A wealthy heiress and one of the most colourful figures of the swinging sixties, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, married the Duke of Argyll, her second husband, in 1951. The German diplomat and brother of the Nazi scientist Werner von Braun, who invented the Nazis V-2 rocket, was another possible candidate for the 'headless man' in photo. (Always a poodle, only a poodle! Well, some ghastly mistakes, she laughed. Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, and Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll, after their 1951 wedding at Caxton Hall in London. The duchess and her daughter, Frances Sweeny, 1955. [14] It is claimed that this analysis proved that the man in question was Fairbanks, then long married to his second wife, but this was not made public. Foy has said how uncomfortable they made her feel: Its grim, the grimmest thing you can do. She struck an archaic figure at these 1980s social events, being perfectly groomed and coiffed, bejewelled and couture-clad, with ramrod deportment, but in an era when informal post-hippie was the fashionable vibe. George Hay Whigham was a self-made millionaire: although his family was well-connected, they were not wealthy. By Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images. How King Charles and Prince William Plan to Protect the Monarchy Against an Uncertain Future, The daughter of Maurizio Gucci and Patrizia Reggiani was overwhelmed as a child by a wave of tragedy and looked for a gasp of air to breathe, even as sharks circled all around. Now, she tells, Scene Stealer: The True Lies of Elisabeth Finch, Part 2. Margaret's racy sex life was judged immoral at the time but, as this three-part drama is at pains to show, she wasn't the only one at it. One particularly damning line: She is a highly sexed woman who has ceased to be satisfied with normal sexual activities and has started to indulge in disgusting sexual activities to gratify a debased sexual appetite that can only be satisfied by a number of men., Phelps believes Margaret was subjected to a form of punishment akin to revenge porn. Ian had referred to Margaret as Satan. Ian Campbell, as he then was, needed cash. Ivana Marie Zelnkov escaped from behind the Iron Curtain to storm New York City and help create the twisted miracle of Donald Trump. She was not born into the aristocracy, but she was the only child of one of the richest men of his day, George Whigham. A Very British Scandal continues tonight at 9pm on BBC1. Usually accompanied by her poodle Alphonse, and a gay male escort, her face was always expressionless, a Canute-like attempt to hold back the onset of wrinkles. Life was so simple. . User @strutcakes said: 'Watching A Very British Scandal in front of my parents was not the best idea. If Margaret, Duchess of Argyll gets away with this, what will all women do?, I thought he was such a bastard, Margaret told George Hume in a 1990 interview. They make a quick but racy stop-off in a cleaning cupboard, before going up to see Margaret's parents. Wedding to American golfer Charles Sweeny in 1933, Being Presented at the third court of the season in 1934, Recuperating in Hove following a fall down a lift shaft in 1934, Marrying the Duke of Argyll at Caxton Hall in 1951, With Frances at a Lancaster House Party in 1955, With Frances at Queen Charlotte's Ball at The Grosvenor House in 1955, With the Duke of Argyll leaving the pier at Tobermory in 1956, With Frances at Beirut's St George's Hotel in 1958, Outside the law courts in the Strand before being sued for slander and libel by her former social secretary Yvonne MacPherson in 1960, With the Duke of Argyll at the family seat, Inveraray Castle, in 1960, At the premiere of Kings Of Kings in 1961, At Zia Foxwell and David Kruger's wedding in 1969, With her poodle Louis at her Mayfair apartment in 1985, At the opening night of Chess The Musical in 1986, At the Hairdresser of the Year party in 1986, At her Grosvenor House apartment with Louis in 1989, The society beauty found herself at the centre of a toxic divorce case in 1963, after it emerged that both she and her husband had conducted multiple extra-marital affairs. She described herself as "always vain". Sex, secrets and suspicion the true story of a duchess publicly shamed in a high society divorce that gripped the nation. [1] Birth and youth [ edit] Only time will tell exactly what was inside them that was deemed so sensitive. Thats when I began entertaining. The couple married in 1951, but their marriage soon turned sour after the Duke accused Margaret of being unfaithful. Who was Margaret the Duchess of Argyll? Business, Economics, and Finance. Sample Page; ; But shes iconic, says Phelps, who is thrilled that U.S. viewers will learn of this unconventional woman when A Very British Scandal premieres. She later discovered that her husband had led her to believe she had legal claim to the property, in reality it would be passed down to Ians sons from a prior marriage. But angry that the duchess was no longer funding his excessive lifestyle, the duke hired private detectives to follow his wife. Margaret had eight miscarriages and a stillborn child before managing to produce two children: one became the Duchess of Rutland and mother to the current duke, the other a sensible businessman. With irrefutable evidence, Argyll was granted his divorce. After interviewing the 5 main suspects several of whom underwent a medical examination to determine whether they matched up to the photographs and Margaret herself, Denning ruled out Duncan Sandys from being the headless man in question. By the time shes dead, her sobriquet will still be Blowjob Duchess. Can you imagine the guts it takes to get up in the morning, put your poodle on its leash, put on your lipstick, put on your pearls, and take your poodle to the park? She was just 15 when the future movie star David Niven, two years her senior, got her pregnant while holidaying on the Isle of Wight, after which her father sent her to a London nursing home for a secret termination. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Even her mother (Phoebe Nicholls) has nothing but contempt for her: My daughter, an adulteress, a round-heel the squalor of it.. Vile moment baby is given a vape to inhale by her laughing mum - who lashes out on Facebook slamming anyone who Ukraine 'hits major Russian air base in fresh strike' a day after kamikaze drone crashed down just 68 miles from 'I'm glad the contract expired': Heston Blumenthal's fury as Waitrose ends 12-year partnership with him 'after ISIS fanatic jailed over the gruesome beheading of two Scandinavian women hikers in Morocco that shocked the Police will quiz missing aristocrat and her boyfriend for another 36 hours to try and get answers on missing House votes to block 'woke' Biden plan pushing retirement planners to invest in ESG in 401ks. Margaret Argyll never learnt to boil a kettle and never once made her own bed. He filed for divorce. Dubbed the divorce of the century, the subsequent swirl of rumours, gossip, scandal and sex captivated the nation. A POLAROID picture was one of the key pieces of evidence in the scandalous divorce of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. She was ordered to pay most of the 50,000 legal bill. GameStop Moderna Pfizer Johnson & Johnson AstraZeneca Walgreens Best Buy Novavax SpaceX Tesla. 12:44 GMT 27 Dec 2021 Ian filed for divorce, citing both the photos and a list of 88 men noted in her diary, men Ian suspected Margaret had slept with during their marriage. But Ian Campbell would also be her doom. He also compared the handwriting on the photos with handwriting samples from the men, and did apparently determine who the man in question was, although his identity remains a secret. He could have just given the judgment, I find in favor of the plaintiff. [18], The Duchess wrote a memoir, Forget Not (published by W. H. Allen Ltd in 1975) which was reviewed negatively for its name-dropping and air of entitlement. I dont think anybody has real style or class any more, Margaret told The New York Times. Looks and charm and money, of course were the main things, alongside social rank. Argyll decided he wanted to divorce Margaret, accusing her of infidelity and providing photographic evidence, in the form of Polaroids, of her engaged in sexual acts with a series of anonymous, headless men, which he had stolen from a locked bureau in their house in Mayfair, London. I apparently fell onto my knees and cracked the back of my head against the wall". Image Credit: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo. He told her about his five years in a prisoner-of-war camp and she listened. ', Michael Wave, user @SzMarsupial joked: 'Sending thoughts and prayers to everyone else who is now locked into watching a very British scandal with their families, not realising how much sex there would be in it.'. I dont think anybody has had such a good time as I had. Inveraray Castle, the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Argyll, photographed in 2010. [14] In 2013, the daughter-in-law of the 11th Duke, Lady Colin Campbell, stated that the "headless man" was an American executive named Bill Lyons. Hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and subscriber rewards. Foy told BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour:'It's a really hard line because basically you do feel exploited when you are a woman and you are having to perform fake sex on screen. [12] He suspected the Duchess of infidelity and, while she was in New York, engaged a locksmith to break open a cupboard at their Mayfair home, 48 Upper Grosvenor Street. 12 years later, the duke sued for divorce, accusing Margaret of infidelity and producing evidence, in the form of Polaroid photographs of Margaret engaged in sexual acts, to prove it. A Very British Scandalfocuses especially on the attitudes towards women at the time, as Margaret was vilified throughout the divorce battle for refusing to go quietly, despite being betrayed by friends and publicly shamed by society. The first time we glimpse Claire Foy as the forlornly imperious Duchess of Argyll, she is a prisoner in the back of her own limousine, surrounded by a public that hates her. Paul Bettany and Claire Foy as Ian and Margaret while filming at the actual Inveraray Castle. But the duke soon showed his true colours, with rumours of gambling and drug and alcohol addiction, as well as a vile temper. [2], The Sweenys divorced in 1947. Her second husband - and the subject of the BBC's A Very British Scandal - was Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll. Bettany plays the duke with an absolute absence of sympathy. [22] In 1990, unable to pay the hotel bills, she was evicted and, with the support of friends and her first husband, moved into an apartment. Her first husband concurred that she was never the same after this fall. [28], The Duchess once told The New York Times: "I don't think anybody has real style or class any more. It was a constant ball. Lord Denning, who was called upon