Cliveden House will play host to Meghan Markle on Friday night, the eve of her royal wedding to Prince Harry. A new story in Town & Country takes us inside the history of the Berkshire countryside’s five-star hotel, which has been home to countless scandals implicating the British elite since the 17th century. It all started with the married 2nd Duke of Buckingham, who used Cliveden House as a discreet romantic getaway to meet his also-married mistress, the Countess of Shrewsbury. The hotel’s tradition of being the site of adultery for the British elite was reprised hundreds of years later, when in 1961 the married U.K. Secretary of War John Profumo allegedly had an affair at Cliveden House with 19-year-old guest Christine Keeler. The affair further destabilized the already-shaky administration of prime minister Harold Macmillan, who eventually stepped down. Markle’s pre-wedding stay will be steeped in plenty of British royal and political history.
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