![]() ![]() The Devonshire House circle set trends in fashion, dance, and games of chance. She was the intermediary in many a brokered deal (e.g., the multiparty coalition that turned out Addington’s government in 1804). She was the first woman to publicly campaign for a candidate in an election, stumping for Fox in 1784. ![]() Although the mores of the time limited any woman’s political role, Georgiana wielded considerable influence with Charles James Fox, Charles Grey, and other Whig politicians of the day. The duchess made their London home, Devonshire House, the center of Whig politics and social life for the last quarter of the 18th century. What the taciturn duke lacked in political drive was more than made up for by his ambitious wife. ![]() Born in 1757, Georgiana Spencer married William Cavendish, fifth Duke of Devonshire, a leading Whig aristocrat who never sought nor held high public office. Journalist Foreman, whose work is based on her doctoral research at Oxford, has written a lively account of the life and times of Georgiana Cavendish that is also a social history of the British aristocracy in the late 1700s. An accomplished biography of one of the most important women of 18th- century Britain. ![]()
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