The Asquiths

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. Margot Asquith's remarkable role as the most intriguing 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 on 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 but the bane of her jealous stepmother's life. Drawing for the first time on Margot Asquith's own journals, Asquith's letters to her, and a mass of hitherto unpublished correspondence, Colin Clifford provides an engrossing picture of a remarkable political family at a time of crisis.