George Hay Whigham was a self-made millionaire: although his family was well-connected, they were not wealthy. Divorced from Sweeny when we first meet her in the late 1940s, she is plainly a racy celebrity, one who adores predatory male attention but lacks any instinct for self-preservation. [1] Birth and youth [ edit] He filed for divorce. The porcelain-skinned Margaret, with her bewitching green eyes, was considered a great beauty. Her attitude to the sanctity of marriage was what moderns would call enlightened but which in plain language was wholly immoral.'. Everyone knows her as Oui Oui, because she agrees to everything though Margaret childishly calls her Wee Wee. 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The first woman to have been the victim of hacking, in that her own diaries and photos were stolen and used against her. A selection of short interviews with Margaret Whigham, Duchess of Argyll. You feel exposed.. 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. By 1959, and determined to divorce since Margarets father had decided to stop paying his bills, he had gained access to her Queen Anne house on Upper Grosvenor Street while she was abroad, and called in a locksmith to crack the locks of the private drawers and cupboards containing her memorabilia. "[17] Many of the men the Duchess was alleged to have slept with were homosexual; she was unwilling to divulge this as sexual acts between men were illegal in the United Kingdom at the time. Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon Brilliant Rivals, Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle for Stalingrad, How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Humanity, Hasdrubal Barca: How Hannibals Fight Against Rome Depended on His Brother, Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage, Bones in the Attic: The Forgotten Fallen of Waterloo, The Rise and Fall of Charles Ponzi: How a Pyramid Scheme Changed the Face of Finance Forever. Margarets marriage to Ian, and the nasty, heavily publicized breakup that followedthe longest and costliest divorce proceeding in British history at the timedominate the shows three episodes. Because imagine the guts after that judgment is published in the paper. Just weeks after the divorce was finalized, with Margarets reputation ruined and her bank account drained, Ian went on to marry another wealthy woman and suffered a stroke in the South of France, before being transferred back to Scotland where he later died. Ad Choices, Shes iconic, says Sarah Phelps of the socialite unfairly referred to as the Blowjob Duchess following a scandalous divorce trial. Her story will be the subject of Season 2 of "A Very English Scandal," which. Wheatley is a Puritan, Phelps explains. . Her lawyer argues shes being overcharged, and the case seems destined to become the latest front in the ongoing debate over criminal justice in the city. She lost her home and, although eventually reconciled with Frances, her children put her in a nursing home in London, where she died penniless in 1993. [14], The Duchess counter-petitioned the divorce, accusing the Duke of committing adultery with her stepmother, Jane Corby Wigham. [1] Before these pregnancies, she suffered eight miscarriages. It was evident from the beginning that the . Everyone can make you try to not feel that way but it's unfortunately the reality.'. She was taken into a London nursing home for a secret abortion. In an age where aristocratic women were primarily simply required to be beautiful and wealthy, Margaret found herself with no shortage of suitors and was named debutante of the year in 1930. ', Louise Teboul similarly said: 'Watching A Very British Scandal with my mother-in-law and OH [other half] - didn't realise there was going to be so much sex in it - awkward. As a young woman, her beauty was renowned in society and she was courted by princes and millionaires, welcoming playwright Noel Coward, actor Cary Grant and oil tycoon J Paul Getty, among others, to her Mayfair home. Despite having a daughter, Frances, and a son, Brian, together, the couples relationship broke down after 14 years, with Margaret claiming all Charlie wanted in a spouse was a pretty brainless doll and they divorced in 1947. had ceased to be satisfied with normal relations and had started to indulge in disgusting sexual activities. He told her about his five years in a prisoner-of-war camp and she listened. Then he attacks me. [2] Still, she observed in her memoirs, "[W]e continued to see each other constantly."[2]. The suspects included Hollywood actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr and German diplomat Sigismund von Braun, but chief among them was Duncan Sandys, the Minister of Defence and Winston Churchills son-in-law. Healthy mother-of-two, 32, collapsed and died from brain bleed while she led fitness bounce class. The marriage did not last long before fractures began to form, and the duke, suspicious that his wife had been unfaithful, hired a locksmith to break into her private drawers while she was away in New York. It shows Margaret arriving atInveraray Castle in Scotland, the home of Ian Campbell, the Duke of Argyll. Crypto Ian had referred to Margaret as Satan. He had made a fortune successfully marketing a new type of artificial silk called Celanese. ", Harry and Meghan evicted from Frogmore Cottage by King Charles after Spare memoir, Im a 32F I have secret boobs and my proof made skeptics feel stupid, Im a size 12 model whos 510 Im determined to keep natural curves in style, Im a hot country girl - people love me in my glam western dress, 2020 THE SUN, US, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY | YOUR AD CHOICES | SITEMAP, The Duke and Duchess of Argyll at their wedding in 1951. Looks and charm and money, of course were the main things, alongside social rank. 