"The stately homes of England, how beautiful they stand," wrote a igth-Cen-tury poetess. But 20th-century wars and taxes make for shifty subsoil. Last week from England came news of two of the stateliest homes rocking badly on their economic foundations.
Up for sale and advertised in the New York Times was Glenfiddich, the famed, fabulous, 31,000-acre Banffshire estate of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, whose family once owned more than a quarter-million British acres. Inducements offered prospective bidders by Auctioneers Jackson Stops & Staff: moors that have yielded "over 5,000 brace of grouse and 100 stags; twelve miles of salmon fishing;...