Windsor Castle was originally built by William the Conqueror in the decade after the Norman Conquest of 1066. William established a defensive ring of motte and bailey castles around London; each was a day’s march – about 20 miles– from the City and from the next castle, allowing for easy reinforcements in a crisis. Windsor Castle, one of this ring of fortifications, was strategically important because of its proximity to both the River Thames, a key medieval route into London, and Windsor Forest, a royal hunting preserve previously used by the Saxon kings

Windsor is one of the many names that the Normans brought with them when they conquered England in 1066. The Windsor family lived in Berkshire, at Windsor Castle. Interestingly, “The Stanwell family claim descent from Walter Fitz-Other (fl. 1087), who held that manor at the time of Domesday Book and was warder of Windsor Castle, whence he derived the name Windsor This was not the only time a family would assume the name of the castle as in 1917, the present Royal family would do the same.

How Did the Royal Family Become the Windsor’s?

The Hanoverians ruled Britain from 1714 through basically through 1837. After the end of the Commonwealth, which ceased in 1659, with the death of Oliver Cromwell’s son Richard, there was a restoration of the Stuart Kings: Charles II and James II. The Stuart Dynasty ended badly in 1688 after the Glorious Revolution. William of Orange had invaded Britain over the continuing conflict, regarding not only succession, but the religious politics regarding the attempted restoration of Catholicism. The attempt to restore the Catholic Church to religious primacy was actuated by the arrest and trial of the Archbishop of Canterbury and six of his Bishops. When they were acquitted, James II attempted to flee Britain, was captured and forced off the throne. He later died in 1701.

His removal brought on the era of the Dutch Reign with the dual monarchy of William and Mary (1689-94) and eventually that of their unmarried daughter Anne (1702-1714). In between, there was the short reign of Mary II another Stuart. With her death brought on the end of the Stuart Line and the three Georges from Hanover, Germany.

The sons of George III were, according to the Duke of Wellington, were “millstones around the neck of any government that can be imagined.” George III lived to age 81 and died blind and deaf on January 29, 1820. Before his death, he had been rumored to be delusional or insane. His eldest son, George Augustus Frederick, was known of the “Prince of Pleasure,” and became the Regent while his father, George III was incapacitated.

His title was conferred by the Regency Act on February 5, 1811. Subject to certain limitations for a period, the prince regent was able to exercise the full powers of the King. The precedent of the Regency Crisis of 1788 (from which George III recovered before it was necessary to appoint a regent) was followed. The Prince of Wales continued as regent until his father’s death in 1820, when he became George IV. This period would be later known as “The Regency,” a period of style, clothing, architecture, excessive spending, and debt. The Regent never deprived himself anything. He fell in love in 1784 with a Roman Catholic widow, Maria Fitzherbert and married her.

Though the ceremony was illegal, and the Prince disclaimed it, the affair shocked the public and infuriated his father George III. Eventually, he was forced to marry Princess Caroline of Brunswick and his private life went from bad to worse. Their relationship was impossible and in fact, he despised her. Eventually, after two weeks she left him for Italy. When the King George III finally died in 1820, she returned to claim her rights as Queen. After divorce proceedings and the efforts of Parliament to deprive her of any claims, the Privy Council decreed that she had no rights to her title. Amazingly, she died two weeks later, and the problem was resolved. George IV never remarried, had no children, but a number of mistresses. Over the next years, his health deteriorated along with his grotesque bulk. In 1830, he suffered a number of strokes and died. Most of his subjects would have agreed with Horace Walpole’s (The youngest son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Oxford,) view was that “he was a bad son, a bad husband, a bad father, a bad subject, a bad monarch and a bad friend.”

