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The Duchess Who Dared: The Life of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll
The extraordinary story behind A Very British Scandal, starring Claire Foy and Paul Bettany
?Margaret was debutante of the year, the beautiful fairy-tale heiress immortalised in Cole Porter's 'You're The Top' - who ended up penniless and ostracised from her own family.
Legal actions coloured her life - her divorce from the Duke of Argyll was one of the longest, costliest and most notorious in British legal history. Her diaries, and photographs of her with an anonymous naked man, were used in evidence.
This sparkling biography draws on exclusive interviews with the late Duchess to lift the lid off her extraordinary story, and her scandalous lifestyle. The Duchess Who Dared is a fascinating chronicle of a complex, charming and surprisingly modern woman.
?Margaret was debutante of the year, the beautiful fairy-tale heiress immortalised in Cole Porter's 'You're The Top' - who ended up penniless and ostracised from her own family.
Legal actions coloured her life - her divorce from the Duke of Argyll was one of the longest, costliest and most notorious in British legal history. Her diaries, and photographs of her with an anonymous naked man, were used in evidence.
This sparkling biography draws on exclusive interviews with the late Duchess to lift the lid off her extraordinary story, and her scandalous lifestyle. The Duchess Who Dared is a fascinating chronicle of a complex, charming and surprisingly modern woman.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
287 pages, Paperback
First published November 25, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 7, 2022
What I chiefly remember about the Duchess of Arglyll is of her gossip column in the Tatler in the 1970’s. As an avowed Anglophile living in St. Louis, I’d go to a shop that sold foreign newspapers and magazines and buy the Tatler every month to keep up on the comings and goings of the British upper classes. To me (and this was entirely based on the photograph that would accompany her column) she looked like someone who had once been beautiful, but was now definitely over the hill and refusing to admit that time had marched on. I think, perhaps, that this impression was not far from the truth.
This year, after watching the story about her on Amazon’s “A Very British Scandal,” I decided to read more about her. Charles Castle’s book about her was published shortly after her death in 1993. And yes, much like the mini-series, Margaret was beautiful, rich and very spoiled. When she met Colin Campbell the heir to the dukedom she had already thrown over her first husband, and for Margaret & Campbell it was lust at first sight. With visions of a coronet dancing in her head she got her father to bankroll the restoration of Campbell’s crumbling castle in Scotland and seemed to enjoy playing the lady of the manor.
The Duke, however, had no intention of being faithful and soon they both were off having multiple affairs of their own, all of which culminated in a very juicy and very public divorce of which Margaret got the worst. She was branded an immoral woman and virtually bankrupted by the proceedings. After that it was all downhill.
Like many (former) beautiful and famous women she could not leave well enough alone and continued suing people who had offended her for years, alienating her children, and finally dying in poverty in 1993. Today she has been largely forgotten except for having her life dredged up as a TV miniseries. Sic transit gloria.
This year, after watching the story about her on Amazon’s “A Very British Scandal,” I decided to read more about her. Charles Castle’s book about her was published shortly after her death in 1993. And yes, much like the mini-series, Margaret was beautiful, rich and very spoiled. When she met Colin Campbell the heir to the dukedom she had already thrown over her first husband, and for Margaret & Campbell it was lust at first sight. With visions of a coronet dancing in her head she got her father to bankroll the restoration of Campbell’s crumbling castle in Scotland and seemed to enjoy playing the lady of the manor.
The Duke, however, had no intention of being faithful and soon they both were off having multiple affairs of their own, all of which culminated in a very juicy and very public divorce of which Margaret got the worst. She was branded an immoral woman and virtually bankrupted by the proceedings. After that it was all downhill.
Like many (former) beautiful and famous women she could not leave well enough alone and continued suing people who had offended her for years, alienating her children, and finally dying in poverty in 1993. Today she has been largely forgotten except for having her life dredged up as a TV miniseries. Sic transit gloria.
June 15, 2023
Inverary Castle is only about an hour from where I live. Because I love to include local history and locations in my own books, it’s featured in a few of my romances. Another more personal connection with the Argylls is through Kilmun Church, where my sister was married and where my grandparents and my grandmother’s sister are buried. It’s here where the Argylls have their mausoleum, and this is also where Princess Louise, wife of one of the former dukes, was to have been buried had she died in Scotland (which she didn’t, so she’s buried at Frogmore). Princess Louise is best friend to Lady Margaret in the novel, Her Heart for a Compass, which I ‘collaborwrote’ with Sarah Ferguson. If you follow me on other social media, you’ll know these are the kind of twisting historical connections that I love. And in a final twisty, turny connection, a very long time ago, my BFF’s partner was granted an interview with Margaret, the subject of this book, for a film that I don’t think was ever made. I’d forgotten all about her, until the BBC
So when the BBC showed A Very British Scandal, promising a revision of Margaret’s reputation as a sex-crazed money grabber, I tuned in. It was an excellent production, interestingly with access granted to film at Inverary Castle, something which surprised me. And it did show Margaret in a different light, very much the product of her time and upbringing, surrounded by people who were similarly so – and I have to say, personally, all of them highly unlikeable. And this is a long-winded introduction to the book, upon which the film was based!
