At about 4.10pm on Saturday,
July 29, 1963, the President of the United States, John F Kennedy, whirled into
the village of Edensor in Derbyshire.
The whirr of the President’s US
Army helicopter caught the Edensor villagers by surprise and they rushed from
their homes in shirt-sleeves and carpet slippers to join a posse of security
men waiting for the touchdown in a field at the back of the churchyard.
After visiting Ireland, JFK had
flown to RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire and then made a private hour-long
pilgrimage from there to Edensor.
-constructed bridge that the
estate workmen had put up.
For a brief moment he stood in
the quiet Derbyshire churchyard beside the grave of his sister, Kathleen
Devonshire.
Although his visit was
informal, every movement the President made was scrutinized by a weighty corps
of security men – including one who waited near the grave guarding the flowers
until Mr Kennedy arrived.
Seventy policemen were ranged
round the church and patrolmen checked the names of reporters and photographers
entering the village.
JFK, his sister Eunice Kennedy
Shriver and members of the Devonshire family placed three sprays of roses and a
spray of carnations by the simple memorial stone.
The vicar, one of the few
non-security people to see the President’s arrival, commented: “He said
‘Hello’’ and I asked him if this was his first visit to the grave. He replied
that he had been here several years ago.”
Kathleen, known as Kick,
Kennedy was born on February 20, 1920 in Brookline, Massachusetts, the second
daughter and fourth child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy.
On May 6, 1944, Kathleen
Kennedy married William ‘Billy’ Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington, the
eldest son of the 10th Duke of Devonshire, whom she had met during her first
trip to England in 1938.
Her mother Rose disapproved
strongly of the marriage – the Kennedy family were Roman Catholic and the Dukes
of Devonshire were Anglican.
At a ball at the Dorchester
Hotel, London on June 12, 1946, Kathleen, who now lived in the city, met
wealthy British aristocrat Peter Fitzwilliam, the 8th Earl Fitzwilliam, of
Wentworth House.
It was a fundraising event for
the widows and dependents of Commando soldiers killed or seriously injured
during the war.
Born on December 31, 1910,
Peter Fitzwilliam was separated from his wife Olive Dorothea ‘Obby’ Plunket with
an 11-year-old daughter.
Commissioned into the Royal
Scots Greys’ supplementary reserve in 1929, he served with the Commandos during
World War Two and later served in the Special Operations Executive, gaining a
Distinguished Service Order.
“Whatever the indignities of the situation,
Kathleen was deeply embroiled in her affair with Peter,” claims Lynne McTaggart
in Kathleen Kennedy: Her Life and Times, adding: “She was blindly, recklessly
in love, probably for the first time. She didn’t seem to care any more whether
the affair was kept secret or her reputation remained unsoiled.”
The Kennedy family was
outraged, particularly Kathleen’s mother, Rose. “She threatened to disown
Kathleen and refuse to ever see or speak to her again if she married Fitzwilliam,”
McTaggart’s book says.
Tragically, when the couple
were on their way to a romantic location in the South of France on May 13, 1948
before planning to meet Joseph Kennedy in Paris to discuss their intention to
marry, their ten-seater private jet crashed in stormy weather, instantly
killing all on board.
Only Joe Kennedy attended Lady
Kathleen’s London funeral mass and later burial at Edensor on May 20, 1948.
Kathleen’s epitaph reads ‘JOY
SHE GAVE JOY SHE HAS FOUND’ with the acknowledgement that she was ‘widow of the
Major Marquess Hartington, killed in action, and daughter of the Hon Joseph
Kennedy, sometime Ambassador of the United States to Great Britain’.
Peter Fitzwilliam’s funeral at
Wentworth had taken place on the previous day.
After visiting his sister’s
grave in July 1963, JFK walked the 100 yards through the churchyard to where
cars were waiting.
Then, as he stepped into the
car, the crowd of around 25 reacted with a flutter of restrained applause. JFK
stood back, smiled, waved and ducked into the Bentley.
Within minutes of driving
through the grounds to Chatsworth House, he was airborne again and on his way
back to RAF Waddington. From there he was to move on to have talks with prime
minister Harold McMillan.
Several months after JFK’s
assassination, Robert Kennedy visited his sister’s grave at Edensor on January
25, 1964. Flying from London with his wife in a pink and blue helicopter, it
was reported Robert Kennedy placed daffodils and tulips on his sister’s grave.
Later, he and his wife lunched with the Duchess of Devonshire and her younger
daughter, Lady Sophia Cavendish.
