WEBVTT - The Dollar Princesses 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:12.160 and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey Listener discretion advised. Hey, 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:14.920 this is Dani Schwartz, host of Noble Blood. If you 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.320 want to support the show, you can sign up on 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.880 our Patreon, Patreon dot com slash Noble Blood Tails. There's 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.439 a link in the episode description where you get episode scripts, 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:30.360 monthly bonus episodes, and exclusive merch like a seasonal sticker 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:33.840 that is designed by incredible artists. There's so much fun. 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:36.720 I have them now all over my kitchen. If you're 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:38.960 listening to this episode, the day comes out. My book 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:43.519 comes out next week, and preorders are so important in 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.080 the book world. I'm sure you're tired of people telling 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:48.360 you about that, but it's true. So if you like 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:53.120 slightly maccabre historical stories, I think you'll really like my book. 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:57.040 It's a sequel to my first novel, Anatomy A Love Story. 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.360 This one is called Immortality a Love Story, and it's 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:03.960 a sort of fictional alternate universe where a young female 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:08.160 surgeon becomes the personal physician to Princess Charlotte of Wales, 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.319 the granddaughter of King George the Third. So if you're 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:13.759 interested in this podcast. I really think you'll like it. 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:23.840 Please preorder it and thank you for listening. Alice Thought 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:28.119 was the wealthy daughter of an even wealthier man, a 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:32.240 Pittsburgh railroad magnet, who was convinced that his money should 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.160 be able to buy his family entry into the upper 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.920 echelons of society. This was three and as had been 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.880 the practice for hundreds of years, the best way to 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:47.280 elevate and cement your family social status was by marrying 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.920 off your daughter. In this case, Alice Thought was going 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.280 to be married to the Earl of Yarmouth, an English 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:58.120 visitor who would sweep young Alice back across the Atlantic 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:01.960 and into a life of title and balls. It should 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:05.040 have been the happiest day of her life. The setup 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:09.200 sounds like a fairy tale, a rich, beautiful girl marrying 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.760 an earl. But Alice waited at the church in Pittsburgh, 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.880 no doubt listening behind a door or screen. As all 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:22.400 of the esteemed society guests filed into the pews to 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:29.440 take their seats, and Alice waited and waited. There were 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:35.240 frantic whispers and grimaces barely disguised as smiles. The wedding 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.320 was delayed, Was it a case of cold feet. Not 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:43.639 quite that morning, the groom had gone to the courthouse 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.440 to get his marriage license, and on his way back 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.440 to the Hotel schlen Ley where he was staying, he 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.720 was served a writ by a constable and local alderman's agent. 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.720 You see, the groom was an earl, but he was 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.720 also a habitual gambler who had a talent for avoiding 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.960 paying his debts. His marriage to Miss Alice Thaw was 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:09.799 in large part thanks to her generous dowry and inheritance, 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:14.200 and her wealth was tremendous. Between the inheritance she received 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:16.680 from her by then dead father and the money that 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.400 she would inherit from her independently rich mother, Alice was 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.720 a multimillionaire many times over, and this was more than 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:27.440 a hundred years ago. Money the Thaw family had, but 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:32.760 they wanted prestige, which George Seymour, Earl of Yarmouth, could provide. 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.640 Upon marrying him, Alice thought would become a countess and 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.600 her family would get the bragging rights of having an 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.320 English noble in the family. The Earl was an amateur 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.360 actor and the young couple had only known each other 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:50.240 for three months before the wedding. Still, it seemed like 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:54.840 a perfectly reasonable arrangement, at least until the day of 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.280 the wedding, when Alice was pacing at the church and 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.640 her younger brother had to race down to the courthouse 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.640 for a last minute renegotiation of the dowry so that 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.920 the groom would be released from custody. Once the earl's 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.800 debtors were satisfied, the groom headed to the church, where 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.880 he took his place at the altar with his betrothed 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.800 a few hours late, but with the guests none the wiser. 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.880 At least none the wiser until The New York Times 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.520 wrote an article about the whole snaffhoo a few weeks later. 