Gladys guns for her Duke
QUESTION Why did Gladys Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, keep a gun in her bed?
Gladys spencer-Churchill, duchess of Marlborough, was once feted as one of the world’s most beautiful women. But botched plastic surgery and a failed marriage led to increasingly erratic behaviour, including threats to shoot her husband with a gun she kept beside her bed.
Gladys was born in Paris in 1881 to wealthy americans Edward and Florence deacon. Her socialite mother embarked on an affair with Frenchman Emile abeille. When Edward learned of it, he fatally shot abeille and was sent to prison for a year.
On his release, he filed for divorce, won custody of Gladys and her sisters and took them to the U.s. He ended up in an asylum and died of syphilis in 1901.
The 20-year-old Gladys returned to Paris, where her looks caused a sensation. French novelist Marcel Proust wrote of her: ‘I never saw a girl with such beauty, such magnificent intelligence, such goodness and charm.’
Giovanni Boldini painted her portrait and auguste Rodin carved her statue. The crown prince of Prussia was besotted.
Gladys became obsessed with the american railroad heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt and her husband Charles ‘sunny’ spencerChurchill, ninth duke of Marlborough. Their marriage was one of convenience: Consuelo’s mother alva wanted a title and sunny needed the money, so a deal was struck. For a dowry of £1 million, Consuelo became duchess of Marlborough and chatelaine of Blenheim Palace.
The unhappy Consuelo embarked on a series of flings. Gladys saw her chance and began an affair with sunny. He divorced Consuelo in 1921 and married Gladys later that year.
However, Gladys’s wedding day was marred by her greatest regret. Even though her looks were celebrated across Europe, she worried that her beauty was fading. Concerned about a kink in her famous Grecian nose, she had paraffin wax injected to smooth the contours.
alas, it migrated and settled in her chin, leaving her with a permanently bulky jaw. diana Mitford poisonously remarked that her face resembled ‘a deflated balloon’. Gladys became bored, isolated and afraid to go out in public. she began to breed Blenheim spaniels, which had the run of the palace, driving sunny to distraction.
Her behaviour became more erratic. she kept a revolver in her bedside drawer and brought it to dinner. When questioned about what she intended to do with it, she answered: ‘Oh, I don’t know. I might just shoot Marlborough.’
In 1933, sunny fired her staff and fled the palace, leaving Gladys alone there for two years before evicting her. she moved to their london flat until he cut off the gas and electricity. Before they could divorce, the duke died.
Gladys moved to an isolated farmhouse in the Oxfordshire village of Mixbury. she brought her pack of dogs and some mementos from her old life, including her portrait by Boldini, and lived as a recluse until her death in 1977.
Sandra Hoyland,
Lytham St Annes, Lancs.