DR Thorpe’s biography of Supermac turned out to be an unexpectedly good read.
In truth there were chunks that I skipped over – Suez & Profumo, for example I have had more than enough of. But – unlike so many academic (& political) books these days - it is superbly written.
At 879 pages it is dauntingly long, but the main text takes up a mere 626, the is rest the academic furniture of bibliography, index etc. No less than pages are given over to footnotes which are, in may cases, worth a book of their own, & a tremendous way of deflecting the criticism that an author who cannot bear to leave all these tidbits out is not in control of his material. Of course for this one needs a generously indulgent publisher. One friend was told by her academic press that (for her much more modest effort) she could have a bibliography or an index, but not both.
I also have to own up to the fact that my main motive for borrowing the book from the library was to find out more about his marriage to Lady Dorothy Cavendish, on which the Times had carried an extract.
The book does not actually carry very much more about the details of their relationship after Macmillan refused to give his wife a divorce when she wanted to marry Bob Boothby; instead, on solicitors advice, he offered her the ‘East Wing/ West Wing’ solution to maintain appearances & complaisantly accepted the continuation of the affair.
At least one reviewer complains that Thorpe did not get to the bottom of this behaviour.
It does not surprise me that much.
First Macmillan loved her – as he told others, & her in a touching letter he wrote on her 60th birthday.
Secondly there were four small children involved.
It would also be interesting to know what her family (not exactly unused to irregular liaisons) thought of the prospects of divorce.
My interest in the Cavendish family is now much greater than it was before I read the Diaries of Lady Frederick Cavendish, & I was pleased to see that she gets a small mention here; when Macmillan & Dorothy got engaged, her father (the then Duke of Devonshire) wrote to Lady Frederick (his aunt) to say that they were pleased about it.
What came as more of a surprise to me than the unconventional side of the marriage was the way in which Lady Dorothy did more than merely provide minimal wifely support for the sake of appearances. She worked very hard & even nursed his Stockton constituency with assiduity while Macmillan was away in North Africa during WWII.
But then that sort of activity was probably bred into Cavendish women.
