Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

. The Duchess was born Miss Georgiana Spencer, on 7 June 1757, as the first child of John Spencer (later Earl Spencer) and his wife, Georgiana (née Poyntz, later Countess Spencer), at the Spencer family home, Althorp. After her daughter's birth, her mother Lady Spencer wrote that "I will own I feel so partial to my Dear little Gee, that I think I never shall love another so well." Two younger siblings followed: Henrietta ("Harriet") and George. The daughter of her sister Henrietta, Lady Caroline Lamb, would become a writer and lover of Lord Byron. John Spencer, a great-grandson of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, came from a wealthy English noble family. He built Spencer House as a family residence at St. James's, London, and raised his children there. Lord and Lady Spencer had what was considered an unusually happy and demonstrably affectionate marriage for the era, raising their children according to the "modern" and enlightened ideas of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Georgiana was the family favourite and had an extraordinary close bond with her mother, who confessed to favouring her over her other children, but this stability ended abruptly when she was separated from her parents when they travelled to Italy for her father's health. While her mother admitted it was "difficult" to leave her behind, her primary devotion was to her husband, rather than her children. This abandonment was a profound shock to Georgiana, who became noticeably anxious to please and emotionally dependent on those around her. When her father assumed the title of Viscount Spencer in 1761, she became The Honourable Georgiana Spencer. In 1765, her father became Earl Spencer, and she Lady Georgiana Spencer. In 1766, the death of the Spencers' fourth child, soon after her first birthday, and then the loss of another daughter after only a few weeks just three years later, started an era of obsessive travelling and gambling as they sought distraction from their "heavy affliction". Georgiana's mother attempted to balance the worldly vice of gambling until dawn with self-denial and good works, but was aware, as were others, that this obsession was not based on a real religious devotion. The gambling that absorbed both her troubled parents' attention and became a household routine would become a pervasive influence for the rest of Georgiana's life. ==Marriage and children==

and George, by Angelica Kauffman, . The painting was painted just before Georgiana's marriage to the Duke of Devonshire. On her seventeenth birthday, 7 June 1774, Lady Georgiana Spencer was married to society's most eligible bachelor, William Cavendish, the 5th Duke of Devonshire, who was nine years her senior. The wedding took place at Wimbledon Parish Church. It was a small ceremony attended only by her parents, her paternal grandmother Lady Cowper, one of her prospective brothers-in-law, and her soon-to-be sister-in-law, the Duchess of Portland. Her parents were reluctant to let their daughter go, and while she was now married to one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the land, still attempted to exert their parental influence and keep her emotionally dependent on them. Her father, who had always shown affection to his children, wrote to her, "But indeed my Dearest Georgiana, I did not know until lately how much I loved you; I miss you every day and every hour." The bond between Georgiana and her mother continued after her marriage in a lifelong correspondence; many of their letters survive. Unlike her mother, Georgiana had not been out in society for several seasons, nor had she accepted the Duke because she loved and preferred him to all others. The Duke of Devonshire, referred to as "the Duke" by his family and friends, was a notoriously reserved and taciturn man, described as being "incapable of any strong emotion, and destitute of all energy and activity of mind." Primarily motivated to please her parents with an illustrious marriage, Georgiana believed that Duke's outward detachment might conceal a loving personality similar to her introverted father's, and that in their marriage she would be both wife and companion. She was sadly mistaken; although they grew closer in later life, at the beginning of their marriage the Duke could not meet Georgiana's emotional needs, and she quickly learned her role was solely to produce an heir and fulfil her social obligations. They had few interests in common, Her position meant that she was a fashion leader, and her wit, personality and innate sense of style quickly made her a sought-after popular figure in her own right. Public speculation as to when her frenetic lifestyle would lead to collapse was satisfied when she miscarried for the second time in April 1776. One contributing stressor was that she was deeply in debt and afraid to tell the Duke; she had hoped to be forgiven following the birth of their first child. This situation worsened as the Duke sided with popular opinion, which blamed her miscarriage on her reckless lifestyle. When her creditors threatened to apply to him, she was forced to confide in her parents. Furious, they paid her debts, but insisted that she confess to the Duke. He repaid them and then did not refer to the matter. If Lady Spencer was shaken to discover that her daughter withheld secrets from her, Georgiana was more unnerved that the matter was met by silence on the part of her husband, rather than by anger. Before their marriage, the Duke had fathered an illegitimate daughter, Charlotte Williams, born from a dalliance with a former milliner, Charlotte Spencer (of no relation to the House of Spencer). While in exile in France in the early 1790s, Georgiana suffered from isolation and sorely felt the separation from her children. To her eldest, she wrote, "Your letter dated the 1st of Nov was delightful to me tho' it made me very melancholy my Dearest Child. This year has been the most painful of my life ... when I do return to you, never leave you I hope again—it will be too great a happiness for me Dear Georgiana & it will have been purchased by many days of regret—indeed ev'ry hour I pass away from you, I regret you; if I amuse myself or see anything I admire I long to share the happiness with you—if on the contrary, I am out of spirits I wish for your presence which alone would do me good". In order to return to England and her children, she conceded to her husband's demands and renounced her love for Charles Grey. Family records of her exile in France were subsequently erased. However, during that period, the children of the Duke and Duchess had at one point been informed of the reason for her absence. While the Duchess of Devonshire coped with the marital arrangements on the surface throughout her marriage, possibly as a result she suffered emotional challenges, although she clearly had an addictive nature which dated from before her marriage. She sought personal consolation from a "dissipated existence" in passions (socialising, fashion, politics, writing), addictions (gambling, drinking, and drugs), and affairs (with several men, not just Grey, possibly including the bachelor John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset). ==Character==

