Margot at War, Anne de Courcy
Margot at War, Anne de Courcy
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Margot at War
Love and Betrayal in Downing Street, 1912-1916

Author: Anne de Courcy

Narrator: Patricia Gallimore

Unabridged: 1 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/29/2015

Synopsis

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Drawing on unpublished material from personal papers and diaries, Anne de Courcy vividly recreates this extraordinary time when the Prime Minister's residence was run like an English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.

Read by Patricia Gallimore

(p) 2015 Isis Publishing Ltd

About Anne de Courcy

Anne de Courcy is the author of thirteen widely acclaimed works of social history and biography, including THE HUSBAND HUNTERS, THE FISHING FLEET, THE VICEROY'S DAUGHTERS and DEBS AT WAR. In the 1970s she was Woman's Editor on the LONDON EVENING NEWS and in the 1980s she was a regular feature-writer for the EVENING STANDARD. She is also a former features writer and reviewer for the DAILY MAIL. She lives in London SW3.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sylvia

This book was sent to me by a dear friend. I sort of signed on for the gossip but found that Anne De Courcy does a beautiful job of making the human side of World War I in the British government come to life. All sorts of little touches show here, a tiny one: a minister rushing in with news so urgen......more

Goodreads review by Christina

This is a story of the rather strange and wonderful Asquith family. The paterfamilias, HH, as he was commonly known,was prime minister of Great Britain during the first half of WWI, a conflict Britain more or less fell into, and couldn't extricate itself from, for four bloody and abysmal years. This......more

Goodreads review by Carolyn

A fascinating social history of Britain's transition from the Edwardian era to the First World War in the early 20th century with a focus on the Asquith family. Anne de Courcy incorporates a wealth of notable details that show how ordinary people experienced the outbreak of war and the changes that......more

Goodreads review by Lisa of Hopewell

My Interest Name a British Edwardian of high rank and I probably am interested in them. Margot Asquith, wife of the Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith, and step-mother to Violet (Asquith) Bonham-Carter, the overthrown love of Winston Churchill and future Grandmother of actress Helena Bonham-Carter. Add in......more

Quotes

Anne de Courcy keeps this steaming, erotic merry-go-round whirling with admirable skill . . . This is a plot that Downton Abbey would die for! DAILY MAIL

Margot Asquith's sharp humour, modern style, intelligence and wealth fascinated men . . . Anne de Courcy has a firm grasp of politics, an acute eye for social detail and a keen perception of Margot's pains and pleasures. Her narrative is concise and compelling THE TIMES

De Courcy, author of the celebrated The Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj, indulges us with generous quotes from contemporary correspondence and detailed observation, describing life at a time of turbulent change through engaging anecdotes and descriptions SUNDAY EXPRESS

A proper sex in high places scandal . . . Though Margot Asquith, nee Tennant, is its main character, her husband's scandalous obsession with young Venetia Stanley is inevitably centre stage THE INDEPENDENT 'Books of the Year'

A superb evocation of an extraordinary time CHOICE Book of the Month

Fascinating . . . Anne de Courcy is sympathetic to her subject. She's a journalist with a keen eye for detail and no-nonsense directness THE TABLET

Covers everything from Asquith's infidelity to politics and parties CATHOLIC HERALD

It conveys Margot's milieu with a nice touch and takes time away from this enclosed self-regarding world to give us vivid sharp vignettes of the harder times being experienced by other classes. De Courcy records very well Margot's tortured jealousy, not only of her husband's dalliance with Venetia Stanley but of his daughter Violet's almost incestuous passion for her father LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS

A love triangle that nearly brought down the British government is at the heart of Margot at War by Anne de Courcy. Margot Asquith, whose husband was Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916, is the star of this riveting biography about war, love, marriage and secret goings-on at 10 Downing Street GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

Margot scandalised society. She refused chaperonage and said what she thought. Plain, with a broken nose from hunting, she dressed beautifully, and was immensely rich when she married Herbert Henry Asquith, subsidising his love of luxury . . . The research is impressive and the eventful historical context covered with a light touch. Enlightening, especially on Asquith's intractable opposition to the suffragettes WI LIFE

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