The Love of the Duchess of Devonshire, Part 1

When she was seventeen years old, Georgiana Spencer married William Cavendish and became the Duchess of Devonshire. Almost overnight, she charmed everyone in London society... except her husband.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised.
On the evening of May eighth, seventeen seventy seven, the
city of London was preparing for a night of theater.

(00:24):
Backstage at the Drury Lane Theater, costumers frantically mended seams
and wrangled actors into wardrobe, while stage hands meticulously accounted
for each of the props that would inevitably pass through
their hands before the night was over. But as candles
were lit and set pieces were placed just so beyond

(00:44):
the thin walls of the theater, another show was already
well into its first act. The doors to the Drury
Lane Theater's house lobby were open, and the audience's arrivals
brought with them a spectacle all their own. A seemingly
endless parade of carriages lined the street outside, as women

(01:04):
with impossibly tall hairpieces were forced to maneuver themselves with
an excess of caution so as not to topple the
glorified sculptures balanced precariously atop their heads. When theater goers
finally managed to make their way past the front doors
and into the theater lobby. Typical patrons of the Drury

(01:24):
Lane may have been slightly puzzled at the appearance of
not only so many women dressed in over the top finery,
but men as well, flaunting tightly fit waistcoats and high
heeled shoes, paired with almost comically small hats skewed crookedly
on their heads. Opening nights were celebratory occasions, to be sure,

(01:47):
but these types of fashion statements were excessive even for
the theater, though given what they were about to watch,
heightened states of dress were hardly going to be considered
drama by the night's end. Technically speaking, the crowd was
there to watch the opening night performance of playwright Richard
Sheridan's newest play, The School for Scandal, But in the

(02:10):
weeks leading up to the production, it had quickly become
London's worst kept secret that the plot to his newest
play was almost exclusively centered around the inner workings of
a group of London socialites and politicians that had come
to be known as the Devonshire House Circle. Not that
the subject matter was exactly a stretch for the playwright.

(02:34):
This was his own group of friends after all, As
the House seats began to fill, it became glaringly obvious
that the night was not going to be solely focused
on the happenings on stage, Not when half of the
Devonshire House circle was gleefully taking their seats in the
orchestra with smug cheshire Cat grins mirrored across their faces,

(02:58):
ready to see what part of their lives their friend
Sheridan had deemed worthy of the stage, And especially not
when the real life counterparts to the play's main character
finally stepped through the doors of the Drury Lane Theater.
At just nineteen years old, the Duchess of Devonshire, Georgana Cavendish,

(03:20):
had the town eating out the palm of her hand.
She had only been married to the Duke for two years,
but considering her almost overnight meteoric rise to fame, you'd
have to live under a rock or be the Duke
himself not to marvel at the Duchess's ability to charm
a room. Even as the curtains were drawn and actors

(03:42):
flooded the stage as the show began in earnest, all
eyes remained towards the real Duchess, especially as the play's
plot unfolded to tell the plight of Lady Teazl, a
young woman who had moved from the country to marry
a nobleman who had absolutely no interest in his new wife.
The character Lady Teazl was a woman who, still so

(04:06):
young and innocent, was lured into the depths of depravity
that festered at the core of London's high society. The
other members of the Devonshire House circle delighted in seeing
caricatures of themselves parade across the stage, no doubt entertained
by the colorful names chosen to embody some of their
circles more notorious drama magnets. You can probably guess the

(04:30):
type of character someone named Lady Sneerwell or Snake would be.
The school for Scandal would go on to be Richer,
Charitan's most successful work, celebrated for its quick wit and
pointed satire. However, despite its overall positive reception, there are
no surviving records as to the real Duchess's candid thoughts

(04:55):
on the production. But as Georgiana Cavendish sat in the
dark opening night with the weight of the theater's eyes
upon her, it's not difficult to imagine that her easy
smile slowly became harder to keep up as the consequences
of her all two real life choices were played out
on stage before her. By the end of the night,