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:32.680 Alice's arrangement was fairly common. There was a name for 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:37.320 girls like her, dollar princesses. They were the results of 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:42.080 an old social system crashing violently against a new way 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:46.320 of making an extreme amount of money. The marriage between 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.640 Alice Thaw and the Earl of Yarmouth was, and try 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:52.360 your best not to be too shocked by this, a 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.920 wildly unhappy one. Alice was miserable almost as soon as 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.400 the two boarded the St. Paul to begin sailing for England, 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:04.440 and five years later, she sued for divorce. The annulment 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:08.480 was granted on the ground of non consummation. Alice moved 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:12.880 back to Massachusetts, taking her wealth with her. It had 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:17.240 seemed like a perfect arrangement, a way of taking and 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:21.080 giving in ways meant to game the system during a 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:25.080 sort of social and cultural no man's land when the 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:29.560 Industrial Revolution had turned everything on its head. But the 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:34.560 system itself was designed on its exclusivity, meant to keep 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:38.839 certain people out, and some people, even when they married 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:44.960 dukes or earls or princes, preferred to break the system entirely. 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:56.400 I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood. The late 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.919 eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, a periods sometimes referred 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:04.160 to as the Guilded Age, was a fascinating period in 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:09.240 the social history of the American elite. Comparing ourselves to Europe, 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.839 Americans sometimes like to boast about the fact that we 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:17.880 have no aristocracy. Well that's not exactly true. Well we 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:23.480 don't have well titled landed gentry. There was very clearly 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:28.440 a defined upper class in the Gilded Age, so clearly defined, 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.919 in fact, that there was a group called the four 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.640 Hundred who were considered part of the elite social circle, 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:41.120 as determined by Caroline Astor anecdotally, four hundred was the 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:45.240 amount of people who could fit inside Mrs Astor's ballroom, 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:48.880 though there have been questions even at the time whether 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.880 explicitly a list existed, and if it did, who was 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.239 on it. What's very clear is that there was an 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:01.280 in crowd, and getting in wasn't always something that money 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:06.359 could buy. Though our social strata have become maybe slightly 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:10.240 less rigid, I want to be clear, the hidden American 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:14.800 aristocracy still very much exists, probably in a pile marked 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:19.560 legacy in the Yale Admissions office. But something strange was 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:23.680 happening at the turn of the century. Certain common people 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:29.280 were making money, a lot of money from steel and railroads, 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:32.920 money that would have been unthinkable a century or even 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:37.800 half a century prior. The Industrial Revolution had changed things, 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:40.920 and now there were people whose parents had been nobody's 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.280 who were now able to buy homes facing Central Park. 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.920 They could afford the right clothes and the right wall 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.080 paper and the right chefs, and they wanted to go 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.200 to the right parties. But the social system of the 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.520 Gilded Age still scoffed at new money, and when the 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.440 likes of Mrs ass refused to allow them entry into 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:06.840 her private kingdom. The so called new money decided that 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:10.800 the best way to get ahead was to go overseas. 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:16.800 Originally a move borne out of creative desperation among the 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:20.640 new vaux reach, marrying into a title soon became the 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.480 most fashionable thing that a young American woman could do. 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.680 It's still pretty glamorous today if you think about it. 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.800 I mean, we're raised on Disney movies that promise that 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.480 the most beautiful and virtuous among us are destined to 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:38.400 be royalty. Even today, a lot of Americans are suckers 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:42.000 for a British accent titled or not. But this was 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:46.480 a mutually beneficial arrangement for the mail order grooms across 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:50.480 the pond as well. Their titles were centuries old, but 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.320 so often were the estates that came with them, and 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:58.040 the world had changed in that time, particularly the way 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:02.280 that people made money. Lar swatches of farming land simply 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.640 weren't going to make a man as rich as say, 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:10.320 being a railroad magnet machinery was the new superpower. Years 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:16.679 of gradually diminishing inheritances left dukes and earls with magnificent estates, 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:20.400 but no cash to heat them or fix their leaking roofs. 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:23.960 They needed an influx of cash, and they could get 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:28.520 it through marriage. I saw one figure estimating that twenty 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:33.600 five billion dollars made its way into England via American brides. 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.439 If you've seen Downton Abbey, you're familiar with the arrangement. 