptus seed pods I need to open up, and I’m debating whether or not it’s a good idea to set fire to them what with the condo rules about open flames and the fire department two doors down… But I could call one Guy and the other Fawkes and teach them both a lesson about blowing up parliament and the monarch.