The author, Charles Castle, was a tap-dancing biographer of among others Noel Coward, whom Margaret originally commissioned to work with her on a tell all bio based on a series of interviews. At the end of it, the deal, he says, was to go fifty-fifty on the book, and she was to leave it up to him to sign up with a publishing house. She backed out in the end, and this book was not published (I don’t think) until after. Capricious to the end, it would seem. And capricious is the word I think I’d use for Margaret, having read it.
A friend warned me about having a biased view of her, when I said I had found her loathsome. I don’t think I’m biased, I’m pretty certain that if I’d ever met her I would have found her loathsome. Entitled, arrogant, beautiful, self-obsessed, she was also very much a victim of the Establishment and the press, of that I have no doubt. They vilified her sexuality, her confidence, portraying her as a siren, and Iain Argyll as the victim – he, who married shamelessly for money and whose adultery from the start of their marriage he seemed to think she must accept. Margaret’s penchant for going to court didn’t go in her favour either, but to be fair to her, she had a lot of reasons for going to court, not least that the man she married signed up to a marriage contract he was never legally able to honour.
So much for my impression of the woman. The book itself is interesting as a historical artefact. You can hear Margaret’s voice from the conversations loud and clear, and sometimes it’s really funny. Before she married her first husband she was engaged several times, including to Fulke (love that name!) Earl of Warwick. Her mother wasn’t keen on the man, her father thought him disrespectful when he lounged about on a sofa and didn’t get up to greet him, and his own mother had this to say to Margaret’s mother:
“If you love your daughter, don’t let her marry my son. He’s a liar, he’s ill-mannered, and he picks his nose.”
I don’t think it was the nose-picking that put Margaret off, but she ended the engagement.
Charles Castle was not happy about the way Margaret treated him, after he’d put all the work into getting a publishing deal. He comments often on her deceitful nature, her poor relationship with the truth, and to be fair to him, he gives us a huge amount of evidence to back that up. She wasn’t a liar, so much as one of those people who think that what they say at a particular time is the truth, and if they change their minds later, then that’s the truth. A certain Boris Johnson or Donald Trump even, spring to mind. The ‘truth’ is what served Margaret best at the time, and she did seem consistently outraged when she found herself questioned. She never apologised, she never backed down, but sometimes she was forced to walk away from defending herself. Despite all of that though, I can’t help but think the very black and white way she’s presented here is biased, on the author’s part and on the part of the Establishment, press and law and aristocracy, who have written Margaret’s history. She was a star. She was a very rich and beautiful woman who was utterly confident, and who didn’t want to simply follow the path that was expected of her. Of course she was going to be vilified.
I didn’t like her, but she was gutsy and true to herself. I enjoyed A Very British Scandal a great deal more than I enjoyed this book. But I’m glad to have read it, because it is grist to my own mill of writing about women (fictional in my case) who buck the trend. And if Margaret had been around now, I am absolutely certain it would be a whole different story.
So when the BBC showed A Very British Scandal, promising a revision of Margaret’s reputation as a sex-crazed money grabber, I tuned in. It was an excellent production, interestingly with access granted to film at Inverary Castle, something which surprised me. And it did show Margaret in a different light, very much the product of her time and upbringing, surrounded by people who were similarly so – and I have to say, personally, all of them highly unlikeable. And this is a long-winded introduction to the book, upon which the film was based!
The author, Charles Castle, was a tap-dancing biographer of among others Noel Coward, whom Margaret originally commissioned to work with her on a tell all bio based on a series of interviews. At the end of it, the deal, he says, was to go fifty-fifty on the book, and she was to leave it up to him to sign up with a publishing house. She backed out in the end, and this book was not published (I don’t think) until after. Capricious to the end, it would seem. And capricious is the word I think I’d use for Margaret, having read it.
A friend warned me about having a biased view of her, when I said I had found her loathsome. I don’t think I’m biased, I’m pretty certain that if I’d ever met her I would have found her loathsome. Entitled, arrogant, beautiful, self-obsessed, she was also very much a victim of the Establishment and the press, of that I have no doubt. They vilified her sexuality, her confidence, portraying her as a siren, and Iain Argyll as the victim – he, who married shamelessly for money and whose adultery from the start of their marriage he seemed to think she must accept. Margaret’s penchant for going to court didn’t go in her favour either, but to be fair to her, she had a lot of reasons for going to court, not least that the man she married signed up to a marriage contract he was never legally able to honour.
