Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

Happy Birthday to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.  Recently a copy of the Gainsborough portrait was found and restored by two Syracuse University alumnae (my alma mater). Joyce Dallaportas and Ronald K. Theel found the painting at a Syracuse estate sale and confirmed that it was the lovely Duchess. You can read the article from Syracuse University magazine here Speaking of Duchesses, Sarah Ferguson The Duchess of York has been in the news lately since it was revealed that she involved in a cash-for-access scandal uncovered by the tabloid newspaper The NEWS OF THE WORLD.  The whole thing was a set-up on the part of the newspaper. The Duchess got caught on videotape offered to help a gentleman that she thought was a businessman gain access to her ex-husband Prince Andrew for the tidy sum of 500,000 pounds. Last week, she went on Oprah to explain her actions, saying that she has gotten into financial trouble again, and had hit rock bottom. You can read about it...

Ah, everyone loves a Duke, don't they? Or want to marry one. Romance novels are littered with rich, handsome Dukes, and the heroines who are vying for their hand and noble estate in marriage. A Dukedom is the highest peerage in a long list of titles of the aristocracy, and the most rare. Dukes belong to a long list of rarities, like white truffles, flawless diamonds, and Hermes Kelly bags. There are generally only 26 non-royal dukes at any one time. To be given a dukedom means that one has performed some extraordinary service to the crown (the Duke of Marlborough and his victory at Blenheim, the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo), or one is the bastard son of a King (the Duke of Richmond, the Duke of St. Albans). The last non-royal dukedom was created for the Duke of Wellington in the 19th century. Dukes were, for the most part rich, and they had fabulous estates. Think of Blenheim Palace, Floors Castles in Scotland (where Prince Andrew proposed to Fergie), and Goodwood House (home ...

Last Friday night I went to see The Duchess with one of my closest friends to cap off a pretty up and down week. I thought "hey a movie with pretty costumes, yeah!" Unfortunately there is only one word to describe this movie and that is adequate. The plot in a nutshell involves a vibrant beauty, Lady Georgiana Spencer, who marries an older man, William Cavendish, the 5th Duke of Devonshire and goes to live with him in his beautiful London mansion, Devonshire House. But she quickly learns that her husband prefers his dogs to her. She becomes a celebrity of her time and ends up trapped in an unhappy triangle with her husband and his live-in mistress. She falls passionately in love with an ambitious young politician, Charles Grey (later 2nd Earl Grey and Prime Minister, you know the one the tea is named after) and the affair causes a bitter conflict with her husband and threatens to erupt into a scandal. Keira Knightley suffers beautifully as Georgiana but she is not given much...