Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (part one)

Vulgar History Podcast

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (part one) 

January 28, 2026 

Ann: So, hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women’s history comedy podcast. My name is Ann Foster, and you know, right away, I’m going to say, we have a special guest! It’s Amanda Matta…

Amanda: Hi!

Ann: Royal commentator, my bestie. We’re here talking about, so we’re in the Regency era, our season is Vulgar History: Regency Era, which is like, technically, it’s 1811 to 1820 was the Regency era, but everybody uses it to describe kind of the early 1800s, really. I’m specifying that because the person we’re talking about dies in 1808. So, she didn’t actually live in—

Amanda: It counts.

Ann: Oh, the way that it counts. Some of my Patreon members will know I have a bingo card on my Patreon that’s like Regency Era Bingo, and I was half looking at it myself, and I’m like, you might get a blackout bingo on her for all of the things that come up in this story. Also, I would say the Regency era, technically, it means like the Regency of George, Prince of Wales, when his father, King George III, from Hamilton and from Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (that’s how people know him), when he went mad, Prince George took over, and that became the Regency. But Prince George himself is all over this story, so I feel like for this podcast, it’s like if he was alive and a woman was interesting, I’m going to talk about it. 

Amanda: It counts. Yeah, I agree. 

Ann: It absolutely counts. Yeah, and this is, I’m so excited to talk about this story. I’m so excited you’re here for this, Amanda, because I mean, if you probably know you from your royal commentary and stuff, and we’re going to get into that, and parallels between her and connections between her and some British royals you might know about, but also your art history background, because there’s some really, really interesting portraits of this woman. 

Amanda: Yeah, it was funny when you told me the painting you wanted to talk about, I said, “Funny, you should mention, because that’s the exact same one that I want to talk about.” And it’s not the one everyone expects with Georgiana, but it’s so good, and I was like, thank god, we’re on the same page here. 

Ann: Yeah, it’s such an iconic portrait. I will also mention… So, [phonetic] George-ayna, is how we’re going to pronounce her name because, friends, that is how she chose to pronounce her own name. Some people, when you read it, you might think [ph.] George-ee-ana, you might think [ph.] George-eena, but she pronounced it [ph.] George-ayna and we’ll explain why in the episode. 

Amanda: I actually saw a pronunciation note from a British writer that was pronounced “jaw” like your jaw, [ph.] Jaw-jayna, which I guess it would be. 

Ann: It probably would be! I mean, vague spoiler: she invented an accent. 

Amanda: She sure did. 

Ann: And the pronunciation of her own name and other words. So, like, I don’t even know. Have you seen the Keira Knightley film about her? 

Amanda: Have I seen the Keira Knightley film? Yes! Absolutely. 

Ann: I have not yet, [Amanda gasps] and I’m going to guess they don’t use her made-up accent in that film because it would be really strange. 

Amanda: They don’t. They use the pronunciation of her name, but I don’t think they affect it to the degree that it sounds like the real-life Georgiana did. But you do have Keira Knightley’s, like, very strong jaw, forward pronunciation of some things.

Ann: Yeah, I think Keira Knightley was a great casting choice for that. But I will also say, so like listeners, you know, if you’re new to this podcast, guess what? There’s tangents. There’s going to be tangents. It’s me and Amanda, there’s going to be even more tangents. But I do want to talk about, first, Georgiana’s connection to Princess Diana. 

Amanda: Yes, ma’am. 

Ann: Can you explain what the connection is? 

Amanda: So, Georgiana was born a Spencer. So, her parents were… Well, actually, her dad was the 1st Earl Spencer and Diana Spencer, who becomes Princess Diana in the modern era, her dad and brother are both Earl Spencer. So, she’s not a direct descendant of Georgiana. I think it’s something like… 

Ann: It’s like, her brother’s… 

Amanda: Yeah, I think Georgiana ends up being Diana’s four times great-aunt. So, they’re both Spencers by birth. 

Ann: They both spent time in Althorp. 

Amanda: Yes, they both grew up at Althorp; they had their childhood there. And then, their public lives have a lot of eerie parallels as well, once they’re older and married and having children and being influential and iconic and all of it. 

Ann: And I would say also, when we’re talking about Georgiana and what she looks like, I read— Actually, I want to say, so I read the biography Duchess by Amanda Foreman, which is the story of Georgiana. 

Amanda: The biography.

Ann: It was the biography. And also, this book sort of— Here’s Hepburn, she’s my cat. 

Amanda: Hi Hepburn! 

Ann: Again, Hepburn, I don’t know if there’s any cats in this story, but if there are, I will be sure to mention them. I’m sure there were lots of mousers in Althorp. This is going to happen one million times. Patreons, this is what you’re paying for. So, Georgiana is described often as being not pretty, like, she’s not cute in that conventional way, but she’s very tall, like, unusually tall for a woman and very striking. So, I was like, “Oh, she’s Princess Diana.” She is Princess Diana, like, she’s gorgeous, but not in a cutesy way. 

Amanda: Conventional way. 

Ann: Yeah, exactly. 

Amanda: As so often, the women at the center of these stories are, like Cleopatra, Scarlett O’Hara, to pull one from literature, described as not conventionally attractive, but just, there’s something about them. 

Ann: Exactly! And the only person… I’m trying to think of who, like, was conventionally attractive, was the Madame du Barry, who is just like, she had this very cute, I’m thinking like Scarlett Johansson, like a very conventionally pretty, or like Hilary Duff, a very pretty face. But Georgiana, people say this about her, it’s like, there was something about her. She was so magnetic. I mean, just being tall and striking does a lot in your favour. But this is where Amanda Foreman says in the biography, like, none of the portraits to her, Amanda Foreman, you don’t get that sense from the portraits of the vivaciousness of this woman. I think there’s just something about her in-person charisma. 

Amanda: Yeah. I was reading that she was really unaffected, so she didn’t put on airs. She just kind of was very naturalistic, which was really in at the time, being influenced by philosophers of the Enlightenment. Someone like Marie Antoinette kind of, I think, wanted that personality quirk, but Georgiana had it naturally. She just was very open, very kind, it sounds like. And yeah, she had what was called a charming lack of affectation. 

Ann: Which, for somebody with her pedigree, is interesting, I think. So, Georgiana, can you— We talked about like her father was the Earl Spencer. There’s so much in her adult life, I’m just like, I’m trying to strictly have this be a two-part episode, like, we can’t spend an episode talking about her like weird childhood. 

Amanda: We can do it. 

Ann: But she had a weird childhood. 

Amanda: A little weird, yeah. Her parents… So, her dad was John, he does become the 1st Earl Spencer, and her mom was Margaret Georgiana. And they had married for love, which I think is interesting and probably colours Georgiana’s own expectations of what a marriage will look like. Her dad was one of the richest men in England. So, they lived both at Althorp and Spencer House in St. James’s. So, she has this lavish upbringing, but still, her parents kind of set their sights on somebody even richer for Georgiana’s husband, which is crazy to think about. Like, her dad’s already one of the richest men in England, but spoiler, her future husband, who takes up a lot of time in this story, unfortunately, is like, even more fabulously wealthy. 

Ann: So, it’s a real… In terms of being a catch, like she is so wealthy. But she’s also really lovely. She was very much, and for her whole life, her, the favourite. Her mother was just like, “Oh my God, my daughter, Georgiana, is amazing.” She has another daughter, Harriet, who like, is throughout the story, Georgiana and Harriet stay very tight. 

Amanda: Poor Harriet.

Ann: Oh god. Listeners… anyway. [both laugh] But Georgiana was always the special, like she had a star quality to her, even as a child. Harriet, her sister, looked up to her, the mother preferred her to all of her other children. So, there was something, she had the it factor. It’s not just like, here’s a young, wealthy heiress, let’s marry her to somebody. It’s like, no, here’s this amazing superstar, like she has everything going for her. Everybody who meets her is just like, “Oh my gosh, she’s great!” And she has this personality trait that Amanda Foreman kind of layers throughout the whole book, but it’s always there, which is just like, she needs attention in a relatable way to you and I as podcasters and semi-public figures. She has this bottomless need for like affection and love, and this puts her at risk of being manipulated and being taken advantage of because she just, she’s very needy emotionally. 

Amanda: Dare I say, another Diana parallel, too. Something you get from, you know, biopics and accounts of Princess Diana is this need for validation and affection, and sometimes she would even, like, parentify Prince William to a degree to get that emotional feedback that she needed. Not great. 

Ann: No. And it’s sort of like, and well, Princess Diana… She lived in an era where there was psychotherapy, but you know, how much of it was she able to access? But Georgiana, that was not around, so she just… We will talk about how she tries to fill this need in her life, which is like, she does her best. 

Amanda: Yeah. I mean, the whole point of her existence, and Harriet, her sister, her whole point was to make a good match, and that’s kind of what she was raised to do. The expectation was she would make this fabulous marriage and improve the family’s prestige, partner the family with another similar family, so that was kind of what her education was geared towards. She and her mother were very close, and they wrote letters, like, I think, almost every day. So, I wonder if that’s something where Lady Spencer, the elder, is like, one of the only people that could really understand what Georgiana, or Gee, as I also refer to her sometimes in my notes, was going through. 

Ann: I do think one of the bingo squares is “silly nickname” for the Regency era. 

Amanda: We have a couple good ones in this episode. 

Ann: We’ve got some great ones coming up. 

Amanda: I was thinking of like the influencer baby name predictions, if they had existed in the 1780s, they would have had a field day with Georgiana’s family. 

Ann: There’s a lot of Georgianas in the story, and they all get little nicknames. So, the guy who she’s going to marry, the guy who she does end up marrying, I want to just let listeners know, long-time listeners who listen to the Mary, Queen of Scots series will remember Bess of Hardwick, he is a descendant from that family. Like, all Bess of Hardwick, this real estate magnate of the 1500s, like, this is his descendant, so Lord Cavendish. 

Amanda: Yep. Yeah, her family met him… They used to take these trips; they were very well-travelled. So, I guess when Georgiana was still a young-ish teenager, yeah, she met him when she would have been 14, and her family was on a trip of Belgium and France and the Netherlands. So, they were in the town of Spa when the Spencers met William, who was the 5th Duke of Devonshire. And he had been the Duke from the time he was 16, so he came to the Dukedom pretty early, and by the time he was meeting Georgiana, he would have been 22. So, it’s an age gap for sure. Not as egregious as I think the Keira Knightley movie makes it seem, because Ralph Fiennes plays the Duke and Keira Knightley is supposed to be like, I think you can tell 16 or 18, but still an age gap. 