George IV’s only legitimate child Charlotte, died in childbirth in 1817, thirteen years before his death in 1830. There were no younger Hanoverians left in direct line to the throne. His second brother, William, Duke of Clarence, abandoned his mistress of twenty years and the mother of his ten children. After several rebuffs he was accepted by Amelia Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, a minor German principality. Though there was rapid births, two daughters died in infancy and there were still born twins, there were never any heirs. The third brother, Edward, Duke of Kent, gave up his French mistress of 25 years and married Victoria of Leiningen. In 1819 they had a daughter, the future Queen Victoria, The fourth brother was Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, was an unpleasant, sexual pervert, already married to a German princess, who was rumored to have murdered her two previous husbands. With all the other siblings, there was no other available heir. Thus, with the death of George IV and the succession of his 75 year old brother, William, the reputation of the monarchy was at a low ebb, and he did little to revive it. There were many struggles with Parliament, the question of a Reform Bill and the problems in Ireland. He dismissed the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, the last time a monarch was able to do that act, and Robert Peel, became Prime Minister. Peel found he couldn’t govern without a coalition, and William was reluctantly forced reappoint Melbourne. Aside from his gruff and blunt manner, he was regarded with a certain amount of affection, though combined, at times, with a lack of respect, bordering on contempt. He died in 1837 after a bout of pneumonia. The British crown went to his niece Victoria, and the crown of Hanover, barred to women by Salic Law, went to his brother, Ernest Duke of Cumberland.

As Victoria succeeded to the throne, which had been occupied by the three German Kings, known in the words of Sir Sidney Lea, “An imbecile, a profligate, and a buffoon!” Meanwhile, she had been brought up in a cloistered atmosphere by her controlling mother, the Duchess of Kent, who was under total influence of Sir John Conroy, the Comptroller of the Household. Her mother assumed that she would serve as Regent for her young daughter, who she saw as a pliant tool in their hands. Victoria had a strong sense of what she wanted, and was able to break away from her mother’s control and domination. After a period of leaning on dominant men, she met and married, at age 20, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, another German. He was bright, innovative, and he guided her skillfully until his death from typhoid in 1861. She entered a prolonged period of mourning as she retreated to her homes in Balmoral. Windsor and Osborn. She would remain out of sight for years, until her Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli was able to convince Parliament, against great opposition, to make her Empress of India in 1876. Eventually, in 1887, she celebrated her Golden Jubilee, regained a great deal of popularity and that popularity grew until her Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

She had become a great symbol for Britain, and had rescued the monarchy from the disasters of the Hanoverians and her own retreat from the face of her people. When she died in old age in 1901, there was a definite sense of loss and the end of an era. Her daughter lamented of an England without the Queen’s presence.

It was in 1901, the line of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (itself a cadet branch of the House of Wettin) succeeded the House of Hanover to the British monarchy, with the accession of King Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. In 1917, the name of the British royal house was changed from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the English Windsor because of anti-German sentiment in the United Kingdom during the First World War.

Victoria’s son, who would become Edward VII, was born Albert Edward. As the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cornwall, among his numerous titles, was known as Bertie to his family. He was trained by tutors from the age of three to be intellectually disciplined. He married Princess Alexandra of Denmark at age of 22. Victoria never expected much of her son, and she may have been correct. He lived a profligate life and was cited often in divorce proceedings. He was helped by his wife’s “blind” eye to his numerous dalliances. In fact, he had an insatiable appetite for wine, women, song, gluttony and gambling. When he became King, in 1901, after a very long wait until the age 60, he had been given few royal responsibilities .As King, his conduct didn’t improve, it may have worsened. But, he actually was quite popular, and after the austere period of the Victorian Age, his lifestyle and the wealth of Britain opened up a new era, called the Edwardian Age, He had high marks for his ability to influence foreign diplomacy. But his lifestyle caught up with him and after a series of heart attacks, he died on May 6, 1910, only nine years into his reign.

George V was the second son of Edward VII. His older brother Albert was groomed for the crown, but died of pneumonia in 1892. George not only took his older brother’s place, but his fiancée, May of Teck, known later as Queen Mary. After he had become king, following the death of his father Edward VII, the country was in the midst of a dual crisis regarding the limiting of the power of the House of Lords, and a very critical Home Rule Bill. After the war with Germany broke out in 1914, he became a great symbol of patriotism with his visits to the front and his curtailing of royal expenses. Generally, for a quiet and unassuming man, he remained popular, and highly admired. He certainly was not an intellect or terribly educated. His reign was plagued with post WWI problems, a general strike in 1926, and the onset of the Great Depression. During World War, George V declared the following:

Now, therefore, We, out of Our Royal Will and Authority, do hereby declare and announce that as from the date of this Our Royal Proclamation Our House and Family shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor, and that all the descendants in the male line of Our said Grandmother Queen Victoria who are subjects of these Realms, other than female descendants who may marry or may have married, shall bear the said Name of Windsor….

