It was nearly midnight when the Wiltshire police were called out to “an altercation” at Longleat House, Britain’s oldest unfortified stately home. Who were the culprits? Braying Hoorays? Tourists who’d accidentally wandered into the estate’s lion enclosure?
No, the scrappers turned out to be two women, one aged 62, who was taken to hospital suffering from cuts and a suspected broken nose. The other, aged 45, was arrested on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm.
And the cause of the fight? The famously polygamous Alexander Thynn, seventh Marquess of Bath, who, despite being 79, still inspires high feelings among his 75 wifelets, as his mistresses are called.
“It’s been a nightmare but it was all a fuss about nothing,” sighs Amanda Doyle, the 45-year-old wifelet in question. Three weeks have passed since the Sunday night imbroglio, and we are sitting in a café near Doyle’s flat in the grimy Holloway Road in north London, a far cry from Longleat’s Elizabethan splendour.
“Alexander and I were so shocked when the police arrived because there was no injury. They arrested me but then they had to drop bail because there was obviously nothing to substantiate a very serious allegation. I’m not into violence and I don’t wish to have a criminal record.”