(05:18):
her school for scandal counterpart Lady Teazl had managed to
escape the clutches of the town relatively unscathed. But when
Georgane and Cavendish finally climbed back into her carriage, ready
to be taken back to Devonshire House home, filled with
nothing but a childless nursery, gambling debts, and the disappointment

(05:40):
of her husband, it's enough to make anyone wonder whether
she didn't wish her night at the theater could have
lasted only a little longer or ended a little differently.
I'm Dan Schwartz and this is noble blood. On the

(06:08):
day of her seventeenth birthday, young Georgiana found herself standing
in a church face to face with William Cavendish, the
man who would give her, quite possibly her most extravagant
birthday present to date, the title Duchess of Devonshire. Seventeen
years earlier, she had been born at Georgiana Spencer, the

(06:29):
first child of John and Lady Georgiana Spencer, in Northamptonshire, England.
Unlike the majority of historical figures we cover on this podcast,
Georgiana had a surprisingly happy, trauma free childhood. Her parents
had a successful marriage, that is to say, there are
no recorded instances of affairs or illegitimate children, and because

(06:52):
Georgiana was their oldest, she was doated on endlessly by
both her parents, but especially her mother. Even after giving
birth to Georgiana's two younger siblings, her mother still held
a clear favoritism for her eldest daughter, telling Georgiana as
a teenager quote, you are my best and dearest friend.

(07:13):
You have my heart and may do what you will
with it. So when William Cavendish, the fifth Duke of Devonshire,
came knocking to pursue Georgiana's hand in marriage, Lady Spencer
was understandably hesitant to let her daughter go at such
a young age. She had no desire to see her
daughter become a quote child bride. But Georgiana was not

(07:35):
blind to the attention she had been receiving from the Duke,
nor was she blind to the reactions his interests had
elicited from her parents. A union between the Spencer and
Devonshire families, two of the most powerful aristocratic families in
the Whig Party, would only strengthen what political foothold they
had in the English government. Even Lady Spencer could not

(07:58):
argue against the advantage as a marriage between those two
household would bring. At only sixteen years old, Georgiana was
so dedicated to her parents happiness that it was barely
any work for her to convince herself she had fallen
in love with the powerful Duke, So what if he
was a bit aloof when they met. Surely it was

(08:19):
knacked put on around those outside his inner circle. Her
father was also awkward in public settings, it made sense
after they married, his real personality would shine through and
the two would be hopelessly in love and live happily
ever after. Well as you or anyone who has ever
waited for a man to change can probably understand, the

(08:42):
Duke did not miraculously fall in love with Georgiana after
they married. If anything, William began to resent the Duchess
the longer he was forced to share her company. Unlike
his new wife, the Duke had no romantic ideations when
it came to his Georgiana's union. He had chosen his
wife with most likely the same care he had taken

(09:05):
to hire his staff. In theory, she checked off all
the right boxes. She came from a good family, was
well educated, yet most importantly, was still young enough to
be molded to his needs. Theoretically, in practice, the Duke
would discover Georgiana, not completely dissimilar from his own demeanor,

(09:26):
had a personality that was not so easy to change.
Georgiana had spent the entirety of her life up until
this point being showered in the affection and adoration of
her parents. Being snubbed by her husband in every situation
save his sporadic nightly visits to try to conceive an

(09:47):
air was quickly exhausting any remaining hope she may have
held for her new marriage. When she finally wrote to
her mother seeking advice on how to best please her
new husband, Ladies Venture replied, quote, But where a husband's
delicacy and indulgence is so great that he will not

(10:07):
say what he likes, the task becomes more difficult, and
a wife must use all possible delicacy and ingenuity in
trying to find out his inclinations end quote. Unfortunately, it
seemed no amount of delicacy or ingenuity could change the
Duke's overall ambivalence toward his new wife, leaving Georgiana with

(10:31):
the horrifying revelation that we all saw coming. There was
no happily ever after. But while the Duke could barely
stand to be in the same room as his wife
for longer than five minutes, the whole of London seemingly
couldn't get enough of the newest addition to the House
of Devonshire. It seemed that everywhere Georgiana went, for better

