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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm editor Kendis Keener, joined by fellow editor Katie Lambert. Candice. Hi, Katie.

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Speaker 1: I am delighted for Katie today to share with you

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Speaker 1: a bunch of news about one of her favorite historical figures.

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Speaker 1: And we decided it was only fair that Katie should

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Speaker 1: get to talk about her since I have spent probably

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Speaker 1: hours yemm orring on and on about the greatness of

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Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson. She is a very fascinating lady, much like

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Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette, which brought Candace and I together over this

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Speaker 1: one um. But her name is Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire,

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Speaker 1: although she was born Georgiana Spencer. And if the name

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Speaker 1: sounds familiar, that's because Princess Diana was one of her descendants.

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. And many people say that the

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Speaker 1: stories of Diana and Georgiana, alternately referred to as Georgiana,

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Speaker 1: are pretty similar. We see that the women suffer from bulimia.

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Speaker 1: They have sort of reckless lifestyles and engage and questionable

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Speaker 1: romantic pursuits, and these are criticisms that have been thrown

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Speaker 1: out them, and perhaps the most poignant one is that

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Speaker 1: Georgiana got a chance to redeem herself later in life,

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Speaker 1: whereas Diana never got that chance because her life was

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Speaker 1: so tragically short. And you may remember that The Duchess

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Speaker 1: came out in the theaters what a year ago not

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Speaker 1: too too long ago, because it won an Oscar back

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Speaker 1: in January for costume design. But I think a lot

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Speaker 1: of press was drawn to the fact that these women

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Speaker 1: led similar lives, and perhaps people would be more interested

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Speaker 1: in a period drama if they thought it would smack

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Speaker 1: of Diana well in Candas and I both owe a

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Speaker 1: lot of our research to Amanda Foreman's book The Duchess.

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Speaker 1: But before we get too much into what she's done,

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Speaker 1: maybe we'll start with her childhood. Georgiana was born in

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Speaker 1: seventeen fifty seven to the Earl and Countess Spencer, and

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Speaker 1: they were one of the richest families in England, so

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Speaker 1: her marital prospects were very much look forward to. They

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Speaker 1: had five houses. Her upbringing was very ladylike. She studied

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Speaker 1: in deportment and harp playing and drawing, nothing too strenuous,

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Speaker 1: but enough so she would be a polished young lady.

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Speaker 1: And she met the Duke of Devonshire when she was

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Speaker 1: sixteen years old, and her mother didn't want her to

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Speaker 1: get married too young because she had a love match

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Speaker 1: of her own and she was really hoping for the

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Speaker 1: same thing for Georgiana. But if you look at some

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Speaker 1: of Georgiana's letters, you can tell a couple of things,

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Speaker 1: one of which is that Georgiana was a people pleaser.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps she had loose self esteem, but she wanted always

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Speaker 1: to have her mother's praise lavished upon her. And when

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Speaker 1: she met the Duke and she got the scent that

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Speaker 1: this was a match people would regard very highly, she

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Speaker 1: was pretty ancho for it to happen. She was excited

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Speaker 1: to pursue him, or rather for him to pursue her

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Speaker 1: her hand in marriage. And his family, the Cavendishes, were

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Speaker 1: another huge family in England, so uniting the two would

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Speaker 1: be quite the big deal, and united they were. And

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Speaker 1: uh we mentioned that she was alternately termed or referred

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Speaker 1: to as Georgiana and Georgiana and Geordana came to be

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Speaker 1: because the Cavendishes had a rather affected way of speaking

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Speaker 1: or drawing, as it were, and once they christened her Georgana.

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Speaker 1: Georgana she was for the rest of her life. She was.

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Speaker 1: And it's funny because members of the Coterie of the

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Speaker 1: Devonshires would affect that same sort of accent, just like

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Speaker 1: Georgana did. Their marriage was the marriage of the year.