Georgiana was charismatic, generous, good-humoured, and intelligent. Kind-hearted, Georgiana instinctively wanted to help others and from a young age, happily gave her money to poor children or to her desperate friends. Lady Charlotte Bury wrote of Georgiana's generosity: "when some individual came to her in pecuniary distress, she would always relieve him or her, and leave her own difficulties unprovided for. Oftentimes she was wrong in doing so. ... One must be just before one is generous. But it is impossible not to be charmed by the kindly impulse which made her, without a moment's hesitating, shield another from distress." Georgiana's empathy extended towards animals as well. After noticing a starving cow in a field, Georgiana deduced its owner could not afford to feed it; she had the man found and gave him some money. Despite being extremely self-conscious and making strenuous efforts to appear perfect, Georgiana "always appeared natural, even when she was called upon to open a ball in front of 800 people. She could engage in friendly chatter with several people simultaneously" and still make each person feel special. Widely described as almost impossible to dislike, Georgiana captured the hearts of almost everyone she met. The artist Mrs. Delaney, Mary Delany, echoed many who recorded their experiences meeting Georgiana: "[She was] so agreeable, so obliging in her manner, that I am quite in love with her. I can't tell you the civil things she said, and really they deserve a better name, which is kindness embellished by politeness. I hope she will illumine and reform her contemporaries!" Even the prudish Frances Burney was begrudgingly won over by Georgiana's unassuming grace. Georgiana was not a snob, and lacked the condescending airs of the aristocracy; she made people of all classes feel valued and at ease in her company. An example of her lack of airs was shown when Georgiana pointedly danced with French actor Monsieur Tessier after the Duchess of Manchester snobbishly refused to speak to him because he earned a living. From childhood, Georgiana showed a characteristic need to please others, and a need for attention. Her mother Georgiana Spencer, Countess Spencer had an interest in education for girls and had discussed being patron of the educational academy that the Bluestocking poet Anna Laetitia Barbauld was to establish. Georgiana's mother raised her daughter to behave as if she were a courtier, always on show. This strict education and training had a counter-effect, only augmenting Georgiana's people-pleasing tendencies. Lady Spencer knew she was partly responsible for her daughter's faults, and worried for her daughter's future. Her natural temperament, combined with her breeding, made Georgiana into an excitable, impressionable young woman vulnerable to peer pressure. Indeed, Georgiana did the opposite of what Mary Delany hoped, and was instead corrupted by her contemporaries. Her inability to say no to her degenerate friends in the ton led Georgiana into many scrapes against her better judgement and made her feel shame over her behaviour. Despite her efforts, Georgiana could not overcome her contradictions. She was a popular leader of society who was widely beloved and yet she was insecure and became dependent upon Lady Elizabeth Foster. She was said to be a loyal friend, but nevertheless manipulated and never repaid trusted friends for money to pay her gambling debts. Georgiana sympathized with the plight of the poor yet could not stop her own extravagant gambling addiction. == Pursuits and fame ==