(10:55):
or for worse, the Duchess couldn't help but attract attention.
One woman remarked, quote she was so handsome, so agreeable,
so obliging in her manner, that I am quite in
love with her end quote, while another would go on
to say, I think there is too much of her.
She gives me the idea of being larger than life,

(11:18):
even if the public couldn't quite agree on how they
felt about their newcomer, Larger than life seems pretty accurate
in terms of Georgiana's appeal to late eighteenth century London society,
though larger than life could also easily describe the company
she began to keep in the Devonshire House Circle. The

(11:39):
Circle was comprised of around a hundred London politicians, artists
and socialites, whose only official unifying factor remained their allegiance
to the Whig Party. Unofficially, membership to the Circle was
a symbol of wealth and status, one's level of import
becoming synonymous with how to meet their knowledge was of

(12:01):
the goings on in Devonshire House. A primary example of
this was the use of what became known as the
Cavendish drawl, an accent found nowhere else in London, let
alone the rest of Great Britain except within the walls
of Devonshire House. The strange affectation stretched vowel sounds in

(12:22):
odd ways while simultaneously putting stresses on unusual syllables for
seemingly no reason. It's what I can only compare to
the vocal stylings of ships Creeks Moira Rose, and like
Moira Rose and her strangely elitist pattern of speech, the
Cavendish drawl was really just another way for the Circle

(12:45):
to widen the divine between themselves and the rest of
London society. But the divide between classes was perhaps more
easily distinguished in the Circle's style of dress. For if
the Devonshire House Circle had a mod know it was
probably something along the lines of more is more. So,

(13:06):
the critique that the Duchess was larger than life was
not completely unwarranted, especially considering the fact that she would
sometimes walk into events wearing three foot tall hairpieces, all
for the sake of fashion. Even before Georgiana became the Duchess,
it was in style for women's hair to be styled

(13:28):
well above where it would naturally sit. But after months
spent trying anything and everything to get the attention of
her husband, I like to imagine Georgiana Cavendish wanted to
be certain every other eye in London would be turned
toward her. Amanda Foreman's biography Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire outlines

(13:48):
some of the more extreme stylings, writing quote, she stuck
pads of horsehair to her own hair and decorated the
top with miniature ornaments unquote, among the most notable ornaments
being waxed fruit, stuffed birds, or my personal favorite quote
a pastoral tableau with little wooden, freeze and sheep unquote.

(14:12):
Georgiana's styles would take two hairdressers multiple hours to achieve
in order to reach the level of perfection she strived for,
and even then the pieces would be so tall the
Duchess famously had to sit on the floor of her
carriage in order to arrive at her destination with the
construction fully intact, and yet, despite the hair's complete impracticality,

(14:37):
seemingly overnight, the rest of London was following suit. But
Georgina's influence was not just confined to the world of fashion.
Not long after The School for Scandal made its debut
at the Drury Lane Theater, Georgeana anonymously published a novel
titled The Sylph, loosely based on her own life as

(15:00):
outside are marrying into a position of power and learning
the problematic ways of London's aristocracy. Unlike the public's reaction
to Sheridan's comparatively naive Lady Teazl, readers were scandalized by
the darker thematic elements within the Self. The ton stared

(15:21):
at the pages, simultaneously enraptured and horrified. The novel depicted
a relationship between an abusive husband who blamed his wife
for the miscarriage of their child. The veil of anonymity
was already thin to begin with, since most of the
names in the novel bore a very close resemblance to

(15:41):
their real life counterparts, but the darker themes running throughout
were enough to give readers pause. Surely this could not
be rumored to be written by the same duchess whose
fashions paraded through all of London society pages. But if
it was, what else was Georgiana cavn is hiding and

(16:01):
what was really going on within the walls of Devonshire
house quote The pretty Duchess of Devonshire, who by all
accounts has no faults but delicate health in my mind,
dines at seven summer as well as winter, goes to
bed at three and lies in bed till four. She
has hysterical fits in the morning and dances in the evening.

