KINGSTON, Duchess of (ELIZABETH CHUDLEIGH), English adventuress: h. 1720; d. Paris, 1788. She was the daughter of Thomas Chudleigh, a man of no particular social stand ing, who died when his daughter was only six years old, leaving the family in poverty.
Fli7abeth Chudleigh grew up to be a young woman of remarkable beauty, wit and intelli gence. Through these gifts and some distant family connections she succeeded in being ap pointed maid of honor to the Princess of Wales. Of this advantage she made the best possible use for her own advancement. This was not particularly difficult since the Princess was the mother of Prince George who was destined to become king as George III in 1760. At the age of 24 she was privately mar ried to Captain Hervey, a man of high social standing; but his and her own irregular con duct caused their separation in a short time. She then became openly, in succession, the mistress of several prominent men until finally she succeeded in becoming the wife of the second Duke of Kingston with whom she had been living in irregular union for some years. The latter, who was passionately at tached to her, left her his large fortune by will (1773), which she was able to retain in spite of an attempt on the part of the relatives of Kingston to break the will on the plea that the Duchess was a bigamist, having one husband living when she married Kingston.
After Kingston's death she wandered about Europe, England proving uncongenial on ac count of the attitude of the relatives of her late consort. She was for a while in Russia, principally at Saint Petersburg; but the cold weather of the northern land disagreeing with her, she went to Paris where, notwithstanding her advanced age, she continued to lead as dissolute a life as she had in her youth, since the Kingston wealth enabled her to keep open house, at a time when the court of France was noted for its disregard of the formalities of family life. Elizabeth Chudleigh has another interest apart from the romance of her life, in the fact that she is stated, on very good authority, to have been the original from which were drawn the characters of Beatrice, in Thackeray's 'Esmond) and Baroness Berustine in his 'Virginians.)