At the trial, the Duke submitted a list of 88 men he said the Duchess had slept with during their marriage, as well as Polaroids he stole from her showing the Duchess performing oral sex on an unknown man whose head was not in the picture. †
The judge, who ruled in favor of the duke in 1963, said the duchess was a “completely promiscuous woman” who had indulged in “disgusting sexual activity to satisfy a diminished sexual desire”. The details of the “headless man” photos were gleefully jotted down in British newspapers, which raked in the case for months. Margaret the glittering socialite became Margaret “the dirty duchess”.
For the rest of her life, she wasted the fortune she inherited from her father on a series of failed lawsuits and questionable investments. Her personal relationships didn’t fare much better: she got into a fight with a daughter from her first marriage and many of her friends. The Duchess died in poverty, at the age of 80, in a retirement home in London. The first hymn at her funeral, in 1993, began: “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, forgive our foolish ways.”
Sarah Phelps, who wrote the script for “A Very British Scandal,” said the Duchess’s case and the media uproar surrounding it represented “the end of an era.” It was “the birth of a different kind of journalism and a way to write about sex and scandal in a very, very careful way,” she said. And it paved the way for later media portrayals of Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse and Meghan Markle — “that cruelty and anger that is aimed at women in the public eye,” she said.
As the initial outcry subsided, the Duchess continued to be the subject of sobbing allusions for decades. Grinning men posed for photos next to the front sign aboard a Scottish boat that shared her name: “Here in line for the Duchess of Argyll.”
Today’s TV audiences will be more sympathetic to the Duchess, who now looks like a victim of “slut shaming” and unconsensual sharing of her photos as “revenge porn.” It’s unlikely that many viewers will judge her for a sexual act that some women’s magazines are now tipping on performing. Even so, they may still find it hard to warm to the Duchess, who plays Foy as an arrogant, wily snob.