The name had a long association with monarchy in Britain, through the town of Windsor, Berkshire, and Windsor Castle; the link is alluded to in the Round Tower of Windsor Castle being the basis of the badge of the House of Windsor. It was suggested by Arthur Bigge, 1st Baron Stamfordham. Upon hearing that his cousin had changed the name of the British royal house to Windsor and in reference to Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, German Emperor Wilhelm II remarked jokingly that he planned to see “The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha”.

He had four children, was a stern, unfeeling, distracted and uninvolved parent, as was his wife, Queen Mary. His eldest son, who become Edward VIII, had his own problems. George V was so concerned about his conduct and his shirking of responsibilities that he confessed to a friend, “After I am gone, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months.” But, by 1935, the economy seemed to be improving, he celebrated 25 years on the throne, but his health started to deteriorate from chronic bronchitis. He passed away in January of 1936.

As the monarchy passed to his son Edward, it seemed that his father’s prediction had come true. Edward VIII was a 41 year old bachelor and had been a restless soul, mostly interested in a very fast set and married women. His social proclivities were not covered in the press and he was quite handsome and popular. But, beneath the outward glamour, he was seen, by people who knew him, as lonely and insecure. He had met many women in his years as Prince of Wales, but nothing came close to a suitable marriage. Eventually, he came in contact with the married, and once-divorced American, Wallis Warfield Simpson. Eventually after her 2^nd divorce, in October of 1936, he wanted to marry her. A constitutional crisis arose, and since he was head of the Church of England, a marriage to a divorced woman was basically illegal. Thus, the conflict could not be resolved in his favor. He abdicated in 1936 for his brother, George, who was hardly prepared for the role, could not speak well at all, had a horrible speech impediment, but at least had very smart and strong wife. Edward VIII, lived out his life as an exile, spent the war in Bermuda, visited the United States often, and died in 1972. Over the years his reputation has taken a mighty hit, especially regarding his fascist leanings, his visits to the 3^rd Reich before the war, and the theories that if Britain was forced to make peace on Nazi Germany’s terms, he would be placed back on the throne.

George VI was a very reluctant king, shy, introspective and the father of two young daughters. In a sense, his eldest daughter Elizabeth was the heir presumptive, assuming Edward VIII had remained king and never had children or her father never had a third child, who was a son. As a young boy he was never strong, had an uneasy relationship with his father and was highly strung. As a child he had developed a stammer. With the help and guidance of his wife, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and a speech therapist Lionel Logue, he eventually mastered his stammer. He had been active in WWI, served in the Navy and the Air Force, and became the first member of the Royal family to obtain a pilot’s license. His reign was dominated with the tensions that led to WWII, the war itself, and the difficult recovery Britain suffered through in post war period. He and his wife Elizabeth tirelessly toured the bombed out areas of London and made a narrow escape when Buckingham Palace was bombed. He announced that he was prepared to die there fighting. The King and Queen became incredibly popular, as with his two daughters.

He certainly was worn down by the war, but the worry didn’t kill him, but, for sure, his incessant smoking led to his lung cancer and death in 1952. Of course, that would lead to his daughter Elizabeth ascending the throne, and the rest is history.

As for the Windsor Dynasty- There have been five British monarchs of the House of Windsor since 1917: George V, Edward VIII, George VI, Elizabeth II, and Charles III.

Long ago, and faraway, back in 1964, in another city and state, I was looking for a summer job. For some reason, and I have no clue why, my cousin, Adrienne Wolman’s husband, Buddy (who passed away a number of years ago at age 95) got me a job working for a construction company, Hughes and Hughes, which was located in Scarsdale, NY. It seems that Buddy had a construction supply company, which leased gas-powered, mobile compressors that supplied power for jack hammers, which bore holes in rock. Thus, I wound up at their key location, Murdock Woods, right off Griffin Road at the border of Scarsdale and Mamaroneck. Murdock Woods is situated right in the middle of the confluence of three very nice golf courses, the world famous Winged Foot, where I caddied in the US Open, in 1959, Bonnie Briar and Quaker Ridge.  By the time I got there, about 50% of the lots had been completed. The houses sold in those long ago days for between $50 and $75,000. The houses have been expanded since that day, it seems, and I just looked up the prices on Zillow and they range from $2.5 to $3 million!

