Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Bess in 1787, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds
Birthdate:	1759
Birth name:	Elizabeth Hervey
Spouse(s):	John Thomas Foster (1776-1781, divorce) William Cavendish, fifth Duke of Devonshire (1809-1811, his death)
Date of death:	30 March 1824

Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (formerly Elizabeth Hervey, later Lady Elizabeth Foster) (1759 - March 30, 1824), is best known as the close friend of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who supplanted the Duchess in her husband's affections and later married him.

Lady Elizabeth was the daughter of Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, and was familiarly known as "Bess". In 1776, she married Irishman John Thomas Foster. He was a first cousin of the brothers John Foster, last Speaker of the (united) Irish House of Commons, and Bishop (William) Foster. When her father acceded to the earldom of Bristol until 1779, she became Lady Elizabeth Foster. The Fosters had two children, and lived (after 1779) with her parents at Ickworth House, the ancestral Bristol home. The marriage was not a success, and the couple separated within five years, after Foster had a relationship with a servant. He retained custody of their sons, Augustus and Frederick. Fittingly, one her descendants, via her legitimate son Augustus, is US Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. In 1782, Bess met the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire in Bath, and quickly became Georgiana's closest friend.

From this time, she lived in a ménage a trois with Georgiana and her husband, William, the 5th Duke of Devonshire, for about twenty-five years. She bore two children by the Duke: a son, Augustus (later Augustus Clifford, 1st Baronet), and a daughter, Caroline St. Jules, who were raised at Devonshire House with the Duke's legitimate children by Georgiana. Lady Elizabeth finally married the Duke in 1809, three years after the death of his first wife, during which time she had continued to live in his household.

Bess is also said to have had affairs with several other men, including Ercole Cardinal Consalvi, John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset, Count Axel von Fersen, Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, and Valentine Richard Quin, 1st Earl of Dunraven. There is some evidence that Quin fathered an illegitimate son by her, who became the noted physician, Frederick Hervey Foster Quin.

Bess also had literary pretensions, and was a friend of the French author Madame de Staël, with whom she corresponded from about 1804.

[edit] Bess Foster in Popular Culture

In the upcoming film The Duchess, Bess will be played by actress Hayley Atwell.

[edit] Bibliography

• Vere Foster (editor), The Two Duchesses.., Family Correspondence relating to.., Blackie & Son, London, Glasgow & Dublin, 1898.

Vere Foster (1819-1900), her grandson, was a renowned Irish philanthropist and educationalist.

• Brian Masters, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, Hamish Hamilton, 1981, (pages 298-299, re. Wintour).
• Amanda Foreman, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1998).