LADY ELIZABETH GEORGIANA ALICE CAVENDISH : NMNK MISTRESS OF POET LAUREATE JOHN BETJEMAN

 LADY ELIZABETH GEORGIANA ALICE CAVENDISH

1926-2018

One of the few public photos of Sir John Betjeman and his Mistress

Lady Elizabeth Cavendish

(pinterest)

I know how much my readers love to know about Modern Mistresses, especially more obscure women from the peerage in the British Isles. Perhaps if you're a member of this elite group you know all the inside information, but Lady Elizabeth Georgiana Alive Cavendish is not a famous woman (or an infamous one) and so I was surprised to know that her arrangement was remarked upon in multiple obituaries and being a Mistress didn't stop her from being acknowledged or rewarded for her accomplishments.

According to numerous accounts, Lady Elizabeth grew up as friends with both Princess Elizabeth (The Queen Elizabeth II) and the Queen's sister, Princess Margaret. She became one of Princess Margaret's Ladies In Waiting from the late 1940's until Margaret's death in 2002 - a long assignment. (As we may have been informed by the series The Crown, Margaret lived an unconventional life and so I can guess that Lady Elizabeth was in the know about Margaret's wild times.) Sometimes we are shocked by just how unconventional Royals and the Peerage can be, perhaps because we think they are prim and proper people being English and in such high standing but maybe they just do as they do knowing theirs is an insular world.

According to The Times - UK, obituary, Lady Elizabeth was already waiting on Margaret at the age of twenty-five when in 1951 she went to a dinner party in London hosted by Lady Pamela Berry and there met John Betjeman, who was not yet Poet Laureate. She was gawky tall and shy, perhaps uncomfortable, and didn't speak to him at all that night and yet some connection must have been made, because that was the start of something. 

Betjeman, born in 1906, twenty years older than she, and married since 1933 to the Honorable Penelope Chetwode, had attended Oxford College but did not graduate. He was involved in World War II but perhaps in intelligence. The couple had a son and a daughter together, in 1937, Paul, and in 1942, Candida.

As if to explain why there was never a divorce, a Wiki on Betjeman, which was highly referenced, especially in regards to his literary accomplishments, states that Penelope "became a Catholic in 1948" I note just a couple years before this meeting. No divorce for Catholics but was that it? There are also major mentions that he was bisexual, at least in his imagination. So Interestingly one wonders why then so many of Lady Elizabeth's obit's have the words "Lover, Companion, and Carer." Despite such rumors he was a High Anglican and even a Church Warden for a while.

Since John Betjeman died in 1984, and they met in 1951, my math tells me that Elizabeth and John were in each other's lives for thirty-three years! The obituary in The Telegraph calls her "The Other Wife" acknowledging that Betjeman had a legal wife and a Mistress and she reportedly was at his bedside when he died. She was a devoted to him. According to a YouTube video from poster Dead Obituary, Betjeman's daughter Candida Lycett Green called Lady Elizabeth her father's "beloved other wife." Apparently he himself referred to Lady Elizabeth as his "London Wife."

Do you know what NMNK stands for?  It means Never Married No Kids. Why does it seem so rare for a Mistress to have never had a child? Well, the description fits Lady Elizabeth. She was satisfied to have this relationship with this man and endured in it and was there at his death bed.

Perhaps Lady Elizabeth grew up knowing about Georgiana Spencer Cavendish, an ancestor who allowed her husband another woman in their home where they lived together sharing a man for many years. (I'll post about the film made about that love triangle latter this month.)

According to multiple sources, Lady Elizabeth achieved some recognition for her service to Princess Margaret. In 1976 she was made a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order. My research reveals that this is an order of knighthood that Queen Victoria established in 1896 to recognize someone's personal service to the Queen or members of the Monarchy.  Twenty years later Lady Elizabeth became a Commander in the same Order. She was also a Justice of the Peace in the city of London and served in the juvenile and adult courts. It's my guess that the once shy young woman was not shy for long.

Just to further help you tie this noblewoman into other posts here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, our Mistresses of the Month, Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy, an older sister of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who I covered in March 2017 married into her family.

Elizabeth's brother Andrew became the 11th Duke of Devonshire and her brother William, Marquess of Hartington is the one who married Kick after a very long wait due to their religious differences. He was killed during World War II making her a young widow. If interested in reading about Kick, who after the death of her husband went back to England and became a Mistress anticipating marriage, go into that month's archives or search for her within the blog!

While an unpaid Lady In Waiting and never married, the discreet Lady Elizabeth refused to talk about her relationship, which was an Open Secret.  According to a September 18, 2018 article by Sebastian Shakespeare in Daily Mail UK entitled "Betjemen's Mistress Leaves 10 Million (pounds) To Adopted Nieces After Dying Age 92," John's wife Penelope found out about his "London Wife" in 1973 when she moved a few blocks away.

And according to that writer, all Lady Elizabeth's correspondence is held by Chatsworth House Trust, as Chatsworth House is where she grew up, and it will be held there sealed for many years hence. 

C 2021 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot All Rights Reserved

References for this months posts include the aforementioned as well as genealogy sites, wiki's, numerous articles in the British press - newspapers, YouTube videos, and some specifically mentioned references. One article that I had the damnest time trying to read because the teaser required a subscription was in the Telegraph.co.uk obituaries on September 18 2018. I can't link to it for you because you too will require a subscription to read it.  The Telegraph seemed to be quite interested in Lady Elizabeth.

 

Thanks for reading!