Diana Mitford
Encyclopedia
Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley (née
Freeman-Mitford; 17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003), was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne
, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley
, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats
, leader of the British Union of Fascists
; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the home of Joseph Goebbels
, with Adolf Hitler
as guest of honour. Subsequently her involvement with right-wing political causes resulted in three years' internment
during the Second World War
. She later moved to Paris and enjoyed some success as a writer. In the 1950s she contributed diaries to Tatler
and edited the magazine, The European
. In 1977 she published her autobiography, A Life of Contrasts
and two more biographies in the 1980s. She was also a regular book reviewer for Books & Bookmen and later at The Evening Standard in the 1990s. She caused controversy when she appeared on Desert Island Discs
in 1989. Family friend, James Lees-Milne
wrote of her beauty; "She was the nearest thing to Botticelli's Venus
that I have ever seen".
(1878–1958, son of Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale
), and his wife, Sydney (1880–1963), daughter of Thomas Gibson Bowles
, MP. Mitford was born in Belgravia
and raised in the country estate of Batsford Park, then from the age of 10 at the family home, Asthall Manor
, in Oxfordshire
and later at Swinbrook House, a home her father had built in the village of Swinbrook
. She was educated at home by a series of governesses except for a six month period in 1926 when she was sent to a day school in Paris. In childhood, her younger sisters Jessica Mitford
("Decca") and Deborah Cavendish, 11th Duchess of Devonshire ("Debo") were particularly devoted to her. Her eldest sister Nancy was jealous of Diana's beauty and popularity with the friends she would bring home to Asthall or Swinbrook.
At the age of 18, she became secretly engaged to Bryan Walter Guinness shortly after her presentation at Court. Guinness, an Irish aristocrat, writer and brewing heir, would inherit the barony of Moyne
. Her parents were initially opposed to the engagement but in time were persuaded. Sydney was particularly uneasy at the thought of two such young people having possession of such a large fortune, but she was eventually convinced Bryan was a suitable husband. They married on 30 January 1929, her sisters Jessica and Deborah were too ill to attend the ceremony. The couple had an income of £20,000 a year, an estate in Biddesden, Hampshire
, and houses in London
and Dublin. They were well known for hosting aristocratic society events involving the Bright Young People
. The writer Evelyn Waugh
exclaimed that her beauty "ran through the room like a peal of bells", and he dedicated the novel Vile Bodies
, a satire of the Roaring Twenties
, to the couple. Her portrait was painted by Augustus John
, Pavel Tchelitchew
and Henry Lamb
. The couple had two sons, Jonathan (b. 1930), and Desmond
(b. 1931).
In February 1932 Diana met Sir Oswald Mosley
at a garden party at the home of noted society hostess Emerald Cunard
. He went on to become leader of the British Union of Fascists
, and Diana became his mistress; he was at the time married to Lady Cynthia Curzon
, a daughter of Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India and his first wife, American mercantile heiress Mary Victoria Leiter. Diana left her husband but Sir Oswald would not leave his wife. Quite suddenly, Cynthia died in 1933 of peritonitis
. While Mosley was devastated by the death of his wife, he soon started an affair with her younger sister Lady Alexandra Metcalfe
.
Owing to Diana's parents' disapproval over her decision to leave Guinness for Mosley, she was briefly estranged from most of her family. Her affair and eventual marriage to Mosley also strained relationships with her sisters. Initially, Decca and Debo were banned to see Diana as she was "living in sin" with Mosley in London. Debo eventually got to know Mosley and ended up liking him very much. Decca despised Mosley's beliefs and became permanently estranged from Diana after the late 1930s. Pam and her husband Derek Jackson
got along well with Mosley. Nancy never liked Mosley and, like Decca, despised his political beliefs, but was able to learn to tolerate him for the sake of her relationship with Diana. Nancy wrote the novel Wigs on the Green, which satirised Mosley and his beliefs. After it was published in 1935 relations between the sisters became strained to non-existent and it was not until the mid 1940s that they were able to get back to being close again.
The couple rented Wooton Lodge, a country house in Staffordshire
which Diana had intended to buy. She furnished much of her new home with much of the Swinbrook furniture that her father was selling. The Mosleys lived at Wooton Lodge along with their children from 1936 to 1939.
after the Nazi seizure of power. A friend of Hitler's, Unity introduced Diana to him in March 1935. They returned again for the second rally later that year and were entertained as his guests at the 1935 rally. In 1936, he provided a Mercedes-Benz
to chauffeur Diana to the Berlin Olympic games
. She became well-acquainted with Winifred Wagner
and Magda Goebbels
.
Diana and Oswald wed in secret on 6 October 1936 in the drawing room of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels
, whose wife Magda was a friend of Diana. Adolf Hitler was reportedly the sole guest. The marriage was kept secret until the birth of their first child in 1938. In August 1939, Hitler told Diana over lunch that war was inevitable. Mosley and Diana had two sons: (Oswald) Alexander Mosley (born 26 November 1938) and Max Rufus Mosley
(born 13 April 1940), president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile
(FIA) for 16 years. Hitler presented the couple with a silver framed picture of himself. The Mosleys were interned during much of World War II
, under Defence Regulation 18B
along with other British fascists including Norah Elam
.
