Diana Mitford
The Honourable Diana, Lady Mosley (b. 17 June 1910 in Belgravia, London, Britain; d. 11 August 2003 in Paris, France), born Diana Freeman-Mitford, she famously became the second wife of Sir Oswald Mosley. Her obituary in London's Daily Telegraph stated "most of those who met her found her a delightful companion"[1].
Contents
Life
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Early life
Diana was the fourth child and third daughter of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale (1878–1958) and his wife, Sydney (1880–1963), daughter of Thomas Gibson Bowles (1841-1922), a Member of Parliament.[2] She was born in their London house at 1 Graham Street (now Graham Terrace) near Eaton Square in Belgravia[3] then raised at their country estate of Batsford Park, Gloucestershire until it was sold in 1918; then from the age of 10 at another family home, Asthall Manor in Oxfordshire (1919-1926), and then at Swinbrook House, a new country house her father had built in 1926, 1.5 miles north of the village of Swinbrook, also in Oxfordshire. 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.
Marriages
Diana was first married, aged 18, in January 1929, to Bryan Walter Guinness, later 2nd Lord Moyne (his father, Walter Guinness, youngest son of the Earl of Iveagh and the 1st Baron Moyne, was brutally murdered by the Jewish terrorist group the Stern Gang in Cairo in Nov 1944). It was a major 'society' event and appeared in most of the national newspapers. However, they divorced in 1932. Their eldest son Jonathan Guinness was sometime controversial Chairman of the Conservative Monday Club in the 1970s; he is today 3rd Lord Moyne. Their second son, Desmond Walter, was born 8 September 1931 in the Guinnes's London house in Buckingham Street, Westminster, and died on 20th August 2020[4].
Diana's second husband was Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1929-1930), and Member of Parliament (Dec 1918-Oct 1924 and Dec 1926-Oct 1931). She married Mosley in the drawing room of the Berlin home of Dr. Joseph Goebbels on 6th October 1936, with Adolf Hitler as guest-of-honour (some reports say Best Man) and the interpreter, Dr.Schmidt. The Goebbels both spoke English, and Diana said this was a relief. His wife Magda presented Diana with an inscribed complete works of Goethe in twenty small volumes bound in bright red leather as a wedding present, which Diana treasured until the end of her life. The marriage was kept secret until the birth of their first child.
Mosley and Diana had two sons: (Oswald) Alexander Mosley (born 26 November 1938 - d.2005) and Max Rufus Mosley (13 April 1940 – 23 May 2021), President of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for 16 years.
National Socialist Germany
Diana went to Germany with her younger sister Unity. While there they attended the first Nuremberg rally after the National Socialist election victory. They returned again for the second rally the next year during which Unity struck up a friendship with Hitler. She introduced Diana to Hitler in March 1935. They were his guests at the 1935 rally and, in 1936, he provided a Mercedes-Benz to chauffeur Diana to the Berlin Olympic games. Diana also became well-acquainted with Winifred Wagner and Magda Goebbels.
WWII
Lord Moyne never forgave Diana, the divorce from his son, and her scandalous affair and remarriage to Sir Oswald Mosley. Lord Moyne was secretly involved in the recruitment of a nanny for Diana's children, and unknown to Diana she informed him and the British intelligence agency MI5 of everything Diana said and did. MI5 files also reveal that that Lord Moyne was instrumental in arranging for the Mosley's internment.[5] On 29 June 1940 Diana was arrested 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 under Defence Regulation 18B. The couple were initially held separately but, after personal intervention by Winston Churchill, in December 1941, Mosley was permitted to join his wife 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 then placed under house arrest until June 1945, and were denied passports until 1949.
Post-WWII
Ostracized by the British media, Diana and Mosley moved to Paris in 1951, where she edited the pan-European nationalist magazine The European. In Paris, the Mosley's discovered they had much in common with the Duke & Duchess of Windsor, and in 1980 Diana published a biography of the Duchess. They continued to visit England regularly and in 1959 Sir Oswald Mosley stood as a Parliamentary candidate for North Kensington, in London.
If Diana Mosley never enjoyed the literary success of her sister Nancy, a great Francophile, she was undoubtedly happier. Thrusting aside all remembrance of Nancy's betrayal of her during the war, Diana proved the main consolation in her sister's painful and protracted final illness, which ended in 1973. But she never made peace with her communist sister Jessica, who had declared at the end of the war that the Mosleys should have been thrown back into prison. "She's a rather boring person, really", Diana concluded.
Diana was described as "unrepentant" about her previous political associations by some obituary writers, such as the English liberal historian Andrew Roberts[6].
Death
Diana Mosley died in Paris in August 2003, aged 93. She was buried in the Swinbrook Churchyard in Oxfordshire with her sisters, Nancy (1904-1973), Unity (1914-1948) and Jessica (1917-1996). Their parents are buried in the same churchyard.
Other
Diana Mitford's grandfather, Algernon Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale (of the second creation)[7], was a famous diplomat and academic, who edited and wrote extensive and effusive introductions for two of Houston Stewart Chamberlain's books, Foundations of the Nineteenth Century and Immanuel Kant: A Study and Comparison with Goethe, Leonardo da Vinci, Bruno, Plato, and Descartes, both books two volumes each, translated into English by John Lees, M.A., D.Litt., and published in London, in 1910 (& 1911, 1912, 1913) and 1914 respectively.
Bibliography
- A Life of Contrasts (1977)
- Loved Ones (1985)
- The Duchess of Windsor (1980)
- The Pursuit of Laughter (2008)
- Provided introduction and foreword to Nancy Mitford: A Memoir by Harold Acton (1975)
- Collection of letters between the six Mitford sisters: The Mitfords – Letters Between Six Sisters (2007)
Gallery
Diana in 1929
Diana on 27 January 1932
Diana and Unity in the 1930s (with Roman salute)
Diana and her sister Unity.
External link
References
- ↑ The Daily Telegraph, Lady Mosley Obituary, 13 August 2003.
- ↑ Mosley, Charles, editor, Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th edition, vol.2, Crans, Switzerland, 1999, p.2382, ISBN: 2-940085-02-1
- ↑ Dally, Jan, Diana Mosley - A Life, Faber & Faber, London, 1999, p.14. ISBN: 0-571-14448-9
- ↑ The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 2020 Desmond Guinness's Obituary.
- ↑ The Daily Telegraph, 2020, Obituary.
- ↑ Roberts, Andrew, in The Daily Telegraph, 13 August, 2003, "Diana Mosley, unrepentantly Nazi"
- ↑ Mosley, 1999, p.2381.
- Mosley, Lady Diana, Loved Ones, London, 1985, ISBN 0-283-99155-0.
- Guinness, Jonathan (Lord Moyne) & Catherine, The House of Mitford, Hutchinson, London, 1984, ISBN: 0-09-155560-4.
- Dalley, Jan, Diana Mosley - A Life, London, 1999, ISBN 0-571-14448-9.
- Mosley, Lady Diana, A Life of Contrasts (autobiography), London, revised edition, 2003, paperback ISBN 1-903933-20-X
- Delves-Broughton, Philip, in The Daily Telegraph, 13 August 2003, pages 2 & 3, "Blond who captivated Hitler and spent a lifetime staying loyal to her mistakes".
