Duke of Marlborough
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Search complete. 35 mentions across 15 episodes found for "Duke of Marlborough".
Nov 4, 2026
BearHOST
Forgot about that.
BearHOST
Anyway, Fledham Palace was built in the 1700s, and by the late 1800s, the owner, Charles Spencer Churchill, who was the 9th Duke of Marlborough, Yes.
BearHOST
He was in despair because his landscape had begun to crumble.
BearHOST
Basically, he had lots of land and no
Carl RaymondHOST
So, Liz, we've talked about some generalities here, but I'd really like to dive into a couple of the major Gilded Age weddings and really look at some more specifics and some examples of what we've been talking about.
Carl RaymondHOST
So probably, hands down, the most famous of them all is Consuelo Vanderbilt marrying the Duke of Marlborough, which was, of course, fictionalized into the Gladys Russell marriage to her duke in the Gilded Age series.
Carl RaymondHOST
series.
Carl RaymondHOST
So one of the really most important elements of the original marriage here was the media frenzy surrounded.
Katie CharlwoodHOST
And so, she does what any reasonable woman would do.
Katie CharlwoodHOST
She arranges for the 9th Duke of Marlborough to visit so that she can wed him off to her only daughter to secure her place in New York high society again.
Katie CharlwoodHOST
Because the thing is, the Duke was in the US on a mission to secure himself a dollar princess.
Katie CharlwoodHOST
See, some nobles were content to stay in England and wait for the heiresses to swan into the Malborset or promenade in St. James's Park, but Sonny here, he was called Sonny to his friends, he was taking matters into his own hands.
Katie CharlwoodHOST
Alva sends Consuelo to Europe to separate the couple, right? She's like, nipping this in the bud, off to go, Europe, off you go, bye-bye, right? So she straight up locks Consuelo in her room under guard because she just cannot trust her and like all of the mail, all of the letters that are going in and out are monitored just in case, just in case she tries to to contact him right right and Alva tells her like she is like listen if they try and elope she will straight up shoot Winthrop Rutherford right now will she pay to have him killed would she shoot him herself whom's to say Alva is not a force you want to reckon with right as a piece de resistance in total it's total manipulation and it's really bad but also Consuelo girl pay attention so her mother Alva says that she'll have a heart attack if you know Consuelo doesn't abide by her rules like it's the stress of it all is gonna kill her right oh grab my smelling salts and Consuelo's like oh no I don't want to kill my mother so she's like I'll marry the duke Consuelo Consuelo this is this is of your mother's doing but Anyway, I'm not going to judge you, right? Because you're so young.
Katie CharlwoodHOST
Consuelo agrees to marry the Duke and just in case, because they are so worried that she's just gonna abscond, right? She is like guarded, locked in her room, like leading up to the wedding, like just in case she tries to make a break for it.
Katie CharlwoodHOST
But Consuelo Vanderbilt married Charles Richard John Spencer Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, on the 6th of November 1895.
Katie CharlwoodHOST
She walked up the aisle of St Thomas' Church in New York City, tears streaming down her face behind the veil.
Mike Fenton StevensHOST
He was a lovely, lovely man.
Mike Fenton StevensHOST
He played the Duke of Marlborough when we did Queen Anne in London.
Mike Fenton StevensHOST
And he took over from a Scottish actor who played it in Stratford.
Mike Fenton StevensHOST
And a lot of people said, well, why is he playing the Duke of Marlborough? And he went, well, he's not actually the Duke of Bournemouth.
Mike Fenton StevensHOST
He's an actor.
Temi WilkeyGUEST
Yeah.
Simon WhistlerHOST
The bayoneted musket was replacing the pike as a standard infantry weapon, the firepower of muskets and cannons was increasing, and the concept of organized supply chains was being refined so armies could be kept in the field for much longer periods of time.
Simon WhistlerHOST
No one took better advantage of these new tactics to win glory for himself and his country than John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough.
Simon WhistlerHOST
Marlborough was one of the first generals to master the art of leading a coalition army from multiple different countries, and was celebrated for his tactical genius and for his organizational skills that made his army one of the most dangerous in Europe.
Simon WhistlerHOST
He was also a natural-born political animal, rising to his high station in no small part due to his powerful friends, including royalty.
12 MINS LATER
Simon WhistlerHOST
Marlborough took command in the Low Countries, where the war was to be principally fought.
Simon WhistlerHOST
Immediately outmaneuvered his opponent, Marshal Bouffleur, and took four cities in the Netherlands.
Simon WhistlerHOST
A grateful Queen made him the Duke of Marlborough, but when he returned to war the next year, the French foiled the allied designs for a quick end to the war, and Marlborough came under attack by the politics politics at home.
Simon WhistlerHOST
Marlborough was a Tory, and they had control of the government and had the favor of the Queen.
Mike ParryHOST
was
Mike GrahamHOST
about a man who pretended to be the 12th Duke of Marlborough.
Mike GrahamHOST
Have you seen this story? No, what did he do that for? He'd
Mike ParryHOST
just been done for fraud.
Mike ParryHOST
Could you keep the family jewels in the safe? That's right.
Mike GrahamHOST
Defrauded six top London hotels, including Claridge's in Mayfair, where he spent £1,788 over three days between February and July of this year.
Mike GrahamHOST
He's from Southend, right? And he pretended to be the 12th Duke of Marlborough, also checking in under the name sometimes Lord Jamie Spencer, which is a name very similar to James Spencer Churchill, who is the real
Mike ParryHOST
12th Duke of Marlborough,
Kiki AstorHOST
Alva Vanderbilt, who'd built the nearby marble house, wanted a title in the family.
Kiki AstorHOST
so she arranged for her 18-year-old daughter, Consuelo, to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough.
Kiki AstorHOST
Consuelo was in love with someone else.
Kiki AstorHOST
By her own later account, her mother kept her isolated and threatened her until she agreed.
Gerry MullinsGUEST
So he was taking the pride of Europeans, and particularly his own country, and turning it on its head and saying, look, even this unsophisticated king out there in some far-off land can see how destructive and awful this is.
Myles DunganHOST
And the context of all of this is the wars of the Spanish War of Spanish Succession, the rise of the Duke of Marlborough, for example, where he becomes famous.
Myles DunganHOST
That's the background to all
Gerry MullinsGUEST
of this.
Brendan TwomeyGUEST
And going back to my earlier joke, it's in four or five paragraphs and he moves on to the next joke.
Brendan TwomeyGUEST
It's just incredible.
Gerry MullinsGUEST
Do you mind, Milo, if I go back to your earlier point about Duke of Marlborough and the war span of succession? Because this is where his writing 300 years ago is so relevant to our day.
Gerry MullinsGUEST
So Duke of Marlborough, an ancestor of Winston
Eliot CohenGUEST
So for example, if somebody wanted to read one book by Churchill that would teach you something about strategy, I wouldn't say the World War II memoirs.
Eliot CohenGUEST
I would say his biogra- biography of the Duke of Marlborough.
Eliot CohenGUEST
Six volumes, fantastic, beautifully written.
Eliot CohenGUEST
Still, from a scholarly point of view, quite sound.
Eliot CohenGUEST
'Cause his, his-- the Duke of Marlborough had to manage a very difficult coalition war, and that's what Churchill is writing about.
Eliot CohenGUEST
He's sort of meditating on that.
Eliot CohenGUEST
And then finally, I think you need to read history in some considerable width.
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