The Mistresses of Cliveden
Three Centuries of Scandal, Power and Intrigue in an English Stately Home
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- 9,49 €
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- 9,49 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
'It covers three centuries of high living, high politics and high drama [...] it is so fascinating' MEL SYKES
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A Sunday Times bestseller
Five women. One house. One extraordinary history.
Even today, Cliveden retains its royal mystique - it is where Meghan Markle and her mother spent the night before the royal wedding - but from its construction in the 1660s to its heyday in the 1960s, Cliveden has played host to a dynasty of remarkable and powerful women.
Anna Maria, Elizabeth, Augusta, Harriet, and Nancy were five ladies who, over the course of three centuries, shaped British society through their beauty, personalities, and political influence.
Restoration and revolution, aristocratic rise and fall, world war and cold war form the extraordinary backdrop against which their stories unfold.
An addictive history of the period and an intimate exploration of the timeless relationships between people and place, The Mistresses of Cliveden is a story of sex, power and politics, and the ways in which exceptional women defy the expectations of their time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This lively, accessible work from English writer Livingstone follows five mistresses of Cliveden from the time of late-17th-century Restoration-era rakes to the swinging 1960s. Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, and Elizabeth, Countess of Orkney, were louche paramours of prominent noblemen. Augusta, Princess of Wales, was the wife of a progressive but doomed heir. Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, was a do-gooder and close friend of Queen Victoria. The last mistress, American-born Nancy Astor, became the first woman elected to Parliament. Her son presided over the estate's most notorious modern scandal, 1963's Profumo Affair, when Britain's war minister shared the charms of party girl Christine Keeler with a possible Soviet spy. Cliveden flourished as a center of hedonism, culture, and politics. King George III, who aroused the ire of American colonists, spent a portion of his childhood there. Guests included Jonathan Swift, William Gladstone, and Lawrence of Arabia. Downton Abbey this is not: it traces the saga of unrelated women, not a single aristocratic family. Sutherland and Astor truly influenced history; other women of Cliveden were activists, and all chafed under the restrictions imposed on women. Packed with details about architecture, gardens, clothing, and manners, Livingstone's debut is an entertaining, anecdotal popular history. Photos.
