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

 

Summary (from the publisher): When the 9th Duke of Rutland died alone in the cramped family archives on April 21, 1940, his son and heir, Charles, ordered the room sealed. Sixty years later, Catherine Bailey became one of the first historians allowed inside. What she discovered when she began reading through the duke's letters was a mystery involving one of the most powerful families in British society in the turbulent days leading up to World War I. The 9th Duke, who had devoted his entire adult life to organizing and cataloging several hundred years' worth of family correspondence, had carefully erased three periods of his life from the record. But why? Filled with fascinating real-life characters, a mysterious death, family secrets, and affairs aplenty. The Secret Rooms is an enthralling, page-turning true story that reads like an Agatha Christie novel.

Review: When author Catherine Bailey arrived at Belvoir Castle, home of the Duke of Manners, to research a potential book idea, she instead stumbled upon a family secret. John Henry Montagu Manners, the 9th Duke of Rutland, was one of the richest men in Britain. Yet in his final days, as he lay dying at the age of 53, he refused to be removed from the cramped family archives room and seemed desperately intent on attempting to finish something he had been working on. Bailey discovered that the Duke, who devoted most of his adult life to cataloging several hundred years' worth of family correspondence, had neatly clipped three periods of his life from the family record. What was he trying to hide? What consumed him so even as he was dying? Bailey instead began to research this very different storyline and uncovered the secrets that the Duke had tried so hard to cover up. 

This was an absolutely fascinating true story. The combination of wealth, a huge castle that has been in the family since the 1560s, servant rumors of a curse on the duke's family, and a combination of destroyed letters and some left behind written in a cipher ensures that the book hardly reads like non-fiction. Behind the mystery is a man who led a relatively sad life despite his wealth and high place in society. A childhood tragedy led to years of virtual neglect away from home and a lack of true affection from his parents. Even as an adult, the duke failed to ever truly find happiness and died relatively young and unhappily in his archives room, desperately trying to hide the parts of his life he was most ashamed of. 

Despite being over four hundred pages long, this was a fast read, largely because of the intriguing story told within its pages. I appreciated Bailey's inclusion of her research experiences and how she came to be interested in the particular story told in this book. The descriptions of her interacting with servants within the castle added to the early mystery of the story and gave context and background. The second half of the book, which got more bogged down in the duke's military service wasn't quite as interesting, but a necessary inclusion to uncover the central mystery of his life. All in all a well-researched true story of a lesser known aristocratic British family whose secrets make for a great read. 

Stars: 4