A letter from the 4th Duke of Marlborough

"One June morning in 1763, the Duke helped himself to a sheet of guilt-edged ivory notepaper from the pile on his desk which, miraculously, never got any lower, and scribbled a note to Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, the most fashionable landscape-architect of the day. The Duke told Capability that he wanted to make 'expensive alterations' to Blenheim's dishevelled grounds. 'I have a notion I shall begin here immediately so that the sooner you come the better,' the Duke wrote in the peremptory tone which he used towards underlings."*

Well, I'm so inspired by this little abstract, that I want to do something with Leyland myself. Not with the help of Brown or William Kent I suppose, but something... And the guilt-edged notepaper! Gosh! i want some. Being a duke is really awesome indeed... ;-)

*Marian Fowler, Blenheim: Biography of a Palace, 1989, pg. 94.