Who doesn't love a steamy romance? Better yet,
make sure that steamy romance is all about a forbidden love in a period
drama set in 1920's England and you have Lady Chatterley's Lover airing on Netflix in 2022.
You've got sex, sensuality, nudity, passion, female liberation, class divisions,
beautiful people, gorgeous landscapes, excellent acting and hot chemistry among the lovers in
the Netflix version of the classic novel of the same name by D.H. Lawrence. What's not to love?
And the author of the classic novel wrote with every intention to highlight the issues of his day
including class division and sexual enlightenment through the sexual liberation of his character,
Lady Chatterley and her forbidden love of a man of the lower class.
In this video, you will discover who the character, Lady Chatterley,
was based upon in real life, and how the real Lady Chatterley was far more
wild and more sexually active than the demure Constance (“Connie”) Chatterley.
Let me begin by setting the stage.
In 1920's England there existed a loose collective of friends of the upper class
living and working near Bloomsbury, London that was comprised of English writers,
intellectuals, philosophers and artists. This group was called the
Bloomsbury Group (or Bloomsbury set), which including writer Virginia Woolf,
writer and critic Lytton Strachey. writer E. M. Forster, painter Roger Fry, among others.
For a period of time extending from the beginning of the second decade until well into the thirties,
the Bloomsbury group was a powerful cultural establishment in England.
The members of the group were united by an abiding belief in the importance of the
arts so the group also included patrons of the arts. Those people in the upper
echelons who had the money to support and promote the artisans of the group.
One such patron was Lady Ottoline Morrell, an English aristocrat and society hostess.
Her patronage was influential in artistic and intellectual circles,
where she befriended writers including David Herbert Lawrence better known as
D. H. Lawrence along with Aldous Huxley, Siegfried Sassoon, and T. S. Eliot.
In fact, Lady Ottoline has been said to have been featured in
works by D H Lawrence including as Hermione Roddice in Women in Love,
as well as the inspiration for his novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
You see, Lady Ottoline had her own little sexual liberation going
on and while she was nothing like Constance in looks and personality,
she did have an affair with a commoner (more on this in just a bit).
Lady Ottoline was born Ottoline Violet Anne Cavendish‐Betnick in 1873, the daughter of
the heir to a dukedom. Through her father, she was a first cousin once removed of Queen
Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and a first cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth II.
Like Constance in the novel, she had an unusual upbringing.
Ottoline was an eccentric and naive girl who desired
more than the aristocratic life's parties and predetermined marriages.
She abandoned formal schooling in favor of humanitarian endeavors,
religious mysticism, travel, and passionate relationships with unsuitable men..
Ottoline was six feet tall by the time that she reached adulthood. She had a face with
powerful features and stunning, flowing red hair. She dressed flamboyantly to be thought
ostentatious and she coveted being thought of as controversial in her lifestyle. Though an
aristocrat, she eschewed her background in favor of bohemian unconventionality.
One biographer reports that Lady Ottoline Morrell strove for “life on the grand scale.” This phrase
is taken from a 1927 entry in Ottoline’s journal: “It is indeed a damnably difficult
thing to live fully, richly, generously and yet courageously. To live on the grand scale.”
Her first love affair was with an older man. She had a long-term relationship
with Swedish doctor and author Axel Munth who she ultimately rejected when he impulsively
proposed marriage because her spiritual beliefs were incompatible with his atheism.
She didn't marry until she was almost 30 when, in February 1902,
she married the wealthy member of Parliament, Philip Morrell,
with whom she shared a passion for art and a strong interest in Liberal politics.
Throughout their marriage, Ottoline struggled to conceal evidence of his mental instability.
Even while on her honeymoon, she was aware that her marriage would be, in her own words,
like brother and sister; yet she did manage to get pregnant and gave birth to twins,
but the boy died and only the girl lived, which caused her husband to
start having affairs because he so desperately desired a son.
