Claire Foy really knows her way around a royal scandal, so you can’t blame the casting team of new Amazon drama A Very British Scandal for choosing her as the lead.
In it, The Crown actor plays British socialite, Margaret Whigham, better known as the Duchess of Argyll, whose high profile divorce led to the kind of tabloid fodder that would have Prince Charles and Camilla shaking in their boots. The three-part mini-series follows the Duchess’ marriage, and its subsequent breakdown with Ian Campbell, the Duke of Argyll. As the title suggests, the events that took place behind closed doors, along with the revelations about her sex life exposed in their 1960s court case were enough to evoke a media frenzy of salacious headlines and gossip that spread to every corner of the UK.
“We’re perverts, aren’t we?” Foy previously said of the interest surrounding the new series, and indeed, the story of the Duchess.
“Deep down, all British people love it: We love gossip and love the titillating things other people are getting up to,” she told The New York Times.
But just like all television adaptations, there are moments that circle the grey areas between fact and fiction—so if you’re wondering just how accurate the series is, keep scrolling for the true events behind Margaret Whigham and Ian Campbell’s divorce.
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Who was Margaret Whigham, the Duchess of Argyll?
Margaret Wingham was born in Scotland, 1912 to millionaire parents, Helen Mann Hannay and George Hay Whigham. Shortly after her birth, she moved to New York City where she spent 14 years of her youth.
At age 15, Margaret fell pregnant to David Niven, who was 18 at the time and would later become a famed British actor. She was quickly transported to London where she underwent a secret abortion. She rarely spoke of the event, though she and Niven remained close.
Her profile grew in the 1930s as she mixed within Britain’s elite and aristocratic circles. She had several high profile romances that were short-lived, but much talked about, and in 1933, she married American businessman Charles Francis Sweeny. For the grand event, she wore a Norman Hartnell wedding dress that garnered attention equivalent to that of Meghan Markle’s boat-neck Givenchy bridal look in 2018.
Margaret also went on to have three children with Charles—their first tragically died in childbirth, but they had another daughter and son, Frances and Brian.
Charles and Margaret divorced in 1947, and in 1951, Margaret married the aristocrat, Ian Campbell, Duke of Argyll. This is where A Very British Scandal commences its story.
The Duke and Duchess of Argyll’s divorce: The true story
Margaret and Ian’s marriage was explosive from the get go. The Duke’s substance and alcohol abuse was no secret, and his treatment of his first two wives (prior to Margaret) was just as toxic.
He was also extremely jealous, and when he suspected his wife of infidelity, he had a locksmith break into a private cupboard belonging to Margaret for evidence. What he found became the source material for their bitter divorce court case in 1963—he found polaroids of Margaret naked with another man whose face was hidden. Dubbed, “the headless man,” it was suspected the individual was British politician, Duncan Sandys, the Minister of Defence. He offered to step down from the cabinet following the court case.
Later, it was claimed that there were actually two different men in the selection of photos, one being Sandys, and the other Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, an American actor who vehemently denied the allegations to his grave.
The Duke also presented to court a list of no less than 88 men he believed his wife had been unfaithful with, reportedly including two government ministers and three members of the royal family.
Unsurprisingly, the media hounded The Duchess. She was the centre of every single news headline at the time, the story so salacious, so scandalous that it completely overrode the realities of the problematic behaviour of her husband.
It was an early example of gendered double standards in media. In the eyes of society, especially in the 1960s, a women’s wrongdoings were scrutinised and vilified without proper fact checking, their claims of innocence cast off as lies. A Very British Scandal aims to tell the full story, from both The Duke and Duchess’ perspective.
What happened to the Duke and Duchess of Argyll after their divorce?
Mere months after their divorce, the Duke married his fourth wife, Mathilda Coster Mortimer Heller. He died of a stroke in 1973.
Meanwhile, The Duchess remained in the UK where she wrote a memoir, Forget Not, which detailed the bitter divorce, identifying key individuals involved in the scandal (though not the identity of “the headless man”). While we could look at it now as an attempt to speak her own truth, the book was received negatively at the time, and Margaret was vilified for her entitlement.
The years that followed were tough for the former Duchess, who struggled to keep up with the extravagant lifestyle she’d lived in previous decades. By 1990, she was evicted from her London residence and was placed in a nursing home by her children.
In 1993, she died after suffering a bad fall. She was buried alongside her first husband Charles in Surrey.
