Past Loves – A History Of The Greatest Love Stories
Welcome back to Past Loves - the weekly history podcast that explores affection, infatuation and attachment across time.
This week I am joined by Julia Abel Smith who has enjoyed a long career with The Landmark Trust and more recently with Art UK. She has also written for Country Life and House & Garden magazines. Whilst researching the history of one of the Trust’s follies, she discovered Lady Augusta and was captivated. Lady Augusta had secretly married Prince Augustus, the son of George III. She was Augusta. He was Augustus. They shared a birthday. It seemed like destiny but their marriage would be marred by scandal.
Julia weaves together the correspondence of the couple during the first intoxicating months of their relationship in Italy, detailing their secret marriage, before revealing their subsequent fight to be together against the backdrop of Augustus' father's Royal Marriages Act of 1772. It is a love story set in the reigns of Kings George III and IV against the background of the American and French Revolutions with plenty of drama of its own. Over the years, their relationship has been lost to history, until now...
Where To Find Us
Shop Julia's book Forbidden Wife: The Life And Trials of Lady Augusta Murray: https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/forbidden-wife/9780750993333/
Follow Past Loves on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pastlovespodcast/
If Past Loves has become your current love, you can email me at [email protected]