His selection of mistresses wasn't the best because they frequently consisted of
Ottoline's employees, such as her secretary and maid; so when Philip's extramarital
affairs produced several children, Ottoline, who had a kind heart, cared for the children,
paying for their education, buying them gifts and generally looking after their wellbeing.
By this time, the couple shared what would now be known as an open marriage and
Ottoline embarked on a series of her own affairs with both men and women.
Many of her lovers were part of the Bloombury group. She had a long
affair with philosopher Bertrand Russell, who was also married.
In the period leading up to their affair, Russell felt that his life was barren of
passion and emotion. Nearly a decade had passed since he had announced to his wife
that he no longer loved her, though they had continued to live together unhappily.
From the beginning of the affair, Ottoline was more sensitive than Bertrand was to the practical
circumstances that confronted them. While Bertrand wanted Ottoline to leave Philip for him,
she had no intention of doing so. She cared deeply for Philip and their daughter, Julian,
even though she acknowledged that she and Philip were more friends than lovers.
And Unlike Russell, Ottoline had also navigated affairs in the past
In fact, Ottoline would find it difficult to extricate herself from her affair with the artist,
Henry Lamb, which had been going on when she met Russell; and just days after the momentous evening
when her affair with Russell started, she had had a brief liaison with art historian Roger Fry.
The affair between Russell and Ottoline lasted for five years and since they were
frequently separated, they engaged in a vast correspondence. Even after the
affair ended in 1916, they would remain friends and faithful correspondents until
Ottoline’s death. In all, Russell would write two thousand letters to
her (sometimes up to four in one day) while Ottoline would write just a thousand to him.
Others of Ottoline's lovers are said to have included the painter Augustus John as well
as her lesbian affairs with the artist Dora Carrington, and English novelist Dorothy Bussy.
To be fair, it should be noted that many of the members of the Bloomsbury group were partaking,
if not spearheading, the age of sexual enligtenment of 1920's Europe. Their
art reflected their liberalism but they also lived their philosophies,
that promoted modern attitudes towards feminism, pacifism, and sexuality.
A prime example is the well-known affair between Virginia Woolf and
Vita Sackville-West. Both married women who lived outside the confines of societal norms.
It is from this frame of reference that D H Lawrence wrote Lady Chatterley's
lover that highlights the need to break from Victorian standards of sex, society and class.
Lawrence believed that Love comes after sex and that is exactly the
idea he promotes in his novel. But I Digress.
Back to Ottoline and how she inspired Lady Chatterley's Lover.
When Ottoline was 40, she had a brief affair with a gardener and
stonemason who was employed at her house in the country.
His name was Lionel Gomme. He was considerably younger than Ottoline,
bisexual and her one true love whom she affectionately called Tiger.
According to biographer Miranda Seymour, who first discovered the links to the character of Lady
Constance Chatterley, Lionel was very young, very sweet and he made Ottoline very happy sexually,”.
And another telling link to Lady Chatterley
can be found in a story from Ottoline's childhood that she once told Lawrence.
The story goes that when Ottoline was growing up in Nottinghamshire,
her mother used to take her along on afternoon carriage rides from their
grand home, Welbeck Abbey, to visit a gamekeeper whose name was Mellors.
At this point it seems pretty clear that D H Lawrence based the gamekeeper Oliver
Mellors (and his actions in Lady Chatterley's Lover) on the aunt's gamekeeper Lionel Gomm.
Throughout all of Ottoline's life, Lionel was the first person she truly developed
passionate feelings for. Sadly he fell ill while Ottoline and her daughter were
away and upon their return, he died of a brain hemorrhage in her arms.
Ottoline was heartbroken and went so far as to consult spiritualists to try to contact him.
She was devastated by his death. Biographer Miranda Seymour says:
“Her relationship with Tiger was the most sexually fulfilling of her life
and that fits nicely with the idea of her as Constance Chatterley.”
Lady Ottoline, who had always yearned to be an artist herself
instead left a literary legacy through the fictional character that she had inspired.
Hey thanks for watching and here's another video on one
of the many fabulous, fierce and feisty women in history.