A Very British Sex Scandal: The True story behind Margaret, the Duchess of Argyll

Release time：2024-05-09 10:19:24 Source：Horizon Herald news portal

Tonight's episode of the documentary series, A Very British Sex Scandal, will recount the trials and tribulations of the Duchess of Argyll - who was branded a nymphomaniac by her husband the 11th Duke of Argyll.

Their toxic 1963 divorce hearing became the longest and most costly of the 20th century.

He claimed she had taken on an amazing 88 lovers, including cabinet ministers, Hollywood stars and royals, during their marriage. The drama was captured in a hit mini-series - A Very British Scandal - which starred Claire Foy and Paul Bettany as the Duke and Duchess.

The Channel 5 programme, airing at 9pm this evening, will look at the sensational story that saw the socialite's life uprooted into scandal.

In the aftermath of the divorce, Margaret was seen as a cheating harlot. For the remaining 30 years of her life, she provided gossip columnists and society tittle-tattles plenty else to print and talk about.

The Channel 5 programme, airing at 9pm this evening, will look at the sensational story that saw the socialite's life uprooted into scandal. Pictured in 1953

She publicly feuded with family, maids and landlords, continued to call out her husband as a 'fiend' and a 'sadist' and hosted glitzy society parties, until she was forced to leave her Grosvenor Street apartment due to a lack of funds.

Yet she was never able to shake the legacy of the divorce case and its notorious 'Headless Man' Polaroids, the blurry snaps taken via the bathroom mirror of the aristocrat's Mayfair apartment of her wearing nothing but her signature triple string of pearls, which became central to court proceedings.

In some, Margaret was entertaining an unidentified lover whose head had been cropped out of the picture and whose identity she took to the grave.

Born in East Renfreshire in 1912 as Ethel Margaret Whigham, she was the only child of self-made millionaire George and Helen, and spent her childhood between New York, London and Ascot.

But her father's philandering took their toll on her mother, who suffered extreme mood swings as a result. 

Margaret was taken to a psychiatrist at the age of six, who diagnosed her with lacking a sense of humour. She also developed a stammer, for which she was treated unsuccessfully by Lionel Logue, King George VI's speech therapist.

She lost her virginity to actor David Niven when she was 15. She fell pregnant and had a secret termination, arranged by her parents.

Two years later her social career took off when she was named Debutante of the Year in 1930. She went on to have four failed engagements - first to Prince Aly Khan, whose Muslim faith wasn't accepted by the Whighams; Glen Kidston, a married millionaire sportsman who died in plane crash; Max Aitken, the son of Lord Beaverbrook; and Fulke Warwick, a penniless earl.

Tonight's episode of the documentary series, A Very British Sex Scandal, will recount the trials and tribulations of the Duchess of Argyll - who was branded a nymphomaniac by her husband the 11th Duke of Argyll. Both pictured after their wedding

Born in East Renfreshire in 1912 as Ethel Margaret Whigham, she was the only child of self-made millionaire George and Helen, and spent her childhood between New York, London and Ascot. Pictured in 1960

At 20, she eventually married Charles Sweeny, an Irish-American stockbroker and amateur golfer, whose family's millions came from coal-mining, oil, and smelting. 

Their wedding day was a glamorous affair, stopping traffic for three hours as 2,000 guests attended the Brompton Oratory while another 2,000 onlookers gathered to see her Norman Hartnell wedding gown's 28ft train.

The couple remained married for 15 years, during which Margaret suffered eight miscarriages and a stillbirth before welcoming a daughter, Frances, and son Brian.

But their relationship broke down, with Margaret blaming it on Charlie's philandering during the war, claiming all he wanted in a spouse was a 'pretty brainless doll'.

He, however, claimed she 'changed totally' after falling 40ft down a lift shaft in 1943 while visiting a chiropodist on Bond Street - an accident her next husband also used to claim she'd suffered brain damage so he could divorce her on the grounds of insanity.

It was also rumoured that the fall had caused nymphomania, as well as damage to her olfactory nerve, which affects one's sense of smell.

Before she met and married the Duke in 1951 - four years after her divorce from Charles Sweeney in 1947 - Margaret enjoyed a romance with New York stockbroker Joe Thomas.

In January 2019, Lyndsy Spence - who penned The Grit in the Pearl: The Scandalous Life of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll - claimed that he is the Headless Man from the Polaroid; it was previously rumoured to have been Douglas Fairbanks Jr, former Nazi Sigismund von Braun, and Duncan Sandys, the Minister of Defence and Winston Churchill’s son-in-law.

