‘A Very British Scandal’: Claire Foy and Sarah Phelps Reflect on Judge’s Brutal 1963 Take Down of Margaret Campbell

thewrap.com:

When a judge finally granted the divorce of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll in 1963, he famously delivered a blistering three-hour and seven-minute rebuke of Duchess Margaret Campbell, disguised as a judgment, where he branded her a “completely promiscuous woman.” The divorce case was filled with accusations by her husband, Ian Campbell, the Duke, of flagrant adultrey, titilating rumors about sexual liaisons coded in her diaries, and much discussion about a scandalous Polaroid photograph of Margaret in an intimate act with someone other than her husband.

The case left Margaret vilified by the press in a pre-sexual revolution Britain and branded the “Dirty Duchess,” while her former husband, who was also accused of adultrey, escaped similar criticism.

She also lost friends and status in the upper class circles she frequented. And it’s this period of time that’s documented in the Prime Video three-part drama “A Very British Scandal” starring Emmy winner Claire Foy, and created and written by Sarah Phelps (“Dublin Murders”).“It’s not the first example of, but it was one of [them] — it was a sort of sense that this is when the kind of scrutiny of women’s behavior just had such a huge reach,” Phelps told TheWrap. “And in a way the divorce kind of burst the tabloid interest.

They came hand in hand. And the shaming of her, the destruction of her, was pretty much global. There was a real global appetite for this member of the aristocracy, this woman that everybody had watched be the ‘best dressed’ … the most stylish, the most wealthy.