Cliveden is a huge house that, when first built, seemed to
be way out in the country but extremely easy to get to from the English capital
via the Thames. While it existed before 1666 (as a hunting lodge), it wasn’t
until that date that the Duke of Buckingham bought it and began extensive
renovations, making it into a truly grand house. Since that point, it’s been a
home to the Duchess of Buckingham, a Countess, another Duchess, a Princess of
Wales, and an American who was the first woman to sit in the House of Commons. It
was the site of the beginning of a government scandal. It’s not been a
cherished family home passed down through generations; it’s been sold many
times, burned down multiple times, and now is owned by a company that runs it
as a hotel.
What Cliveden is in this book is the spine that holds together
the biographies of five women. The first section is a bit odd, as it’s not so
much about the Duchess of Buckingham but the Duke’s mistress, Anna Maria Talbot
the Countess of Shrewsberry. He actually bought Cliveden so they could live
together there; scandal and legal proceedings drove them apart and Anna Marie
never lived there. The Duchess became the first mistress of Cliveden as a manor
house.
The lives of all of the mistresses of Cliveden- ‘mistress’
in the sense of being the lady of the house, not, except for Anna Maria, a lady
kept on the side- are inextricably
twined with the Royal Family and the government. One was the best friend of
Queen Victoria; another would have been queen herself had her husband not died
prematurely. A fair bit of the book is not about the lives of these women, but
about the government and the royals, because that is what influenced them the
most. Those were the sections where it bogged down a bit for me, but the
history is pretty necessary to understand the lives of these women. The story
is well written and interesting, and, thankfully, comes with a cast of
characters at the front of the book, or I would never have been able to follow
who was who.
I find it odd that the author, who is the wife of the
current owner of Cliveden-well, he owns the company that owns Cliveden- doesn’t
have anything in the book about herself and her journey to Cliveden. She is,
after all, the current mistress of Cliveden.
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I got this book free from the Library Thing's Early Reviewers program, in return for an unbiased review.
neither of these things influenced my review.
I like old houses and English history so this hits the right buttons for me.
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