Ann: And he… I don’t know, what is your impression of… He agrees to marry her. He never likes her, so why did he marry her, do you think? 

Amanda: Okay, so I’m trying not to let my opinion be coloured by the movie, because they… I think the characterizations in that movie are done very well, but in reality, so you have the Duke of Devonshire, he’s called dull a lot, very reserved. He doesn’t have that, like, outgoing vivaciousness that Georgiana does. But what he does have is a very prestigious position in society. So, he’s insanely wealthy; he was twice as wealthy as Lord Spencer, Georgiana’s dad, who was already, like, top echelon of society. So, just buckets of money. He also, as the head of the Cavendish family, kind of inherited this role, and this is sadly where we have to bring in politics, he was, like, the leader of the Whig society, so not necessarily political himself. 

Ann: I just need to say to the listeners, [Amanda laughs] there are a couple of things that when I encounter them in a historical story, I’m just like, “Oh god, here we go.” 

Amanda: Napoleon is mine. 

Ann: Napoleon is one of mine as well, so is the city of Antwerp, and so is the Whigs and Tories. So, I would just like to say, as the author of a book that takes place somewhat parallel to Georgiana’s life story, the Whigs and Tories were the two political parties in England at this time. Whigs is spelled W-H-I-G. And my brain shuts off when Whigs and Tories discussion occurs, which it does a lot in this story. All the politics I didn’t put in my book, Amanda Foreman put in her book, so if you put them together… There you go. 

Amanda: We can, I think, impart a little bit just to, like, set the groundwork, but I don’t want to go down that road either. 

Ann: I was going to tell you at the beginning of this podcast, it’s like, this is a very important part of her legacy. Georgiana becomes really involved in politics, and great for her, women were not doing this. But like, Amanda and I are not going to be talking about it, like, the minimum. When I was running my book, Amanda, and I realized I had to actually learn about Whigs and Tories. I was furious. I made this Google Doc of who was prime minister when, at which party was he in, and for like a week, I knew all this stuff, and then I immediately made myself forget it. 

Amanda: Because it’s not relevant, right? I think what’s important to know is the Georgian era is when we first get, like, party politics in the UK, you have ministers. If you’ve ever watched The Favourite with Queen Anne, you see it there too, like Nicholas Hoult is one, and then there’s an old guy on the other side, and they’re kind of vying for her political opinions back and forth. So, this is like, not even 100 years on from the introduction of this political system in the UK. Now, the Whigs, I think it is important to know that King George III hated them. Did not like them. 

Ann: So, in terms of the Whigs and Tories, here’s what I still know. The Whigs were slightly more progressive. 

Amanda: Yes. 

Ann: And the King didn’t like them, and the Tories were more conservative, like, “Let’s keep everything the same,” and the King liked them.

Amanda: Still are. 

Ann: There’s not Whigs anymore. But these are the two parties. So, like, the Whigs are kind of the cool up-and-coming. 

Amanda: To an extent, yeah. They still think that you should have their own land in order to vote, and women don’t get to vote. 

Ann: But yeah, like, it’s not Bernie Sanders, is not the Whigs. Anyway, so the Whigs are a bit more progressive, as much as you can be; the Tories are very institutional. And in my book, Rebel of the Regency, coming out in two weeks or so from when you listen to this episode, my editor at one point, because I was talking about in my book, like there’s Caroline of Brunswick, and there’s her husband, George IV, AKA Prinny, and they kept switching back and forth who was supporting the Whigs or the Tories, and the editor was like, “Before you said that she was supporting the Whigs but now the Tories.” I’m like, you didn’t register as a party. People were elected to Parliament, and they, in a couple of days, could switch sides. Like, it wasn’t… 

Amanda: It was pretty nebulous. 

Ann: Yeah. Like, Georgiana’s family and her husband’s family, they’re firmly Whigs only ever. But it was kind of like, the King, King George III, supported the Tories, and because his son, George, hated him, he supported the Whigs. But then, the Tories kind of seduced Prince George, and then he became a Tory. So, it’s moving back and forth. So, I had to explain this in my book as best as I could because whoever the King supported, his son would support the opposite, and whoever the son supported, Caroline of Brunswick would support the opposite. So, they kept pivoting. 

Amanda: [laughs] That’s fun. Not really. I hate that for you, actually. I’m so sorry. 

Ann: That’s why I had a Google Doc. [laughs]

Amanda: What you need to know for the purposes of talking about the Duke is the Cavendish family, the Spencer family, and the Portland family, they were, like, the head of Whig society. So, they were seen as, like, the hot young radicals, even though they weren’t all hot or young, presumably. 

Ann: I will say, so there’s a third party. There’s a party called the radicals, and they are the people, that is the Bernie Sanders of the Regency era, but they’re not involved in this story at all. 

Amanda: Nope. Nope. Small “r” radicals. So, okay, back to why this guy needed a Georgiana for his wife, right? So, he’s the head of this Whig society, and that involves throwing parties. He’s also the financial patron of the Whigs. So, you know, he’s choosing who to bankroll, who to support, get people elected to Parliament, and he himself, he’s offered, I think, a position in the king’s cabinet, like three times throughout his life, but he declines every time. So, to me, that tells me he himself is not comfortable in the spotlight; he just wants to kind of pull the strings from backstage. In marrying someone like Georgiana, not only do you get the family connection kind of strengthening this head of Whig society position, as it was, but you also get a hostess and somebody who can throw these parties and mingle on your behalf, and that would have been something expected of a wife in addition to having an heir, having babies. 

Ann: Where I want to also just… There are so many Princess Diana parallels, but one that there is not is Georgiana is not shy. Georgiana is so outgoing and so extroverted; she loves being around people. This is part of the, like, attention needing. 

Amanda: Yeah, isolation is not good for her. 

Ann: No. So, like, throwing parties, she is never happier than when she’s in a room full of people at a party, planning a party, doing a party; she thrives in this environment. So, in that sense, she is just the wife that he needs. 

Amanda: Yeah. The position is good for her. What is not good is that… [chuckles] You get quotes from contemporary—

Ann: He hates her.

Amanda: He hates her. “He’s the only man in England not charmed by his wife,” basically, that’s like, an actual contemporaneous quote from people just observing their marriage because they’re at the head of society, they’re going to be talked about, there’s going to be gossip about this marriage. But at the same time, Georgiana is the most interesting thing about the Duke of Devonshire. So, that sucks for him. [chuckles] 

Ann: And this is big Charles and Diana energy, right? Because that was where he started treating her… They went on a tour of, I think, Australia, and she was so beloved just after they got married, and he was like, “Wait a minute. People like her and not me?” 

Amanda: The best anecdote is when they would get out of a car to do, like, the walkabout, depending on which side they got, like, the crowd was divided on either side of the car, and if Diana started walking towards, like, the right side instead of the left, you would hear audible groans because the left side of this crowd knew that they were getting Charles. I get why, as the prince, as the man in this relationship, you would hate that. But your wife’s so beautiful, and everyone loves her. Like, what’s your deal, dude? 

Ann: And Georgiana, so she marries him, and she’s entered into society, and she becomes and she remains for the whole rest of her life, the number one celebrity in the world. I’m trying to think of, I don’t even know who that would that person is now, who’s just, like, universally… She’s like the Beyoncé, she’s like the Taylor Swift. People are just, like… 

Amanda: Setting trends and…

Ann: Like they see her— I picture her stepping out of a carriage for the first time, she’s like, whatever, 5-foot-10, striking, and everyone’s just like “Who—?” And she’s so lovely. This is where, I talk about in my book also, the tabloid press is just starting. So, like, celebrity, our modern concept of a famous— Just a debutant, like, a rich woman being famous, this is just starting. People are obsessed with her! When they write about her, they sell more issues of their magazine or whatever, and it’s because she’s great and everyone loves her and she wears these outfits, and that’s where I have some notes, actually. 

Amanda: Yes! So, I mean, so she marries the Duke, she’s 16, he’s 24. Only five people attended the wedding, which I thought was interesting. It was Georgiana’s parents, the Duke’s mother, the Duke’s brother, and his sister, the Duchess of Portland. So, I found that interesting. It wasn’t used as a chance to do a big society affair, but maybe that wasn’t, like, what you did in the Georgian era, I don’t know. I don’t know, I just found that interesting. Like, in a different era, we would have had the Charles and Diana, like, fairytale wedding for these two, for sure. 

Ann: Actually, what I wanted to say too – and this is where it’s giving me a bit of Marie Antoinette as well – they get married, and her job is to, like, host these parties and also to give birth to children, and she does not right away. So, in a similar way to Marie Antoinette, she distracts herself with fashion that’s, like, increasingly outrageous. 

Amanda: I mean, also similar to Marie Antoinette, she steps into a system she hadn’t really been prepared for. Like, as much as her parents prepared her for marrying well, they didn’t really set her up for success in running household. And she took over, it was Chatsworth House, Hardwick Hall, Chiswick House and Lismore Castle, as well as the estates of Londesborough and Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire. So, that’s like, a huge amount of responsibility to make sure these houses are well run, taken care of, overseeing the staff, as well as throwing lavish parties. Normally, I guess she would have gotten her— I’m sorry, I said earlier, the Duke’s mother was at the wedding, I guess it was his grandmother, my bad, because the Duke’s mother had died 20 years ago, meaning that Georgiana had nobody to learn from on running these estates. So, she kind of has to learn on the job, which is a handicap as well. 

Ann: And I’m going to imagine that the fact that she didn’t take to it immediately as a teenager made him hate her even more, because…

Amanda: Probably.

Ann: Listeners, he sucks. But here’s some fashion information. 

Amanda: Please. 

Ann: And she’s living in parallel to Marie Antoinette, so a lot of the fashions Marie Antoinette was up to, similar things are happening in England, and eventually the two of them do become friends. 

Amanda: There’s sort of a like, which came first, Marie Antoinette or Georgiana? Like, in terms of popularizing the pouf is one. 

Ann: There we go. Georgiana took the fashion, this is from Amanda Foreman’s book: 

Took the fashion a step further by creating the three-foot hair tower. She stuck pads of horsehair to her own hair using scented pomade and decorated the top with miniature ornaments. Sometimes she carried a ship in full sail, or an exotic arrangement of stuffed birds and waxed fruit, or even a pastoral tableau with little wooden trees and sheep. 

