The Mistresses of Cliveden by Natalie Livingstone - book review
The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power, and Intrigue in An English Stately Home, by Natalie Livingstone, has a clever pun in its title, as the women she is writing about were not only the chatelaines of this noble pile near Windsor Castle, but also in many cases had colourful, even tempestuous love lives.
It is a marvellous subject as Cliveden has been owned by so many prominent people, close to the throne and deeply involved in the major events of their time.
Built as a lovers' paradise by the wild Restoration Duke of Buckingham, the house then became the home of a royal mistress, Elizabeth Villiers, before becoming an actual royal residence, home to Augusta, Princess of Wales, wife of George II's son Frederick.
In Victorian times it was lived in by Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, lady in waiting and close friend to Queen Victoria. By the Edwardian era it had passed into the ownership of the mega-rich American Astor family, and in the 1960s it hit the headlines as the setting for the Profumo sex-scandal.
All the women who lived at Cliveden were remarkable in their way. Nothing can really surpass the romance and sensationalism of the Restoration period, when Anna Maria, the runaway Countess of Shrewsbury, caused riots and duels. In the reign of William III, Elizabeth Villiers became a royal mistress through her intelligence, not her beauty. Later, Princess Augusta manoeuvred her way through the minefield of Georgian politics with triumphant success.
Natalie Livingstone does not quite convince me that Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, had a brilliant intellect, but for a Tory aristocrat she certainly had her surprising enthusiasms, embracing the cause of abolishing slavery, and idolizing Garibaldi, the Italian revolutionary.
She seems to have been an early example of "radical chic", flirting with the ideas that would in another century sweep away the power of her class.
Nancy Astor was besieged all her life by admirers and proposals, on account of her beauty and effervescent personality. Men did not seem to mind that she was a tee-totaller who hated sex (so much so that it led to her first divorce) and joined the rather awful Christian Science movement. She became the most successful society hostess of her time and the first woman MP to sit in Westminster, yet she is perhaps the least attractive of all these characters.
Livingstone's narration is not always very coherent. She completely forgets to tell us who Harriet's parents actually were, and indulges a little too much in non-linear narrative. Simple readers appreciate chronological order, and a few family trees might also be handy. However most readers will think that is a small flaw in a highly enjoyable book.
If you enjoyed reading The Mistresses of Cliveden, you will also enjoy
Elizabeth Craven: Writer,
Feminist and European,
by Julia Gasper
It is a marvellous subject as Cliveden has been owned by so many prominent people, close to the throne and deeply involved in the major events of their time.
In Victorian times it was lived in by Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, lady in waiting and close friend to Queen Victoria. By the Edwardian era it had passed into the ownership of the mega-rich American Astor family, and in the 1960s it hit the headlines as the setting for the Profumo sex-scandal.
All the women who lived at Cliveden were remarkable in their way. Nothing can really surpass the romance and sensationalism of the Restoration period, when Anna Maria, the runaway Countess of Shrewsbury, caused riots and duels. In the reign of William III, Elizabeth Villiers became a royal mistress through her intelligence, not her beauty. Later, Princess Augusta manoeuvred her way through the minefield of Georgian politics with triumphant success.
Natalie Livingstone does not quite convince me that Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, had a brilliant intellect, but for a Tory aristocrat she certainly had her surprising enthusiasms, embracing the cause of abolishing slavery, and idolizing Garibaldi, the Italian revolutionary.
Nancy Astor was besieged all her life by admirers and proposals, on account of her beauty and effervescent personality. Men did not seem to mind that she was a tee-totaller who hated sex (so much so that it led to her first divorce) and joined the rather awful Christian Science movement. She became the most successful society hostess of her time and the first woman MP to sit in Westminster, yet she is perhaps the least attractive of all these characters.
Livingstone's narration is not always very coherent. She completely forgets to tell us who Harriet's parents actually were, and indulges a little too much in non-linear narrative. Simple readers appreciate chronological order, and a few family trees might also be handy. However most readers will think that is a small flaw in a highly enjoyable book.
Elizabeth Craven: Writer,
Feminist and European,
by Julia Gasper
published by Vernon Press.
https://vernonpress.com/title?id=334
23 Jun 2017 - Elizabeth Craven's fascinating life was full of travel, love-affairs and scandals but this biography, the first to appear for a century, is the only one ...
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