MI5
documents released in 2002 described Lady Mosley and her political leanings. "Diana Mosley, wife of Sir Oswald Mosley, is reported on the 'best authority', that of her family and intimate circle, to be a public danger at the present time. Is said to be far cleverer and more dangerous than her husband and will stick at nothing to achieve her ambitions. She is wildly ambitious." On 29 June 1940, eleven weeks after the birth of her fourth son Max, Diana was arrested (hastily stuffing Hitler's photograph under Max's cot mattress when the police came to arrest her) and taken to a cell in F Block in London's Holloway Prison for women. She and her husband were held without charge or trial, at His Majesty's pleasure largely due to the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison
. The pair were initially held separately but, after personal intervention by Churchill, in December 1941 Mosley and two other 18B husbands (one of them Mosley's friend Captain H.W. Luttman-Johnson) were permitted to join their wives at Holloway. After more than three years' imprisonment, they were both released in November 1943 on the grounds of Mosley's ill health; they were placed under house arrest until the end of the war and were denied passports until 1947.
Lady Mosley's prison time failed to disturb her approach to life; she remarked in her later years that she never grew fraises des bois that tasted as good as those she had cultivated in the prison garden. Though prison was not something she would have chosen, she said, "It was still lovely to wake up in the morning and feel that one was lovely," when she compared her lot to the other women incarcerated at Holloway (Oswald Mosley later mentioned this to Diana's sister Nancy, who in turn included the line in her novel, Love in a Cold Climate
).
According to her obituary in the Daily Telegraph, a diamond swastika was among her jewels.
, with apartments in London and Paris. Their recently renovated Clonfert
home, a former Bishop's palace, burned down in an accidental fire. Following this, they moved to a home near Fermoy
, County Cork
, later settling permanently in France, at Orsay
. They were neighbours of Duke
and Duchess of Windsor, and soon became close friends with them. The Duchess of Windsor, upon seeing the Temple de la Gloire for the first time, was said to have remarked, "Oh, it's charming, charming but where do you live?"
Once again they were well known for entertaining, but were barred from all functions at the British Embassy. During their time in France the Mosleys quietly went through another marriage ceremony; Hitler had safeguarded their original marriage license, and it was never found after the war. During this period, Mosley was unfaithful to Diana but she found for the most part that she was able to learn to keep herself from getting too upset regarding his adulterous habits. The only time she and sister Jessica communicated with each other following their estrangement was when they were both taking care of their sister Nancy. Nancy was at Versailles, and was battling Hodgkin's disease. Soon after Nancy's death in 1973, all communication between the sisters ceased. Nancy was also a lifelong supporter of the British Union of Fascists
(BUF), and its postwar successor the Union Movement
, to which she made financial contributions until the 1994 death of its organiser Jeffrey Hamm
.
At times she was ambiguous when discussing her loyalties to Britain and her strong belief in fascism. In her 1977 autobiography A Life of Contrasts she wrote "I didn't love Hitler any more than I did Winston [Churchill]. I can't regret it, it was so interesting." At other times, however, her anti-semitism became more explicit: the journalist Paul Callan
remembered mentioning that he was Jewish while interviewing her husband in Diana's presence. According to Callan: "I mentioned, just in the course of conversation, that I was Jewish – at which Lady Mosley went ashen, snapped a crimson nail and left the room ... No explanation was given but she would later write to a friend: A nice, polite reporter came to interview Tom [as Mosley was known] but he turned out to be Jewish and was sitting there at our table. They are a very clever race and come in all shapes and sizes.'"
In 1989, she was invited to appear on the BBC Radio 4
programme Desert Island Discs
with Sue Lawley
. She caused controversy for describing Hitler as "fascinating", and when asked: "What about the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis?", she replied: "Oh no, I don't think it was that many." Her choices were: Symphony No. 41 (Mozart)
, Casta Diva from Norma
(Bellini
), Ode to Joy
(Beethoven
), Die Walküre
(Wagner
), Liebestod
(Wagner
), L'amour est un oiseau rebelle from Carmen
(Bizet
), A Whiter Shade Of Pale
(Procol Harum
) and Polonaise, Op. 44 (Chopin).
In 1998, due to her advancing age, she moved out of the Temple de la Gloire and into a Paris apartment. Temple de la Gloire was subsequently sold for £1 million in 2000. Throughout much of her life, particularly after her years in prison, she was afflicted by regular bouts of migraines. In 1981, she underwent a successful surgery to remove a brain tumour. She convalesced at Chatsworth House
, the residence of her sister Deborah. In the early 1990s, she was also successfully treated for skin cancer
. In later life she also suffered from deafness.
. This allowed Mosley to publish and Diana was free to commission a cultural list. After his release from jail, Mosley had declared the death of fascism. Diana initially translated Goethe's Faust. Other notable books that she translated for Euphorion included La Princesse de Clèves
(1950), Niki Lauda
's memoirs (1985), and Hans-Ulrich Rudel
's memoirs, Stuka Pilot. She also edited several of her husband's books.
While in France, Diana edited the right-wing cultural magazine The European
for six years, to which she also contributed. She provided articles, book reviews and regular diary entries. Many of her contributions were republished in 2008 in The Pursuit of Laughter
. In 1965, she was commissioned to write the regular column Letters from Paris for the Tatler
. She was an avid reader and critic of contemporary literature, reviewing for publications such as the London Evening Standard, The Spectator
, The Daily Mail, The Times
, The Sunday Times
and Books & Bookmen. She specialised in reviewing autobiographical and biographical accounts as well as the occasional novel. Characteristically she would provide commentary of her own experiences with and knowledge of the subject of the book she was reviewing. She was the lead literary reviewer for the London Evening Standard during A.N. Wilson's tenure as literary editor. In 1996, and on personal grounds, the new editor Max Hastings
insisted that she no longer be contracted by the newspaper. Following Hastings' retirement in 2001, the newspaper published several more book reviews by her until her death in 2003.