Amanda: I love it. It reminds me of, like, a Kate Spade bag now shaped like a croissant. Like, I think that’s our equivalent. Something very cutesy and like, kitschy. I wish we could do fruit in the hair, though, and not look like the Chiquita banana woman. [chuckles] 

Ann: Well, and this is where we get into like the Bridgerton of it all. When people today think of it, I think they think of, like, the previous season of Bridgerton, where Queen Charlotte had a moving carousel in her wig. Bridgerton takes place a bit later from when Georgiana was living, but Queen Charlotte still dresses like this earlier era. 

Amanda: I find that so interesting. And that was a way of holding on to the reins of power in society, like, forcing people at the British court to dress like they had 20 years ago as a way of saying, “We’re above all of these trends.” Just so interesting psychologically. 

Ann: And also, how much of this is Queen Charlotte being like, “I was happy in this era. Let’s pretend we’re still in this era.” 

Amanda: Right. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, Georgiana, she has the poufs, she also has the big dresses. Another Diana parallel. 

Ann: She has the ostrich feathers!

Amanda: The ostrich feathers, yep. Her hair was so tall with the ostrich feathers, and her skirts were so big that she had to sit on the floor of her carriage whenever she went anywhere. So, it was probably just her in a carriage when she was going from place to place in her Georgian era big skirts, and it reminded me too of Diana getting out of the carriage for her wedding with her skirt all wrinkled because she had been stuffed in that carriage. 

Ann: No, it’s like people you hear about going to the Met Gala or the Oscars, it’s like, they have to stand down. 

Amanda: They can’t sit down, yeah. 

Ann: She’s stuffing herself, 5-foot-10, three feet of ostrich feather, pouf, skirt into a carriage somehow, making her way from place to place. But re: the ostrich feathers. 

Amanda: Yeah, please. 

Ann: So, the British ambassador in Paris… Maybe she was in Paris, I don’t know, she went back and forth to Paris a lot. But anyway: 

Lord Stormont, the British ambassador in Paris, presented her with an ostrich feather that was four feet long. Overnight, it became the most important accessory in a lady’s wardrobe, even though the tall knotting plumes were difficult to find and extremely expensive. 

So, you see this a lot when you look at just pictures or, you know, fashion drawings of this era, like, it’s women, and they’re wearing these huge feathers. I find it interesting, it’s the same way, you know, like Nicole Kidman wearing heels. It’s like, you’re a tall woman, and you’re making yourself take up even more space. You’re just becoming this goddess, really. 

Amanda: Yeah. And I mean, some people found that like ridiculous. But I think in general, and Amanda Foreman talks about this, I read it on her website, she says: 

Georgiana’s youth protected her when she started to experiment like this with her clothes. Society likes fresh, young talent with bold ideas. Georgiana was not only unafraid to challenge the rules of fashion, she relished the opportunity to exert her power. 

So, there’s a line in the film where Georgiana, Keira Knightley, says to the Duke, “You have so many ways of expressing yourself, whereas we women have to make do with our hats and our dresses.” So, this is something she kind of learns early on, how to express herself through her clothing, and it’ll come up again later in her life. 

Ann: Well, and it’s very much… It’s similar to Marie Antoinette, except Marie Antoinette was expressing herself through fashion, and then her haters used that to—

Amanda: Yeah, it was not well-received. 

Ann: Georgiana was expressing herself with fashion, and everyone’s like, “This is great. She’s great. Love her!” 

Amanda: “She’s so smart and pretty, and we love her.” 

Ann: Yeah! So, it’s interesting that the two things are kind of going in parallel. I’m not sure if it was around at this time or not, but she at some point visits Versailles. She meets Marie Antoinette, they get along amazingly, obviously, like they have all this in common, just being sort of married to weird men. [chuckles]

Amanda: [chuckles] Weird, boring men, yeah. 

Ann: I think they have, like, psychological things in common, but also I think they have fun together. So, she met the Duchess of Polignac, and they became friends, and this is… So, they were correspondents, her and Marie Antoinette and the Duchess of Polignac, they became pen pals, they were all… Because there’s a lot of like, Paris, London going back and forth in this pre-Revolutionary era, which is what we’re in. 

Amanda: Yeah. Which I think is so cute. Like, I’m glad she had a gal pal. Well, I’m sorry, I should say a healthy gal pal, because she does have gal pals and one very notable one. 

Ann: Yeah. But the next notes I have are about her accent. 

Amanda: Yes, please! 

Ann: So, this is called the Devonshire House drawl. So, it has been characterized as part baby talk, part refined affectation, and they just sort of chose to pronounce words in new ways. This reminds me of something you might do if you’re in, like, fourth grade, a group of friends are like, “We’re just going to talk like this now,” and the teachers are like, “What are you even saying?” Like, it’s just a bunch of people just being like, “Let’s be silly. Let’s pronounce vowels differently.” 

Amanda: I think they, like, lengthen the vowels, and it’s sometimes overly dramatic. I’ve read that it was possible that Georgiana had that accent… There’s a British accent where they can’t quite pronounce an R correctly. So, it’s possible she had that and, like, just worked with it and made it into something trendy. But it’s also possible that this was, like, fashionable and she kind of picked up on it, and then because she picked up on it, other people did too. So, I mean, talk about trend-setting.

Ann: I have some examples here. 

Amanda: Please, yes. 

Ann: So, cucumber becomes [ph.] cow-cumber. Gold becomes [ph] goo-ld. And ‘spoil’ rhymes with ‘mile.’ Stresses fell on unexpected syllables such as [ph.] bal-CONE-ey instead of balcony, and [ph.] con-TEM-plate instead of contemplate. 

Amanda: It reminds me of Moira Rose from Schitt’s Creek. 

Ann: It’s exactly Moira Rose from Schitt’s Creek! It’s exactly that. But she started doing that, and because in the real, like, Regina George, Mean Girls way, everyone’s like, “I guess we are going to talk like this now too,” and then everyone does, to the point that it becomes just like, that’s just how people talk.

Amanda: That’s so funny. 

Ann: Like, she created this accent. 

Amanda: They do not do that in the movie, sadly. That would have, I think, given it a different tone. That would have made it more of, like, a dark comedy if everyone was talking this way. 

Ann: We’re like 1770s, is where we’re talking. By the mid-1800s, all Whigs talk like this; this just became the Whig accent. 

Amanda: That’s crazy! Yeah, she was a trendsetter. 

Ann: What if it was just a prank? What if she’s just being like, “I bet I can get everyone to talk differently,” and they did. [laughs]

Amanda: I hope so. Because she was so unaffected, she really must have meant it. 

Ann: It was… yeah. And this is why she’s called Georgiana. It was funny, when I first started preparing for this, I listened to a couple other people’s podcasts about her, and some of them pronounced it [ph.] George-ayna, and I thought, “Why are they saying it that way?” It was like a woman, I forget which podcast it was, but she had like, a Southern American accent, and I’m like, “Oh, that must just be how you pronounce Georgiana in the South.” But then it’s like, oh, no. And helpfully, the woman who recorded my audiobook, just as I had learned that it’s [ph.] George-ayna, she sent a list of like, “How do you pronounce these words?” Like to make sure, and one of them was this. And I was like, “Well, actually, it’s George-ayna.” A week earlier, I wouldn’t have— 

Amanda: Only in this context. [laughs]

Ann: I wouldn’t have known that a week before she asked that question, so the timing of it was perfect because Georgiana does show up briefly in my book, just because she’s— Well, actually, let’s talk about her friends, her friend circle. She is friends with everybody influential, all these, the bitches, you sort of hinted at this, there are women in her life, they are bitches. She’s like, the queen bee, but she’s nice, which is an interesting thing. She’s kind, and I was trying to think, if she was in Mean Girls, she would be like the Lacey Chabert character, like she just wants everyone to like her is her energy, I think. 

Amanda: Yeah, in a way. She’s very… It seems like she’s always looking for the best in other people. She’s not jaded by society, which, props to her, like, she could have been. She had every right to be. 

Ann: But this makes people sometimes take advantage of her or manipulate her. But one of her friends becomes George, the Prince of Wales. They become very close, which is interesting. She was never his lover. She’s a bit older than him, but all of his lovers were always a bit older than him. But at this point in her life, Georgiana, she’s married to what’s his face, who sucks, Cavendish. She can’t take a lover until she has a son. Like, she cannot have any question about the paternity of her children. 

Amanda: Yeah, it’s unthinkable. 

Ann: And she still has had no children. 

Amanda: Yeah, it’s eight or nine years after the marriage until they have kids, which is another parallel with Marie Antoinette. I think it’s almost exactly like, year for year, which is interesting. 

Ann: And she has a daughter. She has, I think, two daughters before she has a son. Yeah, so she’s stuck with this guy. 

Amanda: And the Duke, when he’s… Before they’re even married, he has one illegitimate child. He had an affair, while he was betrothed to Georgiana, with a former milliner or hat-maker named Charlotte Spencer… Possibly a relation of her? I don’t know. 

Ann: Amanda Foreman says not a relation. 

Amanda: Good, okay. So, they had a daughter. And then he also, a couple of years after the marriage in 1778, he commands a militia, and while he’s off, he has an affair with Lady Jersey, and she even shares his tent, and it’s like, not a secret. So, he’s allowed to have affairs and even have children out of wedlock, but Georgiana, there’s no question, her job is to throw these parties and get pregnant. She does a really, really good job of throwing the parties; she becomes, like, the head of society very, very quickly, but she’s not getting pregnant. 

Amanda: This is where, in terms of the Marie Antoinette parallels, like this is… Marie Antoinette did not conceive children because she and her husband were little nerds who didn’t know how sex worked. 

Amanda: And maybe had a condition? Maybe? 

Ann: Yeah. But like her, Georgiana’s husband is fathering children all over the place. Like, this is… He knows how to do this. 

Amanda: Yes. He knows how to do it. He used to spend all night out at the club playing cards, presumably dancing with other women. Actually, their primary residence was London; they didn’t live at their country house most of the year. But when they did come to Chatsworth, they would have so many people over to the extent that, like, the house was essentially open to the public. And apparently, once a month, the Duke and Duchess would just throw a big dinner, and anybody who came to visit, like, you were welcome to stay for dinner. So, another Versailles kind of parallel, anybody could get in as long as they were dressed correctly. 

