Romance History
‘The Gilded Age’: Will Gladys Russell Marry the Duke of Buckingham? What History Says…
Unlike, say, Bridgerton, The Gilded Age is no fantastical retelling of history. It draws inspiration from real-life people and events.
The Russell family is no exception. The past two seasons of HBO’s period drama have seen railroad tycoon George (Morgan Spector) and his ambitious wife, Bertha (Carrie Coon), take the New York social scene by storm. They disrupt the old money hierarchy just like William Kissam Vanderbilt and his wife, Alva. Creator Julian Fellowes has confirmed that they are the Russells’ historical counterparts.
Though they present a united front in the show, the nouveau riche Russells don’t see eye-to-eye on everything, particularly when it comes to their daughter’s future. Season 2 saw Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) forced by her mother to entertain the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb) as a potential husband. Bertha will stop at nothing for her daughter to become a duchess, but Gladys and her father would rather she make a love match.
Season 3, which premieres on June 22, picks up with Gladys and Bertha locked in a power struggle. We can’t help but wonder who will get their way, so we looked at history to shed some insight on where the show might be headed in the third season.
Karolina Wojtasik / HBO
Who is Gladys Russell based on?
Gladys is inspired by American socialite Consuelo Vanderbilt, the daughter of the aforementioned Vanderbilt couple.
Who does the real-life Gladys marry?
Consuelo ended up adhering to her mother’s wishes and marrying a duke (in this case, the ninth Duke of Marlborough) in 1895. There was no love between them. While the Vanderbilt matriarch was motivated by acquiring a title for her daughter, the Duke was driven by money. Consuelo’s dowry was over $2 million.
According to a 1940s issue of Vogue, “The bride’s unhappy father was obliged to sign a contract, the sealing of which the prudent Duke had, from the very first, insisted upon. The contract involved, among other sundries, the payment to His Grace of two and a half million dollars, a sum so tidy that the Most Noble Charles Richard John, etc., was able not only to renovate Blenheim, his historic palace near Oxford, but to build, as well, one of the most prideful residences in London—Sunderland House, at the end of Curzon Street, in Mayfair.”
The couple had two children. After Consuelo took many lovers, she and the Duke separated and dissolved the marriage entirely in 1921. Ironically, the Duke of Marlborough’s second marriage was to a woman named… Gladys Deacon. Consuelo found a love match in Jacques Balsan, a textile manufacturing heir and aviation pioneer. They married on July 4, 1921.
Will Gladys marry the Duke in The Gilded Age?
Unless The Gilded Age takes a major departure from its source material, we’re willing to bet Gladys weds the Duke of Buckingham this season. So far, the Russells’ story has followed the Vanderbilts’ fairly closely. (Sorry, Gladys!)
When TV Insider asked writer and executive producer Sonja Warfield about Gladys’ future, she teased, “We have to see what Gladys’ life will be. Will it be what she chooses?”
The Gilded Age, Season 3 Premiere, Sunday, June 22, HBO
