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The Remarkable Life of Harriet Spencer, Sister of Georgiana
Crown
June 2007
On Sale: June 5, 2007
448 pages
ISBN: 0307381978
EAN: 9780307381972
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction History | Non-Fiction Biography
Sweeping and scandalous, rich and compellingly readable,
here is the first biography of Lady Harriet Spencer,
ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales, and devoted sister of
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Harriet Spencer was
without a doubt one of the most glamorous, influential, and
notorious aristocrats of the Regency period.
The
second daughter of the prestigious Spencer family, Harriet
was born into wealth and privilege. Intelligent, attractive,
and exceedingly eager to please, at nineteen years of age
she married Frederick, Viscount Duncannon, an aloof, distant
relative. Unfortunately, it was not a happy union; the only
trait they shared was an unhealthy love of gambling. The
marriage produced four children, yet Harriet followed in the
footsteps of her older sister and began a series of illicit
dalliances, including one with the prominent and charismatic
playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Then she met Lord
Granville Leveson Gower, handsome and twelve years her
junior. Their years-long affair resulted in the birth of two
children, and all but consumed Harriet: concealing both
pregnancies from her husband required great skill. Had the
children been discovered, it surely would have resulted in
divorce—which would have been disastrous.
Harriet’s
life was dramatic, and the history-making events she
observed were equally fascinating. She was an eyewitness to
the French Revolution; she participated in both the euphoria
following Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar and the outpouring
of grief at his spectacular funeral; she was privy to the
debauchery of the Prince Regent’s wife, Princess Caroline.
She quarreled bitterly with Lord Byron when he pursued her
young daughter (rumor had it that he was truly interested in
Harriet herself). She traveled through war-torn Europe
during both the rise and the fall of Napoleon and saw the
devastating aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, where her
son was gravely injured. Harriet, along with her sister, was
one of the leading female political activists of her day;
her charm allowed her to campaign noisily for Charles James
Fox—while still retaining influence over supporters of his
rival, William Pitt the Younger. Harriet survived Georgiana
by fifteen years, living to see the coronation of George
IV.
Janet Gleeson’s elegant, page-turning style
brings Harriet’s story vividly to life. Based on painstaking
archival research, Privilege and Scandal gives readers an
inside look at the lives of the British aristocracy during
the decadent eighteenth century—while at the same time
shining the spotlight on one of the era’s most fascinating
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