The estate given by the nation to Marlborough for the new palace was the manor of Woodstock, sometimes called the Palace of Woodstock, which had been a royal demesne, in reality little more than a deer park. Legend has obscured the manor’s origins. King Henry I enclosed the park to contain the deer. Henry II housed his mistress Rosamund Clifford (sometimes known as “Fair Rosamund”) there in a “bower and labyrinth”; a spring where she is said to have bathed remains, named after her. It seems the unostentatious hunting lodge was rebuilt many times

The Spencer family is one of Britain’s most illustrious aristocratic families. This noble family descended in the male line from Henry Spencer, claimed to be a descendant of the cadet branch of the ancient House Le Despencer (died c. 1478), male-line ancestor of the Earls of Sunderland, the Dukes of Marlborough, and the Earls Spencer. Two…