But, be that as it may, that is a story for another day. My boss was a fellow named Lee Hall, who must have been around 36 years old. He was a wiry and ruggedly handsome fellow and from Day One, we got along quite well. My basic job was to be a “gofer” for Lee. In other words, if Lee needed something, I would go get it. Often I would drive to places like Mahwah, NJ or Bensonhurst, (Brooklyn), NY to deposit money. They were always transferring money here and there.  I would also pick up plumbing supplies. Sometimes it would be a needed hydrant to connect to the water main or parts for a sink. I would get in my 1957 Chevy and drive into Port Chester, where there was a plumbing supply outlet, next to the old Lifesaver Building, which was on North Main Street and had been built in 1920. (By the way it is still there and is now the home to condos.) Every time I drove down that street, I could smell the Lifesavers.

Life Savers Building is a historic commercial and industrial building located on North Main Street between Horton and Wilkins Avenues at Port Chester, Westchester County, New York. It was built in 1920 and expanded in 1948–1949. It served as a manufacturing facility and headquarters of the Life Savers Candy Company until 1984. It is five stories high and constructed of reinforced concrete, brick, and terra cotta. It features larger-than-life replicas of Life Savers rolls at the foundation line.^[2] During its peak period of production in the 1960s, as many as 616 million rolls of Life Savers candy were produced each year in the facility. It was converted into a condominium complex in 1989. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

When I wasn’t running errands, I was working with the roofers, the carpenters, the masons and the demolition folks. I never helped the plumbers or the electricians. These guys were all old, experienced and weather-beaten. They didn’t suffer fools gladly. I just helped where I could, and kept my mouth shut. They sort of left me alone, maybe because I reported to Lee Hall. One thing sticks out glaringly in my mine was carrying up roofing tiles that weighed 67 pounds (each package) apiece on both shoulders. That was exceedingly dumb. Most of the time it was one package. I had quickly learned the folly of my ways.

Speaking of Buddy’s compressors, I actually worked with one of those jack hammers. They weighed at least 100 pounds, and the men who worked them, all had huge frames and big stomachs, and would add “bits” to the end of the main drill as the hole got deeper. Sometimes the extension on the jack hammer drill-bit would reach down 5 or more feet. There was a lot of glacial rock in Westchester that had to be blasted. After the hole was deep enough, the demolition experts would step in and take a stick of dynamite, divide it into quarter pieces, wire each piece, and lower the charges into the drilled hole. Once the charges were set, a back hoe would lift and lower a large, incredibly heavy, iron mesh, blanket on top of the area to contain the blast. It did. But the blast would lift the mesh up a few feet. One never should ever look directly at the blast, for often pebbles do escape and they can be deadly. Once in while one would fly out and break a window 1000 feet away.

Meanwhile, while I was sitting in the office, I picked up the ringing phone. It was a woman who lived in one of the newly occupied houses and wanted to speak to Lee. She was complaining that he had promised for weeks, or maybe months, to fix her driveway. Interestingly, Lee had a way with women, and he called her back and sweet talked her for 10 minutes or so. He said he would get up there as soon as possible. I listened to this interchange and wondered whether he was actually sincere. Right after he got off the phone, he said I’ll tell you a story!

He started to tell me that he had volunteered for the Merchant Marine, during WWII when he was 16, and found his way to Paris after it was liberated in late August of 1944. Sometime later, while in Paris, with tens of thousands of other Allied soldiers and personnel, he went into one of their large bars, which were populated with countless “working” women. Lee happened to sit down next to a very attractive young woman, and within a short time, he was quite enamored with her (on shipboard there are no women) and started to profess his love! Not long after he expressed his emotional interest. She answered, and I quote, “Love is bullsh*t, business is business.” Thus, each time an issue came up with Lee, he said to me, “Remember Paris, Love is bullsh*t, business is business.” I never forgot those sage words.

Meanwhile, the greatest threats to our Democracy is the concentration of the wealth in the hands of the few, the growing gap between the upper and lower middle class, the ignorance, know-nothing thinking, greed and the venality of Trump and his legion of haters, bigots, and flat-earthers!.  The increase in poverty is related to many factors. The first factor has been the decline of the middle class as our economic society has changed from diamond shape with a large middle class and small levels of the very poor and the very rich and the top and bottoms of the diamond to an hourglass with a small middle class at the pinch of the hourglass along with a large lower middle class and poor on the bottom and with a growing number of upper middle class and rich at the top.

