The mistresses of Cliveden Three centuries of scandal, power, and intrigue in an English stately home

Review by New York Times Review

THE DOWAGER COUNTESS of Grantham was not being waspish (necessarily) when, over a typical white-tie dinner en famille at Downton Abbey, she asked her distant relation Matthew Crawley, "What is a weekend?" Young Matthew, whom the sinking of the Titanic had abruptly transformed into the Abbey's heir, had just amazed those present by announcing that he intended to keep to his law job during the week, despite his sudden elevation in status. Now he baffled the countess with this workaday neologism. As the British historian Adrian Tinniswood explains in "The Long Weekend: Life in the English Country House, 1918-1939," back in the years that followed the Great War, "it still wasn't actually called a weekend" among the "polite circles" that "Downton Abbey" pulled from the silver chest of history. The "accepted phrase" was "Saturday to Monday." For six years, the loyal, not to say feudal, followers of "Downton Abbey" have lapped up Julian Fellowes's lavish period drama not only for its verbal jousting and sumptuous settings but for its resurrection of the social rituals, class distinctions and political watersheds of another era. To some viewers, the end of the series felt like a mournful recessional. Having barely emerged with the Crawleys from the ordeals of the Great War, they were now entering what Tinniswood, in his nostalgic overview, describes as that "period of gentle decline in which the sun set slowly on the British Empire." Never mind. An array of new books provides consoling reassurance that Britannia still rules the page. As any fan of Wharton, Waugh, Wodehouse or James knows well, we Yanks have a special relationship with Britain's illustrious piles. "Between 1870 and 1914," Tinniswood writes, "128 American women and three men married into the British nobility," shoring up the walls they overleapt with Gilded Age wealth. Others acquired these grand residences (or their fire-places, staircases and opulently paneled rooms) without benefit of marriage, either buying them outright or having them dismantled and shipped to our shores. In the mid-1920s, The Manchester Guardian bewailed American Anglophiles' appetite for Britain's patrimony, asserting that "no building of decent age and character is safe from the danger of kidnapping." Happily, its report exaggerated the crisis. And the arrival of the Great Depression helped ensure that most of the United Kingdom's architectural heritage remained safely ensconced in its ancestral terroir. Natalie Livingstone's lively chronology of one storied manse and its canny chatelaines, "The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power, and Intrigue in an English Stately Home," shows that even when they stayed put, majestic properties like Cliveden continually shapeshifted as leading figures of successive ages took them over while jockeying for position on England's chessboard. Americans of the last generation may associate Cliveden with the Profumo affair of the 1960s, which began when Britain's secretary of state for war spotted a London party girl emerging nude from its swimming pool and began a liaison that would later bring down the government. Americans a generation older may associate the house with the notorious "Cliveden Set," presided over by the strong-willed Virginian Nancy Astor, who held gatherings in the lead-up to World War II that were attended by prominent, appeasement-minded Britons and the Germans who sought their support. She had gained the keys to Cliveden upon marrying the American-born Briton Waldorf Astor. With his wife's encouragement, he embarked on a career in politics as a Conservative M.P. When he was named Viscount Astor, following the death of his father, he forfeited his seat in the House of Commons. Lady Astor promptly won his spot, becoming England's first female M.P. Cliveden and female power have always gone hand in glove, as Livingstone exuberantly demonstrates. It was the desire to cuddle in private with his mistress, Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury (possessed of an enticingly plump underchin, known to Restoration rakes as a soggiogaia), that prompted the Duke of Buckingham to draw up plans for the palatial snuggery soon after the death of Anna Maria's husband, whom he had gravely injured in a duel in 1668. Although the duke's wife tolerated the ménage à trois, public outrage made court life awkward, and the king himself intervened. As Buckingham scrambled to salvage his political fortunes, Anna Maria slipped off to a convent and later remarried. Since Cliveden was built in her absence, she will, Livingstone writes, always be its "lost mistress." Elizabeth Villiers, the paramour of William of Orange, was a more successful chatelaine of the estate. After the king helped her find a suitable husband, the couple acquired the deed to Cliveden and set about improving the buildings and gardens - and Elizabeth's reputation. She became an admired society hostess, her conversation dazzling even the likes of Jonathan Swift, who considered