29 OCTOBER 1994, Page 26

But to condemn the Duke outright is to lose perspective

on the ambivalent morality of the day. As an actress, an illegitimate daughter, an unmarried mother three times around and a Royal mistress, Mrs Jordan knew she inhabited a treacherous no- man's-land; she was a much loved public figure, but she could never be entirely respectable. For all their popularity, actresses who showed their trews to the prostitutes in the pit might expect plaudits but few social favours. Dora Jordan, eight month's gone, would don the breeches, pocket the salary, ignore the sniggers and hop in her coach to Bushy.