Since Reagan resources have been flowing to the rich through fiscal policies regarding taxation and spending. In 1980, there were 12 billionaires, today there are over 735. The wealth of America has flowed from the large middle class to 735 families which control over $4.7 trillion of America’s wealth, and the 3-4% (12-5 million) who control another $5-2 trillion. The six Walmart heirs, who control $150 billion, have more wealth than the bottom 40% of the American population. This trend was accelerated in the four years of the Trump Administration. In 2016, there were 525 Billionaires and by December of 2022, that number grew to 735 and increase of 40%. Currently Elon Musk’s net worth is estimated to be $219 billion. (who knows now?)

Under Nixon and other presidents there was revenue-sharing to the states, but that has declined. This revenue funded infrastructure projects which created domestic jobs. Under Republican Administrations there has been a trend towards corporate conglomeration, the rise of giant box stores and marginalization of labor. As the influence of trade unions has declined, real wages have not kept up with inflation. Corporate compensation for high paid executives accelerated dramatically from 1970 through 2000, with a 3500% increase in Fortune 500 CEO pay as their wages went from a ratio of 37 to one over their average employee to over 1000 to one. In the same vein they received a tax cut from the Kennedy top bracket of 70% to Reagan’s 28%. The average worker in these companies saw his real wages go up, after discounting inflation, less than 10%. In 2017, US Corporations paid a smaller percentage into the Federal Treasury than at any time since the Federal Income Tax (FIT) was established in 1916.

In 2019, the Federal Reserve published its 40 year (since 1980) evaluation of Asset Allocation. In those 40 years, $21 trillion went to the 1% and $900 billion was lost by the bottom 50%! If one added $4 trillion that was also transferred to the next 3-4% of the top earners, the total transference would be about $25 trillion. As anyone can see, $25 trillion is a lot of money! It basically reflects the Republican incurred deficits (Recessions and recoveries) since the end of Bill Clinton’s 2^nd term, when the National Debt stood at $5 trillion. It is now about $30 trillion,

Many on the right complain about the National Debt and its threat to our economic stability, but few are being realistic about what can be done. The Debt cannot be balanced on the backs of people who least can afford to pay or afford to lose vital services. That is a formula for social upheaval and revolution. Again, the National Debt on September 30, 2017, the end of the fiscal year, was $20.4 trillion. On September 30, 2021 the National Debt was $30 trillion. Obama added $6.9 trillion to the Debt in eight years following the Great Recession, the worst economic period we endured since the Great Depression.

In four years, from the end of the Fiscal Year in 2017 until September 30, 2021 the Debt increased $9.6 trillion in just four years. At the end of the Fiscal Year, the National Debt was at $30.9 trillion. If one counts the increase in Debt from January 20, 2017 to January 20, 2021, the debt increased from $19.9 trillion to $27.8 trillion, or $7.9 trillion. Of course, this includes the huge deficits caused by Trump Administration, reflective of tax cuts, an economy that never grew above 3% for the first 18 months of the Trump and ministration and was under 2% for the 15 months before the last quarter of 2019. It also includes the expensive rollout of vaccines, the cost of the recovery, not unlike what faced the Obama Administration from 2009 through 2011.

How to reduce the National Debt:

1. Bring back the Kennedy Era top tax bracket of 70% of incomes over $2 million.
2. Have a minimum tax on all income above $15,000, even with deductions
3. Eliminate the mortgage deduction over $750K
4. Eliminate all generation skipping trusts
5. Cap yearly contributions for the wealthy into IRAs or 401ks
6. Eliminate all overseas tax shelters
7. Raise the Corporation tax back to Clinton Era 39%
8. Eliminate all corporate stock options for executive pay
9. Tax corporate Golden Parachutes at their full value as soon as they are given.
10. Tax corporate health insurance as income for anyone making over $1 million per year
11. Force repatriation of all overseas sheltered income
12. Cut and cap the sale tax in every state to 5% and add a 1% Federal sale tax
13. Cap the property tax, in every state, to 3% with a Homestead rule, limiting any yearly increase.
14. Raise the state income tax to make up the loss on property taxes and fund the public schools statewide.
15. Reinstate the draft for the Army and maintain as a volunteer force the Air Force, Navy and Marines
16. Cut farm subsidies, currently $5 billion, the annual cost for all farm support is between $15 and $35 billion annually.