Ann: I was thinking, that’s just like Versailles, yeah. So, Georgiana, like, in terms of her not having children, she knows that this is… Like, throwing the parties is her job, but having heirs is her real job, and this stresses her out so much. Her mother is blaming her for this in a kind of, like, Marie Antoinette and her mom sort of way. But she has various… He clearly can father children and has and continues to, so she takes us all on herself, like, “What’s wrong with me?” She does – and this is in another Princess Diana parallel – eating disorder type stuff comes out. 

Amanda: Yeah. Foreman says that not only did she have, like, binges and purges, but she also took drugs, presumably to block out emotions. I think Foreman describes it as “Using all available means to silence the voices in her head,” which, like, we can’t know that, but it does seem like she was compensating in her social life and just partying hard, which in turn might have been contributing to her difficulties. There were at least a couple, I think, miscarriages early in marriage, and some of them, her biographers do trace back to what they call her destructive lifestyle. I think it’s so hard to pin fertility issues on any one cause, I don’t love that. But that’s… Both are happening, right? She’s partying, she’s drinking, she’s gambling, that’s the other thing going on. 

Ann: She’s gambling. This is her life’s passion. 

Amanda: She loves it. As do many people in Georgian society, I will say. 

Ann: That’s on the bingo card. On the bingo card, I think is “gambling debts,” which she does get into. 

Amanda: She sure does. 

Ann: There’s a game that she’s playing, it’s called Faro, F-A-R-O, and it seems like the most chaotic, rules-free, of course you’re going to lose your money. 

Amanda: Like, not a skill game, it’s just a luck game. 

Ann: It’s just a luck game. 

Amanda: She picks the ones where your skill doesn’t help, which is I think the biggest problem here. [chuckles]

Ann: Yeah. So, she gets really… Similar to Marie Antoinette in this way. I don’t mean to keep bringing up, but it’s so— Because Marie Antoinette, she didn’t have children, she was really struggling, so she started having parties, she started wearing these crazy outfits. 

Amanda: They compensate in other ways. 

Ann: They’re both, like, 18-years-old and just doing the best I can. 

Amanda: Yeah. I have some information on her debts if you would like the nitty-gritty. [chuckles]

Ann: She falls into debt early and stays in debt her whole life. 

Amanda: Yep. So, the first time she finds herself deep in debt, it was for 3,000 pounds, which today is just under 300,000 American dollars. Instead of going to her husband, she asks her parents for a loan because, I guess, she’s embarrassed, she doesn’t want the Duke to know. And her parents are like, “Okay, we’ll give you the money, but you do need to tell your husband. This is a little insane.” So, she does tell him, he finds out, and he repays her parents. The next several decades will continue having to pay off his wife’s gambling debts. 

Ann: And she is always embarrassed by it. 

Amanda: She always tries to hide them. 

Ann: She always tries to— When she’s forced to, like, admit her debts, she never admits the full amount of them; she’s clearly carrying such a deep shame about it, and she can’t stop amassing. Well, I think it’s like, once you get into that spiral of gambling, as people still do today who have gambling issues, like, “Well, if I just do one more and I win, then it’ll pay everything off.” 

Amanda: “Then I’m done.” Foreman says that if there was ever going to be a true reckoning of her debts, the Devonshire estate would have been bankrupted several times over. So, this is an issue, and I think a reason that she keeps it such a secret is the Duke could presumably mortgage part of his estate to cover her debts, but he’s not allowed to mortgage his estate until he produces a legitimate heir, which is another reflection back on Georgiana. She can’t have a son for him, so he can’t pay her gambling debts, and so everyone’s miserable. So, she’s always borrowing money from friends, even though her husband’s the wealthiest man in England, basically. The Prince of Wales gives her money and sets her up with bankers in London to help cover her debts. Like, everybody kind of knows. 

Ann: Yeah. And her friendship with the Prince of Wales, AKA Prinny, he also is in debt constantly all the time, so he would know he’s like, “Here’s the people who still loan you money even when you have…” 

Amanda: [chuckles] Yeah, he knows. 

Ann: But all the people that she gets to loan her money, she makes them feel like they’re the only person doing it, so they don’t know. So, she asks for money for a bit of her debt, and she’s like, “Don’t tell anybody.” So, all these people know about it, but they don’t tell each other. 

Amanda: Yeah, sure. That makes sense. 

Ann: So, she’s got this kind of community of people who think they’re the only one who know and they’re the only one who’s helping her, but actually, it’s everyone. 

Amanda: Oh my gosh! Yeah, so it’s her whole life. It’s not until after her death, which everyone outlives her, basically, she’s the first in her circle to die. And so, her husband and her son, after she dies, have to make a public appeal, because they don’t even know how many people she owes money to. So, they made a public appeal, anybody who believed themselves owed from Georgiana’s estate to come forward and get their debts paid, basically. [laughs]

Ann: Yeah. Well, she lost track of it because she’s just… It’s like, I don’t know, if you get bills in the mail and you just stuff them away and you’re like, “I’ll think about that tomorrow,” like your credit card bills or something, it’s just, like, she couldn’t even keep track of how much she owed and to who, because she was… This is like, I just feel so much sympathy for her as this young woman, she’s under so much pressure… 

Amanda: More money, more problems, you know? 

Ann: Yeah. Like, the Cavendishs are really putting all these expectations on her, her own family, she herself is. She’s extremely young, and everyone’s just like, “Well, just get pregnant, just have a child.” Like, no one can help her with this. So, yeah, she’s turning— When you said she was using drugs before, what it is, it’s like opium, which is equivalent nowadays to, like, heroin basically. 

Amanda: Yeah, it’s hard stuff. 

Ann: Yeah. That’s the extent of how miserable she is. 

Amanda: And like you said, she has this need for attention and affection. I think at this point, should we bring in her lifelong friend and foil?

Ann: I’m going to bring in a previous friend. This Regency Era season has had more sapphic stories in it than any other season I’ve ever done, which is interesting. Initially, I didn’t think, “I’m going to do all these stories,” but I just keep coming upon them. But this is a chaotic bisexual story, in my opinion. I don’t know about you. 

Amanda: Yeah. I have mixed feelings about it. 

Ann: She’s certainly… We’ve talked about in other previous episodes, like for instance, Mary Wollstonecraft had very passionate friendships with women that people now interpret as, like, “Oh, did she have romantic or sexual feelings for these women?” We know she didn’t have sexual relationships with these women, Mary Wollstonecraft, because she wrote very honestly about her life and her experiences. But Georgiana met a woman whose name was Mary, I don’t have the last name here. 

Anyway, they met in Brighton, and they became completely infatuated with each other, as you might with a crush or as you might with a new friend, if you’re somebody who’s incredibly emotionally needy. Both of them, they were so devoted to each other, they became… Amanda Foreman wrote, “They were frightened that the intensity of their friendship would become the subject of gossip.” Like, they knew that they felt more strongly about each other than women usually did. And so, part of this with Georgiana, I think, is her unfillable need to be loved, and when she met somebody who loved her, she got really happy about it, no matter who that person was, really. 

Amanda: Sure. And I think just at the time too, women, even if it was just a friendship, were writing to each other in such effusive, flowery language, I could see Georgiana being somebody to, like, actually read into that and being like, “Oh no, this is love. This is the real deal,” just because that’s, I think, the type of person she is, like, she doesn’t feel anything in a subtle way, it seems. 

Ann: No, and I don’t think, I think if someone was flirting with her, she’d be like, “They’re in love with me.” 

Amanda: [laughs] Yeah, we all have that friend. 

Ann: So, Amanda Foreman says, about this friend, Mary: 

Whether and to what extent physical intimacy played a part in Georgiana’s relationship with Mary is impossible to determine. Several of her friendships contain an element of flirtatiousness. It was a French habit she’d acquired from Madame de Polignac and Marie Antoinette. 

So, it’s interesting because there were those rumours about Marie Antoinette and Madame de Polignac and their sort of flirtatious friendship, and Georgiana hung out with them. So, it’s certainly part of her story. Here it says, “Even taking hyperbole into account, Georgiana’s letters to Mary were more personal, more intense, clearly separating them from her other correspondents.” So, eventually the two of them just kind of… They drifted apart, but yeah. 

Amanda: Yeah. Is this the one that died of, like, tuberculosis? 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. 

Amanda: Okay, yeah. So, that was something that Georgiana took very hard and just kind of like, tragically ended their relationship. It’s so hard to know, like, because everything’s kind of understood relative to how we know people who were just friends were writing to each other. So, I don’t know. I’m always a little bit more hesitant to ascribe bisexuality or lesbian love affairs, but I think it’s possible, definitely. 

Ann: Yeah. It’s such a— And I’ve had various like queer historians on the show and stuff where it’s like looking at these letters, we’re always just looking at it through a modern lens, but what did it actually mean at the time? I don’t know. 

So, we are going to talk about her lifelong friend slash my relative… Not really, but maybe. But she also— 

Amanda: I don’t think I’ve ever told you, sorry, this is one of the tangents. My family thinks that we’re related to Lord Byron. [chuckles] Distantly. 

Ann: He had a lot of children. 

Amanda: Yeah. I don’t know how far back we would have to go, but we have Byrons in our family, and I was like, looking into it again the other day, and I was like, “I have to tell Ann Foster, Lord Byron hater, about this and see if she still wants to be friends with me.” 

Ann: I think if you have, like, one 18th Byron in you, that’s just enough to give you some, like, flair and joie de vivre. I think if you’ve got any more than that… From what I’ve seen of your life, I’m not concerned. 

Amanda: Thank you. 

Ann: Yeah. Well, no, there was a person coming up in this story who has the last name Foster, and I was like, “Foster?… Me?… Maybe.” It is her married last name, but whatever. But she also makes friends with Fox, who is the… He’s a Whig politician, and he introduces her to, like, politics and that political life. No one— Actually, I’m sure people did have rumours that they had an affair. 

Amanda: I think they did. 

Ann: Again, she’s not sleeping with anyone other than her husband until she has a son. But anyway, so she meets Charles Fox, and she has this like, I feel like, again, you know, in 21st century, putting our ideas on people, but I feel like she’s got a big ADHD energy to me. I think she just always wants to be doing something; she’s never able to just sit still. She has this energy, and so she, like, turns to drugs and gambling and whatever, and I think he’s like, “What about politics?” And she’s like, “[gasps excitedly] Yes!” And this gave her, like, a thing to do, and again, we’re not going to get into the Whigs and Tories of it all, but she becomes really interested, in a genuine way, in politics and helping out the Whig party. And it’s because she meets this guy, Charles Fox, who, they get along really well. Because I want to let you know, I, personally, was like, “Oh my god, I’ve heard this name. He’s in my Google Doc, who cares?” But here. So, “18th century England was full of wits, connoisseurs, orators, historians, drinkers, gamblers, rakes and pranksters, but only Fox embodied all of those things.” 

Amanda: I have that quote written down too. [laughs] It’s so good. 

Ann: So, he did things like, he experimented with his hair colour. This is in powdered wigs era, like, everyone’s got the grey. But he would powder his hair blue, he would powder his hair red, he wore multicoloured shoes and velvet frills. So, he was, I don’t even know. He’s like Billy Porter, he’s like out there just wearing… He’s like Harry Styles. He’s a man wearing these amazing outfits, and she’s just like [gasps]!

Amanda: Benson Boone. [laughs]

Ann: He’s doing backflips, he’s wearing sequins…

Amanda: And he’s getting elected. 

Ann: Yeah. And she’s like, “Wait, you can be into politics and also wear cool outfits? I am in, I am down.” She’s committed for the rest of her life, she’s like, all about Whig politics, and it’s because this guy… He’s wearing these outfits, and he’s also genuinely passionate about politics. So, she’s just like… So, this is one of her lifelong friends. She also – I promise listeners, we are going to get to her friend slash my relative, but she also wrote a novel around this time called The Sylph. It was published anonymously as “A young lady,” similar to how Jane Austen wrote her book, like “By a lady.” But this is again, sort of Georgiana, you just picture her just, like, she wants something. Motherhood is what she knows she should be doing, and she’s not able to do that, so she’s like, “I’ll do politics. I’ll do gambling. I’ll write a novel.” Like, she’s just trying to fill her life with things. 

Amanda: Yeah. And she, I mean, she writes over the course of her life. So, she writes this novel. It’s a thinly veiled account of her own social circle, so it’s kind of understood to have real people with fake names in it. It is never, like, openly connected to her, but she is said to have admitted in private, like, “Yeah, I wrote this book and published it.” So, it’s “about an aristocratic bride seduced into wickedness by the ton.” So, it exposes the corrupt morals of the real-life Georgiana’s social circle. I think it was Foreman who said it was written during “One of the many low periods in her life when she was attempting to reform her gambling vice and fast lifestyle.” It was published in 1778. But she was also a poet. She wrote, later in her life, a book of poetry, including The Passage of the Mountain of Saint Gothard. She also kept a journal, and she wrote lots of letters. Like we talked about, she wrote to her mom every day, to Marie Antoinette, later in her life, she writes to her children. So, she has a really rich literary history attached to her too. 

Ann: She does. And a lot of the letters do still survive. Actually, shout out, there is a listener to this podcast – I hope she’s listening to this episode – who is a descendant of Georgiana. Her name is Georgiana. 

Amanda: [gasps] That’s fantastic. 

Ann: She helped me with some stuff when I was writing my book. I was trying to figure out, honestly, it was Whigs and Tories based, I was trying to figure out about the House of Lords. And I just posted on Instagram, I’m like, “Can anyone explain to me about the House of Lords?” And she’s like, “Well, my father’s in the House of Lords.” [laughs]

Amanda: Oh! Okay, got it. 

Ann: I was like, thank you. And she’s like, “Also, I am descended from Georgiana,” I’m like, “Oh my gosh!” 

Amanda: So, she’s related to Princess Diana in some way. 

Ann: Yeah. I forget why I mentioned that, I just wanted to shout out… 

Amanda: Does she have, like, a collection of writings or something? 

Ann: Yeah. So, the letters, I think, are mostly in various archives and stuff. In the break between episode one and two, I’ll look up because she said she has a couple of things from Georgiana.

Amanda: Oh, wow! Yeah, I think Chatsworth has most of them now. 

Ann: Yeah, like she wrote so much, and a lot of the stuff is still there. Although in this way I keep coming across on this podcast, some of her Victorian descendants, like, blacked out some letters, some of the like… 

Amanda: I hate the Victorians the more I learn about them. [chuckles] Eating mummies, burning diaries, like, let’s not. 

Ann: I think I would love to have you on an episode where we’re just like, so these assholes…

Amanda: Bashing the things the Victorians did, yeah. 

Ann: Yeah, everything. 

Amanda: I did the episode, it was when we did the Lady Audaci-Tea podcast, and we just did an episode on Victoria versus her children, just being an asshole to her kids. That was a very cathartic episode. 

Ann: Yeah, the Victorians, this is actually, I want to just pause in this moment. So, the Victorians, like Victoria herself, were just like, let’s write… Not correct, but like, English society was getting so much of just gambling and opium and, like, debts and all this stuff, and she’s just like, “Let’s just make it all be morally…” Victoria wanted England to be morally correct. And she’s like, “I’m married to my husband, we’re going to have children. There’s no scandal here. England should be really like…” Meanwhile, she’s literally a nymphomaniac. [Amanda chuckles] But she set up this kind of understanding we still have of England as posh and refined, and the moral family is like good, and we should look up to them. 

Amanda: It was not like that in Georgiana’s time. 

Ann: In Georgiana’s time, it was just wild. Like, everybody was on opium, gambling all the time, having affairs. 

Amanda: Tits were out. 

Ann: Tits were literally out. Like, the Regency era, when we look at things like Bridgerton, for instance, it’s very much like how the Victorians made it seem like the Regency era was, when it was actually, like, just chaos. 

Amanda: Live fast, die young. Yeah, yeah. 

Ann: That’s what it was actually like.

Amanda: Tits out. It was a tits-out era. 

Ann: It was literally a tits-out era. So, again, just Georgiana, just some other cool stuff she did. She became involved in Whig politics. Also, her husband went off to fight, I don’t know, we’re in the like, French Revolution era wars. 

Amanda: I didn’t look into what he was actually doing, except for letting Lady Jersey stay in his tent with him.

Ann: Lady Jersey, who was also one of the lovers of George, Prince of Wales, AKA Prinny. She was the one who chose Caroline of Brunswick to be his wife. She’s head bitch, Lady Jersey. I was just like, Lady Jersey, what are you doing in this book? God damn it!

Amanda: There she is. 

Ann: Anyway, so Georgiana and the other wives, they went on the campaign, and they dressed in these, sort of, soldier outfits, but for ladies, because she’s like, “How can we support our men? I know! Outfits.” 

Amanda: Fashion. 

Ann: And it actually was really effective. Nothing like it had ever been witnessed before. Milliners’ shops began making fans bearing Georgiana’s portrait, which sold in the hundreds. This just made her more of a celebrity by wearing these kind of soldier outfits to support her man. This is, I think, around the same time, Marie Antoinette, like, she started doing an outfit, it was like à la Devonshire, which was like, so they started wearing kind of like, British-style military jackets. 

Amanda: Yep. Yeah, she set trends… I’m trying to find… There were a couple I wrote down. One of them was Devonshire Brown. So, she also popularized the colour brown. 

Ann: She invented the colour brown, y’all, like, before Pantone. 

Amanda: Before sad beige mom influencers, there was Georgiana wearing brown. 

Ann: And the colours of the wigs were blue and buff, which is like, I guess beige?

Amanda: Yeah, yeah. When she gets into her political activity, which, there’s more to come there as well, but fashion is part of that as well, and she starts to look towards, like, American military uniforms. So, that would have been the blue and buff, like, the khaki colour of the rebels in America. That’s another thing she brings in eventually. 

Ann: So, she’s got really keen instincts about, sort of, PR-type things. We’re going to see that play out more and more, but it’s interesting in an, like, now there’s so many people who are online being like, “Hey, I can help you with your branding. I can help you, whatever, I can help you get more followers.” And she just instinctively is like, “Hey, I’m going to do this, and it’s going to be effective. People are going to follow me,” and they just do. Like, she knows just what to do and when. 

Amanda: I mean, it extends beyond fashion to, like, interior design. And she brings like Sèvres porcelain from France to Derby, and then the English porcelain industry kicks off because they’re copying this French stuff that Georgiana loves. So yeah, it’s every little aspect of society. She also was a crystal girl. Did you see this? 

Ann: No! 

Amanda: She loved rocks and crystals. She had a collection of minerals, and she, like, that was one of the hats she tried on; she was a scientific mineral girl. Her collection was so big that Chatsworth still has it. She had one specimen of quartz that was over three feet high, and she eventually was, like, one of the things she taught to her kids was mineralogy. She loved crystals. 

Ann: I love how multifaceted she is, honestly. Because I think she’s a person that, there’s so much in her story. Like to me, before I read this book, I just knew her as, like, fashion. I knew that she had these big hats, and I knew that there was kind of this scandalous personal life. But then I started reading, I’m like, whoa, she was like, so influential in politics, and she’s influential in science, and she was a writer. It’s like, she’s so well-rounded. Like, people don’t know what to do about a woman in history who has like… There’s so many men who… Leonardo da Vinci or whatever, it’s just like, “Wow, he was an artist and a scientist!” But it’s like a woman can only be one thing. But it’s like, she was all of these things and a mess, and a gambling addict. 

Amanda: Also a mess, yeah. I support women’s rights and women’s wrongs. Yeah! And she loved to travel, that’s where she picked up a lot of her minerals, her rocks and mineral collection, but also inspiration for her writings. She loved the Alps, specifically, and so that’s where she wrote a lot of her most evocative fiction and poetry. So yeah, she is a well-rounded Renaissance woman, I guess you could say. 

Ann: And then she meets Elizabeth Foster (no relation to me), but (may be relation to me?). So, Elizabeth Foster is she’s married to a guy whose last name is Foster, who’s like an Irish Lord, and they’re estranged; she and the Irish Lord are not together anymore. I do have some connection to Ireland, so I’m just like… 

Amanda: Maybe! 

Ann: It’s like, if I’m related to anyone, it’s to her shitty husband. 

Amanda: Yeah, I don’t think you want to be related to him. 

Ann: I’d rather not. But I’m just excited when I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a Matta show up in a historical story.

Amanda: Never.

Ann: Italy? Where would they be? I don’t know. 

Amanda: Italy or like, Poland? Maybe? Yeah, I’ve never encountered one in the wild. 

Ann: I’m just excited, I’m excited to see a Foster show up. So, Elizabeth Foster, explain, explain. 

Amanda: Ohhh… where to start? So, they meet they meet…

Ann: They meet at Bath. 

Amanda: In Bath. Yep. Or I’m I don’t know how Georgiana herself would have said it. Booth? 

