Venetia Stanley

Beatrice Venetia Stanley Montagu (born August 22, 1887 - † August 3, 1948 ) was a British noblewoman. She became famous for her platonic relationship with the British Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith and the widely read correspondence she had with him between 1910 and 1915 and which is considered to be one of the most important sources for the development of British politics in those years.

Life

Stanley was born in 1887, the youngest daughter of Edward Lyulph Stanley, 4th Baron Sheffield and Stanley of Alderley .

Around 1906 Stanley met her friend Violet Asquith , whose father, the liberal politician Herbert Henry Asquith know. After a long acquaintance, Asquith - who had a tendency to romantic-innocent relationships with young women of British "better society" - began a loose correspondence with Stanley in 1910, which over time developed intimate features. After traveling to Sicily together in 1912, the correspondence between the two intensified. From this point in time until 1915, Asquith wrote daily - sometimes several - letters to Stanley, which he occasionally even wrote during the cabinet meetings he chaired.

On July 26, 1915, Stanley Edwin married Samuel Montagu , the son of Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling , a protégé of Asquiths, whom she met in 1912 after turning down a first marriage proposal in 1913. The marriage resulted in a daughter (* 1923). The offer of the Liberal Party to be run in the general election of 1928 as a candidate for the constituency of South Norfolk , Stanley turned down in the end. She died of cancer in 1948.

Historical value of Stanley's correspondence with Asquith

The correspondence between Asquith and Stanley, the mass, continuity and confidentiality of which allows the reader diary-like insights into Asquith's thoughts, opinions and mental and emotional states at virtually every point in the period in question, was later collected by Stanley's heirs and made available to historians as a source. However, only Asquith's letters to Stanley have survived - who kept the letters she received - while Stanley's letters to Asquith were destroyed by Stanley - probably for reasons of discretion.

Asquith's letters to Stanley allow an intimate glimpse into the Prime Minister's personal opinions and feelings about the relevant political events and actors of those years. In his letters to Stanley, Asquith even went so far as to write to her himself about the most secret government matters, and asked her many times about her political - and after the outbreak of World War I even her military - advice. However, this can only be reconstructed from his answers to the advice given to him in the form of letters, since, as I said, their letters have not been preserved.

There is broad consensus in historical and biographical research that Stanley's letter to Asquith, dated May 12, 1915, in which she informed him of her decision to marry Montagu and break off her relationship with him (Asquith), had a significant impact on Asquith's "distress" “During this time and thus favored the overthrow of the liberal one-party government he led and the formation of the coalition government - again under his leadership - because it reduced his“ fighting strength ”during the government crisis.

literature

• Michael Brock / Eleanor Block: "Asquith: Letters to Venetia Stanley", Oxford 1982.
• Naomi B. Levine, "Politics, Religion and Love: the Story of HH Asquith, Venetia Stanley and Edwin Montagu", New York 1991.
• The 1990 novel "Scandalous Risks" deals with the relationship between Stanley ("Venetia Flaxton") and Asquith ("Neville Aysgarth") in literary terms.