Margot Asquith

Emma Alice Margaret Asquith, Countess of Oxford and Asquith (née Tennant; 2 February 1864, Peeblesshire – 28 July 1945, London), 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.

She was born in Peeblesshire (Tweeddale), of Scottish and English descent. She was the sixth daughter and eleventh child of Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Baronet, an industrialist and politician, and Emma Winsloe. She was brought up at The 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 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.

On 10 May 1894, Margot 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, of whom she always spoke warmly. She also became the unenthusiastic stepmother of five children who were bemused by this creature, so different from their quiet mother. "She flashed into our lives like some dazzling bird of paradise, filling us with amazement, amusement, excitement, sometimes with a vague uneasiness as to what she might do next," wrote Violet Asquith. In 1908 when Asquith became Prime Minister, of the first brood of his children only Violet was still at home, and the two shared a deep interest in politics. In contrast, relations between stepmother and stepdaughter were frequently strained, prompting Asquith to write lamentingly of how the two were 'on terms of chronic misunderstanding.' It came as something of a relief to Margot when Violet married Maurice Bonham Carter, Asquith's Principal Private Secretary, in 1915. Violet in later life mellowed somewhat in her attitude to Margot, saying that she was grateful to her for her absolute devotion to Asquith.

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