Plas Newydd and the Menai Straits

We spent the day visiting this NT property, a large stately home of grey stone and mullioned windows, overlooking the Menai Straits and although there was a brisk breeze whistling along the grey water, it was warm for October. Wild cyclamen were glowing like tiny pink lanterns under the gloom of some of the large trees and the Italian Garden still had a few late flowers holding on.
The main building, in one form or another, has been on this site since the late 1300’s with generations of owners intimately tied up with it, waxing and waning with fortune and opportunity. 
Bringing people to life again through their historical footprint is a strange business and the current exhibition concerning the life of the 5th Marquess of Anglesey (1875 – 1905) is one of the strangest. The facts show that he inherited the title and estate at the age of 23, which provided an income of about 18million per annum, and within the six remaining years of his life had spent the lot on the most lavish of theatricals and in particular, fantastic costumes, dripping with jewels and gold. The huge sale of everything in Plas Newydd in 1904 could not assuage his debts. He died the year after at the age of 29 in relative poverty.
The questions this stark life story raises are myriad, all revolving around what sort of person could squander everything he had inherited for ‘A Loveless Life of Glitter and Folly?’ What pain and joy beat in his heart as he danced on stage, wrote his pantomimes, designed his costumes and commissioned thousands and thousands of self-photographs. Was he enacting a revenge against an ignored childhood, or making a statement for the gay community, or spoilt to a point where he could not believe that his position would not protect him forever? He was not unintelligent, unlike his father he spoke French, German Russian and Welsh. Did he already feel the seeds of death in his body and determine that he would have the best time before he went?
Or was he one, like so many others, who find the world such a hard place the only means to relate to it is to become part a of fairy tale? His only difference was that he had the financial means to try and do it. My sister looking at some of his portraits thought he had a guileless face.
In the end, as the banner above the great staircase spelled out, 'All that is left is ourselves.'