Vita Sackville-West and Sir Harold Nicolson

Dennison's book

[Lady with a Red Hat, by William Strang, 1918]

Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962), writer and gardener, grew up at Knole, a huge, grand Kentish house that looked medieval. Knole is now in the care of the National Trust. Sackville-West was very attached to it, but it could go only to a male heir. As a result, she became a rest­less wom­an who seem­ed to be seeking a way to ease her loss.

In 1910, when Vita was 18, her mother Victoria Sackville-West (1862–1936) mar­ried first cousin, 3rd Baron Lord Lionel Sackville-West, who was in any case Vita's father. Victoria launched a legal claim to the estate. 3 years later anot­her battle foll­owed when the family of Vict­oria’s late lover, Sir John Mur­ray Scott, challenged the will ag­ainst Lady Sackville-West. Victoria triumphed on both occasions, but the pub­lic notor­iety was harsh.

Vita happily married journalist-dip­lomat Sir Harold Nic­ol­s­on in 1913, but beneath Vita’s passion, her pain continued. Her first garden was at Long Barn near Sevenoaks, Kent where they stayed from 1915-30. We will come back to gardening momentarily.

Vita’s sexual partners began in 1917 with Violet Keppel Tre­fusis, dau­gh­ter of Edward VII’s mistress. In Apr 1918, Vita and Violet trav­elled together on hol­idays, leaving their husbands and chil­d­ren at home. En route they added to their endless list of partners which included Hil­da Matheson from the BBC; and Vita’s sister-in-law Gwen St Aubyn. Vita and her lover Vir­ginia Woolf had a passionate aff­air (1925-9) that didn’t end badly. Rather when the sexual pas­sions cooled, a deep relationship grew.

L to R Harold Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West, Rosamund Grosvenor, Lionel Sackville-West
1913, Wiki

Har­old Nicolson’s drinking companions included Balfour, Curzon, Ramsay MacDonald, Jan Smuts, Churchill, Ernest Bevin, Eden, Sassoon and Asqu­ith. But his lovers tended to be more lit­er­ary and academic men. His diplomatic career moved along successfully, working in ambassadorial services across Europe and then in the Foreign Office back in the UK. Later (1935) he was voted into Parliament and became a Minister during WW2. Only after the war did Nicolson turn his full attention to writing novels, biographies and newspaper journalism. 

Vita’s output was notable. In the early 1920s she wrote a Mem­oir of her relation­ships, seeking explain both why she had chosen to stay with Nicolson, and why she’d fallen in love with Violet Keppel. Her reput­at­ion rested on her poem The Land (1926), nov­el All Pas­sion Spent (1931) and my favourite Hogarth Press novel The Edwardians (1930).

The excitement waned dramatically after Vita, Harold and their two sons moved to Sissinghurst Castle in 1930. Although Sissinghurst was derel­ict, they bought the castle and its farm and began creating their prop­er garden. But the purchase did not go down very well with some of their friends and lov­ers. Perhaps planting roses seem­ed like a dis­appointing career path for Vita and Harold. She was drinking, at home.

It was Harold Nicolson who prov­id­ed the proper architectural frame­work for his wife's plant­ing passion. Harold loved clear classical lines in his overall design of the garden. This was the per­f­ect set­ting for the fine colours and the formal planting schemes that pro­vided exten­sive views and privacy. Note how they divided the gardens into separate spaces, creating the famous White and Rose Gard­ens, Orchard, Cottage Garden etc. Vita also wrote weekly gardening articles for The Observer.

Now something I knew nothing about. Vita’s text of A Note of Ex­p­lan­at­ion 1922 has only existed as a min­iat­ure book in Queen Mary's Dolls' House at Windsor Castle. This 39 x 10 mm book was one of 200 volumes created for the tiny library book­shelf of Queen Mary’s dolls’ house. Queen Mary (1867-1953) became the wife of Prince (later King) Geor­ge in 1893. How perfect that her dolls’ House was designed by Sir Edwin Luty­ens, based on an aristocratic home.

                               

Sissinghurst Castle and Garden, Wiki

 

Royal Collection Trust, which finally published A Note of Explanation in 2017, said Sackville-West was one of the few au­thors to pen a new story specifically for the dolls’ house. It was a whimsical tale about a fashionable, ageless sprite who moved into the dolls’ house and made herself comfortable. Having been present for the major moments of fairy tale history eg Cinderella’s ball, she made her­self at home in this ear­ly C20th house, baffling even its maker.

The Royal Collection Trust said this 1922 work revealed Sackville-West’s influence on the writings of her lover Virginia Woolf. Orlando (1928) told the story of a fash­ion­able, androgynous poet, meeting fam­ous histor­ical fig­ures along the way. So it was appropriate that Woolf dedicated Orlando to Sackville-West, thanking her for the inspiration just a few years after Note of Explanation was written.

Matthew Dennison wrote a new Sackville-West biography, Behind the Mask in 2016. Dennison charted a fasc­in­ating course from Vita's lonely childhood at Knole, through her affect­ionate, open marriage to Harold Nicolson. He then examined Vita's liter­ary successes and disapp­oint­ments, and the famous gardens the couple cr­eated at Siss­inghurst. From her privileged arist­oc­ratic world, Vita brought her love of acting, costume and rebel­lion to the artistic forefront of mod­ern Brit­ain. Go behind the beaut­iful mask of Vita's public achievements to rev­eal a complex woman, in a compelling story of love, loss and jeal­ousy, of high and low life.