82 million people have been captivated by the scandals of the 18th century society that are told in the series The Bridgertons from NetflixBut sometimes, reality can surpass fiction. An example of this is the life of Elizabeth Chudleigh, the bigame aristocrat who captivated Georgian high society, and whose adventures are now the subject of a new book by the former editor-in-chief of Tatler, Catherine Ostler.
The strident exploits of Daphne Bridgerton, the Duke of Hastings and all the other characters in the series come to nothing when compared to those of the so-called “Duchess-Countess”, as the famous writer and expert of the time nicknamed her. themes of the heart, Horace Walpole.
As Ostler writes in the May issue of Tatler, was drawn to the Duchess’s story after reading about her, not in the context of Georgian London, but as a British expat whose extravagance captivated the Russian Empress’s court Catherine the Great, in the biography of Simon Sebag Montefiore Catherine the Great and Potemkin.
“For me, Elizabeth has become not only a complex object of sympathy and fascination, but also a symbol from which to view Georgian femininity and society, its press, its poetry, the movement of its skirts and the power of its cruel feathers, long before Lady Whistledown from The Bridgertons put those issues in our collective consciousness, “he writes.
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