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THE COUNT AND COUNTESS OF
MORELLA
In 1850 the marriage took place between
Marianne Catherine Richards, wealthy
daughter of a QC and Ramon Cabrera, Count of
Morella. He was 43 and a Catholic and his bride was 29 and a Protestant.
He had been a general and leader of the Carlist
forces in Spain and had earned a reputation for being cruel and ruthless, having allegedly killed 1100 prisoners of war. In 1855 they moved to
Wentworth (now the Wentworth Golf Club), from where he
still supported the Carlist cause and received frequent visits
from Carlist emissaries (his wife contributing some other £25,000 a year to the cause). They enjoyed all the comforts of English
country life and brought up five children. The Count of
Morella died in 1877 and is buried in Virginia Water. The Countess
ofMorella lived for a further thirty-eight years and is
buried beside him. The local paper at the time of her death referred to her husband as “The Carlist desperado”. However, in her diaries (which she
wrote in
English, German and Spanish from 1832 to 1914) it is
obvious that she was devoted to her husband. When he died
she wrote “Thus me dream of my youth and the love of
my life passed away, and left me desolate”.
The documents on display are :-
A portrait of Cabrera in a biography by Roy
Chant.
A photograph of a portrait by W.J. Newton of
Marianne Richards (afterwards the Countess of Morella) dated
1844.
Marianne’s letter book.
Marianne’s diary from 1832 to 1914, the year
before she died, open at the account of her husband’s last
illness and death.
The burial service for Marianne, born 1820,
died 1915.
dated – 20 July 2004