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Speaker 1: She got married I think on her seventeenth birthday, um,

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Speaker 1: and there were only five people present. Weddings then weren't

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Speaker 1: a big affair. But they had it actually two days

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Speaker 1: earlier than they were supposed to, because they were afraid

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Speaker 1: she was going to be mobbed paparazzi style on her

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Speaker 1: way to the nuptials. And she quickly became a rather

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Speaker 1: permanent fixture in newspapers. She was the source of much

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Speaker 1: speculation and gossip. And she was a sort of girl who,

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Speaker 1: if you knew her, you might have loved to hate her.

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Speaker 1: I mean, she was beautiful and she captured everyone's attention.

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Speaker 1: She had all the right clothes, all the right hairstyle.

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Speaker 1: She set the trends, and yet she was so magnetic

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Speaker 1: you couldn't help but be drawn to her as a friend.

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Speaker 1: Horace Walpole said that her youthful figure, flowing good nature,

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Speaker 1: sense and lively modesty and modest familiarity make her a phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: Even though he didn't consider her a great beauty, she

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Speaker 1: was still incredibly attractive and sexy, and other sources at

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Speaker 1: the time say that she was a great beauty. So

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Speaker 1: I wonder if she just had one of those faces

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Speaker 1: where maybe if you got to know her a little

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Speaker 1: bit better, she was incredibly attractive to you. They said

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Speaker 1: the same thing about Marie Antoinette. Some people said she

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Speaker 1: was a great beauty and others said it was more

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Speaker 1: her charisma. But despite beauty questionable or not or charisma,

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Speaker 1: her husband didn't have a whole lot to do with her.

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Speaker 1: And now, perhaps that could be explained by the fact

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Speaker 1: that he already had a mistress tucked away somewhere. So

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Speaker 1: and he was a lot like her father, kind of

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Speaker 1: reserved and not very emotional. But um, as a. Manda

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Speaker 1: Foreman points out in her book, Georgana's father had no

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Speaker 1: know this hidden core of sweetness. And she says that

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Speaker 1: perhaps Georgana thought so did her husband, but he didn't.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't a particularly nice man. And it's a story

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Speaker 1: you may have heard time and time again. When a

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Speaker 1: woman can't get the love and intention she needs, she

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Speaker 1: turned to other pursuits, and in the case of Georgana,

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Speaker 1: some of these were pretty self destructive. She was living

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Speaker 1: life at extremes for a while and some of it

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Speaker 1: wasn't her fault. When they first got married, she made

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Speaker 1: five hundred visits in three weeks to the notable lords

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Speaker 1: and ladies of the area, because that's what was expected.

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Speaker 1: I hate returning calls. It's just too taxing after a

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Speaker 1: long day. Five visits a lot. It makes me tired

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Speaker 1: just thinking about it. But she did. It was very

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Speaker 1: send of palm she did. And she was very fashionable

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Speaker 1: and very much the bell of society, the center of

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Speaker 1: attention um and with that came a gambling addiction because

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Speaker 1: she was the head of her the fast set in London,

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Speaker 1: let's say, the bright young people. It was the bright

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Speaker 1: young people, yes, very wall And what what do you

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Speaker 1: do when you sit around a gambling table while you drink?

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Speaker 1: Maybe you dabble in drugs, might overeat. She definitely had

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Speaker 1: an addiction to opiates. And when one of her relatives

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Speaker 1: was saying that the problem with her living at extremes,

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Speaker 1: she would go dancing for ten days and never sleep,

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Speaker 1: and then she would crash and for the next ten days,

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Speaker 1: you know, she'd be in bed, unable to function, and

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Speaker 1: she might blot it all out with a big dose

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Speaker 1: of opiates and eventually she'd get back on her feet

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Speaker 1: and go back out. But it was the same thing.

