James Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet

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James Denzil Valentine Gilbert Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet,  born 24 July 1997, is the younger son and second child of three born to Lady Crispin Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet (Constance, n é e the Hon. Constance Ivy Diana de Clifforde, now the Hon. Lady Trulock CBE) and the late Lord Crispin Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet, who was the younger brother of the Duke of Taunton.

The nephew of Charles, Duke of Taunton, he is in remainder to the dukedom of Taunton; and also to the barony of Mallerstang [pronounced, ‘Mawst’n’] and Swarthfell; to the earldom of Wigan; and to the dukedom of Trowbridge and Warminster.

Life
 Owing to the deficiencies in Lord Crispin’s character and his long absences abroad, ‘Jamie’ Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet, like his elder brother Rupert, now Master of Dilton, and their younger sister Henrietta Maria (‘Hetty’), was raised by their mother and yet more by their uncle, Charles, Duke of Taunton. His Grace being a ‘sport’ as an intellectual in the peerage – Tony Blair, in the lead up to House of Lords reform, described the Duke as ‘the only intellectual amongst the hereditaries’ –, and a very distinguished historian, the educations of his nephews and niece were considerably supplemented by His Grace at the dinner table. In consequence, Jamie Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet set his heart on becoming an historian after his uncle’s example; and imbibed from him a world-weary, rather middle-aged cynicism regarding human motivations, from an early age. Unlike his high-minded elder brother, who ‘has strategy but no real comprehension of how people interact[] upon lower planes’ and plays chess very well indeed, James ‘understands human motives all too well and all too cynically, yet has (for all his cynicism) no gift for grand strategy’ and, in place of chess, ‘plays positively murderous poker’.

 The brothers also differ in that Rupert notoriously looks as if he were a rower, but is in fact a cricketer; Jamie, like a cricketer, although he is in fact a rower. Indeed, he is the complete water-baby, whose interests include swimming, wild swimming, sailing, and canal narrowboats, of which he received a remarkable one as a birthday gift for his ‘eighteener’ in the Summer preceding his going up to Oxford: Chard,  a restored a working boat built by Harland & Wolff in 1936, restored and modified into a perfect expression of the cruising, pleasure narrowboat, without losing her traditional air. Her roses-and-castles decorations, paintwork and painted posies, japanned water-tins and signage, rope-work and brightwork, had all been designed by the late Sir Bennett Salmon KBE RA, although, owing to his death in old age prior to Jamie’s majority, Sir Ben’s most noted pupil, Martin Lawton-Martyn RA, had had the execution of the restorations.

As a waterman by instinct, he is specially fond of Melverley Court.

 Having previously taken out (at his mother’s urging) Cicely Sandys-Wentworth, great-grandniece to the late Lord Esthwaite, he is currently seeing, with his uncle’s approval, the Hon. Catherine Carew-Fettiplace-Bourchier-Poyntz, daughter of Maurice, Lord Ardagh, and his wife Julia, sister to the Earl of Maynooth. The Hon. Miss Carew-Fettiplace-Bourchier-Poyntz is a distant cousin to Jamie and also to Rupert’s girlfriend, Arabella Grenville-Arundell-Courtenay, more nearly: like ‘Bells’, ‘Cats’ is descended of the Landrakes and of the Marquesses of Evercreech and Chesterblade.

James and the Hon. Catherine are generally expected to marry within the next five years.

Education and sporting career
Educated at Cheam as his prepper and then at Eton, he is as of 2017 reading History at Oriel. With his elder brother, he is suspected of being the brains behind several recent rags; but it has been impossible for the University to found grounds on which to take action.

As a descendant of the 19th Century figure, Amelia, Lady Clare (born Abida Nawabzadi Mirza Khan, a daughter of the contemporary Nawab of Hubli, who married young Ensign Clare, having converted to do so, in a runaway match), he and his siblings are technically Desi: a point HH the present Nawab amuses himself by making to his old College and University.

The Provost of Oriel has described Jamie and his brother Rupert as ‘the perfect Oxford undergraduates … of 1913’; and it is an Oxonian commonplace that, although the brothers are affable, approachable, and wholly without side, ‘somehow, the two are always a pace apart and aside from their fellows and contemporaries – or several miles, if something adolescently stupid were being planned or begun. Both possess humour and wit; but their sense of fun is different to that of the common run, their gods are not the gods of others...’.

James Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet rows for Oriel College Boat Club and for OULRC, the Oxford University Lightweight Rowing Club, and has coxed development crews for OUBC (Blue Boat and Isis alike).