Margaret and Joe met in Berlin and reportedly took explicit photographs using a Polaroid camera, keeping one each as a memento. They allegedly showed Margaret wearing only her signature triple-string of pearls while fellating an unidentified man.

The drama was captured in a hit mini-series - A Very British Scandal - which starred Claire Foy and Paul Bettany as the Duke and Duchess

At 20, Margaret married Charles Sweeny (pictured), an Irish-American stockbroker and amateur golfer, whose family's millions came from coal-mining, oil, and smelting

However, despite proposing to Margaret, Joe was already betrothed to socialite Poppi de Salis. He travelled to St Moritz to end it with his first fiancée, but ended up marrying her, breaking Margaret's heart.

Ms Spence interviewed Joe's son Michael, who found his father's copies of the Polaroids while looking through an old trunk.

Margaret stored her copy behind a bookcase in her house in London, but their hiding place was eventually rumbled by her embittered second husband who used them to fuel his claims about her promiscuity. 

Margaret met Ian Campbell, Duke of Argyll, on a train at Gare du Nord in 1949. He pursued her relentlessly, knowing she was wealthy - while his own estate was worthless.

She took pity on him, after he told her of his five years spent as a prisoner of war and his marital problems with his second wife Louise, an American heiress, and convinced her father to give him £100,000 to restore his family seat in western Scotland, Inveraray Castle.

The Duke then forged a Deed of Gift and promised to marry her when his divorce had come through. They wed in 1951, but Ian soon showed his true colours; Ms Spence claimed he had an addiction to gambling, alcohol and prescription drugs, and an unpredictable temper.

He grew to resent his wife when she began refusing to pay off any more of his debts after three years of marriage. The couple agreed to have an open marriage and live separately.

The Duke grew to resent his wife (pictured in 1961) when she began refusing to pay off any more of his debts after three years of marriage

Furious that Margaret was no longer funding his wayward lifestyle, the Duke set about trying to divorce Margaret and hired private detectives to follow her. 

He gathered evidence to prove she was unfaithful, including stealing her letters and diaries which contained the names of her alleged lovers - many of whom Ms Spence insists were gay - while she was abroad. It was then that he came across the Polaroids. 

Ian filed a divorce petition with the Court of Session in Edinburgh, which took four years to reach a verdict. Lord Wheatley, renowned for his harsh sentences, oversaw the case and ruled Margaret was a 'highly sexed woman who has ceased to be satisfied with normal sexual activities'.

The Duke was granted a divorce on the grounds of Margaret's adultery and she was ordered to pay seven-eighths of the £50,000 legal bill. Meanwhile nothing was said about Ian's own affairs or his subsequent remarriage to Mathilda Mortimer, a rich American, just six weeks later.

The scandal wrought irreparable damage on Margaret's reputation and her relationship with her daughter Frances - who was grandmother to Lady Violet, Lady Alice and Lady Eliza Manners.

Frances came to see her mother as a 'nightmare of embarrassment', a friend told Vanity Fair in 1968. Margaret pictured in 1960, outside the law courts in the Strand on the second day of her case

Margaret Argyll is buried next to her first husband Charles, who died just four months before her, at Brookwood Cemetery in Woking, Surrey. Pictured in 1989

Frances came to see her mother as a 'nightmare of embarrassment', a friend told Vanity Fair in 1968. The pair did reconcile before Margaret's death in 1993, by which point she was living at St George's Nursing Home in Pimlico. Ian died in 1973.

Years of lavish parties and high society living finally caught up to Margaret in the last 15 years of her life. Thanks to bad investments and spending beyond her means - not to mention the cost of various legal issues over the years -  she was eventually left with very little money.  

In 1978, Margaret was forced to move from her Grosvenor House apartment into a suite in the Grosvenor House Hotel - with her maid in tow. A photograph shows Margaret seated at a desk in front of a large portrait of herself she had installed on the wall.

Twelve years later she was evicted in the hotel but was able to move into an apartment thanks to the support of friends and her first husband, Charles Sweeny. 

She later took up residence in a nursing home, where she died almost penniless in 1993, after a bad fall. She was 80 years old. 

Margaret Argyll is buried next to her first husband Charles, who died just four months before her, at Brookwood Cemetery in Woking, Surrey.    

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