Ann: Baith. [laughs]

Amanda: [laughs] I don’t know. So, they meet in 1782. Bess has been married since 1776. But she and her husband separate in 1781, and at this time, she was being prevented from seeing her two children by her husband. So, this is like, the backdrop to her and Georgiana, who hasn’t yet had any children. So, I assume they trauma bonded, like, immediately, is my assumption.

Ann: That’s also just in terms of Georgiana, you know, she’s like this Princess Diana sort of tall, striking, not conventionally pretty, but like, gorgeous person. You know who Georgiana is to me a bit? It’s like a Bella Hadid-type person, where it’s like, they’re so elegant and like beautiful, but not like pretty. Bess, for that is what she is known as, Bess Foster, is pretty. She’s like, hot, she’s like an Elizabeth Taylor, like black hair, pale skin. 

Amanda: In the Keira Knightley movie, she’s played by Hayley Atwell, so Agent Carter of the Captain America franchise. So, I get that, like, curvaceous, pretty face, maternal, kind of MILF energy, if I can say that. [laughs]

Ann: Well, no. And I feel like in the movie, as in life, Georgiana is like a Keira Knightley, like a Princess Diana, tall and very willow-y thin. 

Amanda: Yes.

Ann: And then Bess is like curvaceous, voluptuous. So like, oh, that’s perfect. Hayley Atwell. 

Amanda: Two sides of the same era of womanhood, I don’t know. [laughs]

Ann: Yeah. So, she’s gorgeous and nice. There’s so much written about her by Georgiana’s mom and other people, Georgiana’s children… Bess is very affected. She’s very like… I don’t know how to say— Some people see her as, like, very obviously manipulating and playing up her coquettish ways and stuff. Some people find that really grating and really irritating, but Georgiana is just like… 

Amanda: In awe.

Ann: She takes everyone at face value, and she’s just like, “She’s great. She loves me. I need that love. Let’s go.” 

Amanda: Bess, I think you can say she knew how to work a room and play people off of herself or others in order to get what she needed. And so, Foreman writes that Bess did love Georgiana; they became companions and support systems to each other. But she says, Bess, “Her love for Georgiana was that of a celebrity stalker. She wanted to be Georgiana and possess everything she had, including the Duke.” Yikes.

Ann: But this is kind of what… Everyone around her saw that that was what was happening, and Georgiana was just like, “No, this is my friend, and she loves me.” Georgiana needed the level of love you get from an obsessive stan. Like, she thrived off of— I don’t know, they developed this, like, really intense lifelong, for the rest of their lives. 

Amanda: Yeah, it’s basically a ménage à trois, is how it’s written about. She moves to Chatsworth with Georgiana and eventually, yeah, and she wants to be her so much so that she sleeps with her husband. 

Ann: So, this is where we get into the like, is this a bisexual, polyamorous situation? 

Amanda: Polycule? Yeah. 

Ann: I don’t think you can call it that when Georgiana’s husband hates Georgiana. [laughs] When one person hates one of the people, I don’t think you can call it a polyamorous thing. 

Amanda: [laughs] So fair. 

Ann: But Georgiana and Bess love each other where they… I don’t know, it reminds me of, you know, it’s all speculation, but like the movie The Favourite, which is also based on speculation. But it’s like, I think if Bess had thought that having sex with Georgiana would make Georgiana like her better, then she would do it, and Georgiana would be like, “Oh, she wants to have sex with me? That means she likes me! Let’s do it!” I could see it happening, but you know, no one ever wrote about it. 

Amanda: Yeah. It’s definitely not, like, not everyone is into it for the same reasons, but Bess almost like, orchestrates a love triangle where she’s getting a lot of attention from all sides, which I find very interesting. And just, to be a fly on the wall, you know, and see how this played out in real life would be so fascinating because she moves into Chatsworth; she is not only Georgiana’s best friend and confidant, but the Duke’s official mistress. So, she kind of takes on some of that social hostessing duty that Georgiana is also doing. 

So, Foreman writes on her website about the Duke, you know: 

He ought to have married a self-confident, mature woman whose sole aim in life was to make him happy. Instead, he chose a needy adolescent whose clinginess repulsed him, yet when she sought public adulation as compensation, he felt wounded and bitter. 

Which I guess she credits to being the reason he was so open to having someone like Bess come into their relationship. He kind of gets the best of both worlds. 

Ann: But she and… Like, whatever is going on, she is getting something she needs from her friendship with Bess. I just like this detail because we have a lot of letters between them and they use code words, like you do if you’re with your close friends, you just have a nickname for different people. So, they call the Duke, Canis, which has to do with his love of dogs. And Amanda Foreman writes, “For reasons which have never been clear, Georgiana was Mrs. Rat, and Bess was Racky.” 

Amanda: Okay! 

Ann: So, these are their nicknames to each other. 

Amanda: This stuff doesn’t have to make sense. You know, I’m sure it was an inside joke. 

Ann: No! They’re just having a nice time together, but Bess insinuates herself into their life. And again, just to keep track of everything, Georgiana still has not had a child. So, she’s still just under incredible amounts of pressure; she’s had several miscarriages and things. She goes off to Bath for, you know, treatments and stuff. She’s doing everything she can to try to conceive a child. And at some point in here, her husband’s illegitimate daughter, Charlotte, comes to live with them. 

Amanda: Uh-huh, yeah, in 1780. So, the daughter is named Charlotte Williams. And it’s the custom of the time, if you have an illegitimate child, you can take the father’s Christian name and use it as a surname. The Duke’s first name is William, so everyone knew, and… [hesitates] Charlotte is brought to Chatsworth. She lives with Georgiana before she has children of her own. But Georgiana doesn’t really seem to care. 

Ann: She seemed to be happy about it. 

Amanda: She loves the kid. 

Ann: She wants to be a mother, and now she can be one. 

Amanda: Yeah. And she writes that “She’s vastly pleased with her husband’s illegitimate daughter.” And of course, she’s writing to her mom through all of this. Lady Spencer is a little bit more candid. She writes to Georgiana, “I hope you have not talked of her to people,” [laughs] about Charlotte. And Georgiana comes back to her mom, and she says, “But she is the best-humoured little thing you ever saw.” So, there’s just this toddler or young girl in her house and, like, bringing her joy for the first time, so she’s just rolling with the punches. 

Ann: Yeah. Every time I think I know what to expect from her or from this story, it’s never that. It’s like, she’s delighted to have this illegitimate daughter in the house. 

Amanda: Yeah! 

Ann: Just back to the fashions of it all. I want to mention, so probably the most famous portrait of Georgiana is one where she’s wearing this preposterous hat, and I’m going to describe the hat. 

Amanda: It’s so chic. I love it. 

Ann: So, it’s called the picture hat. “Wide-brim hats worn with a large sash and adorned with drooping feathers.” So, in this portrait, which is by Gainsborough, who’s like, the portrait artist of the time. In this portrait, she designed this hat herself, apparently.

Amanda: [laughs] Of course she did! 

Ann: This is a portrait of her own design, perching it stylishly on the side of her head. “After this portrait was put on exhibition, women up and down the country ordered their milliners to make them a copy of the Duchess of Devonshire hat,” which is like, I want to say it’s like a meter in circumference. 

Amanda: It’s huge. 

Ann: It’s the biggest hat you’ve ever seen. 

Amanda: In the portrait, it’s kind of off to the side, which… her hair is so big, because it’s full of secrets, I don’t know what this hat is attached to, but it’s like, cocked to one side. It’s defying gravity is what it’s doing. 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. It’s like, it’s sort of, if you’re like, if you look up Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, this portrait will come up, I’m sure. But if you picture sort of like the Mad Hatter’s hat in Alice in Wonderland…

Amanda: It’s bigger than that. 

Ann: What if that hat was bigger than your head? Like, it’s so big. Again, I’m excited to watch the Kira Knightley film – I’m going to do it for Patreon later, after we’ve done this episode – but  I looked up the pictures, and I was like, in that film, they did not get the hat proportions right from what I can tell. None of the hats were as big as the hats were. But it would have been too silly to make a movie with hats this big. 

Amanda: Right, exactly. They could have done it in a comedic way. Let’s actually, that would be so fun. Do like a remake, but just everything’s absurd, because it was. The wigs are really good in that movie, I will say. She has this one curly wig that she wears in some of the political campaign scenes. It’s so good, and she has the big hat with that. So, I think the size of the hat was sacrificed, but in exchange, we got some really good wig moments, which you don’t always— Sorry, W-I-G, wig. Not W-H-I-G.

Ann: Yeah. No, I’m here for W-I-G wigs. I love, I love a historical film. There’s a podcast called Frock Flicks, I don’t know if you know them, they’re on Instagram too. They’re like costume experts, and they watch films, and they rate how accurate are the costumes, and when they are excited about wigs, they’re like “The frizziness of this wig. They really capture the frizziness of like 1860s Paris.” Like, when they’re excited, I’m like, I’m going to watch this film because they said this wig is so good! So, I’m sure they would like these wigs, W-I-Gs. 

So, I wanted to mention the hat, partially because it’s iconic, and partially because Georgiana is still the it-girl of all of England. Like, through everything that’s happening, all of her chaotic personal life and stuff, like, every time she steps out in public, and you said, she lives in London mostly, it’s like, “What is she wearing? Can we copy it?” It’s exactly like Marie Antoinette energy. So, she wears a different thing every time she’s seen because… 

Amanda: And that becomes useful to her because, at this time, she is still active in politics. She’s not embarking on her biggest political appearances yet, but she is making public appearances to support Whigs, W-H-I-G, and specifically Charles Fox. So, 1780 and 1782, she’s campaigning, not as openly as she will eventually, but she’s making appearances, she’s being seen, and all of that just keeps her in the papers; people are talking about her fashion, her social life, the parties she hosts, the people she’s seen with. So, it just propels all of that further. 

Ann: And it’s a really unique thing. Like, we’re used to seeing that now, you know, when there’s an election going on, Beyoncé shows up at a campaign rally for whoever, like, we’re used to seeing a celebrity attach themselves to politics, a female celebrity, but this was unheard of in this time for a woman to be involved even to this level of just standing there silently in an outfit at a rally. Like, she was doing something that women had historically never really done before. 

Amanda: Right.

Ann: No one hated her for it. 

Amanda: Yeah, it didn’t backfire against her until 1784. So, that year, there’s a general election. Georgiana is 27, and she takes a more visible role than she has in the past. 

