By the end of summer, having danced with the Duke on several occasions and sat near him at numerous dinners, Georgiana had fallen in love with the idea of marrying him. His departure from Spa in the autumn of 1772 upset her greatly; she feared that he would make his choice before she was grown up. ‘I have not heard that the Duke of Devonshire is talked of for anybody,’ her cousin reassured her after receiving an enquiry about a rumour linking him with Lady Betty Hamilton. ‘Indeed I have heard very little of him this Winter.’46 Lady Spencer, on the other hand, was relieved that the Duke had not made a formal offer. Even though there could be no more illustrious a match, she did not want her daughter to be a child-bride. Georgiana ‘is indeed a lovely young woman,’ she confided to a friend, ‘very pleasing in her figure, but infinitely more so from her character and disposition; my dread is that she will be snatched from me before her age and experience make her by any means fit for the serious duties of a wife, a mother, or the mistress of a family.’47
In fact the Duke had already made up his mind to marry Georgiana. She was an obvious choice: socially the Spencers were almost equal to the Cavendishes, she had a large dowry, she seemed likely to be popular and, most important, she was young and malleable. Despite Lady Spencer’s reservations, discussions between the two families began in earnest while the Spencers were still abroad, and were concluded after they returned to England in the spring of 1774. By now Georgiana was almost seventeen and preparing to make her entrance into society. Hers was not to be an arranged marriage in the sense of those common a generation before.48 She was not exchanged in lieu of gambling debts, nor thrown in as part of a political alliance.* However, it cannot be said that Georgiana had been free to make a proper choice. Unlike her mother she had not been out for several seasons before her marriage, and she had not accepted the Duke because she loved him ‘above all men upon Earth’. She would go to any lengths to please her parents, and that included thinking herself in love with a man she hardly knew. But her happiness at his proposal convinced the Spencers that they were facilitating a love-match.
As the marriage approached Georgiana’s faults became an obsession with her mother, who feared that her daughter did not understand the responsibilities which would come with her new role: ‘I had flatter’d myself I should have had more time to have improv’d her understanding and, with God’s assistance to have strengthened her principles, and enabled her to avoid the many snares that vice and folly will throw in her way. She is amiable, innocent and benevolent, but she is giddy, idle and fond of dissipation.’49 Whenever they were apart, Lady Spencer criticized Georgiana’s behaviour in long letters filled with ‘hints to form your own conduct … when you are so near entering into a world abounding with dissipation, vice and folly’.50 In one, she included a list of rules governing a married woman’s behaviour on Sundays. Georgiana would have to rise early, pray, instruct the children or servants, then read an improving book, and above all ‘make it a rule to be among the first [to church], and to shew by my good humour and attention to everybody that I saw nothing in religion or a Sunday to make people silent, ill-bred or uncomfortable …’ Flirting and gossip were to be absolutely avoided on this day.51
Most observers shared Lady Spencer’s disquiet, although not for the same reason.
We drank tea in the Spring Gardens [recorded Mary Hamilton in her diary]: Lady Spencer and daughter, Lady Georgiana, and the Duke of Devonshire joined us: he walked between Lady Georgiana and I, we were very Chatty, but not one word spoke the Duke to his betrothed nor did one smile grace his dull visage. – Notwithstanding his rank and fortune I wd not marry him – they say he is sensible and has good qualities – it is a pity he is not more ostensibly agreeable, dear charming Lady Georgiana will not be well matched.52
Mrs Delany had come to a similar conclusion. She happened to be at a ball in May where Georgiana danced for so long that she fainted from the heat and the constriction of her dress – ‘Which of course made a little bustle,’ she informed her friend. ‘His (philosophical) Grace was at the other end of the room and ask’d “what’s that?” They told him and he replied with his usual demureness (alias dullness), “I thought the noise – was – among – the – women.”’ He did not even make a pretence of going over to where Georgiana lay to see how she was.53
Meanwhile the Spencers assembled a trousseau more lavish than those of many princesses on the Continent. In three months they spent a total of £1,486 on hundreds of items: sixty-five pairs of shoes filled one trunk, forty-eight pairs of stockings and twenty-six ‘and a half’ pairs of gloves filled another.54 They bought hats, feathers and trimmings; morning dresses, walking dresses, riding habits and ball gowns. There was her wedding dress to be made, her court dress, her first visiting dress, as well as cloaks, shawls and wraps. The prospect of a union between two such wealthy and powerful families naturally caught the attention of the press – there had been no Duchess of Devonshire for over two decades. People described the marriage as the wedding of the year and anticipated that the new Duchess of Devonshire would revive the former splendour of Devonshire House. The Whig grandees also looked upon the match with favour, hoping that the married state would have a beneficial effect on the Duke.
The wedding took place on 7 June 1774, two days earlier than the official date. There had been so much publicity about the marriage that the Spencers feared the church would be mobbed with curious onlookers. They persuaded the Duke to accompany them to Wimbledon Park and have the service conducted in the parish church there. According to Mrs Delany, Georgiana knew nothing of their plans until the morning of the ceremony. She did not mind at all; a secret marriage appealed to her. ‘She is so peculiarly happy as to think his Grace very agreeable’ and, to Mrs Delany’s surprise, ‘had not the least regret’ about anything. She wore a white and gold dress, with silver slippers on her feet and pearl drops in her hair. There were only five people present: the Duke’s brother, Lord Richard Cavendish, and his sister Dorothy, who was now the Duchess of Portland, and on Georgiana’s side only her parents and grandmother, Lady Cowper.55 Georgiana’s feelings clearly showed on her face, while the Duke appeared inscrutable. His new wife may have occupied his thoughts, although they may well have turned to another Spencer. Not very far away in a rented villa, on a discreet road where a carriage could come and go unseen, Charlotte Spencer, formerly a milliner and no relation to the Spencers, was nursing a newborn baby: his – their – daughter Charlotte.56
* Misspellings have been corrected only where they intrude on the text.
†Georgiana became Lady Georgiana Spencer at the age of eight when her father John Spencer was created the first Earl Spencer in 1765. For the purpose of continuity the Spencers will be referred