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Speaker 1: She couldn't figure out how to stay on that middle

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Speaker 1: ground right now, a sense of moderation. And this was

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Speaker 1: unfortunate because for a gentlewoman of her stature in this

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Speaker 1: time period, her primary responsibility was to produce an air

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Speaker 1: for the Caven dishes for the Duke of Devonshire. And

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Speaker 1: looking back now, we could attribute some of these early

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Speaker 1: miscarriages to her lifestyle, the drinking, the drug taking, the

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Speaker 1: lack of sleep, and then the fast pace at which

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Speaker 1: she lived and moved, which is too bad for her

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Speaker 1: because she could kind of use an air as a

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Speaker 1: bargaining chip to pay off some of her gambling debts.

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Speaker 1: She really didn't like telling the Duke about how much

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Speaker 1: she owed, and at one point she owed I think

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Speaker 1: the first time she really got into trouble, she owed

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Speaker 1: something like three hundred thousand dollars in today's money, and

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Speaker 1: she didn't want to tell her husband. But later when

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Speaker 1: these debts kept piling up because she would get them

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Speaker 1: paid off. She would talk to the Duke or talk

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Speaker 1: to someone else and the debts would be excused and

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Speaker 1: she would make you heartfelt resolution that it wouldn't happen again,

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Speaker 1: and then you know, soon enough she was in the

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Speaker 1: hole again. Um. But when she had a son, she

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Speaker 1: could use that as a bargaining chip with the caven Dishes.

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Speaker 1: So at this point you may be injuring, Wow, what

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Speaker 1: kind of person is this Katie Lambert who admire such

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Speaker 1: a gambler and drug taker? Katie redeemed Georgianata because she does.

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Speaker 1: She has very many redeeming qualities. She does. She was

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Speaker 1: very involved in politics and actually Canadas she can probably

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Speaker 1: talk more about her role. Um with the Whigs in England,

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Speaker 1: Georgiana existed. I've got to pick a consistent pronunciation. I'm

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Speaker 1: saying everyone, I'm airing on the side of the Spencers,

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Speaker 1: and I guess I should be calling her the Cavendish Georgiana,

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Speaker 1: but gee, I'll call her g because many of her

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Speaker 1: friends did. Ge was coming about and becoming more politically

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Speaker 1: aware in a time when the Wig party we can

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Speaker 1: see with them as a party today, but the Tories

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Speaker 1: and Whigs weren't necessarily political parties and the proper sense

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Speaker 1: back then, but alas I digress, The point is the

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Speaker 1: Whigs were starting to support the idea of a constitutional monarchy,

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Speaker 1: and they were they were pro America, weren't they anti

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Speaker 1: slavery right around the time of the American Revolution. And

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Speaker 1: the idea of the constitutional monarchy is essentially that there

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Speaker 1: is limited say in the king's power over legislation, and

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Speaker 1: it doesn't dispute the fact that the king gets the

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Speaker 1: throne on the basis of inheritance, not like in a

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Speaker 1: republic where a popular vote elects the leader, but it

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Speaker 1: does say that there are some restrictions to what the

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Speaker 1: king can do, and for instance, the king could actually

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Speaker 1: tap the Prime Minister who he wanted to preside over

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Speaker 1: the people, whereas the Whigs said that the House of

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Speaker 1: Commons majority vote should decide the prime minister. So essentially

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Speaker 1: it's a division between the royalists and a more liberal

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Speaker 1: party who want more power granted to the people. And

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Speaker 1: some marked debates that showed the Whigs differences from the Tories,

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Speaker 1: where things like the abolition of slavery, which you mentioned,

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Speaker 1: and also at this time as we've mentioned in earlier podcasts,

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Speaker 1: Britain was very much an involved in India and the

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Speaker 1: Whigs wanted to see that kind of power curtailed the

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Speaker 1: power that they had over the people. And if you're

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Speaker 1: wondering how politics would have appealed to someone like Gee,

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Speaker 1: who was more known for her three foot hair towers

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Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette style with Ostrich feathers, and then the Queen

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Speaker 1: actually had to ban Ostrich feathers because people were paying

