The banjo-playing courtier who became a duchess
Descended from Louisiana plantation owners and Cuban sugar barons, Consuelo Yznaga nurtured a Southern-belle image. But she was born in New York City and grew up mainly in posh northeast enclaves.
When George Montagu, Lord Mandeville, the future Duke of Manchester, came down with a fever during a visit to America in 1875, Consuelo’s mother Ellen pounced. She whisked the 23year-old off to the Yznaga estate in Orange, New Jersey. There, her blonde, charming daughter nursed him back to health — away from all possible competition.
After the family promised the spendthrift young lord a huge dowry of $6 million in today’s money, Consuelo and George — known as Kim — married in New York’s Grace Church in 1876.
Her fortune was soon lost to her husband’s bad habits. Kim ran through so much cash on gambling and music-hall mistresses that his exasperated father banished the couple to the family castle in Ireland, where Consuelo dutifully bore Kim three children.
The exile did nothing to exorcise Kim’s vices. By 1883, he was back with his mistress, and the couple was living apart in London.
There, Consuelo leveraged her social cachet into a kind of career. Her drawl and her exotic ability to pluck a banjo and sing American folksongs won over the Prince of
Wales, who frequently asked her to chic dinners and country house parties.
That made her a member of Britain’s most exclusive social circle. Soon she was offering introductions, along with lessons in deportment and court manners, to the next generation of American “dollar princesses” — for a large fee.
Her business got a boost when her father-in-law died in 1890, making her the Duchess of Manchester at last. But the estate was saddled with enormous debts. Kim died two years later, of cirrhosis of the liver.
Consuelo’s financial worries finally eased in 1901, when her brother left her $2 million ($60 million in today’s money) — enough cash for her to keep the newly crowned King Edward VII entertained.