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:41.520 Running a massive estate with a massive staff takes money, 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:45.040 and so in Downton Abbey, the fictional Earl of Grantham 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:49.440 married an American heiress named Cora to help keep Downton running. 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.560 It was such a common practice at the time that 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.679 there was a quarterly publication called the Titled American that 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:01.160 would run ads from bachelor's looking for rich wives. One 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:05.000 ad read, the Marquess of Winchester is thirty two years 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.120 old and a captain of the Coldstream Guards. You know 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.360 what you could do worse. It wasn't always the case 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.840 that these men were holding their noses and being forced 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:20.400 to marry gasp tacky Americans for purely mercenary reasons. There 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.840 was some charm to their new brides. As a rule, 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:29.120 American girls were well educated and fun and typically outspoken, 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:33.800 which was a novelty compared to their more demure English counterparts. 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:39.680 Even still, unlike Downton Abbey, these marriages almost invariably ended 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:44.480 in disaster. So let's take a look at some of 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:48.600 these marriages. The trend began with a young woman named 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.599 Jenny Jerome, the Brooklyn born daughter of a land speculator, 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:57.440 who married Lord Randolph Churchill in eighteen seventy four. Neither 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.880 set of parents were thrilled at the man the couple 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.600 had met, if you can believe it, at a sailing 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:08.280 regatta introduced by Queen Victoria's son, the then Prince of Wales, 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:12.360 who had been delighted and charmed by Jenny. American girls 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:15.679 like Jenny Jerome were faring better in Europe than they 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:19.000 were among the New York City elite. Though the Jerome's 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:21.640 could buy a mansion at the corner of twenty six 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.920 Street and Madison Avenue, they couldn't buy their way out 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:28.600 of the perception that Jenny's father was a rake. I 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:31.760 found one source claim that he was quote a noted 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:35.480 chaser of comely opera singers, and that Jenny's mother had 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:42.080 gasp rumored Iroquois ancestry. But in Europe, Jenny Shone. In 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:45.360 her diary, she wrote of why she thought English boys 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.079 were so delighted by American girls. Quote, they are better 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.800 read and have generally traveled before they make their appearance 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.840 in the world. Whereas a whole family of English girls 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.640 are educated by a more or less incompetent governess, the 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.360 air Can girl in the same condition of life will 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:06.240 begin from her earliest age with the best professors. By 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:09.280 the time she's eighteen, she's able to assert her views 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.240 on most things and her independence in all. Three days 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:17.200 after meeting Lord Randolph, Jenny and he were engaged. His 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:23.120 parents were upset about the aforementioned blemishes on Jenny's parents reputations. 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.400 Lord Randolph's father wrote in a letter to his son 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:31.240 that Jenny's father quote drives about six and eight horses 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.319 in New York. One may take this as an indication 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:38.440 of what the man is. To be quite honest, I'm 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.559 not sure if that's too many horses or too few, 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.720 but I'm sure Lord Randolph knew what that meant of 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:48.480 what kind of man he was. Meanwhile, Jenny's parents were 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:52.920 myth that Lord Randolph hadn't asked their permission before proposing, 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:55.640 and they were a little upset that because Lord Randolph 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:59.480 wasn't his father's eldest son, he wouldn't inherit the title 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.800 of Due of Marlborough. But now either family could argue 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:05.680 with the fact that it was a smart arrangement, on 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.440 top of the fact that the Prince of Wales had 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:12.120 ostensibly set them up. Because Randolph was a younger son, 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:14.800 he wouldn't have any money of his own outside of 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.280 a meager allowance. The Jerome's were getting into bed with 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:22.040 a powerful British noble family, and for that they paid 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.480 fifty thousand pounds in a dowry and a one thousand 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:29.080 pound yearly allowance for Jenny. It had been a long 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:33.320 negotiation before the marriage could actually take place, despite the 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:36.880 speed at which the couple had originally become engaged, which 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.400 had probably something to do with the slight scandal when 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:45.520 their first child, a son, was born, only um seven 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:50.680 months after the wedding. By the standards of dollar princess marriages, 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:55.080 theirs was successful, at least successful enough that after her 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:58.560 husband died, Jenny would go on to marry two more Englishmen, 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.760 but more often than not, the marriages were disasters from 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:09.040 the start. Consider the case of another American, a young 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:13.560 woman named Winnoretta Singer, the heiress to the Singer sewing 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:18.520 machine fortune. In eighteen eighty seven, when Winneretta was twenty two, 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:22.280 she was married to a French prince named my sincerest 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:26.520 apologies for this pronunciation, Louis de sa mont Bayard. The 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:30.440 marriage did not go well. On their wedding night, Winneretta 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.880 climbed on top of an armoir and shouted at the 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.920 groom that if he touched her, she would kill him. 