So much for my impression of the woman. The book itself is interesting as a historical artefact. You can hear Margaret’s voice from the conversations loud and clear, and sometimes it’s really funny. Before she married her first husband she was engaged several times, including to Fulke (love that name!) Earl of Warwick. Her mother wasn’t keen on the man, her father thought him disrespectful when he lounged about on a sofa and didn’t get up to greet him, and his own mother had this to say to Margaret’s mother:
“If you love your daughter, don’t let her marry my son. He’s a liar, he’s ill-mannered, and he picks his nose.”
I don’t think it was the nose-picking that put Margaret off, but she ended the engagement.
Charles Castle was not happy about the way Margaret treated him, after he’d put all the work into getting a publishing deal. He comments often on her deceitful nature, her poor relationship with the truth, and to be fair to him, he gives us a huge amount of evidence to back that up. She wasn’t a liar, so much as one of those people who think that what they say at a particular time is the truth, and if they change their minds later, then that’s the truth. A certain Boris Johnson or Donald Trump even, spring to mind. The ‘truth’ is what served Margaret best at the time, and she did seem consistently outraged when she found herself questioned. She never apologised, she never backed down, but sometimes she was forced to walk away from defending herself. Despite all of that though, I can’t help but think the very black and white way she’s presented here is biased, on the author’s part and on the part of the Establishment, press and law and aristocracy, who have written Margaret’s history. She was a star. She was a very rich and beautiful woman who was utterly confident, and who didn’t want to simply follow the path that was expected of her. Of course she was going to be vilified.
I didn’t like her, but she was gutsy and true to herself. I enjoyed A Very British Scandal a great deal more than I enjoyed this book. But I’m glad to have read it, because it is grist to my own mill of writing about women (fictional in my case) who buck the trend. And if Margaret had been around now, I am absolutely certain it would be a whole different story.
January 30, 2022
The Duchess Who Dared is based around interviews the author had in the 1970s with Margaret, Duchess of Argyll. She was from a very wealthy family and was engaged a few times before marrying the Duke of Argyll. Unfortunately this marriage didn't last long and what ensued was a lengthy and very costly divorce case - one of many court cases throughout her life. She appears to have lived quite a scandalous life and ended up not having contact with her family and in a very poor financial state. I see the BBC released a tv series of her life in December 2021 which I hadn't realised when I bought the book. Obviously I'm very keen to watch that when I can. I didn't particularly enjoy the writing but the book finished with a terrific final sentence!
February 8, 2022
Clearly sets out the life of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll rather than just focusing on the infamous divorce. A well written and easy to read book which answered some questions that arose for me having watched A Very British Scandal.
September 18, 2018
Despite the dramatic title and the juicy details, it's very tiring to read about someone who was still stirring up socialite drama in her 70s.
April 12, 2022
I recently watched the TV drama that was based on this book and was curious to find out more. This story was not one that I had known much about.
The book was first published in 1994 and this edition was printed to coincide with the TV programme I would imagine.
The author interviewed the subject on many occasions and quotes her often in his narrative. This is an easy and effective way to show her personality to the reader. It is a reasonable assumption that will also give a level of truth to the story but Charles Castle makes it clear that he is suspicious of some of the stories he hears.
There are a few photographs on the inside of the cover and could have been more although there are detailed descriptions in the book that bring to life many of the events. One particular picture is that of the Duchess being the only debutante at her coming out ball not in white (she wanted to stand out from the crowd and did!!).
It's quite a privilege to hear so much of this story as a first person commentary as it's gives the opportunity to try to reconcile the conflict of Margaret being totally materialistic yet also being completely unaware of her wealth.
I had a similar reaction with the book as I had to the TV programme. The first half is completely compelling as we learn about Margaret's upbringing and the strange world in which she lived. The second half gets quite dull as it concentrates in too much detail on the court cases - the book becomes much darker and very confused. Even the author acknowledges that it was almost beyond the lawyers to keep up with so many legal actions.
As the book starts to deal with the legal proceedings, the author uses a lot less of Margaret's words (I guess she wasn't so keen to talk about this part of her life) and the book becomes less engaging as a result.
Margaret is not a pleasant woman and seems to become more embittered as her life moves on. I got to the end feeling that she has got herself into a huge mess and angry at the amount of legal fees that were wasted by all those involved with these cases.
With the court proceedings out of the way the book returns to the personal story but still with less input from the subject.
This book is written as a traditional biography and could have been much improved by changing the format - maybe putting it in as a series of interviews, allowing the timeline to jump around and giving more sense of the subject.
The book was first published in 1994 and this edition was printed to coincide with the TV programme I would imagine.
