Scotland’s history is littered with tales of headless heroes. Macbeth, Mary Queen of Scots and even the Marquis of Montrose were separated from their heads at various points. But of course, to be remembered as a headless hero, you don’t necessarily need to suffer the indignity of an actual decapitation. You just need a string of pearls, a wealthy duchess and a Polaroid camera. Remember them?

Ethel Margaret Campbell Whigham (1912-1993) was a wealthy socialite who came from money and married into the aristocracy. Her dad, George Hay Whigham, was big in the global vinegar business and Ethel was privately educated in New York before venturing onto the international headlines.

An early affair with a youthful David Niven led to a concealed pregnancy and rumours of dalliances with Cary Grant and J. Paul Getty soon followed. In 1933 age just twenty-one she married Charles Sweeny, a wealthy golfer, and was immortalised in song in the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes. The Sweeny marriage ended in 1947 and she went on to marry Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll in 1951 in what was to lead to the costliest divorce in Scottish legal history.

The Duchess of Argyll, as she was by then known, apparently continued to live fast and furious during the marriage. Indeed, Lord Wheatley, the judge who presided over her divorce from the Duke commented that she was “a completely promiscuous woman.” In fact, he went much further, but since this is a family orientated history post, I won’t repeat the judge’s comment in its entirety.

The divorce petition hinged on proof of her infidelity of course, and her husband was keen to oblige. In a move which fed the frontpages of the gutter press for weeks, the Duke’s legal team produced a blurry Polaroid image of his estranged wife, dressed in nothing but a string of pearls, pleasuring a naked man whose head was just out of shot. Needless to say, the divorce was made absolute.
To this day, the identity of the man in the cropped photograph is a mystery – although there are several suspects. The Duchess of Argyll went on to marry twice more but never publicly revealed his identity.
Location: Scotland, UK

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