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Speaker 1: of scene amounts of money for them. She got into

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Speaker 1: politics because of Charles Fox, and Charles Fox was pretty

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Speaker 1: much synonymous with the term Wig at this time. His

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Speaker 1: greatest adversary was William Pitt, who was a Royalist, and

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Speaker 1: Fox was very much an advocate for the abolition of

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Speaker 1: Flavory and he was also behind that India reform that

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Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, and his personality just clicked with Geez

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Speaker 1: and they were instant friends, and she was not only

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Speaker 1: a confidante to him, but some even suggest that they

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Speaker 1: had a romantic partnership. Whether or not that's true, I

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Speaker 1: think there's more doubt than agreement, but it was a

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Speaker 1: thought that was on society at least. And Fox also

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Speaker 1: got g interested, I think in reading and in learning.

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Speaker 1: When she married the Duke, she was attempting to cater

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Speaker 1: to his interest because he was so cold and uninterested.

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Speaker 1: So she would get history books, you know, and try

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Speaker 1: to bone up on his favorite areas that she could

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Speaker 1: discuss it at dinner with him. Again, much like Marie

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Speaker 1: Antoinette Stewart does with me. It works, it really does.

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Speaker 1: Read history and I'll talk to you. But Charles Fox

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Speaker 1: is a hugely controversial figure too, because around the time

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Speaker 1: of the French Revolution and the genesis of that movement

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Speaker 1: beginning in France, here's a man who who applauded when

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Speaker 1: the Bastille fell, and he very much aligned his ideologies

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Speaker 1: with the Jacobins, who promoted constitutional monarchy, and he was

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Speaker 1: slow and reluctant to retract that alignment even after the

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Speaker 1: Jacobins gave way to the radicalism of Robespierre, whom you

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Speaker 1: may remember from the French Revolution podcast just sort of

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Speaker 1: devolved into this strange chaos of madness and godliness, and

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Speaker 1: of course there was so much bloodshed and madness in

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Speaker 1: France it was very damaging for any political party to

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Speaker 1: align with them, and he also did some had some

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Speaker 1: not so great ideas during the regency crisis in sev

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Speaker 1: seventeen eighty nine, which is when George the third started

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Speaker 1: to go mad and they were trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: who could take over for him because Parliament couldn't make

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Speaker 1: any decisions until the Speech from the Throne was made

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Speaker 1: and the king was completely incapacitated, So Georgiana, Georgiana and

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Speaker 1: Fox were gunning for the prince to have complete unlimited

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Speaker 1: power as the regent, whereas other people were advocating for

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Speaker 1: limited power, saying, you know, let's take that first step

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Speaker 1: and then later we'll kind of get what we want

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Speaker 1: that way, um. And it ended up damaging the Whig

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Speaker 1: Party quite a bit because, of course the king came

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Speaker 1: back from that particular illness and no one was particularly

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Speaker 1: pleased with how they had handled the situation. And Georgina

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Speaker 1: was very good at orchestrating these kinds of discussions. At

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Speaker 1: the Devonsers Home, this was seen as sort of an

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Speaker 1: enclave not only for romantic interlopers. It would you know

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Speaker 1: that there are several illicit couples who had interminglings there,

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Speaker 1: but it was also a hot bed of political discussion.

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Speaker 1: She had this knack for drawing people in and getting

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Speaker 1: people from unlikely walks of life to have conversations with

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Speaker 1: each other, and she was almost like the puppet master

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Speaker 1: of these very powerful political men. Dinners at the Devonshire

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Speaker 1: House were a really integral part of many of these

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Speaker 1: elections because it was this nice, informal, sort of neutral ground.