(16:24):
She bathes, rides and dances for ten days and lies
in bed the next ten end quote. This account of
the Duchess's behavior by one of her close friends probably
most accurately sums up her existence in the early years
of her marriage. If there was one constant in Georgiana's life,
it would be the inconsistency in which she chose to

(16:47):
live it. The Duchess's popularity wasn't without its pitfalls. Beneath
the towering wigs and charming disposition, Georgiana was, at any
moment one carefully crafted's sile away from social ruin. In
the months since her wedding, lacking any love or validation
from her husband, Georgiana found solace in gambling tables across London.

(17:12):
If the nights of constant inebriation weren't enough of a
stress on her body, the sudden onslaught of gambling debts
made sure even her sober hours were tormented with near
constant anxiety. In the span of a few short months,
Georgiana had accumulated thousands of pounds of debt, which she

(17:32):
had assumed the Duke would forgive after she gave him
a Devonshire air. Only that was another problem. Georgiana had
little troubled getting pregnant, but remaining so proved tragically difficult.
One miscarriage quickly turned to two, then three, and by
the fourth the Duke began to blame his wife for

(17:53):
the failed pregnancies, and while her late nights out and
excessive alcohol consumption probably didn't help matters, I think it's
important to remember that up until the nineteen seventies, there
was little to no discourse on the negative effects of
alcohol on pregnant bodies. So though her ventures into London
night life, made from our point of view, with over

(18:15):
two hundred years worth of additional medical hindsight, look ill advised,
it wasn't understood as to be as cut and dry
as we see it today. Regardless, after eight years with
a perpetually empty nursery, in seventeen eighty two, the Duke
and Georgiana decided to take a trip to Bath in
the hopes that the town's healing waters would cure the

(18:38):
Duchess of whatever was keeping her from having a healthy child.
And though the couple would not find the miracle cure
for the Duchess's infertility, by the end of their stay,
one more person would be returning to Devonshire House with them.
Unlike most who aim to visit Bath, Lady Elizabeth Foster,

(19:03):
or Bess as she was known to her friends, had
not traveled to the small country town in search of
healing cures. Recently Separated from her husband, Foster suddenly found
herself at a bitter crossroads in her life. Her husband
retained custody of their two children and left her with
no money to support herself, leaving Bess Foster with no

(19:27):
choice but to stay with an aunt in Bath. Upon
her initial introduction to the Devonshire's, the Duchess was immediately
taken by the unfortunate tale of the all but destitute
best Foster. Georgiana was more than ready to shower her
new friend in all the love and affection she had
been so far unable to give out in her own

(19:49):
home to her husband. Given what we know about Georgiana's
extroverted tendencies, this is probably less than surprising. But what
was surprising was the Duke, against all odds, also similarly
became enamored with their newest acquaintance, so much so that
by the end of their summer in Bath, an invitation

(20:12):
was extended to Bess to return to the city with them. Now,
the Devonshire House Circle was no stranger to the concepts
of sex or scandal, but even so, Bess's arrival in
London created a commotion the likes of which had even
members of the circle clutching their pearls. Word within the

(20:34):
circle traveled faster over drinks and gambling tables than printing
presses could ever hope to keep up with, and it
didn't take long for the town to make assumptions as
to why the newest member of Devonshire House had found
herself with nowhere else to go. Typically, in eighteenth century
marital separations, it was not uncommon for husbands to maintain

(20:57):
custody of children. However, it was uncommon for the separated
wife to receive no monetary compensation with which to support herself.
The only instances of this occurring usually indicated some sort
of quote wrongdoing on the side of the wife, most
commonly an instance of infidelity. So with rumors of Bess's

(21:21):
infidelity against her former husband flying across the Ton, it
only makes sense that the next rumor would be speculation
as to the exact nature of her relationship with the
Duke and Duchess. After all, in the entirety of the
eight years the Duke and Duchess had been married, when

(21:41):
had they ever agreed on anything as a couple, And
out of all aspects of a marriage to finally settle on,
the first thing is bringing another woman into their home,
and they really expected the Devonshire House circle the bona
fide poster children for extra marital affairs and sex game
indals to believe that nothing nefarius was going on. Even now,