She wrote the foreword and introduction of Nancy Mitford: A Memoir by Harold Acton
. She produced her own two books of memoirs; A Life of Contrasts
(1977, Hamish Hamilton
), and Loved Ones
(1985). The latter is a collection of pen portraits of close relatives and friends such as the writer Evelyn Waugh
amongst others. In 1980 she released The Duchess of Windsor; a biography. New editions of A Life of Contrasts and the The Duchess of Windsor were released in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
In 2007, letters between the Mitford sisters, including ones to and from Diana, were published in the compilation The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters
, edited by Charlotte Mosley. The book received critical acclaim, in a review published in The Sunday Times, journalist India Knight
noted that Diana was "briefly sinister but also clever, kind, and fatally loyal to her Blackshirt husband, Oswald Mosley." A following collection consisting of her letters, articles, diaries and reviews was released as The Pursuit of Laughter
in December 2008. The collection garnered generally positive reviews.
heat wave of 2003
in mostly non-air-conditioned Paris. Her remains are interred in the Swinbrook
Churchyard in Oxfordshire
with those of her sisters. Her death leaves one surviving sister: Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
.
She was survived by her four sons, among whom are the Irish preservationist Desmond Guinness
; the writer Jonathan Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne
; and Max Mosley
, former president of the FIA
, the governing body of world motorsport. Her stepson Nicholas Mosley is a novelist who also wrote a critical memoir of his father for which Diana reportedly never forgave him, despite their previously close relationship. One of her great-granddaughters, Jasmine Guinness
, a great-niece, Stella Tennant
, and a grandson, Tom Guinness, are models.
"I'm sure he was to blame for the extermination of the Jews", she told British journalist Andrew Roberts, "[h]e was to blame for everything, and I say that as someone who approved of him."Cook, Megan and Gressor, Kerry
(2005) All for love Murdoch Books Pty Limited p. 184; ISBN 978-1740455961 Roberts criticised Lady Mosley following her death on the pages of The Daily Telegraph (16 August 2003), declaring that she was an "unrepentant Nazi and effortlessly charming". He, in turn, was assailed three days later, in the same newspaper, by her son and granddaughter. She was portrayed by actress Emma Davies in the 1997 Channel Four TV miniseries, Mosley.
(28 November 1904 - 30 June 1973)
Pamela Mitford
(25 November 1907 – 12 April 1994)
Thomas Mitford (2 January 1909 – 30 March 1945)
Diana Mitford (17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003)
Unity Mitford
(8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948)
Jessica Mitford
(11 September 1917 – 22 July 1996)
Deborah Mitford
(born 31 March 1920)
NEE
NEE is a political protest group whose goal was to provide an alternative for voters who are unhappy with all political parties at hand in Belgium, where voting is compulsory.The NEE party was founded in 2005 in Antwerp...
Freeman-Mitford; 17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003), was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne
Baron Moyne
Baron Moyne, of Bury St Edmund in the County of Suffolk, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1932 for the Conservative politician the Hon. Walter Guinness. A member of the prominent Guinness brewing family, he was the third son of Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh,...
, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats
Mosley Baronets
There have been three Baronetcies created for members of the Mosley family, one in the Baronetage of England and two in the Baronetage of Great Britain...
, leader of the British Union of Fascists
British Union of Fascists
The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...
; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the home of Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
, with Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
as guest of honour. Subsequently her involvement with right-wing political causes resulted in three years' internment
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
during the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. She later moved to Paris and enjoyed some success as a writer. In the 1950s she contributed diaries to Tatler
Tatler
Tatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...
and edited the magazine, The European
The European (magazine)
The European was a privately circulated far-right cultural and political magazine that was published between 1953 and 1959. During this tenure, it was edited by Diana Mosley...
. In 1977 she published her autobiography, A Life of Contrasts
A Life of Contrasts
A Life of Contrasts is an international bestseller by Diana Mitford that was first published by Hamish Hamilton in 1977. She later released a revised edition of the book that was published in 2002 by Gibson Square.-Synopsis:...
and two more biographies in the 1980s. She was also a regular book reviewer for Books & Bookmen and later at The Evening Standard in the 1990s. She caused controversy when she appeared on Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...
in 1989. Family friend, James Lees-Milne
James Lees-Milne
James Lees-Milne was an English writer and expert on country houses. He was an architectural historian, novelist, and a biographer. He is also remembered as a diarist.-Biography:...
wrote of her beauty; "She was the nearest thing to Botticelli's Venus
The Birth of Venus (Botticelli)
The Birth of Venus is a painting by Sandro Botticelli. It depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as a fully grown woman, arriving at the sea-shore...
that I have ever seen".
Early life
Diana Mitford was the daughter of David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron RedesdaleBaron Redesdale
Baron Redesdale, of Redesdale in the County of Northumberland, is a title that has been created twice, both times in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was firstly created in 1802 for the lawyer and politician Sir John Freeman-Mitford. He was Speaker of the House of Commons between 1801 and 1802...
(1878–1958, son of Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale
Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale
Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale GCVO, KCB , of Batsford Park, Gloucestershire, and Birdhope Craig, Northumberland, was a British diplomat, collector and writer...
), and his wife, Sydney (1880–1963), daughter of Thomas Gibson Bowles
Thomas Gibson Bowles
Thomas Gibson Bowles , generally known as Tommy Bowles, was the founder of the magazines The Lady and the English Vanity Fair, a sailor and the maternal grandfather of the Mitford sisters.-Parents:...
, MP. Mitford was born in Belgravia
Belgravia
Belgravia is a district of central London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Noted for its immensely expensive residential properties, it is one of the wealthiest districts in the world...
and raised in the country estate of Batsford Park, then from the age of 10 at the family home, Asthall Manor
Asthall Manor
Asthall Manor is a gabled Jacobean Cotswold manor house in Asthall, Oxfordshire. It was built in about 1620 and altered and enlarged in about 1916The house was the childhood home of the Mitford sisters.-History:...
