Emma Alice Margaret Asquith, Countess of Oxford and Asquith (née Tennant; 2 February 1864 – 28 July 1945), known as Margot Asquith, was an Anglo-Scottish socialite, author and wit. She was married to H. H. Asquith, a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1894 until his death in 1928.
Early life
She was born in Peeblesshire (Tweeddale), of Scottish and English descent. She was the sixth daughter and eleventh child of Charles Clow Tennant, industrialist and politician, and Emma Winsloe. She was brought up at Glen, the family's country estate; Margot and her sister Laura grew up wild and uninhibited. Margot was a "venturesome child", for example roaming the moors, climbing to the top of the roof by moonlight, riding her horse up the front steps of the estate house. Riding and golf were her lifelong passions.
The two girls were inseparable, entering society together in London in 1881. She and Laura became the central female figures of an 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). When Laura married Alfred Lyttelton in 1885, the first part of Margot's life ended. Laura's death in 1888 was a devastating blow from which Margot never fully recovered. As a result, Margot developed chronic insomnia which would plague her for the rest of her life.
"The first element of greatness is fundamental humbleness (this should not be confused with servility); the second is freedom from self; the third is intrepid courage, which, taken in its widest interpretation, generally goes with truth; and the fourth /the power to love /although I have put it last, is the rarest."
"It is easier to influence strong than weak characters in life"
"There are big men, men of intellect, intellectual men, men of talent and men of action; but the great man is difficult to find, and it needs /apart from discernment /a certain greatness to find him."
"Jean Harlow [Hollywood's sexy actress] kept calling Margot Asquith by her first name, or kept trying to: she pronounced it Margot. Finally Margot set her right. `No, no, Jean. The t is silent as in Harlow.'"
"Rich men's houses are seldom beautiful, rarely comfortable, and never original. It is a constant source of surprise to people of moderate means to observe how little a big fortune contributes to Beauty."
"She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake."
"The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue. There is a perpetual interference with personal liberty over there that would not be tolerated in England for a week."
"What a pity, when Christopher Columbus discovered America, that he ever mentioned it."
"Journalism over here is not only an obsession but a drawback that cannot be overrated. Politicians are frightened of the press, and in the same way as bull-fighting has a brutalizing effect upon Spain (of which she is unconscious), headlines of murder, rape, and rubbish, excite and demoralize the American public."
"He's very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head"
"He's very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head."
"Lord Birkenhead is very clever but sometimes his brains go to his head."
... swore he had visited Hastings in 1066 only to buy a Cornetto on the seafront, our leaders have shown a weakness for telling enough white lies to, as Margot Asquith put it, ice a wedding cake.
Asquith’s thoughts could not have been further from their impending fate ... ‘Can we ever forget those divine hours on Saturday & Sunday?!’ Asquith wrote to Venetia two days later ... HerbertHenry Asquith and his wife Margot Asquith.
Although only 26, she’s in the midst of a romantic entanglement with the 61-year old Liberal prime minister, HerbertHenry Asquith ... Rather, Asquith is presented with great tenderness and sympathy, as is his hard-edged but vulnerable wife, Margot.
HerbertHenry Asquith and his wife Margot Asquith ... Three years later, Asquith married Margot Tennant, a baronet's daughter ... A humiliated Margot wrote in jealous anguish to Edwin Montagu, Asquith's Cabinet colleague and friend.
“I became fascinated by this aspect of Asquith’s story,” said Harris... Both Asquith’s wife, Margot, and his daughter, Violet, were dismissive of Stanley’s seductive powers, disbelieving the affair when it was later revealed because she was “so plain”.
Asquith’s long suffering second wife Margot – who had borne the PM five children – was well used to her husband’s extra-marital proclivities, and spoke tolerantly of the ‘little harem’ he had gathered.
It proceeds as a question. why are men better comedians than women? ... I could go on for pages. But why should this be so? ... Both Napoleon and Churchill loathed droll women like Madame de Stael and Margot Asquith, as a longshoreman loathes a typhoon ... .
