The Duff Cooper Diaries: 1915-1951

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The Prime Minister smiled at me in a quite friendly way and said that it was a matter to be settled between him and me. And so it was left. (8) Duff Cooper, Old Men Forget (1953) On 2 June 1919, he married Lady Diana Manners, whose family were initially opposed to the match. Diana's mother in particular thought Cooper a promiscuous drinker and gambler who was without title, position or wealth. Diana was officially the daughter of the 8th Duke of Rutland, but was widely believed – by herself included – to be the natural daughter of Harry Cust, a Belvoir Castle neighbour, and MP. In 1923, Lady Diana played the Madonna in the Max Reinhardt play The Miracle. The money which she earned enabled Cooper to resign from the Foreign Office in July 1924. [5] In 1948 he was awarded GCMG and, in July 1952, elevated to the peerage as 1st Viscount Norwich. He died in January 1954 and was succeeded by his son, John Julius. Extent Returning to the Foreign Service, he became principal private secretary to two ministers and played a significant role in the Egyptian and Turkish crises in the early 1920s, before winning a seat in Parliament as a Conservative for UK Parliament constituency in 1924. He gave one of the most acclaimed maiden speeches of the century and became known as a stalwart supporter of Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, and a friend of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill. Cooper became Financial Secretary to the War Office in January, 1928, before losing his seat in the 1929 election when the Conservative Party lost power.

a b c d Robert Gottlieb (7 August 2015). "The life of Lady Diana Cooper: 'the most beautiful girl in the world' ". Financial Review . Retrieved 2 September 2020. As for Cooper, he once impulsively wrote a letter to Lady Diana, before their marriage, declaring, “I hope everyone you like better than me will die very soon.”She married one of the only survivors, Duff Cooper, later Ambassador to France. After his death, she wrote three volumes of memoirs which reveal much about 20th-century upper-class life. I had been glad when Eden had become Foreign Secretary and I had always given him my support in Cabinet when he needed it. I believed that he was fundamentally right on all the main problems of foreign policy, that he fully understood how serious was the German menace and how hopeless the policy of appeasement. Not being, however, a member of the Foreign Policy Committee, I was ignorant of how deep the cleavage of opinion between him and the Prime Minister had become. It is much to his credit that he abstained from all lobbying of opinion and sought to gain no adherents either in the Cabinet or the House of Commons.

Duff Cooper was born on 22nd February, 1890. After being educated at Eton and New College, Oxford, he joined the Foreign Office. Then there was the drinking. When he became First Lord of the Admiralty, Queen Mary let it be known that he must lay off the sauce a bit. Accordingly, he adopts a system based on the division of days into five categories: A: No drink until dinner, then only one sort; B: Either only one sort at luncheon or dinner or nothing until dinner then more sorts than one; C: More sorts both at luncheon and dinner but nothing between; D: No restrictions but no excess; E: Excess. Sheppard, Ben; Alderson, Andrew (8 January 2006). "Revealed: Duff Cooper's secret second son". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 27 April 2006 . Retrieved 1 May 2010. On the following morning I went to see the Prime Minister. Our interview was as friendly as it was brief. I found it a relief to be in complete agreement with him for once. I think he was as glad to be rid of me as I was determined to go. I saw the King the same afternoon. He was frank and charming. He said that he could not agree with me, but he respected those who had the courage of their convictions.I acquired little credit during my tenure of the War Office. With the means at my disposal there was not much to be done. Chamberlain knew that he could not save money on the Navy or the Air Force, therefore the Army offered the only hope of economizing. A distinguished General, whom he had met fishing, had implanted in his mind the pernicious doctrine that if we contributed to the cause the greatest Navy in the world and a first-rate Air Force, our allies could hardly expect more. His aim, as his biographer Mr. Keith Feiling has told us, was an army of four divisions and one mechanised division, and he held that the dudes of the Territorial Army should be confined to anti-aircraft defence. He also believed firmly "that war was neither imminent nor inevitable, that we could build on some civilian elements, such as the instability of German finance, which made it less likely." (4) Duff Cooper, Old Men Forget (1953) In June 1919, despite initial opposition from her family, he had married Lady Diana Manners, daughter of the 8th Duke of Rutland. Diana received a substantial windfall in 1923 from her role as the Madonna in Max Reinhardt's pantomime "The Miracle". This allowed Duff Cooper to leave the Foreign Office in July 1924 and his adoption as Conservative candidate for the (two-member) constituency of Oldham where he was elected an MP. But the bare facts of the interview were frightful. None of the elaborate schemes which had been so carefully worked out, and which the Prime Minister had intended to put forward, had ever been mentioned. He had felt that the atmosphere did not allow of them. After ranting and raving at him, Hitler had talked about self-determination and asked the Prime Minister whether he accepted the principle. The Prime Minister had replied that he must consult his colleagues. From beginning to end Hitler had not shown the slightest sign of yielding on a single point. The Prime Minister seemed to expect us all to accept that principle without further discussion because the time was getting on. The French, we heard, were getting restive. Not a word had been said to them since the Prime Minister left England, and one of the dangers which I had feared seemed to be materialising, namely trouble with the French. I thought we must have further time for discussion and that it would be better to take no decision until discussions with the French had taken place, lest they should be in a position to say that we had sold the pass without ever consulting them

