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COPYRIGHT 2005 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)
THE DISAPPEARING DUKE by Tom Freeman-Keel and Andrew Crofts Seek Publishing, Craven Arms, Shropshire, Tel: 01588 673731, 9.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 311, ISBN 0952691221
Buried within the pages of this book there lies an extraordinary story worth the telling, the bald facts of which require none of the elaboration to which they are here subjected.
In 1896 a certain Anna Maria Druce, of 68 Baker Street in London, petitioned the home secretary to have her late husband's coffin opened, on the grounds that his funeral in 1864 had been a purposeful sham devoted to ceremonial disposal of an empty box. Mr Druce had not died at all; he had simply wanted to revert to his other identity as the 5th Duke of Portland, of Welbeck Abbey near Worksop. The duke had grown tired of leading...
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