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Speaker 1: You could invite people and it would look like a

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Speaker 1: social invitation, but then of course you could turn it

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Speaker 1: into something more if you wanted, which she did right

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Speaker 1: and everyone wanted in naturally. But of course, all through

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Speaker 1: this political turmoil, she also had a lot going on

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Speaker 1: in her personal life, and there was one person in

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Speaker 1: her life who made a huge difference, and that was

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Speaker 1: Lady Elizabeth Foster, known as best Drawling my eyes. This

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Speaker 1: woman is such a piece of work. It's very single

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Speaker 1: white female. She's kind of she's kind of a creepy stalker. Um.

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Speaker 1: She was separated from her husband when she met Georgiana,

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Speaker 1: and he had custody of her children. She had very

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Speaker 1: little money and since she was the wife of the earl,

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Speaker 1: she couldn't actually go out and work, so she was

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Speaker 1: in straightened circumstances to say the least, and she ingratiated

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Speaker 1: herself with the Devonsures and became as Amanda Foreman describes,

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Speaker 1: the keeper of their secrets, and the strange relationship between

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Speaker 1: Bess as she's known and a duke and g became

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Speaker 1: a very strange type of manage ortoi in which, you know,

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Speaker 1: you may call that kind of love triangle forbidden love,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't it was permissible. I think, well, G

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Speaker 1: didn't exactly. I love the idea of best having romantic

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Speaker 1: relations with her husband. Who would? Who would? She was

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Speaker 1: able to intimately interact with the Duke as a sort

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Speaker 1: of intermediary in the bedroom and in conversation. She could

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Speaker 1: convey to the Duke that Georgiana had outstanding debts. She

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Speaker 1: could convey to him other messages from his wife, and

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Speaker 1: because the Duke was such a poor communicator, he could

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Speaker 1: communicate through Buss, who acted as Georgiana's bestie and told

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Speaker 1: her what was going on in his mind. It's very strange,

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Speaker 1: very strange. She started off as this no one and

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Speaker 1: came into their lives and stayed there for forever. She did. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: three years after Georgiana died, she actually became the Duchess

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Speaker 1: of Devonshire. Which which is what some say she wanted

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Speaker 1: all along. But she and Georgiana were truly good friends.

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Speaker 1: They wrote impassioned letters to each other, which unfortunately were

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Speaker 1: censored by Georgiana's airs crazy Victorians, I love you Victorians.

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Speaker 1: There may have been more erotic messages in them. No

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Speaker 1: one's really sure if the relationship between them was a

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Speaker 1: sexual one or simply a friendship, or maybe both. But

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Speaker 1: the records that exist today are a bit muted because

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Speaker 1: of the people who came through and tried to edit

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Speaker 1: the story to read a certain way. But someone who

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Speaker 1: was always very suspicious of Best's motives was Georgiana's mother.

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Speaker 1: She never liked the woman ever, And Lady Spencer was

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Speaker 1: a bit of a piece of work too. She was

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Speaker 1: very She and Georgiana were very, very close, and that

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Speaker 1: kind of a suffocating relationship again, sort of like a

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Speaker 1: parallel U with Marie Antoinette and her mother at the Empress.

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Speaker 1: But she was very self indulgent. I guess when Georgiana

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Speaker 1: was a child and when she was older, I had

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Speaker 1: this constant guilt tripping thing going on, always sending her

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Speaker 1: letters about what she was doing wrong, what she was

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Speaker 1: doing wrong, and Georgiana took it all very much to heart,

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Speaker 1: and you know, to deal with the guilt from that,

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Speaker 1: she would just go off and gamble more and drink more.

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Speaker 1: And Lady Spencer eventually got into that as well, didn't

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Speaker 1: she at least she did playing right, and Georgiana's other

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Speaker 1: sister too. But what we see here is a life

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Speaker 1: of decadence punctuated by very important moments of political contribution

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Speaker 1: cultural contribution. She was a patron of the arts, she

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Speaker 1: was a patron of wearable fashion and style, and people

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Speaker 1: looked to her as a kind benefactress. She was involved

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Speaker 1: with peace negotiations with France and America. She was involved

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Speaker 1: with the Westminster elections. She was involved with the regency stuff.

