Stephen Tennant
Encyclopedia
Stephen James Napier Tennant (21 April 1906 – 28 February 1987) was a British
aristocrat known for his decadent lifestyle. It is said, albeit apocrypha
lly, that he spent most of his life in bed.
, the youngest son of a Scots
peer
, Lord Glenconner, and the former Pamela Wyndham, one of the Wyndham sisters and of The Souls
clique. His mother was also a cousin of Lord Alfred Douglas
(1870–1945), Oscar Wilde
's lover and a sonnet
eer. On his father's death, Tennant's mother married Lord Grey
, a fellow bird-lover. Tennant's eldest brother was Edward
- "Bim" - who was killed in the First World War
.
, Tennant was an important member - the "Brightest", it is said - of the "Bright Young People
." His friends included Rex Whistler
, Cecil Beaton
, the Sitwells
, Lady Diana Manners and the Mitford girls
– part of the set that made the Nordstrom Sisters
popular at The Ritz
in 1939. He is widely considered to be the model for Cedric Hampton in Nancy Mitford's
novel Love in a Cold Climate
; one of the inspirations for Lord Sebastian Flyte
in Waugh's
Brideshead Revisited
, and a model for Hon. Miles Malpractice in some of his other novels.
- Lascar. It is popularly believed that he spent the last 17 years of his life in bed at his family manor
at Wilsford, Wiltshire
, which he had redecorated by Syrie Maugham. Though undoubtedly idle, he was not truly lethargic: he made several visits to the United States
and Italy
, and struck up many new friendships, despite his later reputation as a recluse
. This became increasingly true only towards the last years of his life. Yet even then, his life was not uneventful: he became landlord to V. S. Naipaul
who immortalised Tennant in his novel The Enigma of Arrival
.
Siegfried Sassoon
. Prior to this he had proposed to a friend, Elizabeth Lowndes, but had been rejected. (Hoare relates how Tennant discussed plans with Lowndes about bringing his Nanny
with them on their honeymoon
.) His relationship with Sassoon, however, was to be his most important: it lasted some four years before Tennant off-handedly put an abrupt end to it. Sassoon was reportedly depressed afterwards for three months, until Sassoon married in 1933 and became a father in 1936.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
aristocrat known for his decadent lifestyle. It is said, albeit apocrypha
Apocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
lly, that he spent most of his life in bed.
Early life
He was born in EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the youngest son of a Scots
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
peer
Peerage
The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...
, Lord Glenconner, and the former Pamela Wyndham, one of the Wyndham sisters and of The Souls
The Souls
The Souls were a small, loosely-knit but distinctive social group in England, from 1885 to about 1920. Their members included many of the most distinguished English politicians and intellectuals....
clique. His mother was also a cousin of Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas , nicknamed Bosie, was a British author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde...
(1870–1945), Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's lover and a sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
eer. On his father's death, Tennant's mother married Lord Grey
Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon
Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon KG, PC, FZL, DL , better known as Sir Edward Grey, Bt, was a British Liberal statesman. He served as Foreign Secretary from 1905 to 1916, the longest continuous tenure of any person in that office...
, a fellow bird-lover. Tennant's eldest brother was Edward
Edward Wyndham Tennant
Lt. Edward Wyndham Tennant , was an English war poet, killed at the Battle of the Somme.He was the son of Edward Tennant, who became Lord Glenconner in 1911, and Pamela Wyndham, a writer, Lady Glenconner and later wife of Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon...
- "Bim" - who was killed in the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
Social set
During the 20s and 30s30s
-Significant people:* Tiberius, Roman Emperor * Gaius Caesar Germanicus/Caligula, Roman Emperor * Jesus Christ, founding figure of Christianity,...
, Tennant was an important member - the "Brightest", it is said - of the "Bright Young People
Bright Young People
The Bright Young People was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London. They threw elaborate fancy dress parties, went on elaborate treasure hunts through nighttime London, and drank heavily and experimented with drugs—all of which...
." His friends included Rex Whistler
Rex Whistler
Reginald John 'Rex' Whistler was a British artist, designer and illustrator.-Biography:Rex Whistler was born in Eltham, Kent, the son of Henry and Helen Frances Mary Whistler...
, Cecil Beaton
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, CBE was an English fashion and portrait photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre...
