It is well known that during the Great War and in proportion to their number, members of the aristocracy suffered very heavy casualties indeed and an example of this can be seen in the village church at East Knoyle on the Wiltshire/Somerset border. Visitors to the church cannot fail to be moved by a memorial placed there by Madeline Wyndham which reads: -
"In Memory of my Five Grandsons who were killed in the Great War"
Percy Lyulph Wyndham was the first grandson to fall, being killed on the Aisne in 1914 whilst serving with the Coldstream Guards. Six months later George Heremon Wyndham (Devonshire Regt.) was killed in action in the Salient whilst on attachment with the Northumberland Fusiliers and some six months after that, Yvo Charteris (son of the Earl & Countess of Wemyss) fell in the Grenadier Guards' attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt.
Two more grandsons died the following year, Yvo's brother - Lord Elcho whilst serving with the Gloucestershire Hussars in Egypt-and Edward Wyndham Tennant serving with the Grenadiers at Ginchy in September 1916. Edward Wyndham Tennant was related through marriage to Raymond Asquith also of the Grenadier Guards, the Prime Minister's son who had died of wounds just a few days before Edward. Both are buried within a few yards of each other in the same row of graves on the Guillemont road.
During the attack in which Raymond Asquith was killed, Edward Wyndham Tennant was left out of battle and to his surprise discovered that one of the NCO's, a Corporal Jukes, to whom he was talking was the son of a keeper on his grandmother's estate in East Knoyle.
Within the week of Raymond's death, news arrived that one of Edward's cousins - Lt. Mark Tennant of the Scots Guards - had been killed in action on the day following Raymond Asquith's death. He was attached to the Machine Gun Corps at the time. Mark's brother an officer in the 2nd Dragoons had transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and after a charmed life was shot down in May 1917 near Peronne.
It is often said that Herbert Asquith, the Prime Minister, was never the same after the death of his son Raymond, indeed Lloyd George took over shortly afterwards. But all of Madeline's grandsons (and others of the aristocracy) were known to Asquith before he heard of the death of his son. Could it be said that Raymond's death was the final blow?
