Family Life
Born Dorothy Evelyn Cavendish, she spent her first eight years at Holker Hall, Lancashire, and Lismore Castle, Ireland. She became known as Lady Dorothy from the age of eight, when her father succeeded to the dukedom, and the family moved into Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, and the other ducal estates. She received lessons in French, German, riding and golf. From the age of sixteen she lived with the family at Rideau Hall, Ottawa, where her father served as Governor General of Canada.
In 1920 she married the publisher and Conservative politician Harold Macmillan, who had been on her father's staff in Canada. Their lavish wedding, on 21 April at St. Margaret's, Westminster, was attended by royalty, aristocracy and leading literary figures, and was hailed as the social event of the London season.
Lady Dorothy was a dutiful political wife and the couple remained together (despite her long-lasting affair with the bisexual Conservative politician Robert Boothby) until her death from a heart attack at the Macmillan family estate at Birch Grove, East Sussex, in 1966. Her husband outlived her by 20 years.
She and Harold had four children:
- 1) Maurice Macmillan, Viscount Macmillan of Ovenden (1921–1984), a Conservative politician and publisher. Married The Honourable Katharine Ormsby-Gore, a daughter of the 4th Baron Harlech.
- 2) Lady Caroline Macmillan (born 1923). Married Julian Faber; five children.
- 3) Lady Catherine Macmillan (1926–1991). Married Julian Amery, later Baron Amery of Lustleigh, a Conservative politician; four children.
- 4) Sarah Macmillan (1930–1970). She had an unhappy life, which was blighted by a drinking problem.
Read more about this topic: Lady Dorothy Macmillan
Famous quotes containing the words family life, family and/or life:
“Family life may survive as a form of evening and weekend entertainment.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“In the capsule biography by which most of the people knew one another, I was understood to be an Air Force pilot whose family was wealthy and lived in the East, and I even added the detail that I had a broken marriage and drank to get over it.... I sometimes believed what I said and tried to take the cure in the very real sun of Desert D’Or with its cactus, its mountain, and the bright green foliage of its love and its money.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“His life was a sort of dream, as are most lives with the mainspring left out.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)