Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History It. Today we're talking about a Duchess,

a Duchess who attracted scandal, a Duchess who divided opinion, a Duchess who was unwilling

to accept the female status of Underdog or hand over all her power. She refused to give

up agency as she splits society down the middle. She was loathed and loved in equal measure.

I'm, of course, talking about Elizabeth Chudley, the Duchess of Kingston, the late 18th century.

She had a clandestine marriage to a, absolute lunatic, the brilliant Augustus Harvey, a swashbuckling

sailor, one of the inspirations for Captain Aubrey and the wonderful Patricot Brian series

of novels about the late 18th-century Navy's. She was a maid of honour to Augusta, the Princess

of Wales. She then slightly awkwardly married the Duke of Kingston and went on trial in Westminster

Hall, the largest medieval hall in Europe for Bigamie in 1776, and at the time that attracted

more attention than the start of the American War of Independence. A reminder, if we need

to remind her that sometimes popular interest in involvement in a subject is not correlated

to the events important over the broad sweep of history. I don't know who needs to hear

that, but it's true. In this podcast, I ask Catherine Osler all about the brilliant

Elizabeth. She's a very well-known journalist, edited and written for all sorts of famous

publications, and now she's turned her attention, which I'm very grateful to Elizabeth Chudley,

the Duchess of Kingston. You're going to love this, everyone. You're going to love it.

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