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:41.280 It wasn't a distaste for frenchmen. Winneretta was a lesbian, 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.480 and five years later their marriage was annulled on the 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:49.880 grounds of non consummation. Winnoeretta would marry again another French aristocrat, 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.520 a man named Prince Edmund de Polignac, whose grandmother, the 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.960 Duchess Polignac, had coincidentally been one of Marie Antoinette's favorites. 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:01.920 This marriage between winner Etta and Prince Edmund was also 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.800 never consummated, but it was a much happier arrangement. The 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:09.240 two were both gay, and so they remained married, happily 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:13.240 hosting salons and sponsoring causes of arts and culture, while 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:16.520 each took whichever lovers they wanted on the side. On 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:20.800 Winneretta's end, those lovers included a number of prominent female 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:25.880 socialites and artists, including allegedly Virginia Wolf. I want to 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:29.080 say here, I realized that this episode of the podcast 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.560 is a little bit different than others I've done that 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.280 focus on a single story. This episode is more the 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:39.320 story of a phenomenon, and so we're jumping between individual 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:44.200 cases to understand a larger pattern. But this is Noble Blood, 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:46.960 and I want to tell you a story. So let 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.080 zoom back in on the wedding day of one of 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.600 the most iconic dollar princesses in American history, a young 0:15:54.640 --> 0:16:01.680 woman named Consuelo Vanderbilt. By her wedding day in eighteen 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:06.440 Consuelo was one of the most well known socialites in 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.680 New York. Her father was the oldest son of the 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:14.560 oldest son of the railroad baron, Cornelius Vanderbilt. For a time, 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:19.040 the Vanderbilts were considered the wealthiest family in America. Still, 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.920 they had been snubbed by Old New York, and Consualo's 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.920 mother was determined to give her daughter a match that 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:30.160 would exalt her. What better way of establishing importance on 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:34.720 an altogether arbitrary system of social standing than by giving 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:41.040 her daughter a title Duchess. Consualo's groom was Charles Spencer Churchill, 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.560 the Duke of Marlborough, who went by Sonny because of 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:48.000 another title he also held, Earl of Sunderland. He was 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.160 actually the nephew of the man that Jenny Jerome had 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.920 married two decades earlier. It was to be the event 0:16:55.160 --> 0:17:00.840 of the season. On the morning of November six. Swarms 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.159 of people lined both sides of Fifth Avenue, waiting to 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.080 catch just a glimpse of the bride as she arrived 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:11.760 to St. Thomas Episcopal Church, but their jubilant spirit hadn't 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:16.159 reached Consuelo. She would later write, quote, I spent the 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.840 morning of my wedding day in tears and alone. No 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.040 one came near me. A footman had been posted at 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.000 the door of my apartment, and not even my Governess 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:30.119 was admitted. Like an automaton. I donned the lovely lingerie 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.800 with its real lace and the white silk stockings and shoes. 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:37.199 I felt cold and numb as I went down to 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.040 meet my father and the bridesmaids, who were waiting for 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:44.439 me and quote. Allegedly, Consuelo had been in love with 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:48.639 another man, but regardless, the bride was already bought and 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:52.720 paid for. The dowry was two point five million dollars 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:56.080 worth of shares in Vanderbilt stock. The family would also 0:17:56.119 --> 0:18:00.600 give one hundred thousand dollars annually to both Consuelo and Charles. 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:05.280 The wedding happened, and miserable as Consuelo had been that morning, 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:09.440 things for her were about to get much, much worse. 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:17.600 As soon as the wedding was over, Consuelo and Sonny 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.840 left for his dreary family home, Lennim Palace. When they 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.359 got there, Sonny told his new bride that he actually 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.760 had a lover and intended to keep her on the side. 