EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Daughter of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll who was at the centre of A Very British Scandal, dies aged 86, taking her secrets and scars to the grave

She became the country’s youngest duchess when she married almost 66 years ago, still not quite 21, becoming chatelaine of the extravagant 365-room Belvoir Castle, her new husband’s family seat, overlooking a 16,000-acre estate in Leicestershire.

And it was there, in a house on the estate, that Frances, Duchess of Rutland, died peacefully on Sunday morning at the age of 86, with her eldest son, David, the 11th Duke, at her side.

Many might be tempted to marvel with awe and even envy at the material pleasures enjoyed by the Duchess. But those who knew her point out that her life was both overshadowed and fractured by her mother’s second divorce, just five years after Frances’ own marriage.

She and her brother Brian – both descendants of Margaret’s first marriage to American stockbroker Charles Sweeny – urged their mother not to fight proceedings brought against her by her second husband, the 11th Duke of Argyll.

But Margaret, immortalized in a Cole Porter song, disastrously convinced herself she would win.

Frances pictured with her husband Charles Manners, 10th Duke of Rutland, and their newborn son David at Belvoir Castle in 1959

Scottish heiress and socialite Margaret Campbell, The Duchess of Argyle (1912 – 1993), pictured at a concert in London in 1985

Margaret Whigham, pictured before being presented at Buckingham Palace in 1934, was a glamorous socialite whose outfits dazzled the British public during the Great Depression

Margaret married American tycoon Charles Sweeny in 1933 as her first husband. She had two children with him before divorcing and marrying the Duke of Argyll.

Society darling: Margaret married Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll, after meeting him on a train at Gare du Nord station in Paris in 1949. In the photo: the couple in 1952

Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll (1912 – 1993) outside the courts in the Strand on the second day of her case

Her hopes were dashed after her husband, who claimed she had 88 lovers during their 12-year marriage, took Polaroid photos showing a naked man (his head removed from the image) with Margaret, also naked except for a three-piece dress. pearl necklace.

The divorce – dramatized two years ago in A Very British Scandal, starring Claire Foy and Paul Bettany – ended in a crushing defeat, with the judge, Lord Wheatley, dismissing Margaret as ‘a completely promiscuous woman… who was no longer satisfied had normal relationships and indulged in disgusting sexual activities to satisfy a diminished sexual appetite’.

Margaret’s reputation was irrevocably tarnished. She died in 1993 at the age of 80 penniless, after squandering the remainder of her fortune on poorly judged legal battles.

The toll taken on Frances was almost more than she could bear. “She was a fervent Catholic and when she married Charles Rutland, whose second marriage it was, she was denounced by the Catholic Church,” a family friend recalled. ‘She took her own children to Catholic services every Sunday, but always sat at the back because she felt she could not receive communion.’

A beautiful woman, she developed in her youth, like her mother, a detachment that became apparent within five years of her mother’s divorce. By then, as a friend told Vanity Fair, she “couldn’t take all that horrible publicity anymore.”

Legend has it that mother and daughter met by chance at a cocktail party. “Hello, I’m your mother,” said Margaret; Frances is said to have replied, “I remember” – and turned away.

Her relationship with her own children became strained. “She was known as ‘Frosty,’” the family friend added. ‘I remember looking at a painting of hers when she was young. She was a completely different person. She developed the most unusual smoking habit. She stubbed out her cigarette on her plate. Always spread it on her plate. Dinner at Belvoir.’

Another friend, who remembers Frances’ intelligence – ‘she spoke Arabic and French’ – mentions her passion for breeding Arabian stallions and creating a series of beautiful gardens. Both, he suggests, were evidence of a reserve of resilience that had developed under very painful circumstances.

Lucy is a Parisienne princess at the Chanel show

Charlotte Casiraghi (left) and Lucy Boynton (right) attend the Chanel Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2024 show

LuCy Boynton, who joined the ranks of Hollywood royalty after appearing in the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, is now mingling with princesses off-screen.

The journalist’s daughter, 30 (right), was given a front row seat at the Chanel Haute Couture show in Paris yesterday, alongside Charlotte Casiraghi, 37, daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco.

The pair paid tribute to the fashion house, with Boynton wearing a Chanel minidress and Casiraghi a Chanel houndstooth jacket.

Historian Andrew Roberts is on a mission to make TV dramas more realistic. “I’m a historical advisor to Churchill for a Netflix show,” he tells me at The Oldie lunch at the National Liberal Club. ‘You save them from (inserting) absurd things.’ Of the recent Napoleon epic, he says, “A historian would have saved Ridley Scott from some ridiculous betise (acts of folly).”

The Downton sisters reunite for Michelle’s musical duo

Michelle Dockery

Is that you, Lady Mary? Michelle Dockery, 42, who once sang as the daughter of the Earl of Grantham in Downton Abbey, strummed the guitar (right) as she performed with co-star Michael Fox, 35, who played a footman, at London’s Lafayette. The pair formed a band, unimaginatively called Michael & Michelle.

Fox’s friend, Laura Carmichael, who played Lady Mary’s sister Lady Edith, was in the audience. “They sound great,” she says. “They change the energy in the room. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be singing with them in the future. I leave it to the professionals.’

Camilla gets creepy

Queen Camilla loves Peter James’ gritty crime novels so much that she once traveled to Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, to meet him on the set of the ITV adaptation of his Roy Grace series.

Now I hear that the author has been invited to appear on her new podcast, The Queen’s Reading Room.

“I spoke at Her Majesty’s Literary Festival in June and now I’m in the second series of her podcast,” James, 75, tells me at the Nielsen Bestseller Awards in London’s Piccadilly. “She’s like my biggest fan.”

Sir Mick Jagger can’t get satisfaction from River Cafe owner Ruth Rogers. “He was in the restaurant and said, ‘Ruthie, how are you?'” she says of Rolling Stone on her podcast Ruthie’s Table 4. “I said, ‘I’m so excited if (American TV host) David Letterman is here’. Then I realized you don’t say that to Mick Jagger…’