Wealthy, noble, clever and pretty, Georgiana Spencer - later Cavendish - might have been seen to have it all. But like her indirect descendent Princess Diana many years later, Georgiana would end up in an unhappy and unfulfilling marriage, coping by gambling, drinking and partying to excess. This video looks at the early part of her life, her marriage to William Cavendish, her involvement in the culture of her time, and how ultimately she ended up in an uncomfortable and scandalous ménage à trois situation with her best friend and her husband...


Sources and Related Books:

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire - https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10....

(JSTOR) Moral Trespass in Georgian London: Gaming, Gender, and Electoral Politics in the Age of George III by Phyllis Deutsch - https://www.jstor.org/stable/2639963?...

(JSTOR) The Butcher-Kissing Duchess of Devonshire: Between Caricature and Allegory in 1784 by Amelia Rauser - https://www.jstor.org/stable/30053337

The Duchess by Amanda Foreman - https://amzn.to/4csNySP

Duchess Georgiana: Georgian Britain’s Most Popular Woman, A New Study by Lindsay Porter - https://amzn.to/3Pz7Lg2

The Sylph by Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire - https://amzn.to/3TLq9op

The Two Duchesses: Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire by Vera Foster - https://amzn.to/3TNSGKb

Some of the above links are affiliate links, and at no extra cost to you, help fund this channel when you buy through the links, so thank you very much!


For my images and footage, thanks to:

Pexels
Pixabay
Wikimedia Commons, especially:
walker44
Ricardalovesmonuments
Bycostello
Many of my images in this video were made with Midjourney, see if you can spot which ones!


I strive to always credit everyone whose images I use, and try as much as possible to use images freely in the public domain (purchased where not possible) - please let me know if I have missed you so I can give you due credit.