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:33.359 Consuelo's role then was wife, yes, but also bank. The 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:37.879 marriage to her finally allowed the Marlborough family enough money 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:42.160 to begin to restore their historic home. For Consulo, it 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:45.879 was a misery living there, she wrote, quote, we spent 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:49.480 the first three months in a cold and cheerless apartment 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.679 looking north. They were ugly, depressing rooms, devoid of the 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:58.359 beauty and comforts my own home had provided. Remember, of course, 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:03.359 that Consualo's family had been extraordinarily rich in America. Their 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:07.639 homes in New York had electricity and running water. Those 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:12.280 were not luxuries that stately but very very old houses 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:16.600 in England had. Blenheim was sixty five miles from London 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:21.359 and did not have indoor plumbing. The couple remained married 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:25.600 for ten years, with multiple affairs from both parties, until 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:29.040 they finally divorced, although it couldn't have been all bad 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:33.000 for Consuelo because when she finally died, she did ask 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:36.520 that she be buried at Blenhim Palace, which her money 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:40.680 had done so much to restore. The times would evolve, 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:44.639 and the heyday of the American dollar princess ended at 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:48.240 the beginning of the twentieth century. George the Five became 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:52.240 king in nineteen ten, and his ascension began to usher 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.640 in a season of English prudence and austerity that lasted 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:01.240 throughout the First World War. Excesses, a labortt parties, and 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.199 displays of wealth began to seem vulgar, and so the 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:10.960 need to import it via American brides began to diminish. Meanwhile, 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:15.280 things began gradually improving for the new money set in America. 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:19.640 Wealthy heiresses were granted more social capital. They didn't need 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:22.439 a title so badly that they were willing to spend 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:26.240 their lives mill doing on a dreary property outside London 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.960 while a cheating husband tore through her fortune restoring his 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:34.840 family's home. They could get enough attention and parties. In America. 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.760 The final heiress that will talk about today is a 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:44.959 young woman named Frances Ellen Work who married a baron 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:50.119 in eighteen eighty. She would eventually inherit fifteen million dollars, 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:53.520 which is a good thing because her husband spent an 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:59.439 estimated two point five million gambling. Francis works father, Frank, 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:03.080 was a self made New York millionaire, and by the 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:07.040 time he died in nineteen eleven, he came to despise 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:11.600 the idea of dollar princesses exchanging titles for money, even 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:15.080 though that's exactly what his own daughter had done. His 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:19.320 obituary in the New York Tribune included a quote, It's 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:23.320 time this international marrying came to a stop, for our 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:27.080 American girls are ruining our own country by it. As 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.840 fast as our honorable hard working men can earn this money, 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:34.000 their daughters take it and toss it across the ocean, 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.560 and for what For the purpose of a title and 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:41.320 the privilege of paying the debts of so called nobleman. 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:44.040 If I had anything to say about it, I'd make 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:50.359 an international marriage a hanging offense. Ultimately, Francis work Baroness 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:54.199 would become the great grandmother of a woman who married 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.960 into a title even grander than her own, the title 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:04.240 Princess of Wales. Her great granddaughter was Princess Diana, But 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:09.600 like her ancestor, the title and the marriage was ultimately 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:18.840 not worth the price. That's the story or stories of 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:23.040 a few notable dollar princesses. But stick around after a 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:26.080 brief sponsor break to hear a little fun fact. I 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:40.000 think you'll enjoy. The englishmen and women I know take 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:44.760 a certain pride in looking down on Americans, not overtly, 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:48.840 but little jokes bragging, you know, But an American is 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:53.840 actually responsible for one of Great Britain's biggest points of pride. 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:57.240 Do you remember Jenny Jerome, the girl who all but 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:00.720 started the trend of marrying for titles when she wed 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:05.520 Lord Randolph in eight seventy four. Well, Jenny Jerome did 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:08.959 her duty of providing her husband and air a baby 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:13.560 born scandalous Lee seven months after their marriage, a son 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:17.760 who would go on to become a statesman, scholar, and 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:35.879 Prime minister. Jenny Jerome's son was Winston Churchill. Noble Blood 0:23:35.960 --> 0:23:38.560 is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:42.080 Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:46.639 Danish Sports. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston, 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:51.480 hannah's Wick, Mirra Hayward, Courtney Sunder and Laurie Goodman. The 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:55.720 show is produced by rema Il Kali, with supervising producer 0:23:55.920 --> 0:24:00.359 Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex will Lilliams, 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:03.800 and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, 0:24:04.160 --> 0:24:07.760 visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:24:07.800 --> 0:24:09.159 you listen to your favorite shows.