Duff Cooper was as close to the action as anyone during the dramatic events of the mid-20th century. He was also comically priapic, committing enough sexual indiscretions to fill a dozen diaries’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH a b Shusha Guppy (1982). "Circle of Friends: An Interview with Lady Diana Cooper". The Paris Review . Retrieved 2 September 2020. Sheppard, Ben; Alderson, Andrew (8 January 2006). "Revealed: Duff Cooper's secret second son". The Daily Telegraph. London . http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/08/nduff08.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/08/ixhome.html . Retrieved 1 May 2010. The Pol Roger Duff Cooper prize for the best work of non-fiction published in the UK in 2022 has been awarded to Anna Keay for The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown (William Collins).

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John Julius Norwich:'Deep down, I'm shallow. I really am'". The Daily Telegraph. London. 4 June 2008 . http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2008/06/04/ftjohn104.xml . Retrieved 1 May 2010. Anthony Haden-Guest (17 April 2017). "When Venice Threw The 'Ball of the Century' ". Daily Beast . Retrieved 20 August 2020. The Times editorial, the 'Sea Grip', a peon to British maritime prowess, was followed by 'Anabasis - the Sea', which drew a parallel between Gort and the BEF, and Xenophon and the escape of the 10,000. Other papers with less literary leanings gave the public the news with screaming headlines - 'Saved' - 'Disaster Turned To Triumph' - 'Rescued From The Jaws Of Death'. Cooper, keen to make a literary name for himself, was approached by the executors of Field Marshal Haig in March 1933 to write his official biography, after a number of military and literary figures had declined. He insisted on full access to Haig’s papers and relied heavily on Haig’s (as yet unpublished) diaries. Haig's widow then had second thoughts and wrote a book of her own, The Man I Knew, whose publication Faber and Faber delayed with legal action until after Duff Cooper had published his two volumes in 1935 and 1936. [15] Cooper, Diana (2014). Darling Monster: The Letters of Lady Diana Cooper to Son John Julius Norwich, 1939-1952. New York City: Overlook Press. ISBN 978-14-68310-18-4.

Out of Parliament, he wrote a biography of the French statesman Talleyrand. The book was very successful, as subject and author seemed made for each other: both were pragmatic bon-viveurs, whose knowledge of European politics was expressed with clear-sighted lucidity.Following her husband’s death, she made an official announcement in The Times stating that she wished to be known as Lady Diana Cooper. In 1918 Lady Diana took uncredited film roles; in The Great Love she played herself in her capacity of a celebrity. She also appeared in a propaganda film for the war effort, Hearts of the World, directed by D.W. Griffith, who chose her because he thought her "the most beloved woman in England". [7] A few years later she starred in two of the first British colour films: The Glorious Adventure (1922) and The Virgin Queen (1923); in the latter she played Queen Elizabeth I. [8] Then she turned to the stage, playing the Madonna in the 1924 revival of The Miracle (directed by Max Reinhardt). The play achieved outstanding international success, and she toured on and off for twelve years with the cast. [9] Diana Manners autographed drawing by Manuel Rosenberg for the Cincinnati Post, 1925 Duff Cooper and Lady Diana Manners married in 1919. Social figure, wife of ambassador [ edit ] Diana Cooper, Viscountess Norwich (née Lady Diana Olivia Winifred Maud Manners; 29 August 1892 – 16 June 1986) was an English actress and aristocrat who was a well-known social figure in London and Paris.