Word: dukedom
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...second to bear the Marlborough title was no duke but a duchess. In the absence of a male heir to the first duke-whose only son died of smallpox in 1703-an act of Parliament permitted the dukedom to pass in the female line. His daughter Henrietta (1681-1733) succeeded him as second Duchess, became a great and good friend of Playwright William Congreve...
...eloquence. On the approaching marriage of Consuelo Vanderbilt to the Duke of Marlborough, he mocked: "The fiancé of Miss Vanderbilt is descended...through a long line of titled cuckolds and shameless pimps, and now stands on the ragged edge of poverty, bartering to parvenus for bread an empty dukedom bought with a female relative's dishonor." Brann scoffed at James Whitcomb Riley, "the poetical ass with the three-story name," railed at a clergyman-critic as a "monstrous bag of fetid wind," adding: "The man who can find intellectual food in [his] sermons could acquire a case...
...visiting royalty floods the capital ("Ava Gardner and H.S.H. Kelly are in residence"). Two hundred nobles come out of the woodwork and descend on Versailles, all set to eat Pippin out of house and palace. His daughter's American suitor proposes to merchandise the impoverished monarchy ("The Dukedom of Dallas?-why, ten billionaires would be after it"). All goes well as long as Pippin is content to remain wax in the hands of his advisers. Unfortunately, ermine makes the king, and he is soon drawn to exercise his divine rights...
...Ascoyne, born in humble surroundings, but brought up with the vision of the high state he descended from constantly before him, makes up his mind to revenge himself and his mother for the high-handedness of their treatment by doing in all the members in the succession to his dukedom. And all this is brought to pass with the typical Guinness finesse. He plays all the deceased members of the family, as well as the intrepid hero. Most wonderful for its charitable satire is his portrayal of the doddering Anglican clergyman of the clan of D'Ascoyne who is rather...
...aunts had a large estate in Scotland." From the time they first met three years ago, Barbara had been too much in love to ask questions, and she scarcely batted an eye when Morton-Stewart told friends that their son was heir to a dukedom...