Asquith (91 page)

In mid-October Asquith moved south to Castle Howard, and went from there to York on the 19th, where he received the freedom of the city and responded with his last public speech. He was at the Wharf for a few weeks and then went with Mrs. Harrisson to see an exhibition of pictures at Norwich and to stay one night with Venetia Montagu at Beccles, which was nearby. It was his last excursion. On his return to Sutton Courtney he found himself unable to get out of his motor car, and never again succeeded in mounting the stairs to his own room.

Thereafter the decline was rapid, although uneven. His illness was a hardening of the arteries, which at times affected his mind and produced confusion about his surroundings. He suffered the intermittent delusion that he was kept an unwilling prisoner at the Wharf, and responded to this by attempting to make plans for an escape to London. At other times his mind was perfectly clear. He received visitors with pleasure, although he watched them go with apprehension. On January 21st, Vivian Phillipps, his private secretary of the post-war years, went to see him. Phillipps wrote:

When the time came to say good-bye to him, he held my hand and said, “You will come and see me again 
— right to the end,” and then, quickly — as if he had said more than he meant to —

“ I mean right on to the end of this Parliament.”
^w
 

Asquith died on the evening of February 15th, 1928. He was buried in the village churchyard at Sutton Courtney, between the Thames and the Berkshire Downs. He had started on a bleak Yorkshire hillside, and in politics he had been mostly sustained by Scotland and the North. But a South of England resting-place, within ten miles of Carfax Tower, was nevertheless wholly appropriate. He had always been faithful to liberal, humane ideas, and to civilised, even fastidious, standards of political behaviour. He never trimmed for office. Yet he was essentially a man of Government, a great servant of the State, rather than a tribune of the people. And with him there died the best part of the classical tradition in English politics.

A short time afterwards, by the decision of Parliament, a memorial tablet was placed in Westminster Abbey. As an epitaph, after much thought by his family, the following lines from Milton were chosen :

Unmoved

Unshaken, unseduced
,
 
unterrified,

His loyalty he kept, his love
,
his zeal;

Nor number, nor example with him wrought 

To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind
.

They were as appropriate as the Sutton Courtney churchyard.

1
 
_{In 1916 he had given a “ step ” to the Earl of Aberdeen. The new marquess had insisted on changing to the double name of
 
Aberdeen
 
and 
Temair
, and Asquith had commented rather adversely. In 1925 he recalled this, at least to the extent of talking about it to the King and telling Mrs. Harrisson of an old anecdote which formed part of the conversation: “ Lady A. sent to a friend a photograph of herself with a Scotch terrier on her knee signed with the new style. The friend replied with effusive thanks, adding,}

_{‘ It was so nice, too, to see your little dog Temair.’ This, Asquith added, made the King “ roar with laughter.”
 
(Letters from Lord Oxford to a Friend
, II, p. 124).}

2
 
_{The following comment on Mrs. Sidney Webb, written a few months earlier, just before he gave up the leadership, is a good example of Asquith’s latter-day style and outlook: “ I have finished Beatrice Webb’s
Apprenticeship 
—a remarkable story in its way. To me hers is,
 
an fond
, a tiresome type of mind, but she has lived, ever since she was eighteen, an independent and industrious and at times adventurous life. And it is to the credit both of her insight and character that, being lapped in bourgeois luxury, and really very good-looking, she finally at the age of thirty married Sidney Webb, a highly-knowledgeable
 
Saint.
 
Since then in their partnership they have jointly produced some twenty solid, though for the most part unreadable, books.”
(Letters from Lord Oxford to a Friend
, 11, p. 159)}
.

