Rupert, Master of Dilton

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Rupert Charles Edward Donald Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet, Master of Dilton (confirmed Lyon Court 2015), born 10 July 1996, is the elder son of 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.

He is heir presumptive in the dukedom of Taunton (and its subsidiary Scots earldom of Dilton) to his uncle the present Duke, and as such bears the Scots title of ‘Master of Dilton’; through his mother, he is the heir presumptive to the barony of Mallerstang [pronounced, ‘Mawst’n’] and Swarthfell, currently held by their aged cousin Hugo, Lord Mallerstang and Swarthfell, who succeeded his cousin Rodger, Lady Trulock’s father, in that title, which had passed to Rodger, Lord Mallerstang, from yet a third cousin.

 He is also, through his maternal grandmother Pamela (n é e Portingale-Vypont), the late Lady Mallerstang, in remainder to the earldom of Wigan, Pamela, Lady Mallerstang, having been the daughter of the then Lord Wigan. He is likewise in remainder to the dukedom of Trowbridge and Warminster, currently held by his distant cousin Christopher, Duke of Trowbridge, whose only child and heir, Peregrine, Lord Corsham, is in a same-sex civil partnership with John Julian, Lord Dereham, elder son of the Marquess of Breckland and Swaffham.

Life
The autumnal-hued Rupert, Master of Dilton, is the eldest of the three children of, as they then were, Lord and Lady Crispin Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet. His brother, James Denzil Valentine Gilbert Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet, is the second child of that marriage; their sister, the youngest, is Henrietta Maria Flora Anne Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet. Lord Crispin having been a modern remittance man, the three children were raised largely by their uncle and by their mother, at the Dower House, Wolfdown.

As heir presumptive to his uncle, he is not entitled to the courtesy title (Marquess of Templecombe) of the heirs apparent to that dukedom; he is however, as was his father until his death, entitled, from the Scots peerage held as a subsidiary title, to the Scots style and substantive dignity of Master of Dilton. This was confirmed to him upon Lord Crispin’s death by the Court of the Lord Lyon, in 2015.

It has been aptly remarked that ‘Rupe’s the one who looks like a wet-bob [rower], but is a dry-bob [cricketer]; Jamie’s the one who looks like flannelled fool at the wicket [cricketer], but is a boatie [rower].’ It is likewise remarked, notably by their ducal uncle’s old friend the Warden of All Souls Oxon, that the high-minded and philosophic Rupert ‘has strategy but no real comprehension of how people interact[] upon lower planes, whilst James [who was trained by his uncle to an historian’s jaundiced view] understands human motives all too well and all too cynically, yet has (for all his cynicism) no gift for grand strategy. Rupert plays excellent chess. James plays positively murderous poker’. Unfortunately for those who would take advantage, the brothers tend to hunt in couple, and supply one another’s deficiencies.

 Unlike his father and his uncle, and unlike his mother and his maternal grandparents Rodger, Lord Mallerstang and Swarthfell and his baroness Pamela, the Master of Dilton has been the eventual prospective heir to very considerable wealth since his birth: a fact which has not turned his head in the least. The Guardian  placed him in 2015 second in its ‘Jeunesse Dorée’ list, estimating his potential inheritance, in 2015 money as, ‘at least £825 million’ and noting that

‘ His inheritance is likely to consist of some 112 thousand acres of property, much of it in Wiltshire ... but also including estates in Highland, in Perthshire, in Cheshire, in Shropshire, and in Worcestershire; lesser holdings in Hampshire and in the West Country generally; small bits of the City of Westminster, and larger bits of Haringey, Newham, and Croydon; and a money-spinning tract in Thurrock, where the family and its trusts own much of the land being used for ports, docks, refineries, and the Thames Gateway Project. With that come such treasures as Taunton House in W1; Wolfdown House in Wilts; and innumerable Old Masters and other pretty toys. With ground rents in Taunton Square and Taunton Crescent, and the Thurrock revenues, Rupert need never sell a stick of wood, an acre of country land, or a single Raphael cartoon to keep rolling in it; and the present duke has followed in the footsteps of his predecessors in having the family Trusts tied so tightly that all the barristers in all the Inns, and HMRC, cannot do much damage. Our estimate is therefore on the conservative side, and presumes that the estates will remain intact without need of development.

‘ His mother, Lady Crispin, is the only child of the late Lord Mallerstang and Swarthfell, whose successor in that title, the current Lord Mallerstang, is an elderly widower with no surviving sons. Although the Mallerstangs have not been very rich since before the Great War, and have long since sold up their estates, Rupert is very much in the line of succession to that title and any property which comes with it; and also, should a cousin or two die, to the succession to the earldom of Wigan (the late Lady Mallerstang was the daughter of the last Earl of Wigan, whose title is currently abeyant; and there is still a little landed property in trust on that side of his mother’s family). It is likelier still that he may very well succeed his cousin and near neighbour Kit Trowbridge, who is assuredly not short of the readies: it is worth noting that both the Duke of Trowbridge, a widower, and his only child and heir, Lord Corsham ( see 4, below), are in same-sex civil partnerships; Rupert is currently only two places down the list of successors. There is a very high likelihood that Rupert may scoop that pool as well, which would add at least half again as much to his prospects, and leave him with a treble dukedom.’