her the "wisest woman I ever saw." NEXT UP WAS Augusta, Princess of Wales, wife of the estranged eldest son of George II, who sought to win over the British public and press by turning Cliveden into the sort of showcase of domestic felicity and cultural festivity that would smooth his path to the crown. Thus at an outdoor theatrical event, amid gardens fragrant with honeysuckle, roses and jasmine, "Rule, Britannia" received its first performance, part of a patriotic masque the prince had commissioned in honor of the Anglo-Saxon King Alfred, with whom he identified. But it may have been Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, Queen Victoria's close friend, who left the most lasting stamp on Cliveden - given that it burned down while she was in charge. The exceedingly clever and efficient Harriet enlisted the architects Charles Barry, George Devey and Henry Clutton to draw on archival blueprints and wholly rebuild the place, adding cottages and granting Cliveden the outline it has retained (for the most part) to the present day. That said, the current chatelaine - the author herself - deserves no small credit for keeping the house's legend alive. She and her husband bought the estate, which is now a hotel and spa, in 2012; then she set about writing this engaging book. Any of her action-filled chapters would merit a miniseries, and Cliveden's website opens up yet another possibility for creative elaboration, inviting armchair travelers to the Edwardian (or other) eras to "Create Your Moment in History." The creation of such moments is, of course, one of the primary purposes of fiction, and "Fall of Poppies," a collection of short stories inspired by the plangent, romantic landscape of imperiled mansions, trench warfare and Anglo-American overlap, contains nine loamy tributes to the genre. These miniatures center on Nov. 11, 1918, the day the Great War ended and its memory began. Two of the stories stand out from the rest. Lauren Willig's "The Record Set Right" is the late-life memoir of a woman who had been taken in by wealthy relatives in 1905, when she was 9. Millie had loved both of the family's sons, and on the morning after Armistice Day, "the day the world healed and we fell to pieces," she had become engaged to one of them. Now 84 and a grandmother, living in Kenya, she receives a letter from England: "Seeing Edward's writing brings it all back: the ragged cutouts on the fire screen; the tattered mane of Whisper, the rocking horse; the smell of barley water and milk pudding; the fall of light across the floorboards on a summer afternoon." Kate Kerrigan's "The Photograph," which opens in Dublin in 2016, concerns the tensions that the prospect of romance between a British soldier and a patriotic Irishwoman unleash at the time of the Armistice, tensions that remain today. Pondering the persistence of this rancor, one of the characters concludes that a concern for heritage is no match for ardor. "Love is love," she reflects. "It didn't matter then, and it doesn't matter now." LIESL SCHILLINGER is a regular contributor to the Book Review.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 5, 2016]

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Review by Booklist Review

The current mistress of Cliveden, a storied estate built in the 1660s five miles from Windsor Castle, weaves together the stories of disparate women over the course of the past 300 years. Bound together solely by the magnificent house they lived in and presided over, each woman represents a different era in British history and in the fates and fortunes of Cliveden itself. Picking and choosing her subjects well, Livingstone opts to highlight the most notorious of the Cliveden females, including Anna Maria Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury and mistress of the Duke of Buckingham; Elizabeth Villiers, Countess of Orkney and lover of William of Orange; Augusta, Princess of Wales; Harriet Levenson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland and confidante to Queen Victoria; and Nancy Astor, American-born interloper and the first woman elected to Parliament. Though the personal tales and tidbits are fascinating, and the sensational details of these women's lives will intrigue Downton Abbey devotees, the real star of the story is Cliveden and the manner in which the evolution of the estate reflects the last three centuries of English history.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This lively, accessible work from English writer Livingstone follows five mistresses of Cliveden from the time of late-17th-century Restoration-era rakes to the swinging 1960s. Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, and Elizabeth, Countess of Orkney, were louche paramours of prominent noblemen. Augusta, Princess of Wales, was the wife of a progressive but doomed heir. Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, was a do-gooder and close friend of Queen Victoria. The last mistress, American-born Nancy Astor, became the first woman elected to Parliament. Her son presided over the estate's most notorious modern scandal, 1963's Profumo Affair, when Britain's war minister shared the charms of party girl Christine Keeler with a possible Soviet spy. Cliveden flourished as a center of hedonism, culture, and politics. King George III, who aroused the ire of American colonists, spent a portion of his childhood there. Guests included Jonathan Swift, William Gladstone, and Lawrence of Arabia. Downton Abbey this is not: it traces the saga of unrelated women, not a single aristocratic family. Sutherland and Astor truly influenced history; other women of Cliveden were activists, and all chafed under the restrictions imposed on women. Packed with details about architecture, gardens, clothing, and manners, Livingstone's debut is an entertaining, anecdotal popular history. Photos. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A series of biographies of the women connected to Cliveden, the house made famous in the Profumo affair. The first, Anna Maria (1642-1702), was widowed when her lover, the Duke of Buckingham, killed her husband in a duel in 1668. Scandal was a way of life in Restoration England, and Anna Maria eventually moved into Buckingham's London homewith him and his wife. By the time Cliveden was completed, they had separated. Elizabeth Villiers, a cousin to Buckingham, was educated with two of James II's daughters, Mary and Anne. Elizabeth accompanied Mary when she married William of Orange and promptly had an affair with him. After Queen Mary's death, William granted Irish estates to Elizabeth that made her the richest woman in England, which made for a convenient marriage to the Earl of Orkney and life at Cliveden. Orkney's heir leased the property to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his successful marriage to Augusta of Saxe Gotha proved to be a contrast to the rigidity of the court. Harriet, raised at Castle Howard and a great friend of Queen Victoria, married the even wealthier Duke of Sutherland. Together, they created a calm retreat at Cliveden where Victoria often came for walks on the grounds. Harriet was also a prolific political and social campaigner, and she fought against slavery in the United States. Throughout its history, Cliveden was a haven for great minds, and famous guests were the norm for all the women of Cliveden. Nancy Astor (1879-1964) was an acerbic, quick-tempered woman. Like her predecessors, she changed conceptions of female power and served as a member of Parliament for 25 years. She made Cliveden a symbol of highly politicized forms of power, class and ideology. In her debut book, Livingstone ably avoids tabloidlike gossip to profile five remarkable women, and she provides a helpful cast of characters at the beginning of the story. Readers who enjoy English history will be happy to have this in their libraries. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Chapter 1 The Duel Barn Elms, 16 January 1668 In the thin light of a January morning, the Duke of Buckingham galloped towards Barn Elms, the appointed site for the duel he had so long awaited. In springtime and summer, revellers flocked to Barn Elms with their bottles, baskets and chairs, recorded the diarist Samuel Pepys, 'to sup under the trees, by the waterside', but in winter the ground next to the Thames was frozen and deserted. Nevertheless, there was still activity on the river. Nearby Putney was famous for its fishery and was also the point at which travellers going west from London disembarked from the ferry and continued by coach. The harried cries of watermen and the shouts of fishermen returning from dawn trips filled the air as Buckingham neared his destination. The grounds of the old manor of Barn Elms lay on a curve in the river just west of Putney. The land was divided into narrow agricultural plots - some open, others fenced off by walls or hedgerows. Pepys recorded that the duel took place in a 'close', meaning a yard next to a building or an enclosed field - somewhere screened off from passers-by.  But as his horse's hoofs thundered along the icy riverbank, Buckingham's thoughts lay on a more distant turf. Anna Maria, the woman who had provoked the duel, was 270 miles away, in self-­imposed exile in a convent in France. Nine years before, in 1659, Anna Maria Brudenell had married Francis Talbot, 11th Earl of Shrewsbury, but the union had been an unhappy one. He was 36, a wealthy but sedate landowner; she was a pleasure-loving 16-year-old already conscious of her seductive charms. Anna Maria kept a series of lovers but Shrewsbury turned a blind eye, making himself a laughing stock at court. During a trip to York in 1666, she began a new affair, this time with the flamboyant courtier George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and the following summer sexual rivalry between him and another of her paramours, the hot-headed rake Henry Killigrew, exploded in a violent scuffle. This very public fracas made it abundantly clear that Anna Maria had been serially unfaithful, and Shrewsbury's failure to challenge either man to a duel was seen as a dereliction of his role as a noble husband. Anna Maria fled to France in shame.  