a.
Oxford and Asquith:
Memories and Refections,
i, p. 2

b.
Spender and Asquith:
Life of Lord Oxford & Asquith,
i, p. 16

c. ibid.,
i, p. 18-19

d.
Oxford and Asquith,
op. cit.,
i, p. 8

e.
Spender and Asquith,
op. cit.,
i, p. 22 /.
ibid.,
i, p. 23

g. ibid.,
i, p. 24

h.
J. M. Angus in an article which he contributed to the City of London School Magazine after Asquith’s death in 1928

i.
Spender and Asquith,
op. cit.,
i, p. 28

j. ibid.,
i, p. 30

k.
Stanley letters, 20th February, 1915

l. ibid.,
22nd February, 1915

m.
Davis:
Balliol College,
p. 193

n.
Margot Oxford,
More Memories,
p. 187

0.
Letter to Lady Homer, quoted in Spender and Asquith,
op. cit.,
i, p. 37

p.
Oxford and Asquith,
op. cit.,
i, p. 19

q. ibid.,
i, p. 25

a.
Stanley Letters, 22nd February, 1915

b.
Spender and Asquith:
Life of Lord Oxford & Asquith
i, p. 43

c. ibid.,
i, p. 43

d.
Haldane:
Autobiography,
p. 103

e.
Letter to Mrs. (later Lady) Homer, September nth, 1892

f. Memories and Refections,
i, p. 68

g. Studies and Sketches,
1924

h. Memories and Refections,
i, pp. 67-9

1. The Times,
30 July, 1956
j.
Haldane,
op. cit.,
pp. 103-4

a.
Spender and Asquith,
Life of Lord Oxford & Asquith,
i, p. 56

523

b.
Haldane:
Autobiography,
p. 104

c. Parliamentary Debates, Commons,
3rd Series, Vol. 312, col. 1395

d.
Gardiner,
The Life of Sir William Harcourt,
ii, p. 152

e. Memories and Reflections,
i, p. 112

f
Spender and Asquith,
op. cit.,
i, p. 57

g.
Haldane,
op. cit.,
p. 101

h.
Gardiner,
op. cit.,
ii, p. 152

i.
Crewe:
Lord Rosebery,
i, p. 347

j.
Spender and Asquith,
op. cit.,
i, p. 48

k. Memories and Reflections,
i, pp. 79-80

l.
Spender and Asquith,
op. cit.,
p. 49

a.
Magnus:
Gladstone,
p. 394

b.
Margot Asquith:
Autobiography,
i, pp. 262-3

c.
Spender and Asquith:
Life of Lord Oxford & Asquith
, i, p. 98

d.
Crewe:
Lord Rosebery,
ii, p. 391

e. Fifty Years of Parliament,
i, pp. 200-1

/.
The Letters of Queen Victoria,
3rd Series, vol. ii, p. 156

chapter
v

a.
Magnus:
Gladstone,
p. 402

b. Memories and Reflections,
i, pp. 131-2

c. ibid., i,
p. 132

d. ibid., i,
p. 142

e. ibid.,
i, p. 130

/.
Strand
magazine, Oct., 1933

g. Fifty Years of Parliament,
i, p. 215

h. ibid., i,
pp. 216-17

i. Memories and Reflections,
i, p. 143

j. Fifty Years of Parliament,
i, pp. 221-2

a.
Margot Asquith:
Autobiography,
i, pp. 267-8

b. ibid.,
i, pp. 261-2

c.
Spender and Asquith:
Life of Lord Oxford & Asquith,
i, p. 98

d.
Margot Asquith,
op. cit.,
i, pp. 192-3

e.
Margot Oxford:
More Memories,
p. 44

f.
Spender and Asquith,
op. cit.,
i. p. 96

g.
Margot Asquith,
op. cit.,
i, pp. 269-70
It.
Crewe:
Lord Rosebery,
ii, p. 466

i. ibid.,
p.
468

j.
Gardiner:
The Life of Sir William Harcourt,
ii, p. 308

k. Fifty Years of Parliament, i,
p. 224 /.
ibid.,
i, p. 230

m. Parliamentary Debates, Commons,
4th Series, Vol. 30, col. 866

n.
Gardiner,
op. cit.,
ii, p. 348

a.
Margot Asquith:
Autobiography,
i, p. 163

b. Asquith Papers,
box ix, pp. 169-72

c.
Margot Asquith,
op. cit.,
ii, pp. 35-6

d. ibid.,
ii,
p.
36

a.
Gardiner:
The Life of Sir William Harcourt,
ii, p. 376

b.
Crewe:
Lord Rosebery,
ii, pp. 522-3