, in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
and later at Swinbrook House, a home her father had built in the village of Swinbrook
Swinbrook
Swinbrook is a village on the River Windrush, east of Burford in Oxfordshire, England. The village is in the civil parish of Swinbrook and Widford.-History:...
. She was educated at home by a series of governesses except for a six month period in 1926 when she was sent to a day school in Paris. In childhood, her younger sisters Jessica Mitford
Jessica Mitford
Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters...
("Decca") and Deborah Cavendish, 11th Duchess of Devonshire ("Debo") were particularly devoted to her. Her eldest sister Nancy was jealous of Diana's beauty and popularity with the friends she would bring home to Asthall or Swinbrook.
At the age of 18, she became secretly engaged to Bryan Walter Guinness shortly after her presentation at Court. Guinness, an Irish aristocrat, writer and brewing heir, would inherit the barony of Moyne
Baron Moyne
Baron Moyne, of Bury St Edmund in the County of Suffolk, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1932 for the Conservative politician the Hon. Walter Guinness. A member of the prominent Guinness brewing family, he was the third son of Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh,...
. Her parents were initially opposed to the engagement but in time were persuaded. Sydney was particularly uneasy at the thought of two such young people having possession of such a large fortune, but she was eventually convinced Bryan was a suitable husband. They married on 30 January 1929, her sisters Jessica and Deborah were too ill to attend the ceremony. The couple had an income of £20,000 a year, an estate in Biddesden, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, and houses in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Dublin. They were well known for hosting aristocratic society events involving the Bright Young People
Bright Young People
The Bright Young People was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London. They threw elaborate fancy dress parties, went on elaborate treasure hunts through nighttime London, and drank heavily and experimented with drugs—all of which...
. The writer Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
exclaimed that her beauty "ran through the room like a peal of bells", and he dedicated the novel Vile Bodies
Vile Bodies
Vile Bodies is a 1930 novel by Evelyn Waugh satirising the Bright Young People: decadent young London society between World War I and World War II.-Title:The title comes from the Epistle to the Philippians 3:21...
, a satire of the Roaring Twenties
Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties is a phrase used to describe the 1920s, principally in North America, but also in London, Berlin and Paris for a period of sustained economic prosperity. The phrase was meant to emphasize the period's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism...
, to the couple. Her portrait was painted by Augustus John
Augustus John
Augustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....
, Pavel Tchelitchew
Pavel Tchelitchew
Pavel Tchelitchew was a Russian-born surrealist painter, set designer and costume designer. He left Russia in 1920, lived in Berlin from 1921 to 1923, and moved to Paris in 1923. In Paris Tchelitchew became acquainted with Gertrude Stein and, through her, the Sitwell and Gorer families...
and Henry Lamb
Henry Lamb
Henry Taylor Lamb, MC, RA was an Australian-born British painter. A follower of Augustus John, he was a founder member of the Camden Town Group.Born in Adelaide, Australia, he was the son of Sir Horace Lamb FRS...
. The couple had two sons, Jonathan (b. 1930), and Desmond
Desmond Guinness
Hon. Desmond Guinness is an Irish author on Georgian art and architecture and a conservationist.He was the second son of the author and brewer Bryan Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne and Diana Mitford...
(b. 1931).
In February 1932 Diana met Sir Oswald Mosley
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
at a garden party at the home of noted society hostess Emerald Cunard
Maud Cunard
Maud Alice Burke , later Lady Cunard, known as Emerald, was an American-born, London-based society hostess. She had long relationships with the novelist George Moore and the conductor Thomas Beecham, and was the muse of the former and a champion of and fund-raiser for the latter...
. He went on to become leader of the British Union of Fascists
British Union of Fascists
The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...
, and Diana became his mistress; he was at the time married to Lady Cynthia Curzon
Lady Cynthia Mosley
Lady Cynthia Blanche Mosley was a British politician of Anglo-American parentage and the first wife of the Conservative and Labour MP and British fascist Sir Oswald Mosley...
, a daughter of Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India and his first wife, American mercantile heiress Mary Victoria Leiter. Diana left her husband but Sir Oswald would not leave his wife. Quite suddenly, Cynthia died in 1933 of peritonitis
Peritonitis
Peritonitis is an inflammation of the peritoneum, the serous membrane that lines part of the abdominal cavity and viscera. Peritonitis may be localised or generalised, and may result from infection or from a non-infectious process.-Abdominal pain and tenderness:The main manifestations of...
. While Mosley was devastated by the death of his wife, he soon started an affair with her younger sister Lady Alexandra Metcalfe
Lady Alexandra Curzon
Lady Alexandra Naldera Curzon, CBE , was the third daughter of George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston and Viceroy of India, and Lord Curzon's first wife, the American mercantile heiress, formerly Mary Victoria Leiter, Mary Victoria Curzon, Baroness Curzon of Kedleston...
.
Owing to Diana's parents' disapproval over her decision to leave Guinness for Mosley, she was briefly estranged from most of her family. Her affair and eventual marriage to Mosley also strained relationships with her sisters. Initially, Decca and Debo were banned to see Diana as she was "living in sin" with Mosley in London. Debo eventually got to know Mosley and ended up liking him very much. Decca despised Mosley's beliefs and became permanently estranged from Diana after the late 1930s. Pam and her husband Derek Jackson
Derek Jackson (physicist)
Professor Derek Ainslie Jackson, FRS, DFC, AFC, OBE was a spectroscopist.Derek Jackson was one of the outstanding atomic physicists of his generation, but there was very little in his life that could be called conventional....
got along well with Mosley. Nancy never liked Mosley and, like Decca, despised his political beliefs, but was able to learn to tolerate him for the sake of her relationship with Diana. Nancy wrote the novel Wigs on the Green, which satirised Mosley and his beliefs. After it was published in 1935 relations between the sisters became strained to non-existent and it was not until the mid 1940s that they were able to get back to being close again.
