The Asquiths

(, New edition)

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Description

In confident late-Edwardian Britain, one family - the Asquiths - rose to the top both in politics and society. Within a few years, however, they would come to epitomize the generations shattered by World War I. This book recounts their lives as Britain descended into turmoil, with the Asquith sons fighting in the trenches as their father, the Prime Minister, struggled to direct the bloodiest war in his country's history. This book reveals the emotional nature behind the urbane public persona of Asquith himself: his heartbreak at his first wife's sudden death, his painful and tortuous courtship of the extraordinary Margot Tennant, and the ups and downs of their marriage, which remained strong despite his notorious liaisons with younger women and her volatile and moody personality. Margot's remarkable role as the most intriguing - in both senses - of primeministerial wives is fully explored: her feuds with Lloyd George, her mistrust of "the gutter genius" Winston Churchill, and her hatred of Lord Northcliffe, the press baron who ultimately drove her husband from power in 1916. At the heart of the story are four of the Asquith children, Raymond, the brilliant scholar and outstanding president of the Oxford Union, who died leading his men into attack at the Somme; the shy Beb, artillery officer and poet, who overcame shell shock to face the horrors of Passchendale; Oc, whom General Freyberg, himself a VC - described as the bravest man I ever knew; and their mercurial sister Violet, her father's most ardent supporter bu the bane of her jealous stepmother's life. Drawing from Margot Asquith's own journals, Asquith's letters to her, and a mass of correspondence in family and other archives.

Reviews

A magnificent saga of public and private lives, politics and society, peace and war ... I was captivated from beginning to end - Charlotte Mosley

Immensley readable ... compelling - Victoria Schofield, Financial Times

Colin Clifford has woven their complex story together with great skill and judgment - Artemis Cooper, Daily Mail

Full of quirky detail ... tolerant of the central figures and steeped in the forgotten atmosphere of their time, its customs and ethos, its lanquage, habits and heroes - Isabel Quigly, The Oldie

Far more gripping than fiction - Jane Ridley, The Spectator

An extraordinary family in times of triumph and catastrophe, wonderfully and painfully delineated. I was engrossed - Antonia Fraser

A Forsythe Saga of real life - Sunday Telegraph

Could hardly have been better done - Philip Ziegler, Literary Review

Author Bio

Colin Clifford was educated at l'Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris and Merton College, Oxford. After being called to the Bar he worked in the City of London and later became Economics Correspondent for the Sunday times. This is his first book.