Ann: I think she’s requested, I think she’s told to— I don’t think she takes it upon herself. She and Charles Fox, they were like…

Amanda: They concoct this plan. 

Ann: “I think you stepping up is going to be helpful.” And she’s like, “Anything. I’m like 100-P, I’m here for the Whigs, like, whatever you need to do, I will do it.” 

Amanda: So, she shows up in public. She doesn’t just stand there, but she’s, like, actively going door-to-door, she’s campaigning in the streets, and she’s going to political meetings, which a woman could do, asterisk, if she was campaigning for somebody in her family, and just, like, showing up to show support. But no, this was politically based; it was because she supported the Whig party. It wasn’t just throwing parties, being a hostess; it was door-to-door, like, she would walk around London until she had blisters on her feet, talking to people, getting out the vote for Charles Fox. 

Ann: She was talking to, like, the ordinary people. I want to asterisk, at this time, only people who could vote were land-owning men. 

Amanda: Yes. 

Ann: So, she’s not going into, like, the slums, but she’s going into places where, like, if you picture, the effect is like, it’s political, it’s not, you know, charitable. But it’s like Princess Diana visiting the AIDS ward. It’s someone so high-profile, going and meeting with somebody who you would never think that she would meet with. She’s just being with the everyday people. I mean, imagine, imagine like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift going door-to-door in Philadelphia just being like, “Hey, have you registered to vote?” 

Amanda: Yeah, that’s the level. 

Ann: Like, she’s so untouchable and famous, and she just goes to your house to be like, “Hey, can I count on your vote?” Like, “Beyoncé, what are you doing here?” It was incredible. 

Amanda: And this is the point where we’ve talked about, like, the attention she gets is largely positive until now. Her actions in openly campaigning politically are deemed, like, not just taboo-breaking, but a little transgressive. So, at this point, she starts to be subjected to satirical cartoonists; they draw pictures of her, they write about her in the press in a negative way, probably for the first time, I would say. There is this characterization of her, like, selling… giving kisses in exchange for votes, is the big one. They call this the Devonshire Method. 

Ann: Exactly. So, it’s akin to… Like, they’re accusing her of basically sex work. When Amanda Foreman talks about this in her book, she’s saying, like politicians today, she would kiss a baby or whatever, but she was never just being like, I, you know, “I, Taylor Swift, will kiss you if you vote for whoever.” But how can we like… How many times do you see this now, but also then in history of just like, this woman is becoming too influential. How can we take her down a peg? It’s like, “Oh, we’ll call her a slut.” 

Amanda: Exactly. And in the process, then they’re calling the Duke a cuckold, literally left at home, like, holding the baby while his wife’s out there being politically active. 

Ann: Did they have a baby at this point?

Amanda: They did have a baby by the time that this election is going on in 1784. 

Ann: This is their daughter who…

Amanda: ’83 I think she finally has her first child. 

Ann: I know, and she calls her Georgiana. I am obsessed in history, it never happens anymore, when a woman has a daughter and calls it after herself. I always say bring that back. Bring back naming your daughter after yourself. 

Amanda: It’s so cute. I mean, I was thinking like women have this with our middle names, we pass those on down the line. But the first name is definitely more rare. Yeah! So, she has her first child, Georgiana, called Little Gee.

Ann: Little Gee! 

Amanda: In 1783. Two years later, she has Harriet, who they call Harryo, H-A-R-R-Y-O, which I love. That’s so cute. 

Ann: That’s so cute, and also, side note, prior to— At a similar time, but before she actually has her first daughter, Bess Foster has a child, and the father is… 

Amanda: Yes, okay! There’s a lot happening. Like, it’s a dual-narrative kind of situation. So, Bess… 

Ann: Bess becomes pregnant via the Duke, but she doesn’t want to tell Georgiana because she thinks she’ll be mad at her, which I feel like Georgiana would never be mad at her, but Bess doesn’t know that yet. So, Bess flees to…

Amanda: The continent. 

Ann: Naples, yeah. And she falls in love with, guess who? Axel von Fersen. 

Amanda: No, she doesn’t! That’s a lie! 

Ann: “She promptly fell in love with a handsome Swedish diplomat, Count Fersen.” 

Amanda: Wow. Good for her. 

Ann: “The Count Fersen had recently come from Versailles, where his departure had caused Marie Antoinette to cry in front of her tent.” I’m not saying he fell in love back with her. 

Amanda: Right, right, right. 

Ann: But she fell in love with him. 

Amanda: I do picture Jamie Dornan whenever we talk about Axel von Fersen, so that probably colours my understanding of him. 

Ann: I was excited to have Axel von Fersen show up. So, anyway, Bess goes to Naples. She has her child and she… There’s another French guy, and she claims that this French guy was the father. So, she never says who the father really is. So, this is where, like, as much as Bess was like, up there with Georgiana, living the high life, when she becomes pregnant, she goes to Naples, gives birth in some peasant shack, and is kind of living not the exciting life that Georgiana is living. And then, when Georgiana finally has a child, that solidifies her position as the wife, although she needs a son still. But finally, what she wanted for so long, she has a child. Thank god. 

Amanda: Right. So yeah, Bess has a kid, I think it’s 1785. So, Georgiana at this point has the two daughters, but they don’t really count because they can’t inherit, so essentially, she still hasn’t done her duty. It would be another two years before Georgiana finally has her son. But it’s interesting, like she still continued to write to Bess while she was away having the Duke’s… She has two children by him. And after the second one is born, there’s a letter from Georgiana where she writes to her, “Dear Bess, I know you are safe and therefore not hurt. Always write to him if you have not time for both.” So, she’s saying, if you have to choose between writing to me or my husband, the father of your child, you should pick him because… I just, I’m Georgiana, and I need everyone to be happy around me, all the time. [laughs softly]

Ann: Yeah, yeah. That’s part of her thing, too! It’s like, she wants and needs this love and attention from people all the time. 

Amanda: She’s like a people pleaser! 

Ann: She’s sort of like the child of divorce who just, like, wants everyone to get along all the time. So, she’s always doing whatever she can to make everybody to not have arguments. 

Amanda: Whether that’s raising your husband’s illegitimate child from a previous relationship or eventually, letting Bess’s children, who initially get fostered out to other families, but Georgiana lets them come to Chatsworth and be raised alongside her own children with the Duke. So, they’re, like, half-siblings, and they’re basically treated the same as if they were the Duke’s legitimate children. 

Ann: And more children become involved, which I’ll get into probably in part two. But back to the politics, I just wanted to mention some outfits. 

Amanda: Oh, please. 

Ann: So, Georgiana was doing this, but there’s some other women… So, the Duchess of Portland, Lady Jersey, Lady Carlyle, Mrs. Bovary and three Ladies Waldegrave were among the people parading around, like, drumming up the votes for their Whigs, and they were wearing their blue and buff, and they had added a thing, which is fox tails in their hats. 

Amanda: Yes. There is a fabulous outfit in the Keira Knightley movie with some fox tails involved. It’s so good. 

Ann: And this, of course, gets everybody wanting… Everyone starts getting fox tails in their hats because it’s just like, “I saw Regina George wearing a fox tail in her hat, so I’m going to wear a fox tail in her hat.” 

Amanda: I wonder if this impacted the ecosystem in Britain at all, if we could dig that out of the historical record. 

Ann: Well, I’m just like, did ostriches… Did they become endangered with people plucking their feathers all the time? 

Amanda: [laughs] Right. 

Ann: So, this is where, like, just in terms of this election, 1784. The three themes of the, like, anti-Georgiana slander were, like, she was selling her body for votes, she was Charles Fox’s mistress, and she was betraying her rank in sex by her “undignified behaviour.” 

Amanda: Yeah. And she knows that this is being written about her. She writes either in a journal or in a letter, she says, “I’m really so vexed, tho I don’t say so,” and she spells though, T-H-O, like, as if she’s texting, which I really like… “I’m really so vexed, tho I don’t say so at the abuse in the newspapers, that I have no heart left. It is very hard they should single me out when all the women of my side do as much.” But she’s the star that shines the brightest, so much like a Diana, she kind of has this target on her back for that. 

Ann: Yeah, exactly. You could be like, Oh my god, Mrs. So-and-so is out doing the vote and everyone’s like, who cares? But it’s like Georgiana? The person that you’ve been writing every day about for the last 10 years. 

Amanda: That’s a Meghan Markle parallel right there, if I’ve ever seen one. Like, if she does it, we have so many things to say, but Kate Middleton comes along two years later and does it, and it’s fine. 

Ann: No, exactly. They wanted an excuse to hate her. But also, this is because, like, her new… Do you know the movie Strictly Ballroom? 

Amanda: No. 

Ann: Oh my god. So, it’s like, Baz Luhrmann’s first movie, and it’s about ballroom dancers, and this guy comes in, and he introduces new steps, and everyone’s like, “New steps?” Because they’re Australian. Anyway, they’re like, “New steps! New…” and they’re all just shocked that this guy’s doing new steps in ballroom. So, I just feel like Georgiana is out there just being like, a new way of campaigning, and everyone’s just like, “What? Like kissing babies? Going door-to-door?” Tories have never done that, Whigs have never done that. Like, she’s inventing the kind of way that people campaign politically now, and it’s shocking, and it’s effective. And that’s why they’re attacking her, because it is swaying people’s minds. 

Amanda: It’s what they call now tall poppy syndrome. And that’s something that gets attached to Taylor Swift a lot too, is like, you can be successful and beautiful and celebrated until you start to outpace everybody else, and then you are the tallest poppy, and we have to find a way to cut you down. At the time she’s finally having children, that’s also what she’s dealing with. You could not pay me enough money to be in this situation. As fun as I think her life was, like, the psychological turmoil alone would break me. 

Ann: No. And just to be clear, like, she’s doing all this stuff. She’s found politics, she’s got children, but it’s like, she’s still gambling and taking drugs all the time. That is how she is dealing with this stress, still. But I do want to mention something fun she does, which is, she sponsored the first-ever hot air balloon. 

Amanda: Heck yeah. 

Ann: So, the invention of the hot air balloon was… So, this is like, 1783, the Montgolfier brothers astounded at the court of Versailles by floating a 60-foot balloon, 6,000 feet in the air. And then people were really excited about it. And so, she brought the first hot air balloon to England, and there was a hot air balloon party. So, she’s always on the cutting edge of… You were saying like the rocks and the minerals, like, she’s super into science. She’s a lady in STEM. 