The couple rented Wooton Lodge, a country house in Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
which Diana had intended to buy. She furnished much of her new home with much of the Swinbrook furniture that her father was selling. The Mosleys lived at Wooton Lodge along with their children from 1936 to 1939.
Third Reich
In 1934, Mitford went to Germany with her then 19-year-old sister Unity. While there they attended the first Nuremberg rallyNuremberg Rally
The Nuremberg Rally was the annual rally of the NSDAP in Germany, held from 1923 to 1938. Especially after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, they were large Nazi propaganda events...
after the Nazi seizure of power. A friend of Hitler's, Unity introduced Diana to him in March 1935. They returned again for the second rally later that year and were entertained as his guests at the 1935 rally. In 1936, he provided a Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
to chauffeur Diana to the Berlin Olympic games
1936 Summer Olympics
The 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was held in 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona, Spain on April 26, 1931, at the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona...
. She became well-acquainted with Winifred Wagner
Winifred Wagner
Winifred Wagner was an English woman married to Siegfried Wagner, Richard Wagner's son. She was the effective head of the Wagner family from 1930 to 1945, and a close friend of German dictator Adolf Hitler....
and Magda Goebbels
Magda Goebbels
Johanna Maria Magdalena "Magda" Goebbels was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels...
.
Diana and Oswald wed in secret on 6 October 1936 in the drawing room of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
, whose wife Magda was a friend of Diana. Adolf Hitler was reportedly the sole guest. The marriage was kept secret until the birth of their first child in 1938. In August 1939, Hitler told Diana over lunch that war was inevitable. Mosley and Diana had two sons: (Oswald) Alexander Mosley (born 26 November 1938) and Max Rufus Mosley
Max Mosley
Max Rufus Mosley is the former president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile , a non-profit association that represents the interests of motoring organisations and car users worldwide...
(born 13 April 1940), president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile
Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile
The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile is a non-profit association established as the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus on 20 June 1904 to represent the interests of motoring organisations and motor car users...
(FIA) for 16 years. Hitler presented the couple with a silver framed picture of himself. The Mosleys were interned during much of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, under Defence Regulation 18B
Defence Regulation 18B
Defence Regulation 18B, often referred to as simply 18B, was the most famous of the Defence Regulations used by the British Government during World War II. The complete technical reference name for this rule was: Regulation 18B of the Defence Regulations 1939. It allowed for the internment of...
along with other British fascists including Norah Elam
Norah Elam
Norah Elam also known as Norah Dacre Fox, was a radical feminist, militant suffragette, anti-vivisectionist and fascist in the United Kingdom. Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1878 to John and Charlotte Doherty, she emigrated to England with her family and by 1891 was living in London...
.
MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
documents released in 2002 described Lady Mosley and her political leanings. "Diana Mosley, wife of Sir Oswald Mosley, is reported on the 'best authority', that of her family and intimate circle, to be a public danger at the present time. Is said to be far cleverer and more dangerous than her husband and will stick at nothing to achieve her ambitions. She is wildly ambitious." On 29 June 1940, eleven weeks after the birth of her fourth son Max, Diana was arrested (hastily stuffing Hitler's photograph under Max's cot mattress when the police came to arrest her) and taken to a cell in F Block in London's Holloway Prison for women. She and her husband were held without charge or trial, at His Majesty's pleasure largely due to the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison
Herbert Morrison
Herbert Stanley Morrison, Baron Morrison of Lambeth, CH, PC was a British Labour politician; he held a various number of senior positions in the Cabinet, including Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister.-Early life:Morrison was the son of a police constable and was born in...
. The pair were initially held separately but, after personal intervention by Churchill, in December 1941 Mosley and two other 18B husbands (one of them Mosley's friend Captain H.W. Luttman-Johnson) were permitted to join their wives at Holloway. After more than three years' imprisonment, they were both released in November 1943 on the grounds of Mosley's ill health; they were placed under house arrest until the end of the war and were denied passports until 1947.
Lady Mosley's prison time failed to disturb her approach to life; she remarked in her later years that she never grew fraises des bois that tasted as good as those she had cultivated in the prison garden. Though prison was not something she would have chosen, she said, "It was still lovely to wake up in the morning and feel that one was lovely," when she compared her lot to the other women incarcerated at Holloway (Oswald Mosley later mentioned this to Diana's sister Nancy, who in turn included the line in her novel, Love in a Cold Climate
Love in a Cold Climate
Love in a Cold Climate is a novel by Nancy Mitford, first published in 1949. The title is a direct quotation from George Orwell's novel Keep The Aspidistra Flying .-Plot summary:...
).
According to her obituary in the Daily Telegraph, a diamond swastika was among her jewels.
Post-war
After the war ended the couple kept homes in IrelandIreland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, with apartments in London and Paris. Their recently renovated Clonfert
Clonfert
Clonfert is a small village in east County Galway, Ireland. It is half way between Ballinasloe and Portumna.Clonfert Cathedral is situated in the village, which is the see of the Diocese of Clonfert.-See also:* List of towns and villages in Ireland...
home, a former Bishop's palace, burned down in an accidental fire. Following this, they moved to a home near Fermoy
Fermoy
Fermoy is a town in County Cork, Ireland. It is situated on the River Blackwater in the south of Ireland. Its population is some 5,800 inhabitants, environs included ....
, County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
, later settling permanently in France, at Orsay
Orsay
Orsay is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France, from the center of Paris.Inhabitants of Orsay are known as Orcéens.-History:...
