The life and times of Georgiana Cavendish Duchess of Devonshire - Iona Bastin (WL)

Grenville, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and The life and times of Georgiana Cavendish, most importantly Charles Fox. It was Fox Duchess of Devonshire who caused Georgiana to be involved in politics during the General Election Iona Bastin (WL) of 1774. Fox was a radical, wanting to limit the powers of the monarch which led to George III refusing to allow him to be Prime Minister. The Duke was happy to use Georgiana as an ornament at political dinner parties, but she wanted to go further, becoming actively involved and expressing her own thoughts and opinions. She attended the hustings with Fox, and these could be incredibly violent, often with window smashing and rioting which could potentially result in death. She also used to walk around Westminster canvassing voters for him, which defied the expectation that respectable women should not be so publicly involved in politics. This made her a target for pro-government propaganda which attacked her public image, even spreading rumours that she was exchanging kisses for votes. Fox lost the election to William Pitt the Younger, and Georgiana retired from politics until the Regency Crisis of 1788-89 of which she kept a detailed diary, which remains some of the most quoted source material for the period.

Image: Gainsborough’s famous hat portrait of the Duchess painted in 1785-87

Georgiana Cavendish was one of the most remarkable women of the 18th century. Most well known for her notorious affair with Charles Grey and consequent illegitimate child, she was also a political activist, socialite, gambler, and scholar, as well as a loving mother whose private life was filled with tragedy.

Reimagined in the 2008 film The Duchess starring Keira Knightly, she was a complex and interesting character who is well worth her fame.

Born Georgiana Spencer, she was married at seventeen to William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, who was ten years her senior. It was considered an illustrious marriage due to the good social standing of the Spencers and the wealth of the Duke, who was one of the richest and most powerful nobles in the country. He had great political influence due to the political structure of the time: there weren’t political parties but factions, which would attach themselves to rich patrons such as the Duke, who was a patron of the Whigs. Initially, the Duke was extremely reserved and icy towards Georgiana, but she had hoped that this public demeanour was contrasted with private affection as was the case with her father. However, she found him to be just as cold behind closed doors, already having a mistress at the time of their marriage and preferring to spend time with his dogs rather than her. Georgiana suffered multiple miscarriages, for many years failing to produce the expected male heir to the dukedom which caused the rift between her and her husband to widen. She was a devoted mother, even to the daughter of one of the Duke’s mistresses, Charlotte, who she raised as her own.

The Duke’s influence in the Whig party meant that Georgiana became leader of the Devonshire House Circle, a political and social meeting place for the Whigs. It included many famous politicians and celebrities of the time such as Thomas Georgiana was a great beauty and was painted multiple times by Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, the most famous portrait painters of the time. She was highly fashionable and was followed and imitated in everything she did, for example greatly influencing the growth in popularity of Bath as a place of leisure for the gentry. Georgiana was good friends with Marie Antoinette, who was also known for her elaborate hairstyles and outrageous fashion, and they certainly influenced each other. Georgiana initiated the craze for extravagantly designed hair that reached dizzying heights. She created themed displays in her hair with ornaments, such as birds, fruit or even a ship in sail, and employed a resident hairdresser who was paid a higher wage than all of the female servants, and almost all of the other male servants including the Duke’s valet. She was the first to wear ostrich feather headdresses which she imported from Paris. These were three foot tall and started a fashion that caused feathers to become so scarce in England that fashionable women resorted to bribing undertakers for their horses’ plumage. In 1787, she was painted by Thomas Gainsborough with a huge black hat resting on her

mass of hair, resulting in a trend for ‘the picture hat’. She also used her fashion in her political life, wearing a fox fur muff to demonstrate her support for Charles Fox.

Georgiana was a notorious gambler and was continuously in debt. Gambling was a popular pastime, one of few activities that men and women had in common, but Georgiana took it to a new level. It often took place at social events, such as at dinner parties, and could also be a political affair. For example, Charles Fox was known to stay all night at the card tables and consequently lost his fortune to gambling. The Duke’s cruelty and infidelity was in part the catalyst for this addiction. She tried to hide the extent of her debts from him as he would use it to constrain her, for example only paying off her debts if she allowed him to do certain things like living with his mistress, Lady Elizabeth Foster. She constantly asked her friends and relations to pay off her debts, including the Prince of Wales and the owner of her bank, Thomas Coutts, and spent her life dodging creditors who would chase her down the street or come to her house to try and claim their due. By her death she owed nearly £4,000,000 in today’s money. Upon being informed of this, her husband supposedly replied, “is that all?”.

Surprisingly, Georgiana became good friends with her husband’s mistress, Lady Elizabeth Foster, and there is speculation that she may have had a romantic relationship with her. However, Lady Elizabeth’s association with the Duke and Duchess was not necessarily out of love – her own husband was abusive and had kept Elizabeth from seeing her children. Therefore, the influence of the couple was invaluable in reuniting her with them. Lady Elizabeth seemingly encouraged Georgiana to have her affair with Charles Grey. While this might appear supportive, it could also have been a way of removing Georgiana’s moral authority over her.

When Georgiana became pregnant with Charles Grey’s child, she was given an ultimatum by the Duke: either give up Grey and the bastard, or she would never see her other children again. Georgiana chose her marriage and her children, going abroad to complete her pregnancy. On her return, she was forced to give the child, known as Eliza Courtney, to Grey’s parents to raise. One of the paintings in William Hogarth’s election series, a satire on the electoral system of the 18th century. Voters are shown declaring their support for the Whigs (orange) or Tories (blue), while agents from both sides are using unscrupulous tactics to increase their votes or challenge opposing voters.

She inquired after Eliza for the rest of her life, even visiting her in secret. On her death, she gave Lady Elizabeth her blessing to marry the duke, but today we might question whether this was out of genuine forgiveness or pragmatism about the amount of control Lady Elizabeth had over her children’s future. Towards the end of her life Georgiana went blind in one eye from an untreated eye infection which also marred her famous beauty, forcing her to remain secluded in Devonshire House. She was not idle though and moving on from fashion she became interested in chemistry, spending time with scientist Charles Blagden and building a large mineral collection at Chatsworth. Finally, when her youngest daughter was introduced to society, she started entertaining again, rekindling her friendship with the Prince of Wales and becoming one of his main advisors. She died at only 48 years old of an undiagnosed abscess of the liver and spent the last days of her life in a state of insensibility and suffering from seizures.

Georgiana was a complex woman, who has remained in the public consciousness for several centuries. She was independent and free-spirited, and while this often got her into difficult situations, she was also an innovator and took the world on her own terms, whether through politics, fashion or science. She pursued her interests in the face of adversity and refused to be cowed by life’s vicissitudes, expressing her personality even when constrained by her husband and convention. She started life as a naïve and indulged girl, but even through torrid times she had a strength to her and displayed her creative and interesting character, which caught people’s attention then and through history.