Lady Kinvara Balfour: 'This castle should belong to my mother'

          Bonkers' primogeniture laws that mean girls are a disappointment should be axed, says aristocrat from family that inspired Downton storyline

            If the laws of the land were different, Lady Kinvara Balfour would have grown up with Arundel Castle as her home.

Her mother, Lady Tessa, was the eldest child of the 17th Duke of Norfolk, the highest dukedom in the peerage.

However, the laws of primogeniture ensured that Lady Tessa was passed over in favour of her younger brother, Edward, who inherited the title and the West Sussex castle that goes with it in 2002.

Lady Kinvara has now come out fighting against the “bonkers” rule, calling for the system to be overhauled.

Her mother’s situation is said to have inspired Julian Fellowes, a family friend, to write the central storyline in Downton Abbey: Lady Mary being denied the keys to the great house, with long-lost cousin Matthew Crawley standing to inherit.

Primogeniture is “archaic, mad, absolutely mad”, said Lady Kinvara, 39, arguing that aristocratic women go through life feeling “second best”.

“It runs through our DNA. Downton Abbey highlighted what I’ve seen all my life: the daughter is a disappointment. I’ve had primogeniture rubbed in my face from both sides of my family.”

Lady Kinvara’s father is the 5th Earl of Balfour. The 4th Earl died in 2003 without children and the title skipped various female relatives before settling on his second cousin once removed.

^{Lady Kinvara Balfour has called for the system to be overhauled (Dusan Reljin/Town & Country)}

In an interview with Town and Country magazine, Lady Kinvara said: “I get nothing from whistleblowing. I simply believe that property and land should stay together and that a home should go to one person – the eldest born.

“My mother is the eldest daughter of the Duke of Norfolk. She’s a girl. I appreciate that to run Arundel Castle and all its land and all its game, its crops, its farms, is a huge, huge, job. But it’s a huge job for anybody, so give it to the woman. She’ll be as entrepreneurial as any man can be.”

She added: ““How can women win? We are this bonkers little country that still has all these antiquated rules. I joke that the House of Lords should be the House of Lords and Ladies, or just the House of Peers. But then, some of those peers are hereditary and that goes through the male line.”

Lady Kinvara is on good terms with her uncle, the 18th Duke, and sympathises with the difficulties of maintaining a castle in times of austerity.

“He can’t just wake up and flog a Canaletto on eBay because he feels like having a day off. He works so hard,” she said.

^{Arundel Castle (Alamy)}

“I don’t know a single English man or woman who wants to buy one. If we are talking about the survival of the financially fittest, the aristocracy hasn’t got a hope in hell. The meritocracy is trumping the aristocracy,” she said, citing Leon Max, the Russian oligarch who bought Easton Neston, the stately pile in Northamptonshire.

Mr Max bought the house for £15 million and is said to have spent an additional £25 million on doing it up.

Lady Kinvara and her siblings spent some of their childhood in a property on the Arundel estate. She now lives in a flat in Earl’s Court, west London, and has several jobs: entrepreneur, fashion pundit, journalist and playwright. She was briefly married to Count Riccardo Lanza, an Italian party organiser said to have masterminded George Clooney’s Venice nuptials.

Her first work experience placement was in the atelier of royal couturier Norman Hartnell, and she studied at drama school before deciding that acting was not for her.

She is a distant relation of Anne Boleyn, who was niece to Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk.

Despite her illustrious heritage, she prefers not to use her title. “I am no different from anyone else. I have a background, but it’s just a background. Everyone has one. I’m not Prince William, thank God.

“I watch Wolf Hall and I see Anne Boleyn and I am proud that she’s my ancestor. But am I living in a castle and driving around in a Rolls-Royce? No.”