Born in 1786, by the time she was fifteen Harriette was well on her way to becoming England's most sought-after courtesan. She counted amongst her conquests the Prince of Wales, at least three Prime Ministers and the Lord Chancellor. There was hardly a young dandy in Mayfair who had not been involved with Harriette, who entranced men with her wit as much as her beauty. A fascinated Walter Scott called her 'a smart saucy girl' with 'the manners of a wild schoolboy'.

But when the Duke of Beaufort put a halt on the payments he had promised her for not marrying his son, Harriette decided to avenge herself on the whole pack. With her scandalous Memoirs - a book she was famously told, by the Duke of Wellington, to 'publish and be damned' - she took sensational revenge on London society.