View source for Margot Asquith

{{Short description|Anglo-Scottish socialite and author (1864–1945)}}
{{use British English|date=July 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2017}}
{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix   = [[The Right Honourable]]
| name               = The Countess of Oxford and Asquith
| image              = Margaret-Emma-Alice-Margot-Asquith-ne-Tennant-Countess-of-Oxford-and-Asquith (2).jpg
| birth_name         = Emma Alice Margaret Tennant
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1864|2|2|df=yes}}
| birth_place        =  [[The Glen, Scottish Borders|The Glen]], [[Peeblesshire]], Scotland<ref name="births">{{cite news |title= Births |work=[[The Times]] |date=4 February 1864 |page= 1}}</ref>
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1945|7|28|1864|2|2|df=y}}
| death_place        = London, England
| resting_place      = [[All Saints' Church, Sutton Courtenay]]
| known_for          = [[Spouse of the prime minister of the United Kingdom]] (1908–1916)
| spouse             = {{marriage|[[H. H. Asquith]]|10 May 1894|15 February 1928|end=d}}
| children           = 5, including [[Elizabeth Bibesco|Elizabeth]] and [[Anthony Asquith|Anthony]]
| parents            = [[Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Baronet|Sir Charles Tennant, Bt]] (father)
| relatives          = {{ublist|[[:Category:Tennant family|Tennant family]]|[[Asquith family]]}}
| signature          = Margot Asquith Signature.jpg
}}

'''Emma Alice Margaret Asquith, Countess of Oxford and Asquith''' (''{{nee}}'' '''Tennant'''; 2 February 1864 &ndash; 28 July 1945), known as '''Margot Asquith''', was a British socialite and author. She was married to [[British Prime Minister]] [[H. H. Asquith]] from 1894 to his death in 1928. Known for her wit, in late [[Victorian society]] she was a member of the famed aristocratic group of intellectuals called "[[The Souls]]". An opponent of [[Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom|women's suffrage]], whose autobiography was lampooned, Lady Oxford and Asquith was a controversial yet colourful character in her time.<ref name="obit">{{cite news |title= Obituary: Lady Oxford and Asquith – A Gifted and Brilliant Woman |work=[[The Times]] |date=30 July 1945 |page=11 }}</ref>

==Early life==
Emma Alice Margaret Tennant was born in 1864 at [[The Glen, Scottish Borders|The Glen]], the family's [[country estate]] in [[Peeblesshire]], the 12th and youngest child of [[Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Baronet]], an industrialist and politician, and Emma Winsloe. She never knew one of her five sisters and three of her six brothers, who died young.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lodge |first1=Edmund |title=The Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire as at Present Existing: Arranged and Printed from the Personal Communications of the Nobility ... |date=1892 |publisher=Hurst and Blackett, Limited |page=939 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1yQwAAAAYAAJ&q=baronetage |access-date=31 July 2024 |language=en}}</ref> She was of Scottish and English descent and was a great-great-granddaughter of [[John Walter (publisher)|John Walter]], founder of ''[[The Times]]''.<ref name="obit"/> Known always as Margot, Tennant was brought up at The Glen; Asquith and her sister [[Laura Tennant Lyttelton|Laura]] grew up wild and uninhibited. Asquith was a "venturesome child", for example roaming the [[moorland|moors]], climbing to the top of the roof by moonlight, riding her horse up the front steps of the [[estate house]]. [[horseback riding|Riding]] and golf were her lifelong passions.<ref name="memoir1">{{cite book |last1=Asquith |first1=Margot |title=An Autobiography: Volume I |date=1920 |publisher=New York G.H. Doran |page=13 |url=https://archive.org/details/autobiography0001asqu/page/12/mode/2up |access-date=31 July 2024|ref=Asquith}}</ref>

The two girls were inseparable, [[debutante|entering society]] together in London in 1881. She and Laura became the central female figures of an [[Aristocracy (class)|aristocratic]] group of intellectuals called "[[The Souls]]" ("You are always talking about your souls," complained [[Lord Charles Beresford]], thereby providing them with a suitable label). Laura married [[Alfred Lyttelton]] in 1885 and died in 1888, and Asquith's life was strongly impacted by these events.

