Lady
Lara
Croft is an 11th generation Countess.
The Croft family was granted the title
and rights to Abbingdon, Surrey by
King Edward VI in 1547. The Croft
Estates are comprised of three separate
manor houses, two of which are maintained
by the National Trust, and the third
is home to Lady Croft.
Lady
Croft herself has suffered several
personal tragedies, including the
deaths of both parents on separate
occasions before she came of age.
Reputably an accredited genius and
Olympic-standard gymnast, Lady Croft
is the focus of wild speculation and
intense debate in both the scientific
and political communities in addition
to the popular press. Idealized and
vilified in equal measure, she is
perhaps one of the most fascinating
and enigmatic figures of our time.
Lara
Croft was born in Surrey's Parkside
hospital to Lady Amelia Croft and
the notorious archeologist Lord Richard
Croft, the late Earl of Abbingdon.
Between the ages of three and six,
she attended the Abbingdon Girls School,
where it quickly became clear that
she was an exceptionally gifted child.
At
the age of nine she survived a plane
crash in the Himalayas that took the
life of her mother. In perhaps the
first story of her prodigious indomitability,
she somehow survived a solo ten-day
trek across the Himalayan mountains,
one of the most hostile environments
on the planet. The story goes that
when she arrived in Katmandu she went
to the nearest bar and made a polite
telephone call to her father asking
if it would be convenient for him
to come and pick her up.
For
six years following the plane crash,
Lara rarely left her father's side,
traveling around the world from one
archeological dig site to another.
During this period she was ostensibly
given a standard education from private
tutors, but it would probably be more
accurate to say she was her father's
full time apprentice.
When
Lara was fifteen, her father went
missing in Cambodia. Extensive searches
by the authorities and Lara herself
turned up human remains that could
not definitively be identified. Since
Lord Croft's body was not officially
recovered, Lara could not directly
inherit the Croft title and Lara was
thrust into a bitter family feud over
control of the Abbingdon estates with
her uncle Lord Errol Croft. Lara eventually
won the legal battle, and took possession
of her inheritance but at the cost
of a deep rift in the Croft family
that left her estranged from her living
relatives.
Lady
Lara Croft has already eclipsed her
father's career; as of this writing
she is credited with the discovery
of some fifteen archeological sites
of international significance. These
sites are still yielding new and exciting
insights to the past on an ongoing
basis. No one can deny Lady Croft's
incredible contribution to the field
of archeology, however she is not
without her detractors.
Lara's
methods have been frequently called
into question by government officials
and other practicing archeologists.
She has been described variously as
anything from cavalier to downright
irresponsible. Some scholars have
suggested that her notorious lack
of documentation and brute force methodology
have contaminated countless sites
and done more harm than good. There
have even been (unsubstantiated) allegations
that Lara actually takes items from
these sites before informing the international
community of their locations, and
that she is nothing more than a glorified
treasure hunter.
Despite
the tabloid press's infatuation with
her, Lara Croft guards her privacy
with complete determination. She has
never granted an interview nor made
any personal comment to any of the
rumors associated with her, preferring
to express herself through brief formal
statements given by the family solicitors,
Hardgraves and Moore.
Predictably
there have been a number of unofficial
biographies printed about the young
Countess, that attribute wild and
fantastic feats to her exploits, ranging
from the discovery of living dinosaurs
in the Congo to infiltrating the infamous
Area 51 in Nevada. The official line
from the Croft Estate to these works
is simply that "...these books are
utter rot: disgraceful, trashy works
of total fiction."
Nevertheless
if you even make a cursory search
on the Internet for the Unexplained,
the Mysterious and the Downright Unbelievable,
time and again you will find Lara
Croft's name appearing. She appears
to be a hero to conspiracy theorists
and alternate history aficionados
alike.
It
seems the further you dig into Lady
Croft's life, the more bewildering
and mysterious she becomes. Perhaps
like the archeological sites she discovers,
we have only scratched the surface
of this incredible woman and the complex
and inscrutable secrets buried deep
within her.
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