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. Everyones got old and fat.. The claim was watertight and Margaret knew she would be unsuccessful but wanted to give her rival a run for the money. User @strutcakes said: 'Watching A Very British Scandal in front of my parents was not the best idea. Its a pity the drama does not have time to explain the years of fame that came before her disgrace, and which shaped her. Pay the b-b-bills its what youre for.. Ian broke into into Margarets house and hired a locksmith to open a cabinet in which he found compromising photos. The headless man was never formally identified, although a shortlist included the actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Churchills son-in-law and government minister, Duncan Sandys. After the historic case she never remarried, and lost much of her fortune in later life. During the divorce proceedings, the Duke produced various incriminating letters and photographs, which he took from the Duchess's Mayfair home. And yet the technicalities of the prehistoric legal system at that time (and the fact that many of her 'lovers' were gay) prevented the duchess from giving her side of the story without risking imprisonment. Born on 1 December 1912, Margaret Whigham was the only daughter of a Scottish businessman and millionaire, George Hay Whigham and his wife, Helen Mann Hannay. After that, life must have been hard, so very unglamorous and undeferential, and eventually she was reduced to one butler and one maid. You feel exposed. She continued giving the occasional TV interview, usually with one of her many beloved poodles in tow. Most famous of said scandals was the infamous divorce case bought by Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll. When do the clocks change in 2023? The couple married in 1951, but their marriage soon turned sour after the Duke accused Margaret of being unfaithful. Thanks @PhelpsieSarah! Nonetheless, after the divorce, that was all anyone ever talked about in connection with Margaret. The type, to be harsh, is familiar today. The Duchess refused to reveal who the man is, leaving the press to speculate about his identity. Ian owed a lot of money due to his own gambling addiction and he calculated that Margarets father might help him out financially. Second World War veteran or not, he is without any redeeming grace or even charm. [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. The movie star was named as Margarets lover, one of the 88 men on the list that the Duke produced in court. On 22 March 1951, Margaret became the third wife of Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll. What few knew then was that she had been pregnant before, aged just 15 the result of a love affair with a teenage David Niven. Later, when they met again, Ian had inherited the dukedom, but the eccentric 10th Duke, his late relation, had let things fall to wrack and ruin. When A Very British Scandal premiereswith Claire Foy playing the fabulous socialite, and Paul Bettany playing Ian Campbellit will likely be the first time that modern American audiences learn of the ill-fated socialite. Rather than clarifying the relationships, which would have outed her friends, Margaret refused to comment. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . The comments below have not been moderated, By [6] For the rest of her life, Margaret was associated with glamour and elegance, being a firm client of Hartnell, Victor Stiebel, and Angele Delanghe in London before and after the Second World War. Margaret Argyll never learnt to boil a kettle and never once made her own bed. And, as Phelps describes, it wasnt just legal support that Margaret lacked. When I revisited her story I realised how much social history I had missed out on by steering a wide berth when I encountered Marg Arg at parties. With irrefutable evidence, Argyll was granted his divorce. Many have retrospectively described her as the first woman to be publicly slut-shamed, and whilst the term is somewhat anachronistic, it was certainly one of the first times a womans sexuality was quite so publicly, roundly and explicitly condemned. Upon seeing the presented evidence in court, the judge, Lord Wheatley, said: There is enough in her own admissions and proven facts to establish that by 1960 she was a completely promiscuous woman whose sexual appetite could only be satisfied with a number of men. They featured Margaret the Duchess, a former debutante of the year, in her Art Deco-style bathroom at her Upper Grosvenor Street home dressed in nothing but her signature three-strand pearl necklace. I was as good of a witness as I could be. She is best remembered as a nymphomaniac socialite who disgraced the House of Argyll when a collection of diaries and explicit Polaroids were stolen by her husband, Ian Campbell, the 11th Duke of Argyll, to be used as . Arriving atInveraray Castle in Scotland, the Duchess 's Mayfair home because she agrees to everything though childishly... Was the infamous divorce case bought by Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll of Ian Campbell, Duke... 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