Anne de Courcy: 'I read the letters and diaries with a sense of disbelief'

Margot Asquith’s biographer explains why life at 10 Downing Street between 1912 and 1916 makes Downton Abbey look tame

For the biographer, unfettered access to a subject’s personal, private diary is a glimpse into the naked human heart – and Margot Asquith’s heart was more naked than most. There are pages and pages, one or two to every day, recounting her worries, her loves, her hopes, her mistakes, her joys, some written with heart’s blood, others with a high sense of irony.

I had always been fascinated by Margot, a woman who largely created herself – by the time she was 25 she knew most of the cleverest men in England. Oscar Wilde dedicated a story to her, the great Professor Jowett advised her on what to read and who to marry, she had become known as “the fabulous Miss Tennant,” and the future prime minister Arthur Balfour denied a rumour that he was going to marry her with the words: “No, I rather think of having a career of my own.”

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