The true heartbreak behind Belgravia’s tragic opening: Julian Fellowes reveals drama is realistic

At the end of a glamorous ball, the male guests leave the dancefloor to fight a bloody war.

Meanwhile, a dastardly aristocrat tricks a young female into a fake marriage so he can sleep with her.

The plotlines sound as if they came straight from the imaginings of period dramatist Julian Fellowes, whose latest TV series Belgravia begins tonight.

But Downton Abbey creator Fellowes has revealed that his new television spectacular actually drew inspiration from a real-life scandal.

Belgravia is set in the first half of the 19th Century and follows the Trenchard family led by James Trenchard, a nouveau riche businessman and social climber who helps to build the exclusive London enclave.

The drama begins with a ball hosted by the Duchess of Richmond in Brussels in 1815 where guests included the Duke of Wellington and almost every officer in his army which was fighting Napoleon Bonaparte.

Historian Elizabeth Longford has described the night – during which Wellington was told of an advance by Napoleon and immediately led his men, some still in their dress uniform, into battle – as ‘the most famous ball in history’.

Speaking of the lavish scenes, Fellowes said: ‘Wellington wanted the ball to show everyone it was business as usual, but it turned out very differently. 

‘He had to call everyone to arms so there were young women weeping and mothers crying with all of this going on in the middle of the ballroom floor.

‘There were so many strange details. When the men were leaving and mounting up, some people went on dancing, which I find absolutely extraordinary, but it’s true.’

Fellowes, who first learned of the ball from reading William Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair, added: ‘I have always been interested in it. It seemed… a kind of glamorous tragedy that these young men, many still in their dress uniforms, would die in battle having left their loved ones on the ballroom floor.’

The Battle of Quatre Bras, fought two days before the decisive Battle of Waterloo, left 4,800 of Wellington’s men dead or wounded.

Trenchard, played by Philip Glenister, makes his fortune from supplying meat to Wellington’s forces but, as the series details, his elevation in society over subsequent decades comes at a price.

A central plotline involves Trenchard’s naive daughter Sophia and a caddish aristocrat called Lord Edmund Bellasis. Determined to sleep with a woman of good standing before going to war, but frustrated by Sophia’s desire to protect her chastity, he tricks her into a fake marriage.

Fellowes says he was inspired by a similar scandal 30 years earlier involving a peer called Frederick Berkeley and butcher’s daughter Mary Cole.

‘The storyline is true and based on the 5th Earl of Berkeley,’ he said. ‘Although Berkeley did eventually marry the same woman, it was not until after they’d had six illegitimate children, none of whom were allowed to inherit the title.’

Berkeley and Cole claimed they had married in 1785, a year before the birth of their firstborn, William, who they wanted to inherit the family title. However, the first record of their marriage was in 1796.

Karen Davidson, archivist at Berkeley Castle, said: ‘They claimed they had married in Berkeley church before his birth. There is no entry in the parish register recording this marriage, but in court it was claimed there was a note of the marriage by the vicar.’

The issue was debated in the House of Lords and the title eventually passed to Thomas Morton Fitzhardinge Berkeley, the couple’s fifth child but the first born after the couple were married.