Elizabeth and Georgiana

Animated by beauty, intelligence and thirst for knowledge - but forever at the mercy of her "too feeling heart" - Lady Elizabeth Foster's life was dramatic, colourful and riven by crises both personal and political.

Born a Hervey, one of the foremost families in England, she married young and foolishly.

Within seven years she was separated from her husband and children, and condemned to pass her days in poverty and social obscurity.

But her meeting with the Duke of Devonshire and his enchanting wife Georgiana changed her life for ever.

She became Georgiana's inseparable friend, the Duke's mistress and a member of the Devonshire House circle, a social and political elite composed of some of the most brilliant figures of their day.

Gifted with a remarkable memory, she recorded in her journals every twist and turn of the Regency crises, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.With unlimited access to the Dormer archives, the journals and unpublished letters still owned by Lady Elizabeth's descendant, Caroline Chapman reveals not the false friend and scheming mistress portrayed by previous chronicles of the period but a woman passionately attached to the Duke and Duchess, devoted to her children and capable of lasting friendships with major figures like Madame de Stael and Edward Gibbon.

Always an ardent European and intrepid traveller, after her marriage to the Duke and his death, her last years were spent in Rome where she rapidly achieved eminence in society as a brilliant hostess, patron of the arts and as the close friend of one of the century's greatest statesmen, Cardinal Consalvi.