Download The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power, and Intrigue in an English Stately Home AudioBook Free
For fans of Downton Abbey comes an immersive historical epic in regards to a lavish British manor and a dynasty of rich and powerful women who ruled the estate over three decades of misbehavior, scandal, intrigue, and enthusiasm. Five kilometers from Windsor Castle, home of the royal family, sits the Cliveden estate. Overlooking the Thames, the mansion is flanked by two wings and bounded by lavish backyards. Throughout its storied record, Cliveden is a setting up for misbehavior, intrigue, and enthusiasm - from its salacious, lethal origins in the 17th hundred years to the 1960s Profumo affair, the gender scandal that toppled the United kingdom federal. Now, in this immersive chronicle, the manor's current mistress, Natalie Livingstone, starts the doors to the prominent house and enables the wall space do the speaking. Built through the reign of Charles II by the Duke of Buckingham, Cliveden enticed notoriety as a lavish retreat where the duke could perform his scandalous affair with the ambitious courtesan Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury. In 1668 Anna Maria's cuckolded hubby, the Earl of Shrewsbury, challenged Buckingham to a duel. Buckingham killed Shrewsbury and stated Anna Maria as his prize, making her the first mistress of Cliveden. Through the decades other enigmatic and indomitable women would expect stewardship over the estate, including Elizabeth, Countess of Orkney and illicit enthusiast of William III, who became one of England's wealthiest women; Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, the queen Britain was promised and then refused; Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, confidante of Queen Victoria and a glittering population hostess turned political activist; and the American-born Nancy Astor, the first female person in Parliament, who defined herself as an "ardent feminist" and welcomed controversy. Though their privileges were astonishing, in Livingstone's hands, their challenges and sacrifices are common. Cliveden weathered restoration and repair, world conflicts and frigid wars, societal shifts and technical advances. Rich in historical and architectural details, The Mistresses of Cliveden is an account of gender and electric power and of the exceptional women who evaded, exploited, and confronted the anticipations of these times.