Since that list was published, the Duke of Taunton has assisted Lord Mallerstang in clawing back – and considerably expanding – the lost Mallerstang estates in Westmorland, Cumberland, and the West Riding (Cumbria and West Yorkshire); and considerably increased also the value of the Taunton Estates, well into the billionaire range.

Having attained his majority, Rupert’s residences are as follows:  Dilton is a former member of OUCC Authentics and a current member of, inter alia, and of  In addition to cricket, he is a highly competent player of squash; real tennis; and polo; a fencer; a enthusiast of field sports; and an angler.
 * The Maister’s Haudin, Camserney Castle, Camserney, Lurgan, Perth & Kinross
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Edenhead Lodge, Hellgill Hall, Mallerstang Morville cum Swarthfell Vypont, Westmorland (‘Cumbria’)
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Malet House, the Close, Salisbury, Wilts
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Wolfdown House, Woolfont Abbas, Wilts
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">OUCC Blues
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Duke of Taunton’s Hunt
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Royal Bath & West Society
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Royal Agricultural Society of England
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the National Farmers Union
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Angling Trust
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">CAMRA
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Countryside Alliance
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Woolfonts Young Farmers Club
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Camserney, Balmore & Farleyer JAC (SAYFC)
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Tidnock YFC
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Cumbria Wildlife Trust
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Cumbria County History Trust;
 * <p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">the Westmorland County Agricultural Society.

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal"> He is currently seeing (Elizabeth) Arabella (Caroline Grace) Grenville-Arundell-Courtenay, who is up at Somerville, reading Music. She is the granddaughter to Lady Landrake and great-granddaughter to the late sixth Marquess of Evercreech and Chesterblade. They are generally expected to marry within the next three years.

Education and sporting career
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Educated at Cheam as his prepper and then at Eton, Dilton is a of 2017 reading Maths & Philosophy at the House (Christ Church Oxon). He is notorious for having answered, at his interview, with reference to his intended course of study, that ‘Philosophy answers the question, Is it right and just to destroy so deliberately ugly a building [Blue Boar Quadrangle, which Dilton detests as modernist, and by the existence of which he is insulted, owing to its sharing a name with one of the Taunton armorial supporters]; Maths, with a bit of help from Engineering and Chemistry, quite usefully tells one how to do so’: which raised eyebrows only amongst dons who did not know his uncle very well.

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Even these dons, however, recognised his formidable intelligence; and, according to Oxford legend, recognised also that Rupert, Master of Dilton, was the next great hope for Christ Church and Oxford cricket. Both expectations have been amply fulfilled.

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">With his brother Jamie, now reading History at Oriel, he is credited – but has never been established – as being the brains behind the more resounding rags and hoaxes at Oxford in the past two years. All attempts by the University authorities to trace these to their source have ended at the gates of All Souls, however, the Warden of which has known the brothers Fitzjames all their lives, as a sort of honorary godfather, and of which college HG the Duke of Taunton is a Fellow.

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Although regarded with commingled suspicion and despair by the go-ahead Dean of Christ Church (as is true of James Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet vis-à-vis the Provost of Oriel), and by other University authorities of the trendier – or proctorial – sort, Dilton is in himself largely inoffensive (many of the suspicions attaching to him arising from his uncle’s reputation, and, in another sense, from his late father’s); and he is further protected by three other considerations.

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">The first of these is that he is regarded as a dead cert. for a First, and indeed for a congratulatory First, as was the case for his uncle.

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">The second is that, 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.

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">The third and perhaps most important consideration is that Dilton is precisely the OUCC standout one might expect of the son of ‘Spin’ Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet, the nephew of the then Charles, Lord Templecombe (the present Duke of Taunton), the protégé of ‘Tigger’ Mirza Khan (HH the Nawab of Hubli), and the pupil of ‘The Breener’ (Brian Maguire CBE).

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Oxford is not disposed to dispense for any light cause with the play of a Blue who is already inevitably being nicknamed ‘The Master’ and bats like WG Grace crossed with Jack Hobbs.

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">The Provost of Oriel has described Rupert and his brother Jamie 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 were always a pace apart and aside from their fellows and contemporaries – or several miles, if something adolescently stupid were being planned or begun. Both possessed humour and wit; but their sense of fun was different to that of the common run, their gods were not the gods of others...’.

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">As a long-time ringer and student of campanology, the mathematically-minded Master of Dilton has composed several well-regarded peals, and has also written papers on the subject: Pythagoras, Group Theory, Set Theory, and Algebraic Permutations in Method-Ringing, and, arising from the research in that paper, Pythagoras’ Hammer: ‘Affective key characteristics’, harmony, consonance, and the mathematics of Handel’s suites for harpsichord, with special consideration of the ‘Air and Variations’ of Suite 5 in E, HWV 430.

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">A former chorister at Abbas church, the Master of Dilton is now ex officio patron and lay rector, jointly with the Bishop and with HG the Duke of Taunton) of The Somerfords (Somerford Mally with Somerford Canons alias Canonicorum, Somerford Tout Saints with Lamsford, Cliff Ambries with Shifford Ombres and Combe Woddley als Waddlycombe) and Harstbournes (Chalford Mallet with Hawksbourne, Harstbourne Fitzwarren with Harstbourne Sallis and Harstbourne Fratrum als Friars), all newly merged into the Combined Benefice.