. They were neighbours of Duke
Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936.Before his accession to the throne, Edward was Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...
and Duchess of Windsor, and soon became close friends with them. The Duchess of Windsor, upon seeing the Temple de la Gloire for the first time, was said to have remarked, "Oh, it's charming, charming but where do you live?"
Once again they were well known for entertaining, but were barred from all functions at the British Embassy. During their time in France the Mosleys quietly went through another marriage ceremony; Hitler had safeguarded their original marriage license, and it was never found after the war. During this period, Mosley was unfaithful to Diana but she found for the most part that she was able to learn to keep herself from getting too upset regarding his adulterous habits. The only time she and sister Jessica communicated with each other following their estrangement was when they were both taking care of their sister Nancy. Nancy was at Versailles, and was battling Hodgkin's disease. Soon after Nancy's death in 1973, all communication between the sisters ceased. Nancy was also a lifelong supporter of the British Union of Fascists
British Union of Fascists
The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...
(BUF), and its postwar successor the Union Movement
Union Movement
The Union Movement was a right-wing political party founded in Britain by Oswald Mosley. Where Mosley had previously been associated with a peculiarly British form of fascism, the Union Movement attempted to redefine the concept by stressing the importance of developing a European nationalism...
, to which she made financial contributions until the 1994 death of its organiser Jeffrey Hamm
Jeffrey Hamm
Edward Jeffrey Hamm was a leading British Fascist and supporter of Oswald Mosley.Born in Ebbw Vale, Wales, he came into contact with the British Union of Fascists during a family trip to London and joined in 1935 when he relocated to London although initially, due to his youth, his role in the...
.
At times she was ambiguous when discussing her loyalties to Britain and her strong belief in fascism. In her 1977 autobiography A Life of Contrasts she wrote "I didn't love Hitler any more than I did Winston [Churchill]. I can't regret it, it was so interesting." At other times, however, her anti-semitism became more explicit: the journalist Paul Callan
Paul Callan
This article is about the British journalist. For the television character, see Miracles.Paul Callan is a British journalist and editor who has worked on many national newspapers.-Early career:...
remembered mentioning that he was Jewish while interviewing her husband in Diana's presence. According to Callan: "I mentioned, just in the course of conversation, that I was Jewish – at which Lady Mosley went ashen, snapped a crimson nail and left the room ... No explanation was given but she would later write to a friend: A nice, polite reporter came to interview Tom [as Mosley was known] but he turned out to be Jewish and was sitting there at our table. They are a very clever race and come in all shapes and sizes.'"
In 1989, she was invited to appear on the BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
programme Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...
with Sue Lawley
Sue Lawley
- Early life and education:Born in Sedgley, Staffordshire, England and brought up in the Black Country, she was educated at Dudley Girls High School and graduated in modern languages from the University of Bristol and some time later started her career at the BBC in Plymouth...
. She caused controversy for describing Hitler as "fascinating", and when asked: "What about the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis?", she replied: "Oh no, I don't think it was that many." Her choices were: Symphony No. 41 (Mozart)
Symphony No. 41 (Mozart)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551, on 10 August 1788. It was the last symphony that he composed.The work is nicknamed the Jupiter Symphony...
, Casta Diva from Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
(Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
), Ode to Joy
Anthem of Europe
"Ode to Joy" is the anthem of the European Union and the Council of Europe; both of which refer to it as the European Anthem due to the Council's intention that it represents Europe as a whole, rather than any organisation...
(Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
), Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
(Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
), Liebestod
Liebestod
Liebestod is the title of the final, dramatic aria from the opera Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner. When used as a literary term, liebestod refers to the theme of erotic death or "love death" meaning the two lovers' consummation of their love in death or after death...
(Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
), L'amour est un oiseau rebelle from Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
(Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
), A Whiter Shade Of Pale
A Whiter Shade of Pale
"A Whiter Shade of Pale" is the debut song by the British band Procol Harum, released 12 May 1967. The single reached number one in the UK Singles Chart on 8 June 1967, and stayed there for six weeks. Without much promotion, it reached #5 on the US charts, as well...
(Procol Harum
Procol Harum
Procol Harum are a British rock band, formed in 1967, which contributed to the development of progressive rock, and by extension, symphonic rock. Their best-known recording is their 1967 single "A Whiter Shade of Pale"...
) and Polonaise, Op. 44 (Chopin).
In 1998, due to her advancing age, she moved out of the Temple de la Gloire and into a Paris apartment. Temple de la Gloire was subsequently sold for £1 million in 2000. Throughout much of her life, particularly after her years in prison, she was afflicted by regular bouts of migraines. In 1981, she underwent a successful surgery to remove a brain tumour. She convalesced at Chatsworth House
Chatsworth House
Chatsworth House is a stately home in North Derbyshire, England, northeast of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield . It is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, and has been home to his family, the Cavendish family, since Bess of Hardwick settled at Chatsworth in 1549.Standing on the east bank of the...
, the residence of her sister Deborah. In the early 1990s, she was also successfully treated for skin cancer
Skin cancer
Skin neoplasms are skin growths with differing causes and varying degrees of malignancy. The three most common malignant skin cancers are basal cell cancer, squamous cell cancer, and melanoma, each of which is named after the type of skin cell from which it arises...
. In later life she also suffered from deafness.
Writing
Mosley was shunned in the British media for a period after the war and the couple established their own publishing company, Euphorion Books, named after a character in FaustFaust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
. This allowed Mosley to publish and Diana was free to commission a cultural list. After his release from jail, Mosley had declared the death of fascism. Diana initially translated Goethe's Faust. Other notable books that she translated for Euphorion included La Princesse de Clèves
La Princesse de Clèves
La Princesse de Clèves is a French novel which was published anonymously in March 1678. It is regarded by many as the beginning of the modern tradition of the psychological novel, and as a great classic work. Its author is generally held to be Madame de La Fayette.The action takes place between...
