Stately Passions

The story of Britain's great stately homes and the scandals, predominately sexual, which the owners and their families have been involved in from the sixteenth century to the present day. It details some of the most notorious scandals to have engulfed the British royal family and aristocracy and captures not only the events and their era, but also the essence of some of the world's greatest and most beautiful private dwellings. From the Hampton Court of Henry VIII to the modern scandals that saw the present Lord Brocket jailed, "Stately Passions" gives centre stage to the British stately homes that have played witness to centuries of aristocratic indiscretion. Whether examining the 'Profumo Affair', the call-girl scandal at Cliveden, the home of Viscount Astor, that eventually brought down a government, or the affairs of the lesbian Vita Sackville-West and her bisexual husband, Harold Nicolson, at Sissinghurst Castle; or considering the goings-on at Fort Belvedere, the Surrey bolthole where the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, conducted his affair with the American divorcee Wallis Simpson that eventually led to his abdication, "Stately Passions" provides a fascinating insight into the lives, loves - and morals, dubious though they may be - of some notorious denizens of the aristocratic world.