May 3rd 1791

There were so many reasons we all enjoyed Downton Abbey from the characters, the location (obviously) and the witty lines which in some cases have become part of our everyday language. At one point Mr Carson commended us to travel in hope which is excellent advice on every count. It is always better to be a glass half full.

Six weeks ago, Geordie and I travelled to Warsaw in Poland. Through a mutual friend I had been asked to give a talk about the value of heritage and historical perspective. The wife of the President of Poland opened the conference, and I then rather nervously stepped on stage to begin with a few words in Polish.

I had in fact written about Poland before going, but being there, meeting people, walking through the streets, palaces and museums, eating local food is just so different. I had asked David our archivist to see if he could find any references to Poland in our records not expecting much but, to my surprise, he found a 10-page account from Warsaw written by the 2nd Earl of Carnarvon recounting the events and feelings of 3rd May 1791.

This particular period was a time of turbulence in ideas and politics and both the American Wars of Independence and the French revolution had given hope to many that they could share and influence how they lived. At that time Warsaw was one the of the most beautiful cities in Europe, the “Paris of the East” and painted by Bernardo Bellotto, (known as Canaletto), in over 20 extremely detailed, fabulous paintings. He was a Venetian painter who served as court painter to the Polish King Stanisław August Poniatowski from 1767 until his death in 1780.

At a time when kings ruled almost alone in most of Europe, Polish reformers and the king worked together to create a law that shared power and protected citizens’ rights. It was the first modern constitution in Europe and the second in the world.  

Geographically, Poland lay to the east of the many German princely states of that time and to the west of the Russia of Catherine the Great. The 1791 Constitution was a response to the increasingly perilous situation in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. Once a major European power, it was still the largest state on the continent. King Stanisław August Poniatowski was the principal author of the constitution and, it was recognised by political scientists as a remarkably progressive document for its time, reflecting the vision of the 18th century Enlightenment.

One of the things it included was Rousseau’s concept of the social retract. With the philosopher John Locke, Rousseau argued that each of us acquires civil rights when we accept the obligation to respect and protect the rights of others. We therefore have to relinquish certain personal freedoms in the process. Law and political order are human creations and the political order they create are a means towards an end for the benefit of the individuals involved. 

The other key theme at this time was Montesquieu’s advocacy of a balance of power between three branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial, and of a bicameral legislature. 

Sadly, the Republic failed after two years, and the once expansive and successful kingdom of Poland became caught between the growing Empires on all its borders. Its weakness meant that the Polish commonwealth was partitioned several times.

The Impact of World War Two on Warsaw was beyond words with buildings razed to their foundations, a vast loss of life and the destruction of much of its heritage. Some of the past city has been painstakingly rebuilt using the Canaletto paintings as a guide to what the city once looked like. Standing in Warsaw giving my talk, it was rather extraordinary to think that Geordie’s ancestor was once here as well, standing on the same spot.

The Highclere archives also have a letter from a famous Polish General Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746–1817), a great military engineer and national hero both in Poland and Lithuania. However, he began his career in the USA where he designed fortifications for West Point, New York. He was promoted to brigadier general in the U.S. Army in 1783 so he is a USA hero too. I am not sure we know how lucky we are in this country to retain archives, letters and diairies, touching the letters written 250 years  ago and to read and thus hear the voices of our predecessors.