Blood Will Tell

For the noble House of Marlborough, it was a far cry from the great days when John Churchill, the first Duke, fought gloriously for England at Blenheim and Sarah, his wife, conspired in the boudoir of her bosom friend Queen Anne. Since then, Britain's empire had dawned and passed high noon. In the twilight of this empire, the family name had been kept bright by a commoner named Winston Churchill. Last week, however, the Marl-boroughs were once again in the forefront of the news. In London, gossips linked the names of Princess Margaret and the 22-year-old Marquess of Blandford, heir of the tenth Duke. At Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, John Albert Edward William Spencer-Churchill, the tenth Duke of Maryborough, astonished dinner guests by twice pitching a raspberry high up to the great vaulted ceiling and catching it in his mouth as it fell.

"He's always doing it," said his Duchess later. "He's very clever at it." "The Duke," commented the awed Evening Standard, "has a remarkable eye. He is one of the leading shots in the country."