Allan Ledger talks to Paul Blezard

Historian Allan Ledger offers a snapshot of 18th-century society life at Blenheim Palace through the true story of the love affair and marriage between the 4th Duke of Marlborough’s daughter and an Oxford vicar. Lady Charlotte Spencer was banished from Blenheim Palace after her marriage to the Reverend Edward Nares. Their relationship grew out of acting together in private theatricals performed at Blenheim’s newly created and highly fashionable private theatre. As Jane Austen described in Mansfield Park, these private theatricals often led to dangerous intimacies.

Ledger, an historian with a particular interest in the 18th century, describes how the affair rocked 1790s society and uncovers the amateur theatricals of the day that inspired it.

Sponsored by The Manor at Weston on the Green.