A Very British Scamal, which told the story about the controversial 1963 divorce trial that the Duke and Duchess were involved in, captured the attention of viewers across the nation when it aired on last week.
This was Margaret Duchess of Argyll’s sordid true story (played brilliantly by Claire Foy). Her husband called her a nymphomaniac. Ian Campbell, the 11th Duke Argyll (played in Paul Bettany), was accused of having slept with 88 men during her marriage.
However, Lady Colin Campbell, her daughter-in law and royal biographer has stated that Ian Campbell was the scandal. He joked about Mathilda Coster Morrison being his 22-year-old daughter.
Speaking to the Sun on Sunday Lady Colin, 72, who was married to Ian’s son Lord Colin Campbell for one year in 1974, said: ‘The real British scandal was that he joked that one of his wives was his daughter. He was having an affair around the time his wife was pregnant. It was common knowledge. He was known for it.
Margaret Campbell and Ian Douglas Campbell (11th Duke of Archyll) are shown on their wedding day in London at Caxton Hall. 23/03/51. A Very British Scandal brought renewed interest in the story.
Although a Very British Scamal entertained the audience with great stories, Lady Colin Campbell – The Duke of Argyll’s daughter-in law – claims the true scandal occurred between the aristocrats and their fourth wives (pictured together in 1964).
“He was my father-in law, but for me, he was just a gigolo, who got women, married them, and then stopped when he had exhausted their money.”
He was known to ‘fly into drunken angers’, and was an ‘abusive wife-beater’.
Mathilda Campbell was born in Geneva to US parents – Mathilda and Stanley in 1925. and married The Duke of Argyll in 1963 just weeks after his divorce from his first wife.
The Duchess Of Argyll was described by the ex-I’m A Celebrity contestant as ‘her best buddy’.
Tatler told her: “I was her best friend.” I was always her “sweetie” nickname. This supposed promiscuity – there’s no evidence for it. She was so fastidious that she wouldn’t want her hair mussed up.
“I recall” [a mutual friend] who said that he’d never known her to be with a man who wouldn’t have recoiled at the sight of a naked female body. She did however have major romances with Bill Lyons, the Pan Am head. He’s the one that Margaret told me was in the Polaroid.’
Lady C stated that they grew closer because of similar experiences – both with their husbands who were father and child.
Claire Foy and Paul Bettany played the roles of Claire Foy in A Very British Scandal, which aired last Wednesday.
Lady Colin Campbell (pictured), has stated that the scandal really was between Ian Campbell’s fourth wife Mathilda Pricer Mortimer and Ian Campbell. He joked that they were his daughters.
She added that the BBC’s depiction of the Duchess, who 1993 aged 80, was ‘laughable’ as she was a ‘style icon’ and had ‘unflappable hair that never moved’ whereas Claire Foy’s hair ‘swished around and walked like Joan Collins’.
This three-part series, that began on Boxing Day, tells Margaret’s real story. She was embroiled in scandal after her divorce case revealed her wild sex lives.
She dominated the front pages as her divorce from the Duke of Argyll played out – featuring accusations of forgery, theft, violence, drugtaking, secret recording, bribery and the pictures.
The first episode of A Very British Scandal took viewers by surprise as they watched Foy perform three sex scenes in the first 30 minutes of the first episode – with two different men.
The film showed Margaret seducing an unmarried man at a dinner party, before she romped with her husband in his Scottish home.
The revelation comes just days following Foy’s comments about her dislike of sex scenes. She said they made her feel ‘exploited and were the most difficult thing she could do.
Claire Foy, who played Margaret, Duchess Argyll in the Boxing Day drama.
The photo: In the following scene, the actress opened a letter containing the explicit images (pictured)
Only 16 minutes into episode 1, Margaret met a stranger while attending a party.
Although the identities of these men are not known to the public, the scenes that Margaret is seen with her female friend later suggest that Margaret frequently slept with those same men.
26 minutes later, the second sex scene was shown. This is Margaret’s arrival at Inveraray Castle, Scotland, home to Ian Campbell, Duke of Argyll.
Louise Timpson was still his wife at the time of the initial meeting.
