Margot at War: Love and Betrayal at Downing Street 1912-1916 by Anne
de Courcy
Published by W&N
6th November 2014
Hardback Edition
Margot Asquith was perhaps the most daring and
unconventional Prime Minister's wife in British history. Known for her wit,
style and habit of speaking her mind, she transformed 10 Downing Street into a
glittering social and intellectual salon. Yet her last five years at Number 10
were a period of intense emotional and political turmoil in her private and
public life.
In 1912, when Anne de Courcy's book opens, rumblings of
discontent and cries for social reform were encroaching on all sides - from
suffragettes, striking workers and Irish nationalists. Against this background
of a government beset with troubles, the Prime Minister fell desperately in
love with his daughter's best friend, Venetia Stanley; to complicate matters,
so did his Private Secretary. Margot's relationship with her husband was
already bedevilled by her stepdaughter's jealous, almost incestuous adoration
of her father. The outbreak of the First World War only heightened these swirling
tensions within Downing Street.
Drawing on unpublished material from personal papers and
diaries, Anne de Courcy vividly recreates this extraordinary time when the
Prime Minister's residence was run like an English country house, with
socialising taking precedence over politics, love letters written in the
cabinet room and gossip and state secrets exchanged over the bridge table.
By 1916, when Asquith was forced out of office,
everything had changed. For the country as a whole, for those in power, for a
whole stratum of society, but especially for the Asquiths and their circle, it
was the end of an era. Life inside Downing Street would never be the same
again.
This is a fascinating insight to the running of British
society at the start of the 1900s and during the period of the First World
War. Margot Asquith was no ordinary
politician's wife, in fact she was the second wife of the Prime Minister
Henry Asquith, and she changed the face of society and politics with her wit
and glamour.
However behind the facade lay the infatuation of her husband
with his daughter's best friend Venetia Stanley, also coupled with his
extremely strong bond with his eldest daughter Violet from his first marriage. She went everywhere with him, and his second
marriage can surely be described as being at least that of a ménage à trois, if not with Violet then with Venetia.
This isn't just a political history, but the detail that
Anne de Courcey provides as to the decisions and turmoil faced by Asquith at
this time from all manner of society is fascinating. It is also a book about social history and of the changing face
of government as perceived by those outside of the cabinet.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, there was so much that I
didn't know about this period that I learnt and never once was the detail dry
or boring. Henry Asquith and his
family have certainly got to be one of, if not, the most scandalous family ever
to live at number 10 Downing Street!
Happy Reading
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