Amid reports that Buckingham was actually hiding Anna Maria in England, Shrewsbury at last summoned the courage to defend his marriage and his name. He challenged Buckingham to a duel and the duke eagerly accepted. Anna Maria exerted an extraordinary hold over a great number of men but she quite simply possessed the duke. 'Love is like Moses' serpent,' he lamented in his commonplace book, 'it devours all the rest.'  Pepys reported that King Charles II had tried to dissuade Buckingham from fighting the duel but the message was never received. Even if it had been delivered, Buckingham would probably have taken little heed of the king's wishes. Charles II was more like his brother than his monarch. Buckingham's father, also George Villiers, had been made a duke by Charles I and, when Villiers senior was assassinated in 1628, the king took the Buckingham children into his household. Young George became a close friend of the future king and many of Charles's happiest childhood memories involved Buckingham. The pair spent their student days at Cambridge University and their names appear side by side in the records of matriculation at Trinity College. Buckingham felt little obligation to defer to the king, while Charles tended to turn a blind eye to Buckingham's reckless conduct.  Unknown to Shrewsbury, Buckingham had another reason to be riding to Barn Elms that January day in 1668. Shortly after the start of his affair with Anna Maria, Buckingham had viewed a magnificent estate next to the Thames. The site, then owned by the Manfield family, was within easy boating distance of London and included two hunting lodges set in 160 acres of arable land and woods. The estate was known as Cliveden, or Cliffden, after the chalk cliffs that rose above the river. From the lodges the ground dropped sharply towards the Thames, and on the far side of the river flooded water meadows and open land spread out for miles beyond. There had once been a well-stocked deer park on the site and Buckingham knew he could restore the estate to its former glory. He intended to replace the lodge with a large house that would boast the best views in the kingdom. Buckingham bought Cliveden with the pleasures of the flesh at the forefront of his mind. This, he fantasised, would be his grand love nest with Anna Maria, a place for them to freely indulge in their affair - hunting by day, dancing by night. It was Buckingham's obsession with Anna Maria and his dream of a gilded life with her at Cliveden that led him to accept Shrewsbury's challenge. Buckingham's fight with Shrewsbury was not to be an impulsive brawl of the sort seen every night across London's streets and taverns, but a carefully calibrated episode of violence. Although there had been medieval precedents for settling disputes through combat, the duel of honour was essentially a Renaissance invention, imported from Italy. Duelling formalised conflicts between aristocrats, replacing cycles of revenge, usually romantic in nature, with a single, rule-bound encounter. Its outcome served to resolve and annul any other grievances. The duel was part of a new court culture, which placed heavy emphasis on civility and courtesy; when these principles were ignored, duelling provided a means of redress. In the 1660s, after the monarchy was restored, duels became more common and attracted significant public interest and press comment, even if the participants lacked any kind of celebrity status.8 Charles II did issue an anti-duelling proclamation in 1660: 'It is become too frequent,' this stated, 'especially with Persons of quality, under a vain pretence of Honour, to take upon them to be the Revengers of their private quarrels, by Duel and single Combat.' In reality, however, Charles II had no moral objection to the culture of romantic fighting, and in the absence of effective legislation from Parliament, duels were judged on a case-by-case basis.  A duel was conventionally initiated with a challenge from the aggrieved party, whose complaint could be anything from the monumental to the trivial. The philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote that men fought duels 'for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue in their Kindred, their Friend, their Nation, their Profession or their Name'. Even if a challenge were accepted, the duel itself could be avoided, either by one of the parties backing down or by a third party intervening. When a fight did take place, the duellists were each required to select two men as 'seconds'. In earlier times the seconds had merely an auxiliary role, carrying weapons and arbitrating, but by the 1660s it had become fashionable for them to engage at the same time as the main combatants - turning the duel into a ritualised piece of gang violence. Nominally, the aim was to prove one's honour by exposing oneself to danger, not to kill the opponent, but inevitably some duels ended in serious injury or death.  Excerpted from The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power, and Intrigue in an English Stately Home by Natalie Livingstone All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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