Amanda: Because it’s the Enlightenment too, like, that’s also going on. And she eventually kind of, she sort of runs a salon, so she is intellectual, but she also happens to wear hot air balloons, I’m imagining, in her hair at the same time. 

Ann: I feel like, I don’t know if helium was like a thing people knew about, but I feel like if it was, she would have, like, actual balloons floating, bobbing overhead. But speaking of her fashion, speaking of fashion in this era, actually, we were talking about this election stuff like, guess what? I believe they lost, right? 

Amanda: The Whigs? Oooh, it’s a great question. 

Ann: I feel like it was not a resounding success, but honestly, I kind of skipped over all the Whigs and Tories pages. 

Amanda: So, let me see here. After the election, she continues to support the Whigs, although more privately. She also, her relationship with Prinny becomes political; she’s kind of his advisor while he is backing the Whigs, so she’s also whispering in his ear as well, which I love. 

Ann: But she’s also being a fashion girly because this is, if you’re listening to this in parallel with my Marie Antoinette episodes, this is where she introduces the muslin gown. This is around the same time that Marie Antoinette was painted by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun in the, like, what I call on the podcast, the fuck dress. It’s just sort of like, a white, simple muslin dress. And people in Paris were just like, “I can’t believe that Queen is wearing this, this is basically undergarments, this is shocking. This is also anti-French. How dare you usurp our silk industry by buying cotton?” Anyway, so she started wearing the muslin gown. It was inspired by what, like, Creole women in the West Indies were wearing because it’s hot there. Anyway, so she introduces this into London society. And then also there’s a minor scandal when one of her seamstresses was bribed to reveal her latest design. Could you imagine this happening to, I don’t even know, Zendaya? 

Amanda: Kate Middleton. [laughs]

Ann: Yeah. “Several ladies paid for the drawings, each thinking she was the only one,” because then that way they would know, and they could, like, be fashionable before her. “They were all exposed several weeks later when they arrived at a ball wearing the same dress.” 

Amanda: Ha-ha! You look stupid. That’s so funny. It reminds me of Diana’s wedding dress designers. They made, like, fully decoy dresses, not because I guess people would copy, but because the press would find out if they weren’t careful. 

Ann: Yeah, they would make fake wedding dresses so that if people found out, yeah, there was a one in three chance that they would spoil the wrong dress. 

Amanda: Yeah. Love it. 

Ann: And then I believe, speaking of the French Revolution, she’s like, “Let’s go on a trip to Paris,” during the National Assembly. 

Amanda: Smart. She just needs to be where all the action is. 

Ann: I think she clearly wasn’t… Well, it’s weird because the Whigs are the, like, “progressive party.” So, I think like, pre-French Revolution is just kind of like, “Hey, let’s be like America. Let’s just make things a bit cooler for everybody.” She was on the side of that, the like, intellectual pre-French Revolution type people. She’s like, “Yeah, I support this as a Whig, this is cool, I’m into it, even though I’m friends with Marie Antoinette, I get along with everybody. I’m a people pleaser.” 

Amanda: It’s a little idealistic for sure. 

Ann: But she literally goes to Paris during the Estates General, and it’s a bit much. But I’m just kind of looking at what I’ve highlighted here. But basically, they were there. It was getting a bit intense, and her husband is like, what if we leave? But she was, like, too afraid of her creditors. I think this is part of why she left. 

Amanda: Ohhh, I see. 

Ann: “She feared her creditors more than the semi-literate revolutionaries.” 

Amanda: Sure. She must have felt untouchable too. That must have been part of it. 

Ann: Yeah. So, I believe, like, in your notes, you would have this, but I think she was pregnant during the time in Paris. Like, this is when she has her son, I think. 

Amanda: So, she gives birth to her son, William, in 1790. 

Ann: Yeah. So, this is like, I think there was something she went to, she went, they were in France, she was pregnant, and then it’s like, her husband went back for basically her sister, Harriet was ensconced in some sort of scandal, and her husband had to kind of calm things down. But they’re like, “It’s too dangerous.” She’s had so many miscarriages, they’re like, “We can’t put her in a boat when she’s pregnant.” So then, she stayed in Paris, where it’s like, “Okay, so I’ll just give birth during the French Revolution, I guess. That’s safer.” 

Amanda: That’s crazy. 

Ann: But she does. And she has a son, finally, a son. 

Amanda: Yeah, she has…

Ann: She’s done her job!

Amanda: Five years after her second daughter is born, so 1790, she gives birth to William. I think he’s the Earl of Hartington, so they call him Hart, H-A-R-T. Again, these nicknames! 

Ann: Her children: Little Gee, Harryo, and Hart. 

Amanda: Yeah, cute. I like it. So, she’s fully in her mom era after this point. Again, like Marie Antoinette, she follows Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who writes about child rearing “in the natural way” and how children—

Ann: She breastfeeds her own children and stuff, like, scandalous to everybody. 

Amanda: She really believes that if, “Hey, I’m affectionate towards my children, they will be better off,” which is radical for the time. 

Ann: But it’s also Princess Diana, right? It’s like she hugged William and Harry, and everyone’s like, “[gasps] Hugging?? A royal?” Yeah, what if I smother my children in affection? Maybe that will make them happy. 

Amanda: And it works! Her kids, they do not grow up feeling like their mom is distant, she’s very involved in their everyday lives. She writes letters to them in her blood. Did you see this? 

Ann: No. 

Amanda: She uses her blood to write notes to her children when she is away. 

Ann: Okay. I think we’re going to… Because we’ll explain in the next episode why she loves her children so much, why is she away? We’ll get to that. There’s also going to be some, I’ve got some hot information. I just learned about Earl Grey tea. We’ll be spilling the tea: Earl Grey hot in part two of this, Georgiana. I knew, I knew this was going to be a two-part episode like this. 

Amanda: For sure. 

Ann: It’s not just like, how long did she live, but it’s just how much happened to her per year. 

Amanda: She lived several different lifetimes, and she didn’t have an exceptionally long life. We’re really just talking about 1770s to 1806, right? But there’s a lot going on. 

Ann: Yeah. In terms of the eras, she’s got… This is where I thought we can take a break, because she’s just been striving, ever since she got married, to have a son, she finally does. That means she can be a mother, which she’s always wanted to be, but then also it means she can now potentially take a lover, which we’ll talk about next time. Bess is still just there like [mischievous laugh]. 

Amanda: Everyone else gets to have lovers! It’s finally her turn. 

Ann: Oh my gosh. There’s part two, like… If you think this is wild, wait until part two. 

So, to wrap up this episode, Amanda, can you tell everybody, remind everybody, where they can follow you and find your content? 

Amanda: Of course. Yeah, so I am at Matta_Of_Fact on Instagram and TikTok, where I do royal commentary. I also have a newsletter on Substack that’s called “The Fascinator” for royal news and royal commentary, and a twice weekly, this year, podcast Off With Their Headlines. So, that’s wherever you get your pods, it’s me and Meredith Constant, and we will have a very special guest of our own in a couple of weeks to talk about maybe some other Regency stuff. [laughs]

Ann: Who could that be? [laughs] I’m so psyched to have… I don’t know the timing of all this when this episode comes out versus that, but I had to… I agreed to remove some royal commentary about the current royals from my book, Rebel of the Regency—

Amanda: It’s outside the scope.

Ann: But I’m going to reveal on that podcast what shit I was saying. 

Amanda: I’m so excited. 

Ann: Yeah, my book, Rebel of the Regency, I wanted to say, unless you had more things. 

Amanda: Nope, that’s it.

Ann: My book, Rebel of the Regency, if you want to read about this era with the minimum amount of Napoleon and the minimum amount of Whigs and Tories, I think you’ve got a copy of the book, when you get to this part, I think I actually say in the book, it’s just like, “I’ve avoided talking about Napoleon, but now I have to.” Like, I put it off as much as I could in my book, the Whigs and Tories, same thing. 

Amanda: And the world thanks you for it. 

Ann: Well, it’s like, if you want to get Whigs and Tories talk, read Amanda Foreman’s book, The Duchess, or, like I did, skim those chapters. But my book, Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Uncrowned Queen, is going to be available everywhere February 10th. You can pre-order it in Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia. Go to RebelOfTheRegency.com. That’s where all the links are to pre-order it and stuff. And the time is adding up; I have my pre-order treats, so if people share their receipt with me, they can get a free year’s paid access to my Substack, a free year’s paid access to my Patreon, and the Caroline of Brunswick paper dolls, because she was a fashion girly as well, and I wanted to celebrate that as best I could. 

And then also, I want to let everybody know, I’m going to be having a book launch event. So, it’s where I live in Canada, in Saskatoon, and I’m like, I know a lot of people listening are not in Saskatoon, but it’s going to be live-streamed on YouTube. So, Friday the 13th, auspicious day, right? The day before Valentine’s. So, the evening of Friday, February 13th, it’ll be streamed on YouTube and there will be a person there monitoring the chat, so you can interact with me and stuff. So, if you follow the link, which I’ll put in here. Otherwise, follow me on social media, et cetera. 

Next week, come back for me and Amanda, probably wearing these same outfits, [both chuckle] to keep talking about the second half of this scandalous story. So, until next time, keep your pants on and your tits out. 

—————

Vulgar History is researched, scripted, and hosted by Ann Foster. Editor is Cristina Lumague. Theme music is by the Severn Duo. Regency Era artwork by Karyn Moynihan. Social media videos by Magdalena Denson. Transcripts of this podcast are available at VulgarHistory.com by Aveline Malek. You can get early, ad-free episodes of Vulgar History by becoming a paid member of our Patreon at Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. Vulgar History merchandise is available at VulgarHistory.com/Store for Americans and for everyone else at VulgarHistory.Redbubble.com. Follow us on social media @VulgarHistoryPod. Get in touch with me via email at VulgarHistoryPod@gmail.com.

References:

Watch this episode as a video.

Here is a picture of Georgiana in her famous “picture hat”.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Preorder info for Ann’s upcoming book, Rebel of the Regency!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Get 15% off all the gorgeous jewellery and accessories at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠common.era.com/vulgar⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠commonera.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code VULGAR at checkout

Get Vulgar History merch at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠vulgarhistory.com/store⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (best for US shipping) and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠vulgarhistory.redbubble.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (better for international shipping)

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support Vulgar History on Patreon ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Vulgar History is an affiliate of Bookshop.org, which means that a small percentage of any books you click through and purchase will come back to Vulgar History as a commission. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Use this link to shop there and support Vulgar History.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices