Obituaries
The day the century died
The 30th March is a sad day for all fans of eighteenth century history as not one but THREE of the greatest and most glamorous luminaries of that exquisite age were to pass away on this day.
First to pop their pretty silk clogs was Georgiana Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire, who passed away in 1806 at the age of forty eight, which is no age at all really is it? Poor Georgiana. She was one of those incredibly comely and charismatic women who appeared to have perfect lives full of fashion, fun and frivolity, but were actually miserable as hell in private with indifferent husbands, faithless lovers, illegitimate children, bossy parents and hideous debts (at the time of her death, she owed the equivalent of £3,720,000 in modern money). Georgiana had all of this and more. She even had one of the worst frenemies in history in the person of Lady Bess Foster.
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Francesco Bartolozzi, after Lady Diana Beauclerk, 1779. Photo: National Portrait Gallery, London.
Unlike most famous beauties, it isn’t hard to see from her many portraits why Georgiana was considered so divinely alluring – she was a charming, sweet faced auburn haired lovely with wide candid eyes and a smile that played in the corners of a pouting little mouth. I often wish that she had been painted by Madame Vigée Lebrun – what a masterpiece that would have been! I wonder why it never happened?
There’s something so lovable about Georgiana – her charm was so enormous, so huge that it can still be felt today. One may feel impatience when reading about her debts and disorderly lifestyle but nonetheless it is impossible not to feel sympathy for her. It’s no wonder that she is often linked to other tragic fashion icons Princess Marie Antoinette (who was one of her best friends).
Next to go was the most divinely charming dandy and least awful Old Etonian of them all, Mr George Bryan ‘Beau’ Brummel, who died in France (he’d retrenched there several years later to escape his heinous mountain of debts) in 1840 at the age of sixty one (note that he also shared his birthday with The Divine Georgiana). If you love Austen heroes and the novels of Georgette Heyer then you owe Mr Brummel a HUGE and heartfelt thank you for his stirling work in guiding the Prince Regent and other fashionable upper crust gentlemen not only towards daily washing and cleaning their boots with champagne but also a more refined and elegant style of masculine dress, which featured well fitting dark jackets to show off those BROAD HEROIC SHOULDERS, long white trousers that accentuated the wearer’s MUSCULAR THIGHS and a well shaped cravat to give them something other than the heroine to chat about with their chums and valet.