With her personal style, social activities, and charitable work and marriage to the Duke of Devonshire, the Duchess of Devonshire was a prominent figure of the society. Georgiana received a level of public and media attention that is often compared to her descendant, Diana, Princess of Wales. Like Diana, Georgiana's personal and social activities were frequently reported on by the press of the time. It has been noted that Georgiana and Diana had much in common: maternal abandonment issues as a child, a famously unhappy marriage, a binge-eating disorder, the common touch, a desire to be the centre of attention, and a mutual love for their children. Like her friend Marie Antoinette, the Duchess of Devonshire was one of the fashion icons of their time, and her style made her the leader of fashion in England. Every outfit and every hairstyle Georgiana wore, immediately had an influence on the masses. The styling of her hair alone reached extraordinary heights above her outfits. In 1774, Lord Stormont presented her with an ostrich feather from Paris that was four feet long. Overnight, it became a huge trend. by Horace Walpole who proclaimed, "[she] effaces all without being a beauty; but her youthful figure, flowing good nature, sense and lively modesty, and modest familiarity make her a phenomenon." Famously, when the Duchess was stepping out of her carriage one day, an Irish dustman exclaimed: "Love and bless you, my lady, let me light my pipe in your eyes!" Thereafter, whenever others would compliment her, the Duchess would retort, "After the dustman's compliment, all others are insipid." Politics The Spencer family, from which the Duchess derived, was an ardent supporter of the Whig party as were she and the Cavendish family. However, because the Duke's high position in the peerage disallowed him from participating so commonly in politics, Georgiana took it as a positive outlet for herself. In an age when the realisation of women's rights and suffrage were still more than a century away, Georgiana became a political activist; she was the first woman to make active and influential front line appearances on the political scene. and Whig party ideals and took it upon herself to campaign—particularly for a distant cousin, Charles James Fox, who was chief party leader alongside Richard Brinsley Sheridan—for Whig policies that were anti-monarchy, advocating for liberty against tyranny. The first of her published literary works was Emma; Or, The Unfortunate Attachment: A Sentimental Novel in 1773. In 1778, Georgiana released the epistolary novel The Sylph. Published anonymously, it had autobiographical elements, centering on a fictional aristocratic bride who had been corrupted, and as "a novel-cum-exposé of [the duchess's] aristocratic cohorts, depicted as libertines, blackmailers, and alcoholics." One more piece was published in the last years of Georgiana's life, The Passage of the Mountain of Saint Gothard, first in an unauthorised version in the 'Morning Chronicle' and 'Morning Post' of 20 and 21 December 1799, then in a privately printed edition in 1800. A poem dedicated to her children, The Passage of the Mountain of Saint Gothard was based on her passage of the Saint Gotthard Pass, with Bess, between 10 and 15 August 1793 on returning to England. The thirty-stanza poem, together with 28 extended notes, was translated into some of the main languages of Western Europe including into French, by Jacques Delille, in 1802; Italian, by Gaetano Polidori, in 1803; and German in 1805. The Passage of the Mountain of Saint Gothard was then reprinted in 1816, after Georgiana's death. In addition to her scientific curiosity, Georgiana wanted to contribute to her children's education. For the rest of her life, Georgiana continued to amass an immense, ever-escalating debt about which she always lied and tried to keep hidden from her husband (even though he was among the richest men in the land). While she would admit to some amount, it was always less than the total; she could not keep up with even her stated amount, and when her husband gave her money to repay, she instead would gamble that money and get herself further into debt. In confidence, she would ask for loans from the Prince of Wales. At one point, to try to settle some of her debts, she did not shrink from pressing her close friends like Mrs Mary Graham, who gave as much as she could until her husband found out, then the affluent banker Thomas Coutts for more funds."a very, very large debt. I never had courage to own it, and try'd to win it at play, by which means it became immense and was grown (I have not the courage to write the sum, but will tell you when I see you)...What had I to offer for the kind of ruin I brought on him (for every year of my life I have cost him immense sums) - a mind he could not trust in, a person faded, and 26 years of folly and indiscretion. And how do you think he has received the avowal—with the utmost generosity, goodness and kindness. His whole care has been that I may not vex myself, and you would think he was the offender not me." -Georgiana to Bess ==Later life and death==

Her absence from English society and exile in France had isolated Georgiana and was a low point for her in every respect; she returned to England, a "changed woman". The Duke began suffering from gout, and she spent her time at his side nursing him. Along with a recent miscarriage, this circumstance with her husband brought about a softening and closeness between the two. She took a positive interest in science, took up writing again (producing two more works), and even continued her political activism while trying to rebuild the Whig party (to no avail before its end). Georgiana also came to meet and become friends with the wife of her former lover, Charles Grey. In 1796, Georgiana succumbed to a tumour or infection in one eye; after treatment she became blind in that eye with a disfiguring scar on her face. However, "Those scars released her from her fears. All the inhibitions about whether she was beautiful enough or whether she was up to the job left her". In her late thirties, Georgiana was able to regain pre-eminence and enjoyment in open society, although her personal life would continue to be marred by degrees of unhappiness, debt, and decline in health. During her early forties, the Duchess of Devonshire devoted her time to the coming out of her eldest daughter, Lady Georgiana Dorothy Cavendish. The debutante was presented in 1800, and the Duchess saw her daughter wed Lord Morpeth, the heir apparent of the Earl of Carlisle, in 1801; it was the only time the Duchess of Devonshire saw one of her issue marry. Georgiana's health continued to decline well into her forties, and her gambling addiction continued. She once reached out to her mother, begging for a sum of 100 pounds and complaining to her of jaundice. While her mother at first believed her daughter was just ill from her gambling, Countess Spencer, as well as those around Georgiana, soon came to realise she was truly sick. She was thought to be suffering from a liver abscess. Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, died on 30 March 1806, at 3:30, at the age of 48. She was surrounded by her husband, the 5th Duke of Devonshire; her mother, Countess Spencer; her sister, the Countess of Bessborough; her eldest daughter, Lady Morpeth (who was eight months pregnant); and Lady Elizabeth Foster. They were all said to have been inconsolable over her death. For the first time, the Duke showed moving emotion towards his late wife; a contemporary wrote, "The Duke has been most deeply affected and has shown more feeling than anyone thought possible—indeed every individual in the family are in a dreadful state of affliction." Georgiana's eldest daughter furthermore poured out her feelings, "Oh my beloved, my adored departed mother, are you indeed forever parted from me—Shall I see no more that angelic countenance or that blessed voice—You whom I loved with such tenderness, you who were the ... best of mothers, Adieu—I wanted to strew violets over her dying bed as she strewed sweets over my life, but they would not let me." Her distant cousin, Charles James Fox, for whom she had triumphantly campaigned, was noted to have shed tears. The Prince of Wales himself lamented, "The best natured and the best-bred woman in England is gone." Thousands of the people of London congregated at Piccadilly, where the Cavendish family's town house was located, to mourn her. She was buried in the family vault at All Saints Parish Church (now Derby Cathedral) in Derby. ==Legacy==

, c. 1775, The Devonshire Collection The legacy of the life of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire has remained a topic of study and intrigue in cultural and historical spheres centuries after her death. Immediately after her death, the Duke of Devonshire discovered the extent of her debts. He soon enough married Lady Elizabeth Foster, who became Duchess of Devonshire as his second wife. Georgiana's children were discontented with the marriage as they never liked Lady Elizabeth at all (something that caused dismay with their mother when she was alive). When William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, died on 29 July 1811, the Marquess of Hartington became 6th Duke of Devonshire. He sought to liquidate his late mother's entire debts. Meanwhile, Lady Elizabeth fought to keep the Cavendish properties to which she was not entitled; the 6th Duke denied her demand that her illegitimate son, Clifford, bear the Cavendish crest along with the 5th Duke of Devonshire. Infuriated, Lady Elizabeth brought up her affair with the 5th Duke of Devonshire by publicly announcing that he had sired her illegitimate children. The 6th Duke of Devonshire finally made an end to it all by paying off Lady Elizabeth and getting rid of her. Nevertheless, Georgiana's children had mutually positive relations with Lady Elizabeth Foster's children for the rest of their lives, having grown up together. and Elizabeth Wynne Fremantle wrote in her diary that the Duke said it had given her a "death blow"; Samuel Rogers and Sydney Owenson also suggested that the novel hastened her death. Film portrayals • The Divine Lady (1929), portrayed by Evelyn Hall • Berkeley Square (1933), portrayed by Juliette Compton • The House in the Square (also titled ''I'll Never Forget You (US) and Man of Two Worlds'') (1951), portrayed by Kathleen Byron • The Duchess (2008), portrayed by Keira Knightley and directed by Saul Dibb, based on the biography Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman Opera pasticcio • Georgiana (2019), was commissioned by the Buxton Festival for its 40th anniversary, and was premièred there on 7 July 2019. ==Works by Georgiana Cavendish==

• Emma; Or, The Unfortunate Attachment: A Sentimental Novel (1773, ) • The Sylph (1778) • The Passage of the Mountain of Saint Gothard (1799) ==Gallery==

File:Stipple engraving of Georgiana Devonshire after Diana Beauclerk.jpg|The Duchess of Devonshire by Lady Diana Beauclerk, File:The Duchess of Devonshire (John Downman).jpg|The Duchess of Devonshire by John Downman, c. 1780 File:Reynolds - Portrait of Georgia Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire.jpg|The Duchess of Devonshire by Joshua Reynolds, c. 1780–81 File:Duchess of Devonshire by Joshua Reynolds.jpg|The Duchess of Devonshire by Joshua Reynolds, 1786 ==References==