(22:04):
nearly two hundred and fifty years after the fact, scholars
and casual historians can't help but to speculate as to
what exactly happened behind closed doors at Devonshire House. Of Course,
the most popular theory, if only because it remains the
lowest hanging fruit, is there infamously rumored Minagata. And while

(22:27):
the idea of this dysfunctional throutle is enticing in its
inherent drama, I'm sorry to inform you the specific threesome
most likely never happened. It's true the Duke and Duchess
both independently loved Best, but it's evident through their various
correspondences that their love was not intertwined in any sort

(22:51):
of capacity. In fact, it was Best His ability to
morph into what the Duke and what Georgana needed as
individuals at any and moment that made her so indispensable
to their relationship. For Georgiana, Best became an invaluable confidante
for her, event all frustrations regarding her loveless merit with

(23:12):
the Duke. Of course, the undeniable closeness between the two
women would give birth to the possibility. The second most
popular rumor as to the goings on at Devonshire House
a lesbian love affair between Bess and Georgiana. And while
this claim, in my opinion, still lack sufficient evidence, there

(23:32):
is no mistaking the strength of devotion between these two women.
Quote who has any right to know how long or
how tenderly we love one another? Georgiana wrote in a
letter to Best. Following public speculation of their relationship, she
continued writing, quote, does the warm impulse of two hearts
want an excuse to be accounted for? And must your

(23:55):
partiality to me be ushered in by another connection? Of course,
the instance of quote another connection a k a. A
supposed sexual relationship can't be confirmed by something so flimsy
as this. But ironically, the majority of scholarly discourse on
the nature of their relationship stems from the letters historians

(24:16):
have never been able to read. At some point in
the last two hundred years, someone close to the Devonsures
went through all of the records of their correspondence, censoring
and destroying anything they saw as potentially harmful to the
family's legacy, which unfortunately, had the opposite effect of making

(24:38):
curious parties speculate wildly as to what could have been
so damning as to necessitate such extreme censorship. Ultimately, the
full extent of Georgiana and Bess's relationship will remain a mystery,
but in my personal opinion, given these sexual proclivities associated

(24:59):
with the Devonshire House circle, it's entirely possible their relationship
may have, at one point or another blurred its lines.
But the fact remains, whatever their romantic relationship may or
may not have been, the two undoubtedly shared a deep
emotional connection that persisted throughout their lives. With Bess's comforting presence,

(25:23):
Georgiana began to ease on her drinking and late nights,
and soon found herself pregnant once again, and finally, after
nine years of marriage, in seventy three, Georgiana gave birth
to her first healthy child, and the whole of Devonshire
House took a collective sigh of relief. The child may

(25:43):
have been, to the Duke's disappointment, a girl, but her
birth proved Georgiana could eventually give birth to a healthy air,
and with her best friend at her side, it seemed
as if the loveless marriage she had once felt trapped
in no longer had such a suffocating hold on her life.

(26:04):
That is until just over a year later, when, within
weeks of discovering that she was once again pregnant, Georgiana
would come to the life altering realization that she was
not the only woman in Devonshire House carrying the Duke's child.

(26:26):
Now remember earlier when I said it was Bess's ability
to morph into the specific needs of both the Duke
and Duchess that made her so invaluable to them. Well,
Following the death of the Duke's longtime mistress, the Duke
was left with a romantic void in his life that
he would have sooner worn one of his wife's three
foot wigs than try to let her fill. But any

(26:49):
doubt in his wife's judge of character was swiftly forgotten
upon his introduction to Lady Elizabeth Foster on that faithful
trip to Bath. Best may have come into Devonshire House
as Georgiana's close friend, but she was no fool. She
was in no rush to return to her life, waiting
for her father to dole out pennies while she lived

(27:10):
with her aunt in the country, So when she saw
how the loneliness of the Devonshire marriage was not only
affecting Georgiana but the Duke himself, Bess was quick to
make herself available as a source of comfort to both
sides of the unhappy marriage. But fast forward three years
and an unplanned pregnancy later, and Georgiana's world was once

(27:34):
again crumbling to pieces around her. In the wake of
Bess's betrayal, Georgiana once again began indulging in a few
of her more self destructive vices, namely deepening the pit
of debt she'd already dug herself into gambling across London,
and when her second successful pregnancy yielded yet another girl

(27:58):
instead of the air her husband needed from her, the
Duchess's nearly hundred thousand pounds in debt or roughly six
million pounds in today's money suddenly became ground for the
Duke to demand a marital separation. But where Bess had
previously stepped in on the Duchess's behalf to plead with

(28:20):
the Duke for leniency, Best found that the dynamic between
the group had shifted following the birth of her own
illegitimate daughter, with the Duke Best no longer felt the
need to display the same undying loyalty toward Georgiana that
she had before, or at least pretended that she had before.

(28:40):
Maybe Best was bitter that female or not, george Jana's
daughters were allowed to live under the same roof as her,
unlike her own newborn daughter, who she was forced to
leave behind with a foster family. Maybe she realized Georgiana's
hold on the title of Duchess was steadily slipping through
her fingers, and maybe Bess wanted to be the one

(29:02):
ready to take up the mantle. Maybe Bess was tired
of living off those who deemed her worthy of the
scraps they allotted her. In the end, Bess's cold shoulder
wouldn't matter. Even if the Duke chose to leave his
wife for good. There was almost no scenario that saw
Best living the same privileged life Georgiana enjoyed as the Duchess.

(29:25):
Despite her insurmountable debts, Georgiana was still undeniably popular in
the public eye. The Devonshire House circle would surely ostracize
any other woman that usurped their beloved Georgiana, especially another
woman who had claimed to be Georgiana's closest friend. In
other words, the public was squarely hashtag team Georgiana. For

(29:51):
his part, the Duke was reluctantly coming to a similar realization.
Unfortunately for his wallet, gambling away the family is state
was not sufficient grounds for divorce. Now, if Georgiana had,
let's say, had an affair, the Duke may have had
more of a case. But unlike her husband, she had

(30:12):
remained unwaveringly faithful through the course of their marriage. Of course,
up until this point, Georgiana had yet to meet the young,
passionate wig politician who would forever alter the course of
her life, a man named Charles Gray. That marks the

(30:43):
end of our first episode on Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess
of Devonshire. Next week we'll be back with part two,
but stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear
a connection Georgiana has with another royal. You may know

(31:05):
now if Georgiana's made a name, Spencer immediately set off
alarm bells in the royal obsessed part of your brain.
I commend you on your encyclopedic knowledge of British royal lineage.
For everyone else, allow me to explain a little over
two hundred years after Georgiana Spencer was plucked from relative
obscurity to become the Duchess of Devonshire, another Spencer would

(31:28):
similarly shed her maiden name and shed her previously quiet
existence for a title that would make her a household name. Overnight,
Georgiana's great great great great niece, Diana Spencer, would marry
Prince Charles in nine and become Diana, Princess of Wales.

(31:49):
In the years since Princess Diana's marriage into the royal
family and tragically untimely death, historians and tabloids alike have
taken to comparing the two iconic women who forever left
an imprint on their respective cultural landscapes. And while it's
true both became unmistakable style icons, both stuck in unhappy marriages,

(32:12):
both married to indifferent husbands even as they were adored
by the public, I think it's also impossible to compare
the two women without also taking into account the role
that the tabloid media had in their lives. Interesting, isn't it. However?
Two centuries can pass, and yet the press still finds
itself reliant on the toxic cycle of building up women

(32:35):
to fit on impossibly high pedestals just so they can
relish their inevitable falls. It's enough to make you wonder
how much of these women's lives were dictated by worry
about what would be printed the next day, and how
different their lives might have been had the press decided
to tell a different story. Ye Noble Blood is a

(33:10):
production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from
Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Danis Shwartz.
Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick,
Mirra Hayward, Courtney Sunder, and Laurie Goodman. The show is
produced by rema Il Kali, with supervising producer Josh Thane

(33:31):
and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
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