Elizabeth Chudleigh

On an endlessly bright summer night in St. Petersburg in 1777, a glamorous three masted ship sailed into harbor. On board the yacht was a lone woman, responsible for scandalizing the British public and ready to make her name known at the court of Catherine the Great. This inconspicuous woman on the regal yacht had quickly become the anti-hero of a Georgian society desiring a headline other than the War of Independence an ocean away. As Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess of Kingston (or so she called herself) sailed into St. Petersburg, she had every intention of making a name for herself as she had in England. In an age that saw the beginning of modern concepts such as celebrity and news cycles, the Duchess became the perfect personification. A duchess, art connoisseur, manipulator, and bigamist, Elizabeth refused to accept the role life had prescribed to her, and preferred infamy to anonymity. 

Featured Guest: Historian Catherine Ostler, author of the book, The Duchess Countess: The Woman Who Scandalized Eighteenth-Century London.

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