Mistresses of Cliveden by
Natalie Livingstone
The author is the current owner of
Cliveden House, now a hotel. The grounds have been sold to the
National Trust. The Duchess of Sussex spent the night there before
her marriage in 2018.
Amount of text per person
gets fatter as you progress but I thought it was a knowledge dump at
the beginning then more... Many books are this way, but of course if
you are researching a topic you find out everything that you can and
make notes and then put them into context. Then when you have
finished you can you edit the story into a reasonable tale, which
didn't happen in this case. It was commented that we seem to know a
great deal about the life and times of some of these people
considering that it was 300 years ago. The story of each woman would
make a book by itself.
Some of us were only able to
read it in bits. MM said that when she realised that she had a week
to read 500 pages, she had to sit down and make sure that she read 70
pages a day. Both MM and LS ended up 'skim' reading it. PM didn't
finish it, and LW didn't have time to read it with the current
complexities of her life. Of those that did finish it, they marked
it as an 8.
It was not an easy read, but
we learnt a lot. The book flowed well and gave a good picture of
the times and people.The making of connections between generations was
done very well. Using George Bernard Shaw was a good example of this.
Here are some comments from
the discussion:
Love the descriptions of
Buckingham
Cliveden burnt down twice, but the first mistress never dot to see it or live there.
Elisabeth (Mistress of
William of Orange) didn't stick in memory
Mothers kept getting
pregnant, then children looked after by wet nurses until time to send
them to boarding school, so mothers didn't see much of their
children.
Augusta (1792) wrote to
american women about slavery. There was a recent television program
about slavery where this was mentioned(?)
The Sutherland family was
terrible to crofters. Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland also featured
in the TV series 'Victoria' as Albert's brother fancied her.
Nancy Astor had five
children. Her quotations were quite fascinating. She had a kind and
tolerant husband.
- idea of labour push for
social care, but the wealthy had an obligation to do it at will: ref
Sunlight, Saltaire, quakers(Clarks)
Nancy Astors servant Rose
also wrote a memoir.
There was a bit of
discussion about Nancy Astor and the Christian Science cult.
A key role noted in the book
was Mistress of the Robes. It must have been very hard work. (Which
Mistress was this?)
MS and MM liked Lady Astor
the least of the women.
A good review is at
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-mistresses-of-cliveden-natalie-livingstone/1122678878#/
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