Causes for poverty

1, Generational poverty, passed from parent to child
2. Failure to take advantage of education, bad parenting
3. Single parent homes and illegitimacy
4. Ignorance resulting from a lack of an education
5. Lack of vocational schools, inability to hold a job
6. Not teaching financial fundamentals to children
7. Poor savings habits, most Americans do not save
8. Excessive credit card debt, inability to manage a personal budget
9. Conspicuous consumption, buying what is not needed
10. The excessive cost of higher education,
11. Endemic regional unemployment, the rise of the Big Box store
12. Lack of Federal revenue-sharing to low income areas
13. The high cost of housing, the lack of federally subsidized housing
14. Lack of workforce housing
15. Healthcare needs, and the lack of insurance
16. Too low of a minimum wage

Illegitimacy has become endemic and it is one of the leading causes of poverty:

By the way, no matter what one’s social proclivity is: illegitimacy is over 50% in America. Today the overwhelming majority of black children are raised in single female-headed families. As early as the 1880s, three-quarters of black families were two-parent. In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black families were two-parent. One study of 19th-century slave families found that in up to three-fourths of the families, all the children had the same mother and father.

Today’s black illegitimacy rate of nearly 75 percent is also entirely new. In 1940, black illegitimacy stood at 14 percent. It had risen to 25 percent by 1965, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action” and was widely condemned as a racist. By 1980, the black illegitimacy rate had more than doubled, to 56 percent, and it has been growing since. Both during slavery and as late as 1920, a teenage girl raising a child without a man present was rare among blacks. In 2012 29.1% of Hispanic children were born out of wedlock. In that same year, non-Hispanic white illegitimacy was 17.2%. Has it changed in ten years for all groups? Yes, it has gotten worse.

Have Illegitimate Births Reached Crisis Levels?

• The median age for a woman to become a mother: 25.7 years.
• Living the Middle Class lifestyle means needing more education than ever before, which is causing couples to put off getting married more often.
• Cohabiting couples are less likely to have job prospects or economic stability.
• Only 38% of American women will be married by the time they reach the median age of motherhood.
• For women who have a high school diploma and some college, 58% of the births to this group are considered illegitimate children.
• If a couple is living together when they have a child, but not married, then there is a 39% chance of the family unit disintegrating. It’s just 13% for a married couple.

On October 28, 1922 Howard Carter announced to the foreman of his Egyptian excavation crew that he wanted to continue work immediately in his search for the tomb of King Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings.

Archeologists only worked a short season in the valley, because by early spring it turned that desolate area into a virtual furnace until late October. Also the tourists would start to arrive in droves in mid-December to visit the burial sites of the pharaohs. Another problem existed, because their current dig blocked the entrance of the tomb of Ramesses VI, which was one of the most popular attractions in the Valley of the Kings. Carter was very concerned after this short season of 1922, that it would be his last effort in the valley. He had just returned from a meeting in England with the Earl of Carnarvon, who had been bear the cost of this excavation for the past 15 years.

Carter was looking for a big prize, the tomb of the young King Tutankhamun, whose short reign had ended around 3200 years earlier. For centuries, few people wandered into this section that was rife with bandits and marauding gangs. It was so dangerous that only in the 19^th Century did archeologists venture there.

The Valley of the Kings, the royal burial grounds had been part of the ancient Thebes – the capital of the Egyptian Empire. The valley itself was only a few miles from the West Bank of the Nile – not far from Karnak and Luxor and more than 400 miles south of modern Cairo.

By that time, at least 33 royal tombs had been found on the site’s bedrock, but everyone had been pillaged long before by professional thieves. When something was found by European excavators, it was basically worthless. There were some beautiful objects, but they hardly justified the effort. With all that effort in mind, local experts believed that there was little left to find. But for Carter, who had been exploring that region for 30 years, there were some interesting clues, including a cup with King Tut’s name on it. There was also a cache of jars, with the King’s seal on them with contained some ancient linen wrappings that were used for mummification. The original finder of these artifacts was Theodore M. Davis, a rich, elderly American. He had claimed that King Tut’s tomb could be found, reflected of the evidence of the linen and jars. He was so derided for this thoughts, that he felt chastised and he set aside his discoveries as mostly a failure and worthless. Others, including HE Winlock, director of the Metropolitan Museum, thought otherwise and told Howard Carter his conclusions.

