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...