(1950), Niki Lauda
Niki Lauda
Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda is an Austrian former Formula One racing driver and three-time F1 World Champion. More recently an aviation entrepreneur, he has founded and run two airlines and was manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years.- Early years in racing :Born in Vienna,...
's memoirs (1985), and Hans-Ulrich Rudel
Hans-Ulrich Rudel
Hans-Ulrich Rudel was a Stuka dive-bomber pilot during World War II and a member of the Nazi party. The most highly decorated German serviceman of the war, Rudel was one of only 27 military men to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, and the only...
's memoirs, Stuka Pilot. She also edited several of her husband's books.
While in France, Diana edited the right-wing cultural magazine The European
The European (magazine)
The European was a privately circulated far-right cultural and political magazine that was published between 1953 and 1959. During this tenure, it was edited by Diana Mosley...
for six years, to which she also contributed. She provided articles, book reviews and regular diary entries. Many of her contributions were republished in 2008 in The Pursuit of Laughter
The Pursuit of Laughter
The Pursuit of Laughter is a 2008 collection of diaries, articles, reviews and portraits by Diana Mitford. The book was published by Gibson Square and edited by Martin Rynja. Mitford's sister, Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire provides the introduction...
. In 1965, she was commissioned to write the regular column Letters from Paris for the Tatler
Tatler
Tatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...
. She was an avid reader and critic of contemporary literature, reviewing for publications such as the London Evening Standard, The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
, The Daily Mail, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
and Books & Bookmen. She specialised in reviewing autobiographical and biographical accounts as well as the occasional novel. Characteristically she would provide commentary of her own experiences with and knowledge of the subject of the book she was reviewing. She was the lead literary reviewer for the London Evening Standard during A.N. Wilson's tenure as literary editor. In 1996, and on personal grounds, the new editor Max Hastings
Max Hastings
Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings, FRSL is a British journalist, editor, historian and author. He is the son of Macdonald Hastings, the noted British journalist and war correspondent and Anne Scott-James, sometime editor of Harper's Bazaar.-Life and career:Hastings was educated at Charterhouse...
insisted that she no longer be contracted by the newspaper. Following Hastings' retirement in 2001, the newspaper published several more book reviews by her until her death in 2003.
She wrote the foreword and introduction of Nancy Mitford: A Memoir by Harold Acton
Harold Acton
Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton CBE was a British writer, scholar and dilettante perhaps most famous for being wrongly believed to have inspired the character of "Anthony Blanche" in Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited...
. She produced her own two books of memoirs; A Life of Contrasts
A Life of Contrasts
A Life of Contrasts is an international bestseller by Diana Mitford that was first published by Hamish Hamilton in 1977. She later released a revised edition of the book that was published in 2002 by Gibson Square.-Synopsis:...
(1977, Hamish Hamilton
Hamish Hamilton
Hamish Hamilton Limited was a British book publishing house, founded in 1931 eponymously by the half-Scot half-American Jamie Hamilton . Confusingly, Jamie Hamilton was often referred to as Hamish Hamilton...
), and Loved Ones
Loved Ones (book)
Loved Ones is a 1985 collection of pen portraits by Diana Mitford. It was published by Sidgwick & Jackson. In 2008, three of the portraits were republished in the collection, The Pursuit of Laughter.-Synopsis:...
(1985). The latter is a collection of pen portraits of close relatives and friends such as the writer Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
amongst others. In 1980 she released The Duchess of Windsor; a biography. New editions of A Life of Contrasts and the The Duchess of Windsor were released in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
In 2007, letters between the Mitford sisters, including ones to and from Diana, were published in the compilation The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters is a 2007 book of selected letters between the legendary Mitford sisters. The book was edited by Diana Mitford's daughter-in-law, Charlotte Mosley. An estimated five percent of letters between the six sisters were included in the 834 page publication...
, edited by Charlotte Mosley. The book received critical acclaim, in a review published in The Sunday Times, journalist India Knight
India Knight
India Knight is a British journalist and author. She is known for her contribution to the British media, as well as her books: My Life on a Plate, Don't You Want Me?, The Shops, Neris and India's Idiot-Proof Diet and The Thrift Book , all of which are published by Penguin books...
noted that Diana was "briefly sinister but also clever, kind, and fatally loyal to her Blackshirt husband, Oswald Mosley." A following collection consisting of her letters, articles, diaries and reviews was released as The Pursuit of Laughter
The Pursuit of Laughter
The Pursuit of Laughter is a 2008 collection of diaries, articles, reviews and portraits by Diana Mitford. The book was published by Gibson Square and edited by Martin Rynja. Mitford's sister, Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire provides the introduction...
in December 2008. The collection garnered generally positive reviews.
Death
She died in Paris in August 2003, aged 93, reportedly due to complications related to a stroke she had suffered a week earlier, but reports later surfaced that she had been one of the many elderly fatalities of theheat wave of 2003
2003 European heat wave
The 2003 European heat wave was the hottest summer on record in Europe since at least 1540. France was hit especially hard. The heat wave led to health crises in several countries and combined with drought to create a crop shortfall in Southern Europe...
in mostly non-air-conditioned Paris. Her remains are interred in the Swinbrook
Swinbrook
Swinbrook is a village on the River Windrush, east of Burford in Oxfordshire, England. The village is in the civil parish of Swinbrook and Widford.-History:...
Churchyard in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
with those of her sisters. Her death leaves one surviving sister: Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Deborah Vivien Cavendish, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire DCVO , née The Hon. Deborah Freeman-Mitford is the youngest and last surviving of the six noted Mitford sisters whose political affiliations and marriages were a prominent feature of English culture in the 1930s and 1940s...