==Mrs Asquith==
[[File:Margot Asquith.jpg|thumb|right|Margot Asquith, painting by [[Philip de László]], 1909]]
On 10 May 1894, Asquith married [[H. H. Asquith]] and became a "spur to his ambition". She brought him into the glittering social world, which he had in no way experienced with his first wife, who Asquith had known and always spoke of warmly. Asquith also became an unenthusiastic stepmother to five children, who were bemused by Asquith, so different from their quiet mother. [[Violet Bonham Carter|Violet Asquith]] wrote: "She flashed into our lives like some dazzling [[Birds of Paradise|bird of paradise]], filling us with amazement, amusement, excitement, sometimes with a vague uneasiness as to what she might do next." In 1908, when Asquith became prime minister, Violet was the only child of his first wife still at home, and the two shared a deep interest in politics. In contrast, relations between stepmother and stepdaughter were frequently strained, prompting H. H. Asquith to write lamentingly of how the two were "on terms of chronic misunderstanding".<ref name=ODNB>{{cite ODNB| last=Pottle| first=Mark| title=Carter, (Helen) Violet Bonham, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury (1887–1969)| url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31961| access-date=15 April 2014| date=May 2007| doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/31961 }}</ref>

Asquith bore five children of her own, two of them surviving infancy. [[Elizabeth Bibesco|Elizabeth Asquith]], born in 1897, later married Prince [[Antoine Bibesco]] of [[Romania]] in 1919 and became a writer of some note. [[Anthony Asquith]], born in 1902, became a leading English film director.

Until they moved to the prime minister's residence at [[10 Downing Street]] in 1908, the Asquith home was a huge house in [[Cavendish Square]] in London, with a staff of 14 servants. The residence of most importance in the life of the Asquiths was [[The Wharf, Sutton Courtenay|The Wharf]] in [[Sutton Courtenay]], Oxfordshire, built in 1912. It became their weekend home away from home, and it was there that literary, artistic and political luminaries would gather.

==Views on Suffrage and Politics==

Her husband was in office as British Prime Minister from April 1908 to December 1916.

Asquith was a staunch opponent of [[Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom|women's suffrage]], once saying in a letter that "women have no reason, very little humour, hardly any sense of honour... and no sense of proportion".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book| title=Rise up, women! : the remarkable lives of the suffragettes| last=Atkinson| first=Diane| publisher=Bloomsbury| year=2018 |isbn=9781408844045 |location=London |pages=46, 148, 209, 337 |oclc=1016848621}}</ref> 
In 1909, on holiday in [[Clovelly Court]], Devon, the Asquiths were followed by suffragettes [[Elsie Howey]], [[Jessie Kenney]] and [[Vera Wentworth]], whom Asquith recognised again at church. They also hid in her garden, covering plants with the colours of the movement: purple, white and green.<ref name=":0" />
With other politicians' wives, she attended the debate on the aborted [[Conciliation Bills|Conciliation Bill]] and, in 1911, she "seemed highly amused at the earnestness" of women's suffrage lobbyists, whilst near to [[Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton|Constance Lytton]] and [[Annie Kenney]], who remembered her as unpleasant and sarcastic.<ref name=":0" /> In 1912, an article in the newspaper [[Votes for Women (newspaper)|''Votes for Women'']] told of Asquith's "stealth" journey when travelling with her husband as Prime Minister, via Wolverhampton and the Holyhead ferry, to Dublin, where the ferry was met by a yacht of [[Irish Women's Franchise League]] demanding the female vote be included in the [[Irish Home Rule movement|Irish Home Rule Bill]].<ref name=":0" />

During [[World War I]], Asquith's outspokenness led to a public outcry. For example, she visited a German [[prisoner of war]] camp, and she accused her [[shell shock|shell-shocked]] stepson, [[Herbert Asquith (poet)|Herbert]], of being drunk. The negative public and media response may well have contributed to the political downfall of her husband.

In 1918, she was publicly attacked in court by [[Noel Pemberton Billing]], a right-wing MP, who was convinced that the nation's war effort was being undermined by homosexuality in high society. He hinted that she was associated with the conspirators.<ref>See also Kettle, Michael. ''Salome's Last Veil: The Libel Case of the Century'', London: Granada, 1977; Jodie Medd, "'The Cult of the Clitoris': Anatomy of a National Scandal," ''Modernism/Modernity'' 9, no. 1 (2002): 21–49 {{doi|10.1353/mod.2002.0015}}</ref> 
Billing also published a poem, written by [[Lord Alfred Douglas]], which referred to "merry Margot, bound With Lesbian fillets".<ref>Philip Hoare, ''Oscar Wilde's Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century'', Arcade Publishing, 1999, p. 110.</ref>

==After the war==
[[File:Margaret Emma Alice ('Margot') Asquith (née Tennant), Countess of Oxford and Asquith.jpg|thumb|Portrait by [[Adolf de Meyer]]]]
In 1920, the mansion in Cavendish Square was sold and the Asquiths moved to 44 [[Bedford Square]], a beautiful house formerly occupied by [[salonière]] [[Ottoline Morrell]]. She became Countess of Oxford and Asquith in 1925 when her husband was granted a peerage.

==Writings==
Asquith published her autobiography in 1920. Her writing style was not always critically accepted—the most famous review of Asquith's work came from New York wit [[Dorothy Parker]], who wrote, "The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature".<ref>Parker, Dorothy (as Constant Reader.) "Re-enter Margot Asquith – A Masterpiece from the French", ''The New Yorker'', 22 October 1927. Reprinted in Parker, Dorothy, ''Constant Reader'', Viking Press, 1970, p. 10-11.</ref>  
Asquith's autobiography was part of a new trend of revelatory political books written close in time to the events described, including [[Lytton Strachey]]’s ''[[Eminent Victorians]]'' in 1918, [[John Maynard Keynes]]' ''[[The Economic Consequences of the Peace]]'' in 1919 and [[Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook|Lord Beaverbrook]]’s ''Politicians and the War'' in 1928.<ref>Heathorn 2013, p.159</ref> In 1921, humorist [[Barry Pain]] published a book called ''Marge Askinforit'', described on the cover as "a rollicking skit on the Margot Asquith memoirs". Pain wrote in his author's note that "There was a quality in that autobiography which seemed to demand parody."<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26024/26024-h/26024-h.htm |title=The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marge Askinforit, by Barry Pain |access-date=24 December 2020}}</ref>

Asquith was known for her outspokenness and acerbic wit. A possibly [[apocryphal]] but typical story has her meeting the American film actress [[Jean Harlow]] and correcting Harlow's mispronunciation of her first name – "No, no; the 't' is silent, as in 'Harlow'."<ref>Byrne, Robert. ''The 2,548 Best Things Ever Said'' (1996). New York; Galahad Books.</ref> 
The story was recorded by the Liberal MP [[Robert Bernays]] in his diary entry for 26 June 1934, but Bernays does not claim to have witnessed the alleged encounter himself.<ref>Smart, Nick, ed. ''The Diaries and Letters of Robert Bernays, 1932–1939'' (1996), p. 144.  Lewiston, Queenston, and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press.</ref>

===Publication of her diaries===
In June 2014 her First World War diaries were published by [[Oxford University Press]] as ''Margot Asquith's Great War Diary 1914-1916: The View from Downing Street'',<ref name=GuardJun14>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/08/margot-asquith-diaries-insolent-churchill-ignorant-kitchener |title='Insolent' Churchill, 'ignorant' Kitchener: waspish wartime diaries of Margot Asquith|work=[[The Guardian]] |date=8 June 2014 |access-date=10 June 2014}}</ref> selected and edited by [[Michael Brock|Michael]] and Eleanor Brock, with the assistance of Mark Pottle.

===List of Publications===
*[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.35788/page/n7/mode/2up ''The Autobiography Of Margot Asquith''], 1920
*''[[iarchive:littlejourney00asqu/page/n7/mode/2up|A Little Journey]]'', 1921
*[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.174035/page/n1/mode/2up ''The Autobiography Of Margot Asquith''. Volume II], 1922
*[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.60657/page/n7/mode/2up ''My Impressions of America''], 1922
*[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.81131/page/n9/mode/2up ''Places & Persons''], 1925
*''[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015063945920&seq=9 Lay Sermons]'', 1927
*''[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3325647&seq=5 Octavia]'', 1928
*''More Memories'', 1933
*''More or Less about Myself'', 1934
*''Off the Record'', 1943
*''Margot Asquith's Great War Diary 1914-1916: The View from Downing Street'', eds. M. & E. Brock, 2014

==Later years==
In the late 1920s, Asquith and her husband were seriously in debt: she admitted to owing £15,000 ({{Inflation|UK|15000|1928|r=-3|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}) and having pawned her pearls for £2,000 despite, she claimed, having made £18,000 from books and £10,000 from various writings. A whip-round of Liberal sympathisers had to be organised to provide for them.<ref name="Koss 1985, pp282-3">Koss 1985, pp282-3</ref>

Her husband left her only £300 ({{Inflation|UK|300|1928|r=-3|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}) on his death in 1928 as he had to use his life insurance to provide for his children. She was left in near penury and her financial position caused her constant concern. Thereafter she made money by advising on "matters of taste" in interior design and advertising Wix cigarettes, often issued "[[IOU]]"s which she hoped would never be cashed and, beginning before her husband's death, was given regular gifts of money by [[Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook|Lord Beaverbrook]].<ref name="Koss 1985, pp282-3"/> After her husband's death, Asquith slowly moved down the residential rungs to rooms at the [[Savoy Hotel]]. Her final home was in [[Thurloe Place]], [[Kensington]]. She told [[Harold Nicolson]] that [[Neville Chamberlain]] was "the greatest Englishman that ever lived" for signing the [[Munich Agreement]].<ref>Nigel Nicolson (ed.), ''Harold Nicolson. Diaries and Letters 1930–1939'' (London: Collins, 1966), p. 371.</ref>

Her final overwhelming sadness was the separation from her daughter Elizabeth, who had been trapped in [[Bucharest]] since 1940. Asquith schemed for her rescue, but Elizabeth died of [[pneumonia]] in April 1945; heartbroken, she outlived her daughter by three months.

