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The Countess: The Scandalous Life of Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey
One of the great beauties of Georgian society, Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey, was a woman of enormous style and spirit whose life revolved around her pleasures. Clever and witty, her charm was legendary, earning her the nickname in the contemporary press of 'The Enchantress'. She glittered in an aristocratic century.However, she was also unprincipled and malevolent. After providing her husband with an heir, she duly abandoned the dull respectability of married life for the whirl of the faster set of society and a number of high-profile and scandalous affairs. Through her relationship with the Prince Regent, she enraged the country and threatened the monarchy, blackening the prince's reputation for posterity.Despite being demonised by historians and subjected to rumour and myth, this is the first biography ever written of her extraordinary and dramatic life. Tim Clarke skilfully pieces together the truth about the Countess of Jersey, and dispels many of the assumptions that, even in the highest academic circles, continue to surround her to this day, leaving us with a very intimate portrait of a life lived in defiance of social convention.
- GenresBiography
400 pages, Hardcover
Published July 15, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 16, 2020
A wonderful gossipy read. Frances Villiers comes across as being manipulative and sly. As the mistress of the prince regent she ousted all his favourites and fell out with her own supporters. her treatment of Caroline of Brunswick, the prince regent's wife, left the public hating her. Her eventual downfall caused very few tears to be shed. An enjoyable read. Didn't enjoy this as much second time around.I guess some reads are not meant to be re-visited.
April 24, 2017
Review on my youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apFKW...
May 7, 2017
A scholarly and very well researched biography of Frances Countess of Jersey. The author has produced a readable and detailed account of Frances Villiers life, clearing up some of the many misconceptions that have contributed to her poor reputation. He has identified instances when other historians have confused references to her daughter in law, Sally Countess of Jersey, attributing them wrongly to Frances.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Regency period; it paints a very good picture of the aristocratic personalities of the day and their family connections.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Regency period; it paints a very good picture of the aristocratic personalities of the day and their family connections.
April 30, 2018
I didn't get an option to give the book zero stars, but I wouldn't have done that anyway. I am super psyched that Tim Clarke has written a biography of Frances Villiers, because there hasn't been one before. And that lack of biography was even more ridiculous than this biography is disappointing. And here it is, published with great fanfare, and in hardback! I own it, and I dip into it frequently for information. I am something of a Frances Villiers fanatic, as it turns out, and I am perplexed and angry that all of this effort, which has been so needed, has gone so wrong.
The reason I don't like the book is that it is a complete hatchet job, turning coyly away from mysteries which beg to be solved, in favour of issuing mean-spirited judgements. Why did George Bussey Villiers, Earl of Jersey, marry this virtual unknown when he was 30 and she was 17? When did she meet the Prince of Wales in 1782, and when again in the 1790s? What happened the "Enchantress" portrait Maria Cosway painted of her in the 1790s? When and where did her mother die? We don't know, and sadly Clarke, if Clarke does know, has decided to leave those details out of the book.
And who writes a biography in order to vilify a subject who has already been kicked around so much? It's as though the Richard III society found Richard under that parking lot, dug him up, and then ran around chanting "how's THIS for the winter of your discontent" and leering. Where is the difficulty in that, and what could his motivation be? As Clarke himself notes in his final chapter, [The Verdict of History,] "Frances Jersey left thirty-six grandchildren and a reputation so bad that it has not been challenged in the 200 years since her death." It is a post mortem which concludes that the subject is dead.
After dishing over tens of chapters on individual bad things done by the countess, Clarke concludes that not just he, but all of history, must come to a negative verdict about Lady Jersey, not just because she was an "odious" person, but because she, and she alone, must take responsibility for the fact that ... George IV married Caroline of Brunswick, which in turn led to the long standing feud between the royal couple in the first decades of the nineteenth century, which in turn led to "public dislike" of the Prince and King! The logic in this chain of causation is such a stretch that one almost doesn't have strength or attention left to wonder how it is possible that the Prince of Wales had so very little say in his own actions or public image during his entire reign as regent and king.
Clarke closes the book with a detailed description of the family vault at Middleton Stoney, Oxfordshire, which is near Bicester. He writes with relish: "There is a plaque for the 4th Earl as well one for each of his father and his son, the 5th Earl. There is one, too, in memory of Augustus, who is recorded as being buried in 'Picton,' Nova Scotia, and also one for Sally Jersey. There is none for Frances Jersey. Such was her reputation."
I wish I could include the photo I took of Frances Villiers's plaque in the family chapel when I visited in Middleton Stoney in 2014, the year in which this biography was published. The countess remains a mystery to me, and very likely a viperous and horrid one, but I am looking for a little more balance.
The reason I don't like the book is that it is a complete hatchet job, turning coyly away from mysteries which beg to be solved, in favour of issuing mean-spirited judgements. Why did George Bussey Villiers, Earl of Jersey, marry this virtual unknown when he was 30 and she was 17? When did she meet the Prince of Wales in 1782, and when again in the 1790s? What happened the "Enchantress" portrait Maria Cosway painted of her in the 1790s? When and where did her mother die? We don't know, and sadly Clarke, if Clarke does know, has decided to leave those details out of the book.
And who writes a biography in order to vilify a subject who has already been kicked around so much? It's as though the Richard III society found Richard under that parking lot, dug him up, and then ran around chanting "how's THIS for the winter of your discontent" and leering. Where is the difficulty in that, and what could his motivation be? As Clarke himself notes in his final chapter, [The Verdict of History,] "Frances Jersey left thirty-six grandchildren and a reputation so bad that it has not been challenged in the 200 years since her death." It is a post mortem which concludes that the subject is dead.
After dishing over tens of chapters on individual bad things done by the countess, Clarke concludes that not just he, but all of history, must come to a negative verdict about Lady Jersey, not just because she was an "odious" person, but because she, and she alone, must take responsibility for the fact that ... George IV married Caroline of Brunswick, which in turn led to the long standing feud between the royal couple in the first decades of the nineteenth century, which in turn led to "public dislike" of the Prince and King! The logic in this chain of causation is such a stretch that one almost doesn't have strength or attention left to wonder how it is possible that the Prince of Wales had so very little say in his own actions or public image during his entire reign as regent and king.
Clarke closes the book with a detailed description of the family vault at Middleton Stoney, Oxfordshire, which is near Bicester. He writes with relish: "There is a plaque for the 4th Earl as well one for each of his father and his son, the 5th Earl. There is one, too, in memory of Augustus, who is recorded as being buried in 'Picton,' Nova Scotia, and also one for Sally Jersey. There is none for Frances Jersey. Such was her reputation."
I wish I could include the photo I took of Frances Villiers's plaque in the family chapel when I visited in Middleton Stoney in 2014, the year in which this biography was published. The countess remains a mystery to me, and very likely a viperous and horrid one, but I am looking for a little more balance.
March 2, 2025
It is always a challenge to write a biography when the subject themselves left behind very little writing themselves. Lady Jersey doesn't garner the sympathy that the Duchess of Devonshire now gets or the admiration of someone like Lady Melbourne might receive, with her absolute determination and intelligence to promote her family to the top. But being scheming and rather unlikeable is no reason to ignore her, and Clarke's biography really encapsulates this powerhouse of a woman well. After a rather slow start, the story really picks up with Lady Jersey's interference in the Prince George's s marriage to Caroline of Brunswick. The stories of her very interesting children then begin to take centre stage, making for a very fascinating read. Well researched, this is a real insight into the scandalous lives of the Georgian Ton.
August 11, 2021
Dry as sandpaper
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews