We have pleasure in introducing The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power and Intrigue in an English Stately Home. By Natalie Livingston.

The Mistresses of Cliveden is the story of five women, and a biography of the house in which they lived. It is by turns a historical epic, a political thriller, a family drama, and an intimate history of the relationships between people and place. Above all, it is a story about sex and power and the ways in which exceptional women have evaded, exploited and confronted the expectations of their times.

During its twilight Cliveden was an emblem of elite misbehaviour and intrigue: some three hundred years after Buckingham realised his vision, the house once again served as the stage for a scandal, the Profumo Affair, which would bring down a government and change the course of British history. In the three hundred years between the Countess and Keeler, the house was occupied by a dynasty of remarkable women: Elizabeth Villiers, an intellectual who brokered the rise and fall of governments; Augusta of saxe-Gotha, a minor German royal who almost became Queen of England; Harriet Duchess of Sutherland, the glittering society hostess turned political campaigner; and Nancy Astor, the consummate controversialist who became the first woman to take a seat in parliament. Under the direction of these women, Cliveden provided a stage for political plots and artistic premieres hosted grieving monarchs and republican radicals, was idealised as a family home, and maligned as a threat to national security.

About the Author 

Natalie Livingstone was born and raised in London, she graduated with a first-class degree in history from Christ's College, Cambridge in 1998. She began her career as a feature writer at the Daily Express and now contributes to Tatler, Harper's Bazaar, Us Vogue, Elle, The Times and The Mail on Sunday. Natalie lives in London with her husband and two children.

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