The author interviewed the subject on many occasions and quotes her often in his narrative. This is an easy and effective way to show her personality to the reader. It is a reasonable assumption that will also give a level of truth to the story but Charles Castle makes it clear that he is suspicious of some of the stories he hears.
There are a few photographs on the inside of the cover and could have been more although there are detailed descriptions in the book that bring to life many of the events. One particular picture is that of the Duchess being the only debutante at her coming out ball not in white (she wanted to stand out from the crowd and did!!).
It's quite a privilege to hear so much of this story as a first person commentary as it's gives the opportunity to try to reconcile the conflict of Margaret being totally materialistic yet also being completely unaware of her wealth.
I had a similar reaction with the book as I had to the TV programme. The first half is completely compelling as we learn about Margaret's upbringing and the strange world in which she lived. The second half gets quite dull as it concentrates in too much detail on the court cases - the book becomes much darker and very confused. Even the author acknowledges that it was almost beyond the lawyers to keep up with so many legal actions.
As the book starts to deal with the legal proceedings, the author uses a lot less of Margaret's words (I guess she wasn't so keen to talk about this part of her life) and the book becomes less engaging as a result.
Margaret is not a pleasant woman and seems to become more embittered as her life moves on. I got to the end feeling that she has got herself into a huge mess and angry at the amount of legal fees that were wasted by all those involved with these cases.
With the court proceedings out of the way the book returns to the personal story but still with less input from the subject.
This book is written as a traditional biography and could have been much improved by changing the format - maybe putting it in as a series of interviews, allowing the timeline to jump around and giving more sense of the subject.
March 10, 2022
It was as if the first half was written by one person and the second half of the book written by another. What was worse was that the second half basically turned on poor old Margaret who, from what I read, really did the best she could with the hand that was dealt her. It's hard not to be egotistical, neurotic and narcissistic when you have practically no eduction and live in a world where socializing is the main goal. If anything, I understood more about Diana, Princess of Wales from having read this book.
Also, it was odd that the fact that the memoir was taken from tapes or interviews that the Duchess of Argyll recorded with the author was not clear to me until towards the end of the book.
Also, it was odd that the fact that the memoir was taken from tapes or interviews that the Duchess of Argyll recorded with the author was not clear to me until towards the end of the book.
November 17, 2022
I waited a long (long) time to get a copy from my local library. I thought this was a new biography, but it was originally published in 1994. The author had been invited, by the subject, to write her biography, for “the benefit of her grandchildren: she wanted them to know the truth about her past.” Well, kiddies, although children no longer, you may have some time to wait to discover everything about dear granny. This is, in effect, largely an autobiography, principally because the author insisted that all interviews and conversations be taped. An only child of millionaire parents she was given neither attention or love. The author himself describes her as a liar.
Authorial input is both gratuitous and facile: he opines on love: “… men feel …more akin to hometown remedies . Theirs is, by and large, a physical, practical love, lacking in huge sacrifice”.
I await an impartial legitimate biography.
Authorial input is both gratuitous and facile: he opines on love: “… men feel …more akin to hometown remedies . Theirs is, by and large, a physical, practical love, lacking in huge sacrifice”.
I await an impartial legitimate biography.
April 5, 2022
A fairly ho-hum biography of an appalling woman, the last two paragraphs sum her up perfectly.
"She had known everybody, been everywhere, had every material advantage, been bestowed with legendary good looks.
Never had so much fortune been used to achieve so little."
"She had known everybody, been everywhere, had every material advantage, been bestowed with legendary good looks.
Never had so much fortune been used to achieve so little."
May 18, 2022
Margaret
This book goes with the TV series about the divorce of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll. The writer is very unsympathetic to his subject, not without reason, the style though is difficult- as it includes a deal of transcribed interviews, making it disjointed and repetitive.
This book goes with the TV series about the divorce of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll. The writer is very unsympathetic to his subject, not without reason, the style though is difficult- as it includes a deal of transcribed interviews, making it disjointed and repetitive.
January 10, 2022
Fascinating
January 25, 2022
Terribly written, dull and an appalling person to boot. Don’t bother.
January 23, 2023
Very engrossing, multi-layered, and un-biased. Enjoyed it very much.
July 17, 2023
3 stars. I wanted to read this biography of the Duchess of Argyll because I watched Season 2 of A Very English Scandal, which is about her. But I found this account rather boring. A very sad woman.
May 7, 2024
[7 Sep 1999] An interesting and informative read.
September 15, 2024
Really good couldn't put it down watch the show first I still liked reading about it.
January 20, 2022
Rather tedious - at least it was short. It had so much to go on and yet made it rather boring and difficult to read - word for word transcription from interviews the author conducted with Margaret made me feel I was reading a magazine article rather than a book.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews