Lady Cynthia Asquith 1887-1960
I have been working on a new novella set in Edwardian England. What drew me to the period was the life of Lady Cynthia Asquith. She was the daughter of the Earl of Wemyss -a Tory peer, and her family were well off but due to agricultural depression, like many peers, they were less rich than they had been.
Her father’s side of the family were very “Tory” and old fashioned and her grandfather was one of the peers who strongly opposed the limitation of the House of Lords’ powers, in 1910/11. Her mother’s side were interested in the arts and crafts and a little more liberal and modern in their outlook. Cynthia was the eldest daughter and had several siblings. She married a little “out of her class”- since she preferred intelligent and artistic people to “eldest sons of landed estates.” In 1910, she married Herbert (Beb) Asquith, the son of Liberal politician Herbert Henry Asquith, who was then Prime Minister. She was considered a beauty and was painted by several painters, including Augustus John. She had auburn hair and a “Pre Raphaelite” look.
Beb was trained as a barrister but was not a good provider, and was more literary minded. His heart was not in law. He preferred a literary career, wanting to write novels and poetry and prior to the war, his legal career did not bring in much money and the Asquiths were not well off. When the War broke out, he joined the Royal Artillery, leaving Cynthia, living in various flats, moving around a great deal, often staying with relatives, with her 2 sons, Michael and John. She described this existence as “cuckooing”.
She was an ardent reader and kept a diary which was published in the 1960s, on her life as a socialite and a woman who was close to the political elite in the War years. She described life on the Home Front in the Great War. Like most people in London, she didn’t know much of the horrors that were going on in France, although she did make one trip to the war area early on. In World War II, bombing meant that all civilians were affected by war, to a much greater degree, but in World War I, there was a great divide between the soldiers at the Front and the civilians who were safely at home. There were shortages and some rationing, but she was in some ways insulated from the realities of war. She did occasionally do war work, nursing and writing letters for soldiers and did a few short stints in a factory.
However, she was not immune to the tragedy of the Western Front’s high death rate. Two of her brothers were killed. She also wrote of the death of one of her brothers in law (Raymond, Asquith’s eldest son), and many of her friends and admirers. It is a moving picture of society in chaos. Her diary was criticised later for its apparent “light hearted” approach to the war but it was common among people in London at the time. “Carrying on” and not appearing too much affected by the struggle was part of the upper class and “British” way of dealing with the traumas. Her literary interests led her to befriend the young DH Lawrence although she did not always like or understand his work. She appreciated his talents. Since she was not well off, she was continually trying to think of ways of making money. Towards the last years of the War, she took a job as secretary to the writer JM Barrie and eventually inherited some of his money.
Her eldest son, John was autistic, and she was perpetually taking him to doctors, trying to understand what was wrong with him and to find a solution to his problems. Eventually, following the usual practice at the time, he was institutionalised.
After the war Cynthia had a third son, Simon and realised that her husband was never likely now to “make his fortune”. He was severely traumatised by his war experience, at a time when little was known about shell shock, and their marriage was increasingly difficult. Cynthia wrote novels, and light biographies, some about the Royal family, to earn more money for her family. Her husband also wrote and worked in publishing. She had various admirers, with whom she flirted, including Lord Basil Blackwood, who was killed in the War, and Bernard Freyburg, later a general. However this behaviour was not abnormal for a woman of her class. She seemed to keep the friendships at a flirtatious level, without crossing the line into having affairs, but there was tension between her and Beb about her romantic friendships with other men. Their marriage lasted until his death in 1947, but was not a close one. They were friends rather than husband and wife.
In her later years, Cynthia was occasionally seen on TV and wrote more books including a life of Sonya Tolstoy, which was her last book.