Meanwhile, to avoid conflicts over the rights to excavate, the Egyptian government granted exclusive concessions each year. Davis relinquished his concession in 1914 and Carter persuaded Lord Carnarvon to take it over. Carter devised a theory of where he thought the tomb could be located. His research indicated that only a small area had not been crisscrossed with excavation trenches into the bedrock. There was a small areas bounded by the tombs of Ramesses VI, Merneptah and Ramesses II. One reason this area had been ignored was that it was piled high with rubble, rocks, and sand form the excavation of the tomb of Rameses the VI, who had lived 200 years after Tutankhamun. It had been postulated that King Tut had ascended the throne in 1334 BCE, during the 18^th Dynasty, at the age of around nine years. It was also understood that he had reigned for only nine years. During that period it was an era of prosperity, but some religious confusion and fervor.

At this juncture, Carter had returned to England to confer with Carnarvon. Carter, who was a bachelor, had been in Egypt since 1890. He started as a draughtsman and eventually became an inspector for the Egyptian government’s Department of Antiquities. Upon his return, the digging continued as a trench was created. After a few days flint chips were uncovered. This was a mildly encouraging discovery, because rocks like these had been discovered blocking other graves. The next morning, Carter returned, and he noticed a solemn silence all around, which was caused by the stoppage of work, In Carter’s word, “I guessed that something usual had occurred!”: His foreman (a reis) was most excited and said, confidentially that he felt that a beginning of a staircase had been located. Working under Carter’s watchful eye, the workers began the arduous job of clearing the stairs. The top of a doorway came into sight and on the plaster covering that sealed the door were affixed the royal seals of a necropolis – the jackal god, Arubis, above nine defeated foes. It was a thrilling moment for Carter in that valley of deafening silence. Carter was in awe as after decades of work he could be on the very brink of a major discovery. He ordered the stairway filled in again, posted guards around the site and hurried to Luxor to send a cable to Lord Carnarvon. It read, “At last have made wonderful discovery in Valley: a magnificent tomb – with seals intact. Re-covered same for your arrival: congratulations!”

Carnarvon replied that he would arrive in Alexandria with his daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert on November 20^th. In those days one took a ferry across the channel to France, a train southward to Marseilles and by ship to Alexandria. From there it was a train ride to Luxor. By the 26^th of November, Carnarvon and his daughter were there when more tunnels were found, opened and another sealed door twenty five feet from the first was located. With Carnarvon, his daughter and his assistant AR Callender, he drilled a small hole in the upper left hand corner. They widened the hole a bit. Carter later wrote, “I inserted a candle and peered in! At first I could see nothing as the hot air escaping from the chamber caused the flame to flicker. But, presently as my eyes got accustomed to the light, the details of the room emerged. Slowly from the midst, strange animals, statues and gold everywhere. Everywhere was the glint of gold!”

After their remarkable discovery the grave was blocked by two heavy wooden doors that had been earlier prepared. The next day a portable electric lighting system was set up. The room was packed to the ceiling with countless items. It was filled with items Tutankhamun would need on his journey through infinity. By Christmas, seven weeks later, all the items had been removed to an empty nearby tombs that was set up as storage area and a laboratory.

In the midst of the excavation process inspired speculation that the tomb was cursed. One of the reasons for this myth was the untimely death of Carter’s patron, Lord Carnarvon. He had died of the result of a mosquito bite that had been nicked by a shaving blade of a barber. His health was never robust, the bite became infected and he developed pneumonia and died. Therefore from th day of the discovery of the tomb, gossip abounded that there was a curse on anyone who violated the tomb. (by the way, Carter lived until age 66 in 1939, after a life filled with honors and fame. Arthur Roberts Callender, Carter’s assistant died in 1936 at age 61. Lady Evelyn Herbert, who was born in in 1901 lived to 1980. Lady Evelyn attended the opening of the Tutankhamun 50th anniversary celebrations in 1972, including the Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition at the British Museum, London, where she was presented to the Queen who was there to open the exhibition.)

Meanwhile, the discovery produced only limited evidence about the history of Tutankhamun’s reign and the Amarna Period that preceded it, but it provided insight into the material culture of wealthy ancient Egyptians as well as patterns of ancient tomb robbery. Tutankhamun became one of the best-known pharaohs, and some artefacts from his tomb, such as his golden funerary mask, are among the best-known artworks from ancient Egypt. Most of the tomb’s goods were sent to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and are now in the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, although Tutankhamun’s mummy and sarcophagus are still on display in the tomb. Flooding and heavy tourist traffic have inflicted damage on the tomb since its discovery, and a replica of the burial chamber has been constructed nearby to reduce tourist pressure on the original tomb.

Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb revived popular interest in Ancient Egypt – ‘Egyptomania‘ – and created “Tutmania”, which influenced popular song and fashion. Carter used this heightened interest to promote his books on the discovery and his lecture tours in Britain, America and Europe. While interest had waned by the mid-1930s,^[67] from the early 1970s touring exhibitions of the tomb’s artefacts led to a sustained rise in popularity. This has been reflected in TV dramas, films and books, with Carter’s quest and discovery of the tomb portrayed with varying levels of accuracy. One common element in popular representations of the excavation is the idea of a ‘curse‘. Carter consistently dismissed the suggestion as ‘tommy-rot’, commenting that “the sentiment of the Egyptologist … is not one of fear, but of respect and awe … entirely opposed to foolish superstitions”

The excavations carried out under Davis’s sponsorship are among the most important ever undertaken in the Valley of the Kings: in the course of 12 years about 30 tombs were discovered and/or cleared in his name, the best known among them are KV46 (tomb of Yuya and Tjuyu), KV55 (the Amarna cache), KV57 (tomb of Horemheb) and KV54 (Tutankhamun embalming cache). Most of the objects discovered went to Cairo Museum, where they were displayed in a gallery named ‘Salle Theodore Davis’, with further items presented to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other American museums. He also published seven volumes laying out his finds.

With Carter’s discovery of KV62, Tutankhamun’s tomb, in 1922, Davis’s opinion that the “valley had been exhausted” was proved wrong. Burton later recalled that when Davis terminated his last excavation in the valley, out of fear of undercutting nearby tombs and pathways, he was only two metres away from discovering the entrance to KV62.

In Luxor, fellow Rhode Islander Charles Wilbour introduced Davis to antiquities dealer Muhammad Mohassib on their first trip up the Nile in 1890. Wilbour had bought from Mohassib for years, and he became a trusted dealer for Davis. Many people bought a number of important pieces from him over the years.

He was an English peer and aristocrat best known as the financial backer of the search for and excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

In 1907, Lord Carnarvon undertook to sponsor the excavation of nobles’ tombs in Deir el-Bahri, near Thebes. He employed Howard Carter to undertake the work, on the recommendation of Gaston Maspero, director of the Egyptian Antiquities Department. In 1912, Carnarvon published Five Years’ Exploration at Thebes, co-written with Carter, describing their excavations.

In 1914, Lord Carnarvon received the concession to dig in the Valley of the Kings, replacing Theodore Davis who had resigned. Carter again led the work, undertaking a systematic search of the Valley for any tombs missed by previous expeditions, in particular that of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Excavations were interrupted during the First World War, but resumed in late 1917.^] By 1922, little of significance had been found and Lord Carnarvon decided this would be the final year he would fund the work.

His country house, Highclere Castle, serves as the exterior and upstairs filming location of the ITV/PBS television series Downton Abbey. The below-stairs scenes were filmed on a set in London, as Highclere’s basement is the home of Carnarvon’s Egyptian collection. Highclere is owned by the present earl.

He was British archaeologist and Egyptologist who discovered the intact tomb of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun in November 1922, the best-preserved pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings.

Howard Carter was born in Kensington on 9 May 1874, the youngest child (of eleven) of artist and illustrator Samuel John Carter and Martha Joyce Carter (née Sands). His father helped train and develop his artistic talents.

Carter spent much of his childhood with relatives in the Norfolk market town of Swaffham, the birthplace of both his parents. Receiving only limited formal education at Swaffham, he showed talent as an artist. The nearby mansion of the Amherst family, Didlington Hall, contained a sizable collection of Egyptian antiques, which sparked Carter’s interest in that subject. Lady Amherst was impressed by his artistic skills, and in 1891 she prompted the Egypt Exploration Fund (EEF) to send Carter to assist an Amherst family friend, Percy Newberry, in the excavation and recording of Middle Kingdom tombs at Beni Hasan.

Although only 17, Carter was innovative in improving the methods of copying tomb decoration. In 1892, he worked under the tutelage of Flinders Petrie for one season at Amarna, the capital founded by the pharaoh Akhenaten. From 1894 to 1899, he worked with Édouard Naville at Deir el-Bahari, where he recorded the wall reliefs in the temple of Hatshepsut.