by the government to track down the "headless man", compared the handwriting of the five leading "suspects", (Duncan Sandys; Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; John Cohane, an American businessman; Peter Combe, a former press officer at the Savoy Hotel; and Sigismund von Braun, brother of the German scientist Wernher von Braun) with the captions written on the photographs. About Us; Staff; Camps; Scuba. The first episode of A Very British Scandal took viewers by surprise as they watched The Crown's Claire Foy enjoy three sex scenes in the first 30 minutes of the first episode - with two different men. She was bad and childish in the way she tried to demonise others to get her own way but she holds an important place in social history. Originally published by London County Council, London, 1980", "For sale: London residence where Duchess scandalised society", "Tony Wilson 'Britain's finest live presenter', "Duchess of Argyll's funeral demonstrates that feelings will not rest", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Margaret_Campbell,_Duchess_of_Argyll&oldid=1126443115, Pages containing links to subscription-only content, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from January 2022, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Her divorce from the Duke of Argyll was dramatised in the, This page was last edited on 9 December 2022, at 10:25. Born Ethel Margaret Whigham in 1912, in Newton Mearns, she was the only child of Helen (nee Hannay), a woman prone to extreme mood-swings, and George Whigham, a self-made millionaire and. She cannot have spoilt herself. Sex is all she is good for. This is the judgment, these are the cost. Ten minutes, max., Instead, after a court case that lasted 11 days, he dramatically ended the hearing with a 50,000-word judgment that took over three hours for him to read. The sex symbol confessed that "girls thought I was a jokea happy buffoon," before he met his wife. All she can see is how sexy that danger seems. When American-raised heiress Margaret was 14, her father George would drive from their Ascot home to Eton, to round up good-looking boys for her tennis parties. Mr and Mrs Whigham believed relentless socialising was the best way to cure Margarets stammer, which they feared might turn her into a recluse. Now there may be a showdown brewing over billions of dollars in kids fare. [She was evicted from a hotel]. [27] It was reprinted in 1995 by Pan Books, and in 2021, to coincide with the TV series A Very British Scandal, by Swift Press. The target of an impoverished duke, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll loved the company of men. Nearly 30 years after her death, the story of the Duchess and her sensational downfall has been dramatised on screen in the BBC's A . As Phelps says, She was on trial for being a sexual woman. A Jesuit-educated judge named Lord Wheatley, who was related to Ian, presided, putting Margaret further under the microscope. After completing her education in New York, she moved back to the UK, where her beauty and status as an heiress made her much in-demand on the social scene. Foy plays the flamboyantly promiscuous Margaret, Duchess of Argyll who was branded a nymphomaniac by her husband Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll (played by Paul Bettany) in their toxic 1963 divorce hearing, whichbecame the longest and most costly of the 20th century. But who spoilt her? Far from being envious of her lifestyle during the economic depression, the British public adored Margaret Whigham. But as Beyer would soon realize, Finchs past wasnt what she claimedand Beyers own difficult history was up for the taking. Those scenes are filmed tastefully, or at least without too much emphasis on exploitation. Who was Franoise Dior, the Neo-Nazi Heiress and Socialite? Unfortunately, I am only too aware that I am still the same gullible, impulsive, over-optimistic Dumb Bunny, Margaret is quoted as saying by The Telegraph. Whilst there may well have been an attraction between them, Margarets money was a key factor in the decision to marry: the Dukes ancestral home, Inveraray Castle, was crumbling and badly needed an injection of cash. . Dozens of cuttings in the Daily Mail archives describe her appearance at every ball her dresses, her jewellery, the young men jostling around her. The top was what I was supposed to be. [5] Such had been the publicity surrounding her Norman Hartnell wedding dress that the traffic in Knightsbridge was blocked for three hours. Heres a thought, Margaret, he tells her, mocking her stammer with drunken nastiness. History Hit brings you the stories that shaped the world through our award winning podcast network and an online history channel. You dont attack if youre a judge. In 1977, speaking to Melvyn Bragg, she lamented, Ive had the most ghastly publicity in the world. Indeed, in the aftermath of the trial, Margaret was referred to in British papers and tabloids by a series of unbecoming sobriquets, like the Dirty Duchess and the Fellatio Duchess., During this time, Margaret became a grandmother, and [newspapers are reporting about these] Polaroid photographs of her with a mans dick in her mouth, continues Phelps. I told the truth. The Duke and Duchess of Argyll's infamous 1963 divorce captured the public's attention with its twists and scandalous revelations. When do the clocks change in 2023? For the Duchess of Argyll, the sex was not fake and neither was the humiliation. 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