Privilege and Scandal

Sweeping and scandalous, rich and compellingly readable, here is the first biography of Lady Harriet Spencer, ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales, and devoted sister of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Harriet Spencer was without a doubt one of the most glamorous, influential, and notorious aristocrats of the Regency period.

The second daughter of the prestigious Spencer family, Harriet was born into wealth and privilege. Intelligent, attractive, and exceedingly eager to please, at nineteen years of age she married Frederick, Viscount Duncannon, an aloof, distant relative. Unfortunately, it was not a happy union; the only trait they shared was an unhealthy love of gambling. The marriage produced four children, yet Harriet followed in the footsteps of her older sister and began a series of illicit dalliances, including one with the prominent and charismatic playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Then she met Lord Granville Leveson Gower, handsome and twelve years her junior. Their years-long affair resulted in the birth of two children, and all but consumed Harriet: concealing both pregnancies from her husband required great skill. Had the children been discovered, it surely would have resulted in divorce—which would have been disastrous.

Harriet’s life was dramatic, and the history-making events she observed were equally fascinating. She was an eyewitness to the French Revolution; she participated in both the euphoria following Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar and the outpouring of grief at his spectacular funeral; she was privy to the debauchery of the Prince Regent’s wife, Princess Caroline. She quarreled bitterly with Lord Byron when he pursued her young daughter (rumor had it that he was truly interested in Harriet herself). She traveled through war-torn Europe during both the rise and the fall of Napoleon and saw the devastating aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, where her son was gravely injured. Harriet, along with her sister, was one of the leading female political activists of her day; her charm allowed her to campaign noisily for Charles James Fox—while still retaining influence over supporters of his rival, William Pitt the Younger. Harriet survived Georgiana by fifteen years, living to see the coronation of George IV.

Janet Gleeson’s elegant, page-turning style brings Harriet’s story vividly to life. Based on painstaking archival research, Privilege and Scandal gives readers an inside look at the lives of the British aristocracy during the decadent eighteenth century—while at the same time shining the spotlight on one of the era’s most fascinating women.

From the Hardcover edition.

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Title of ebook: Privilege and Scandal
ISBN: 9780307394279
parent-ISBN: 9780307381972
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 06-2007
Released online for download: 06-05-2007
Author of eBook: Gleeson, Janet

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Privilege and Scandal

The Remarkable Life of Harriet Spencer, Sister of Georgiana
One

The Eligible Match

1761–1780

I must put down what I dare tell nobody. I should be ashamed were it not so ridiculous,” wrote Harriet to her lover. “. . . In my fifty- first year I am courted, followed, flattered, and made love to... thirty-six years, a pretty long life, I have heard and spoken that language, for seventeen years...”

Love of one form or another was always to be the force that fashioned Harriet’s existence. Tall of stature, yet voluptuous in her figure, she was a woman of haunting allure. Her high-cheekboned narrow face was dominated by features that seemed over-large in their fragile surroundings—a slender aristocratic nose, a provocative full-lipped mouth, and huge dark almond-shaped eyes that could grow warm, amused, intelligent, or dreamy according to whim. The portraitist John Hoppner, famous for his portrayals of glamorous aristocrats, painted Harriet in her mid-twenties, just as fashions in portraiture became less formal and more revealing. She is shown in profile, arms stretched protectively a ... read full excerpt from: Privilege and Scandal ebook

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