Duke of Devonshire a separate title from that of Earl of Devon, which still belongs to the Courtenay family. The fifth Duke and Duchess of Devonshire are portrayed in the 2008 film "The Duchess" directed by Saul Dibb. The film is based on Amanda Foreman's biography of the scandalous 18th-century English aristocrat Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (portrayed by Keira Knightley) and her relationship with the Duke (Ralph Fiennes) and his next wife, Lady Elizabeth Foster. Along with Jane Austen, the fifth Duke and his second wife appear, soon after Georgiana's death, in "Jane and the Stillroom Maid", a murder mystery by Stephanie
Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire my pipe in your eyes!" Thereafter, whenever others would compliment her, the duchess would retort, "After the dustman's compliment, all others are insipid." The Spencer family, from which she derived, was an ardent supporter of the Whig party as were she and the House of Cavendish. However, because the duke's high position in the peerage disallowed him from participating so commonly in politics, the duchess took it as a positive outlet for herself. In an age when the realization of women's rights and suffrage were still more than a century away, the duchess became a political activist as the first