Margaret Campbell (1912-1993), Duchess Of Argyll, outside of the Strand law courts on the second day in her case
However, the Duke was not able to stop his guest from sharing a bed with him. After they had sex, the Duke asked Margaret to be his wife.
Margaret was born 1912 and is the only child of a Scottish millionaire. Lyndsy Spence describes Margaret as a ‘daddy’s boy with an absent dad, who lived with a jealous mother, trying to remind Margaret every flaw’.
The headless man was who?
Never has been identified the ‘Headless Man,’ the male character in salacious photos of the duchess that were revealed in the divorce case. The society wanted to find his identity and the duke had to be naked in order to prove that the torso was not his.
Margaret (pictured) carried the secret information about the ‘headless men’ to her grave
The Hollywood actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and the German diplomat Sigismund of Braun were among those suspected. However, Duncan Sandys (Minister of Defence, Winston Churchill’s son-in law) was most notable.
A Channel 4 documentary in 2000 claimed that the ‘Headless Man’ was in fact two different men – Sandys and Fairbanks Jr – but it seems this may be one secret Margaret carried with her to her grave.
Margaret was thus born with a stammer, which Lionel Logue (King George VI’s speech therapist) treated.
At just fifteen, David Niven, a future film star, fell in love with her while she was on vacation on the Isle of Wight. After that, her father took her to London and gave her a secret termination.
Young, beautiful, she became a household name. Princes and millionaires wooed her, inviting Cary Grant, Noel Coward, and J Paul Getty to their Mayfair homes. After four unsuccessful engagements, she married Charles Sweeny (an Irish-American stockbroker).
Their 1933 wedding was an eventful affair that halted traffic for three hours. 2,000 of their guests were at Brompton oratory west London, while another 2,000 gathered to view the beautiful 28ft train she wore to the Norman Hartnell gown.
After 14 years of being together and having Frances as a child and Brian as a husband and wife, Margaret declared that Charlie needed a partner who was “pretty dumbless” so they split in 1947.
She married Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke, in 1951. They met on a Paris train station’s Gare de Nord station. He had pursued her tirelessly knowing that she was wealthy while his estate was nothing.
She took pity on him and convinced her father to give him £100,000 to restore his family seat in Scotland, Inveraray Castle. He signed the Deed of Gift that included various goods as security and then promised to marry her once his own divorce was finalized.
After the union, the couple was able to live in luxury. Socialites and fashion designers gathered around the duchess.
The duke quickly showed his true colors, with gambling, drug, and alcohol addiction and a violent temper.
They had previously agreed to live apart and have an open marriage. Bettany questions, “How many males do you have?” Foy responds, “How many wives do you own?”
The duke was furious that his extravagant lifestyle wasn’t being supported by the duchess and hired private detectives in order to track his wife. He applied for divorce.
A set of blurry Polaroid shots of the Duchess of Cambridge, taken from her Mayfair bathroom mirror. These pictures showed her in her classic triple-string of pearls. One picture shows her with an unidentified lover. His head has been removed from the image and he was later known as the “Headless Men”.
Her husband allegedly used a locksmith in order to access his wife’s papers.
However, the prehistoric legal system and her many ‘lovers’ who were homosexual prevented the duchess revealing her side without being imprisoned.
A Very British Scandal examines the attitudes to women in the period. Margaret, who was publicly shamed and betrayed by her friends, refused silence during the divorcing battle.
He filed for divorce four years later, but a verdict did not come until then. It was granted on Margaret’s grounds.
She was ordered to pay most of the £50,000 legal bill. Between then and six weeks later, little was known about him or his marriage to Mathilda, an American woman of wealth, nor his affairs.
Margaret fell out of love with Frances after the case. Frances had never wanted Margaret to support the divorce. Her fortune was reduced due to Margaret’s extravagant lifestyle and poor investments. Although she eventually reconciled herself with Frances after the case, Margaret lost her home. She was then placed in London’s nursing home, where she later died in 1993.
The original photograph showed Margaret – wearing nothing but a string of pearls – involved in a sexual act with a ‘headless’ man in her home.
He was not identified and the photo was taken at his neck.
A documentary from 2000 however identified Sandys as Winston Churchill’s Cabinet minister, and his son-in law Duncan Sandys.