Nicola Cornick | The Two Diana Spencers

Many of us are familiar with the story of Lady Diana Spencer,
the beautiful daughter of an Earl who married a prince at the age of nineteen only for the
marriage to founder and end in a well-publicised divorce. What is less known is that Diana
Spencer was not the first aristocrat of that name and that an ancestor of hers, Lady Diana
Spencer, daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, had a life that has some uncanny echoes of
her own.

It was this earlier Diana Spencer who was the inspiration for the central character of my latest book, The Woman in the Lake. She was born in 1735, the daughter of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough.  At the age of 23 she married Frederick St John, 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke. They had two sons. Friends and family were taken aback by the match as Fred was a known to be an extravagant womaniser with a bad reputation – not for nothing was his nickname at Eton “Bully.” After the marriage he maintained exactly the same lifestyle that he had had before, keeping a string of mistresses, drinking heavily and spending even more extravagantly. There were rumours that he was abusive towards his wife and the marriage was quickly on the rocks. Lady Diana, now Lady Bolingbroke, was a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte, a post she was obliged to give up in 1768 after a bitter separation and divorce from Frederick. She found consolation in the arms of another man, Topham Beauclerk, whom she went on to marry. In The Woman in the Lake, my central character of Isabella shares with Diana Spencer an unhappy marriage that leads her into an affair with another man. Like Diana too, she also has a remarkable talent for art. Lady Diana had demonstrated this skill as a young child when she had learned to draw by copying the paintings by great masters on show at Blenheim Palace and she grew to be a very talented artist and designer. At first, she produced pictures only for family and friends; as an aristocratic woman in the 18th century, it was unthinkable that she should sell any of her work. Some of her drawings reflected her life in the countryside at Lydiard Park, the gorgeous mansion house which is close to where I live and where I also set my story.

The Bolingbroke divorce made Lady Diana (or Lady Di, as
she was known in another parallel with her namesake) notorious since divorce was so
scandalous and unusual in the 18th century. However,it also brought her increased popularity and
success as an artist. She was now a celebrity and people wanted to buy her work. This was to
prove critical in transforming her career from amateur to professional artist. She created
designs for Wedgwood pottery and also for garden statuary and illustrations for books. Her
work did not bring her an enormous income but it kept her head above water. I admire her
enormously for having the strength to leave her abusive husband against all the norms of
Georgian society, and for finding a way to support herself through her own work.

The dressing room at Lydiard Park, which you can still visit today, contains a number of her drawings including some of the patterns she designed for Wedgwood and a couple of portraits. Most importantly it celebrates Lady Diana’s remarkable life and her talents.