==Arms==
{{Infobox COA wide
|image = [[File:Coronet of a British Earl.svg|centre|150px]][[File:Margot Countess of Oxford & Asquith Impalement.png|centre|200px]]
|escutcheon = The arms of The Earl of Oxford & Aquith (Sable on a fess between three cross-crosslets argent a portcullis of the field) impaled with the arms of Tennant baronets of The Glen & St Rollox (Argent, two crescents in fess sable on a chief gules a boar's head couped of the first). }}

==In literature and popular culture==
Asquith's autobiographical revelations about her boisterous youth and early suitors were satirised by [[Neil Munro (writer)|Neil Munro]] in his Erchie MacPherson story, "Reminiscences", first published in the ''[[Glasgow Evening News]]'' on 8 November 1920.<ref>Munro, Neil, "Reminiscences", in Osborne, Brian D. & Armstrong, Ronald (eds.) (2002), ''Erchie, My Droll Friend'', [[Birlinn Limited]], Edinburgh, pp. 512 - 514, {{isbn|9781841582023}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{cite book | last1 = Abdy | first1 = Jane | author1-link = Jane Abdy | last2 = Gere | first2 = Charlotte | title = The Souls | publisher = Sidgwick & Jackson | year = 1984 | isbn = 978-0-283-98920-9}}
* [[Anne de Courcy|de Courcy, Anne]]. ''Margot at War: Love and Betrayal in Downing Street, 1912-1916'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014) {{ISBN|978-0-297-86983-2}}
* Ellenberger, Nancy W. ''Balfour's World: Aristocracy and Political Culture at the Fin de Siècle'' (2015). [https://www.amazon.com/Balfours-World-Aristocracy-Political-Culture/dp/1783270373/ excerpt]
*{{cite book|last=Heathorn|first=Stephen|title=Haig and Kitchener in Twentieth-Century Britain: Remembrance, Representation and Appropriation|publisher=Routledge|year=2013|isbn=978-0-75466-965-4}}
* {{cite book | last = Jenkins | first = Roy | author-link = Roy Jenkins | year = 1964 | title = Asquith | edition = first | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=cKdBAAAAIAAJ&q=asquith+Jenkins| location = London | publisher = Collins | oclc = 243906913 | ref = {{sfnRef|Jenkins}}
}}
* {{cite book | last = Koss | first = Stephen | author-link = Stephen Koss | year = 1985 | title = Asquith | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=tBGGAAAAIAAJ&q=Asquith+Stephen+Koss | location = London | publisher = Hamish Hamilton | isbn = 978-0-231-06155-1| ref = {{sfnRef|Koss}}
}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
{{Commons category}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=1441}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Margot Asquith}}
* Full text of ''[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4321 Margot Asquith, An Autobiography]'' from [[Project Gutenberg]]
* {{UK National Archives ID}}
*[http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/modern/asquith-margot/asquith-margot.html Bodleian Library catalogue of Margot Asquith's private papers]
*[http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/modern/asquith-hh/asquith-hh.html Bodleian Library catalogue of H.H. Asquith's private papers]
*[http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/modern/bonham-carter/bonham-carter.html Bodleian Library catalogue of Lady Violet Bonham Carter's private papers]
*[https://archives.parliament.uk/collections/getrecord/GB61_ASQ Parliamentary Archives, Asquith Papers]
* {{PM20|FID=pe/000703}}

{{Spouses of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom}}
{{H. H. Asquith|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Asquith, Margot}}
[[Category:1864 births]]
[[Category:1945 deaths]]
[[Category:Asquith family|Margot]]
[[Category:19th-century Scottish women writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Scottish autobiographers]]
[[Category:20th-century Scottish diarists]]
[[Category:20th-century Scottish women writers]]
[[Category:British socialites]]
[[Category:British countesses by marriage|Oxford and Asquith]]
[[Category:Daughters of baronets]]
[[Category:People from the Scottish Borders]]
[[Category:Scottish people of English descent]]
[[Category:Scottish socialites]]
[[Category:Spouses of prime ministers of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:British women diarists]]
[[Category:Tennant family]]
[[Category:Wives of knights]]
[[Category:British anti-suffragists]]