A Very British Scandal, the BBC’s latest three-part drama that everyone is talking about, comes to its dramatic conclusion tonight.
At the centre of the must-see series is Margaret Campbell, the Duchess of Argyll (Claire Foy) whose promiscuous lifestyle led to one of the most salacious divorce trials in history.
But what happened to Margaret after her very public divorce and what became of her children?
Here is all you need to know about the British socialite.
Who was the Duchess of Argyll?
The future Duchess of Argyll was born Ethel Margaret Whigham on December 1, 1912, in Scotland to a millionaire father.
Shortly after her birth, the family moved to New York, where Margaret spent her first 15 years of life before moving back to the UK.
By 1930, Margaret was briefly engaged to the 7th Earl of Warwick – but this was quickly called off following her affair with the married Prince George of Kent.
In 1933, Margaret married Charles Francis Sweeny, an Irish-American stockbroker and amateur golfer, whose family’s millions came from coal mining, oil, and smelting.
So popular was the young bride that traffic in London’s Knightsbridge was blocked for three hours as onlookers tried to get a glimpse of her wedding dress.
But their relationship broke down, ending in divorce in 1947.
Margaret claimed that all he wanted in a spouse was a ‘pretty brainless doll’. However, Charles reportedly said that Margaret ‘changed totally’ after falling 40ft down a lift shaft in 1943 while visiting a chiropodist on Bond Street.
In 1951, Margaret became the third wife of Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll.
What happened to the Duchess of Argyll?
The marriage very quickly fell to pieces, leading to one of the most salacious divorce trials in history.
The Duke suspected his wife of infidelity and, after breaking into her personal files, published evidence used in their 1963 divorce case which included a set of Polaroid photographs of Margaret naked in the company of another man.
There were also photographs of Margaret engaged in a sex act with a naked man whose face was not shown.
The ‘headless man’ was speculated to be the Minister of Defence Duncan Sandys (later Lord Duncan-Sandys, son-in-law of Winston Churchill) or American actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr – but she never revealed his identity.
A list of some 88 men with whom the Duke believed his wife had consorted was produced, including two government ministers and three members of the royal family.
Lord Wheatley, the presiding judge, granted the Duke his divorce from the Duchess.
During the trial, the judge said the evidence proved that Margaret ‘was a completely promiscuous woman whose sexual appetite could only be satisfied with a number of men’.
He continued: ‘Her attitude to the sanctity of marriage was what moderns would call “enlightened” but which in plain language was wholly immoral.’
However, the Duke’s own alleged infidelity was not discussed during the hearing.
In her 1975 memoir Forget Not, which was slated for its incessant name-dropping and air of entitlement, Margaret suggested that her ex-husband had been courting his fourth wife while he was still married to her.
Margaret wrote: ‘Three weeks after our divorce became final Ian Argyll married again, for the fourth time, to a Mrs Matilda Heller. She had been in Ian’s life for some years before our divorce.’
Mathilda’s name was misspelled in the memoir, many believed this was done deliberately out of spite.
The Duke remarried just four months after his divorce from Margaret.
The divorce hearing was the longest and most costly of the 20th Century, and Margaret was ordered to foot most of the £50,000 legal bill, according to the Daily Mail.
Margaret’s fortune diminished after her divorce from the Duke, so she capitalised on the public interest in her social life, and opened her London house at 48 Upper Grosvenor Street for paid tours.
In 1990, she had been living in a hotel but was evicted as she couldn’t pay the bills after a life of luxury and indulgence.
Her children moved her to a nursing home in Pimlico, London – where she suffered a fatal fall in 1993.
Margarate’s net worth after her divorce is unknown, but it is widely reported that she died totally penniless.
She was buried alongside her first husband, Charles Sweeny, who had died only four months earlier, in Woking’s Brookwood Cemetery.
Where are the Duchess of Argyll’s children now?
Margarate had two children, both with her first husband Charles Sweeny.
Her first was a daughter, named Frances Helen, who was born in 1937.
Frances married Charles Manners, 10th Duke of Rutland, and the couple had four children together.
She was widowed in 1999, and has not remarried since.
Margarate’s second child was a son named Brian Charles, who was born in 1940.
Before he died earlier this year, Brian was a financial investment consultant with two children and four grandchildren.
Both Frances and Brian stayed out of the public limelight, and kept their private lives behind closed doors.
Before these pregnancies, Margarate suffered eight miscarriages and a stillborn daughter.
When Margarate was 15, she was allegedly impregnated by 18-year-old British novelist and actor David Niven on the Isle of Wight. Her father rushed his daughter to London for an abortion at a nursing home.
Who was the Duchess of Argyll’s father?
Margaret was the only child of Helen Mann Hannay and George Hay Whigham, a Scottish millionaire who chaired a multi-billion dollar technology company in the US.
The Fortune 500 company, Celanese Corporation, still exists to this day and is based in Texas.
A Very British Scandal concludes tonight at 9pm on BBC One.
MORE : A Very British Scandal: The drama’s characters and their real-life counterparts side by side
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