.
She was survived by her four sons, among whom are the Irish preservationist Desmond Guinness
Desmond Guinness
Hon. Desmond Guinness is an Irish author on Georgian art and architecture and a conservationist.He was the second son of the author and brewer Bryan Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne and Diana Mitford...
; the writer Jonathan Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne
Jonathan Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne
Jonathan Bryan Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne is a British peer and businessman. A member of the Guinness family, he is the elder of the two sons of Bryan Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne and his first wife Diana Mitford , and until his retirement was a merchant banker for Messrs Leopold Joseph.-Early...
; and Max Mosley
Max Mosley
Max Rufus Mosley is the former president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile , a non-profit association that represents the interests of motoring organisations and car users worldwide...
, former president of the FIA
Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile
The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile is a non-profit association established as the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus on 20 June 1904 to represent the interests of motoring organisations and motor car users...
, the governing body of world motorsport. Her stepson Nicholas Mosley is a novelist who also wrote a critical memoir of his father for which Diana reportedly never forgave him, despite their previously close relationship. One of her great-granddaughters, Jasmine Guinness
Jasmine Guinness
Jasmine Leonora Guinness has been a designer and a fashion model since 1994. She is also an heiress to the Guinness brewing fortune.-Personal life:...
, a great-niece, Stella Tennant
Stella Tennant
Stella Tennant is a British model. The granddaughter of the late Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire and Deborah Mitford, who is the last of the noted Mitford sisters, Tennant was born in Scotland and attended St Leonards School in St Andrews. Her parents are The Hon...
, and a grandson, Tom Guinness, are models.
"I'm sure he was to blame for the extermination of the Jews", she told British journalist Andrew Roberts, "[h]e was to blame for everything, and I say that as someone who approved of him."Cook, Megan and Gressor, Kerry
(2005) All for love Murdoch Books Pty Limited p. 184; ISBN 978-1740455961 Roberts criticised Lady Mosley following her death on the pages of The Daily Telegraph (16 August 2003), declaring that she was an "unrepentant Nazi and effortlessly charming". He, in turn, was assailed three days later, in the same newspaper, by her son and granddaughter. She was portrayed by actress Emma Davies in the 1997 Channel Four TV miniseries, Mosley.
The Mitford siblings
Nancy MitfordNancy Mitford
Nancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years...
(28 November 1904 - 30 June 1973)
Pamela Mitford
(25 November 1907 – 12 April 1994)
Thomas Mitford (2 January 1909 – 30 March 1945)
Diana Mitford (17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003)
Unity Mitford
Unity Mitford
Unity Valkyrie Mitford was a member of the aristocratic Mitford family, tracing its origins in Northumberland back to the 11th century Norman settlement of England. Unity Mitford's sister Diana was married to Oswald Mosley, leader of British Union of Fascists...
(8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948)
Jessica Mitford
Jessica Mitford
Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters...
(11 September 1917 – 22 July 1996)
Deborah Mitford
Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Deborah Vivien Cavendish, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire DCVO , née The Hon. Deborah Freeman-Mitford is the youngest and last surviving of the six noted Mitford sisters whose political affiliations and marriages were a prominent feature of English culture in the 1930s and 1940s...
(born 31 March 1920)
See also
- Mitford familyMitford familyThe Mitford family is a minor aristocratic English family that traces its origins in Northumberland back to the time of the Norman conquest. In the Middle Ages they had been Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main family line had seats at Mitford Castle, Mitford Old Manor House and from 1828...
- Oswald MosleyOswald MosleySir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
- Nancy MitfordNancy MitfordNancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years...
- Pamela Mitford
- Thomas Mitford
- Unity MitfordUnity MitfordUnity Valkyrie Mitford was a member of the aristocratic Mitford family, tracing its origins in Northumberland back to the 11th century Norman settlement of England. Unity Mitford's sister Diana was married to Oswald Mosley, leader of British Union of Fascists...
- Jessica MitfordJessica MitfordJessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters...
- Gudrun Burwitz
- Florentine Rost van TonningenFlorentine Rost van TonningenFlorentine Rost van Tonningen was the wife of Meinoud Rost van Tonningen, 2nd leader of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands and President of the National Bank during the German occupation...
Sources
- Mosley, Diana, A Life of ContrastsA Life of ContrastsA Life of Contrasts is an international bestseller by Diana Mitford that was first published by Hamish Hamilton in 1977. She later released a revised edition of the book that was published in 2002 by Gibson Square.-Synopsis:...
, (1st edition, Hamish HamiltonHamish HamiltonHamish Hamilton Limited was a British book publishing house, founded in 1931 eponymously by the half-Scot half-American Jamie Hamilton . Confusingly, Jamie Hamilton was often referred to as Hamish Hamilton...
, 1977) reissued in paperback, London, 2003, ISBN 1-903933-20-X - de Courcy, Anne, Diana Mosley : Mitford Beauty, British Fascist, Hitler's Angel, Morrow Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0-06-056532-2
- de Courcy, Anne, Diana Mosley née Mitford, Rocher (Le), (French edition)
- Guinness, Jonathan, with Catherine Guinness, The House of Mitford, Hutchinson & Co., London, 1984, ISBN 0-09-155560-4
- Mosley, Diana, Loved Ones, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1985, ISBN 0-283-99155-0
- Dalley, Jan, Diana Mosley - A Life, Faber & Faber, London,1999, ISBN 0-571-14448-9
- Mosley, Charlotte, The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters, Fourth Estate Ltd, London, 2007, ISBN 1-84115-790-2
External links
- Diana Mosley: The MI5 View - new files released from the National Archives shed new light on M15 surveillance of Mosley.
- The Official Nancy Mitford Website