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Speaker 1: Like we talked about before, she wasn't an idle woman,

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Speaker 1: and with the true grace of a lady, she didn't

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Speaker 1: flash around her contributions. It was understood that the Judgess

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Speaker 1: of Devonshire was a very powerful and well respected woman,

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Speaker 1: and it was also understood that she had her faults too.

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Speaker 1: But I think that for a long time one of

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Speaker 1: the reasons she went unacknowledged in history until arguably this

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Speaker 1: great biography by A. Manda foreman came out was that

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Speaker 1: she handled her successes and her accomplishments with such quiet grace.

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Speaker 1: They really went and hushed when people were more interested

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Speaker 1: in the scandalous personal aspects of her life. And like

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Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, she sort of had a chance to

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Speaker 1: come back. That's after she was exiled for her affair

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Speaker 1: with Charles Gray, when she come Earl Gray to use me,

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Speaker 1: which were big fans of um, and she was pregnant

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Speaker 1: with his child, and the Duke said, you know, get

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Speaker 1: out of the country, have the baby and give it up,

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Speaker 1: or you're never seeing your other children again. And Georgiana

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Speaker 1: had the very difficult decision of choosing, you know, her

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Speaker 1: child was someone she loved very much, or her children

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Speaker 1: she already had with the Duke, and she chose her children,

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Speaker 1: and he wouldn't let her come back for a couple

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Speaker 1: of years. But when she did return, politics was the

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Speaker 1: thing she had. She had her children and she had

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Speaker 1: these political ambitions. And by this time she had come

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Speaker 1: down with a strange eye infection. Reading about that was

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Speaker 1: painting it and I couldn't quite understand. And maybe because

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Speaker 1: her contemporaries didn't understand what exactly was wrong, but she

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Speaker 1: essentially lost one eye and almost lost her vision entirely,

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Speaker 1: and the way that she was treated for the illness

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Speaker 1: left her very visibly changed. And so at this point,

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Speaker 1: like you said, politics was what she had, and she

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Speaker 1: was able to help orchestrate an uprising of the Whig

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Speaker 1: Party again because they had fallen out of favor with

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Speaker 1: the events of the French Revolution. But she had one

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Speaker 1: final coup left in her. It was time to make

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Speaker 1: a comeback. She successfully helped usher the Whig Party into power,

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Speaker 1: and in eighteen thirty with Charles Gray at the Helm,

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Speaker 1: slavery was abolished and the Reform Act of eighteen thirty

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Speaker 1: two was passed. So how about that that's a pretty

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Speaker 1: major accomplishment. Puppet Master ge Georgiana died at the age

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Speaker 1: of forty eight, and we think it was from a

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Speaker 1: liver abscess, and she was very much mourned by her

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Speaker 1: children and oddly especially by someone like a Bess who immediately,

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Speaker 1: of course went through all of their correspondence and crossed

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Speaker 1: out all the things that made her look bad. And

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Speaker 1: to bring the discussion full circle back to Diana, who

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Speaker 1: we mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, many would

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Speaker 1: say that at age forty eight. This was well before

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Speaker 1: her time, and even though the life expectancy wasn't as

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Speaker 1: long done as it is today, one could arguably say

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Speaker 1: that Georgiana had much left in her to accomplish. But

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Speaker 1: she's a fascinating study and I really encourage you, and

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Speaker 1: I'm sure Katie does too, to read The Duchess, or,

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Speaker 1: if you're not into a reader and we tend not

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Speaker 1: to associate with people like that, to at least to

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Speaker 1: at least see the movie to get an idea of

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Speaker 1: the powerful figure that she was. And as always, be

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Speaker 1: sure to look for more articles about the Wigs and Tories,

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Speaker 1: the French Revolution, and all sorts of government gore on

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. For more on this and

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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot

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Speaker 1: com And be sure to check out the stuff you

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Speaker 1: missed in History Class blog on the how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com home page