, the Sitwells
The Sitwells
The Sitwells , from Scarborough, North Yorkshire, were three siblings, who formed an identifiable literary and artistic clique around themselves in London in the period roughly 1916 to 1930...
, Lady Diana Manners and the Mitford girls
Mitford family
The Mitford family is a minor aristocratic English family that traces its origins in Northumberland back to the time of the Norman conquest. In the Middle Ages they had been Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main family line had seats at Mitford Castle, Mitford Old Manor House and from 1828...
– part of the set that made the Nordstrom Sisters
Nordstrom Sisters
The Nordstrom Sisters were an American cabaret act which performed internationally from 1931 to 1976.Dagmar Nordstrom the younger of the two sisters was a composer, arranger and the pianist of the duo...
popular at The Ritz
Ritz Hotel
The Ritz London is a luxury 5-star hotel located in Piccadilly and overlooking Green Park in London.- History :Swiss hotelier César Ritz, former manager of the Savoy Hotel, opened the hotel on 24 May 1906...
in 1939. He is widely considered to be the model for Cedric Hampton in Nancy Mitford's
Nancy Mitford
Nancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years...
novel Love in a Cold Climate
Love in a Cold Climate
Love in a Cold Climate is a novel by Nancy Mitford, first published in 1949. The title is a direct quotation from George Orwell's novel Keep The Aspidistra Flying .-Plot summary:...
; one of the inspirations for Lord Sebastian Flyte
Sebastian Flyte
Lord Sebastian Flyte is a fictional character from the Evelyn Waugh novel Brideshead Revisited.-Character:Sebastian is the younger son and second eldest child of the Marquess of Marchmain and a member of the aristocratic Flyte family, which is portrayed as symbolic of the decline of the English...
in Waugh's
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. Waugh wrote that the novel "deals with what is theologically termed 'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by...
, and a model for Hon. Miles Malpractice in some of his other novels.
Writing
For most of his life, Tennant tried to start or finish a novelNovel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
- Lascar. It is popularly believed that he spent the last 17 years of his life in bed at his family manor
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
at Wilsford, Wiltshire
Wilsford, Wiltshire
Wilsford is a village and civil parish in the Vale of Pewsey in the English county of Wiltshire-Local government:Wilsford is grouped with nearby Charlton, Kennet, the two together have an elected parish council...
, which he had redecorated by Syrie Maugham. Though undoubtedly idle, he was not truly lethargic: he made several visits to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and struck up many new friendships, despite his later reputation as a recluse
Recluse
A recluse is a person who lives in voluntary seclusion from the public and society, often close to nature. The word is from the Latin recludere, which means "shut up" or "sequester." There are many potential reasons for becoming a recluse: a personal philosophy that rejects consumer society; a...
. This became increasingly true only towards the last years of his life. Yet even then, his life was not uneventful: he became landlord to V. S. Naipaul
V. S. Naipaul
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad "V. S." Naipaul, TC is a Nobel prize-winning Indo-Trinidadian-British writer who is known for his novels focusing on the legacy of the British Empire's colonialism...
who immortalised Tennant in his novel The Enigma of Arrival
The Enigma of Arrival
The Enigma of Arrival: A Novel in Five Sections is a 1987 novel by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul.Mostly an autobiography, the book is composed of four sections which reflect the growing familiarity and changing perceptions of Naipaul upon his arrival in various countries after leaving his native...
.
Personal life
During the 1920s and 1930s, Tennant had a sexual affair with the poetPoet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's...
. Prior to this he had proposed to a friend, Elizabeth Lowndes, but had been rejected. (Hoare relates how Tennant discussed plans with Lowndes about bringing his Nanny
Nanny
A nanny, childminder or child care provider, is an individual who provides care for one or more children in a family as a service...
with them on their honeymoon
Honeymoon
-History:One early reference to a honeymoon is in Deuteronomy 24:5 “When a man is newly wed, he need not go out on a military expedition, nor shall any public duty be imposed on him...
.) His relationship with Sassoon, however, was to be his most important: it lasted some four years before Tennant off-handedly put an abrupt end to it. Sassoon was reportedly depressed afterwards for three months, until Sassoon married in 1933 and became a father in 1936.