Death of Lord Carnarvon, Cairo, 1923

    FABLES  ABOUT   LORD  CARNARVON’S  LAST  ILLNESS  AND  DEATH

In the book  “ Carnarvon, Carter and Tutankhamun Revisted : The Hidden Truths and Doomed Relationships”  published on 20 October 2016,   the Society author  William  Cross  discredits the fables of  1923 with evidence from how the Countess Almina recalled these  events to her godson, Tony Leadbetter, a man who lived with Almina for the last  30 years of her life.                                                                           

Almina’s mercy flight to Cairo resulted in her taking over the Earl’s nursing care from 26 March 1923  and tending him during the following days of his last illness, until he died peacefully on 5 April 1923.

Carnarvon had relapsed on a trip to Aswan.  Almina’s  presence ( from England)   was to  help  send her dying husband ( in the last stages of throat cancer) into oblivion.  

Carnarvon had been in remission from cancer for some time. There was no mosquito bite that  caused the   Earl to  drift  into a  terminal state  of blood poisoning.    The insect bite was  a smokescreen agreed between the  Carnarvons and Valentine Williams, of Reuters.  The leading conspirators were Williams  and   Mervyn Herbert, Carnarvon’s half-brother, a diplomat in Cairo. 

There was too much money at stake with the media rights and the disposal of the treasures to expose any weakness in the Carnarvon family armour to suggest the Earl was dying, so not in control of his affairs. 

Lord   Carnarvon had fallen into an unconscious state well before  Almina arrived to handle  the death  proceedings.  After  20 March 1923 when Richard Bethell, the  Earl's secretary  had booked them into the Continental Hotel,  the Earl   was not  conscious, he was talking in tongues and in no  fit state to receive visitors. His  last  dispute with  Howard Carter   in Luxor - before the Aswan trip-    ( which is fully covered in the book by Cross )  was not ever settled. The two men were NOT reconciled.  It resulted in Carter suffering a nervous breakdown, such was his grief at Carnarvon's loss.  

According to Tony Leadbetter  “ Almina was  critical about what she described as the  “ tall tales” that claimed that at the same time  or near to the time of  her husband’s   death   a  cobra  devoured Carter’s canary,  a  family pet  dog  died  mysteriously  at  Highclere ( the Carnarvon home in England) , and the whole of the City of Cairo was blackened out .   

These were fictions,   stories created by the press alone.   Cairo regularly suffered   power cuts,  it was a common thing .  Bites, snakes,  Cairo’s blackout  and curses and apparitions appearing were all part of  a  relentless out pouring of  scurrilousness,  deception and hokum, fuelled by the allure of journalists for a story."

These side shows  enabled  the Carnarvon family to dodge the harrowing truths  and save their negotiating position  through the  way that matters were later pursued for  Almina by Sir John Maxwell, with  the  granting  of  a  new concession, and compensation to the Carnarvon estate for Lord Carnarvon's  digging expenses over the years. 

During the many days that Lord Carnarvon lay dying – in the final stages of throat cancer- several physicians  tended him at  Cairo’s Continental Hotel  to relieve his  final suffering. These men included Dr William Fletcher- Barrett and  Dr Frank Cole Madden as well as Lady Carnarvon’s own attendant, a mysterious  Dr  George Sneyd, who had come from England. 

These doctors ( and support staff)   did all that medical science knew to provide palliative care. The Earl’s respiration was artificially maintained as long as possible and his heart  was stimulated.  But medical science could not cure him, Almina intervened as an expert in handling terminal illness. She had gained experience of death  in her war hospitals and in the years after  the Great War  she had been involved  in  cases like that of Sir John Cowans, another victim of cancer, whom Almina laid to rest. 

Carnarvon's wife, Almina was not present at first during the Earl’s last trip to open the tomb. But the Countess travelled at speed to Egypt to be at her husband’s side.

“ I am a nurse, my place is beside my husband” she exclaimed.  Almina could do nothing  but give the  Earl large quantities of morphine, she knew the terrible  truth about the outcome of  Carnarvon’s final savage illness. 

Lady Evelyn Herbert, Almina’s daughter,  until he fell ill the  Earl's companion in Egypt, was terrified that an account of  Lord Carnarvon’s true  health situation would appear in the newspapers. There had to be a smokescreen to divert attention away from the real facts being reported, the Curse of Tutankhamun was born, but the Curse of the Carnarvons had only just begun. 

Almina ignored the accounts of bites and curses; no historian or commentator ever noted her input on the Egyptian years until long after her death....but she was none the less fascinated by the published material on her husband and Carter. She was blase about some, but overtly hostile to others remarking..that the narratives were often inaccurate. She declared "it was nothing like that....no, nothing like that at all"......   Now, at long last the truth can be revealed in this book. “  

"Carnarvon, Carter and Tutankhamun Revisited: The Hidden Truths and Doomed Relationships". 

THERE WAS  NO MOSQUITO BITE  , NO COBRA, NO  DARK OUT OF CAIRO THAT WAS  NOT THE NORM,  NO DEAD DOG AT HIGHCLERE,  NO RECONCILATION WITH  HOWARD  CARTER, NO CURSE.....