Rediscovering the Boy King

In the 100 years since George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, stood alongside Howard Carter at the entrance to Tutankhamun's tomb, he has been demoted to a mere financier. Now, the current Earl and Countess want to give their forebear his time in the limelight, says Eleanor Doughty

- Eleanor Doughty

TO look at Highclere Castle, an Egyptian sarcophagus is probably the last thing you'd expect to find inside. Yet, below Charles Barry's tower and the Reynolds paintings inside lies a perfect replica of a 3,000-year-old coffin belonging to a pharaoh. Highclere Castle, six miles from Newbury, Berkshire, is now best known as the location of the Sunday-night toff-buster Downton Abbey, but, a century ago, it obtained fame of another kind. On November 26, 1922, its then owner George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, alongside his daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert and the archaeologist Howard Carter, stood in front of the door of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

Since then, Carter has been celebrated as the great discoverer of Tutankhamun and Carnarvon reduced to merely the financier. In this centenary year, the current Earl and Countess of Carnarvon-the 8th Earl, great-grandson of the 5th, and his wife, author of an upcoming biography of the 5th Earlare determined to give their forebear his time in the limelight. When we meet, on an exceptionally busy day at Highclere, complete with visiting public, fire alarms and bounding labradors, the first thing is to establish exactly what kind of man the 5th Earl was.