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This page should be moved from "Herbert Henry Asquith" to "H.H. Asquith" because that was his actual use name. (See my edit of the page.) But although I am a registed user and logged on, when I try to do this I keep being sent to a page telling me that I need to be a registered user and log on to do this.
Whether or not Asquith preferred to be know as H.H. Asquith or not is irrelevant. His name was Herbert Henry Asquith and, importantly, it is as 'Herbert Asquith' that he is best known. Valiant Son 23:41, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, that is not true. Wikipedia practice is to put main entries under the name by which the person is best known, not under their full legal name. And Asquith is, and always has been, best-known as "H.H. Asquith" unless and until incorrect encyclopedia entries persuade people to call him by the wrong form of his name. - Kalimac, April 14, 2006
Edwardian gentlemen often referred to themselves by pairs of initials (eg. A.J.Balfour, C.T.Ritchie, F.E.Smith, C.B.Fry) rather as Indians do today. H.H.Asquith was no different - although his upward social mobility with his second marriage was marked by a change in the Christian name by which he was privately called. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.40.198.126 ( talk) 12:21, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Why does this page show up when I search for an entry on "squiff"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 170.20.11.116 ( talk • contribs) .
As i recall members of his liberal faction were named "squifites" while he himself was rather fond of a drink (squiffy). As i have no sources for this other than the memory of a history lesson i'll leave it here unless someone can confirm.
Added a sentence on Asquith's infatuation with her; it's sufficiently well-known (resulting after all in a published volume of his letters to her which is an important biographical resource) that it seemed odd not to find her mentioned. -- Andersonblog ( talk) 01:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Asquith's reputation remains pretty low because of his wartime failure. John Little is something of a supported but Little admits that A's "reputation suffered severe criticism from his political enemies following his fall from office, and historians, almost without exception, have followed this lead. The image that survives is of a vacillating prime minister, barely handling forces he could not contain." Wiki should rpeat that consensus --"almost without exception" is pretty strong. See John Gordon Little, H. H. Asquith and Britain's Manpower Problem, 1914-1915. History; 1997 82(267): 397-409 Rjensen ( talk) 17:40, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
No consensus to move. Vegaswikian ( talk) 02:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
H. H. Asquith → Herbert Henry Asquith – per wp:common which states "In determining which of several alternative names is most frequently used, it is useful to observe the usage of major international organizations, major English-language media outlets, quality encyclopedias, geographic name servers, major scientific bodies and scientific journals." The two are close with "Herbert Henry Asquith" edging out H.H. in GHits and the Dictionary of National Biography using "Herbert Henry Asquith". -- Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) ( talk) 03:45, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
It has been suggested that Louis T. Stanley, owner of the BRM Formula One team, was an illegitimate child of Asquith's with Louis' mother, Venetia Stanley. This has come out in a new book - Louis was the author's stepfather. I thought someone might be interested in this as it could have some influence on future additions to the page. Readro ( talk) 22:56, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
"After Lloyd George’s Paris speech (12 November) at which he said that “when he saw the appalling casualty lists he wish(ed) it had not been necessary to win so many (“victories”)” Asquith (briefed by Robertson) rose to loud cheers to debate the matter in the Commons (19 November) ..."
This sentence appears to be in need of a little expansion. Is there a summary of what Asquith said? Did the debate result in anything? etc EnigmaMcmxc ( talk) 07:40, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
A note for passing researchers, but unworthy of comment in the main text. In a Corney & Barrow order book (Guildhall Library, MS 11779) are records of orders of champagne, by “The Rt Hon’ble H. H. Asquith M.P.” (of “127 Mo[illegible]t Street”), on several dates including 10th January 1893. “2 Dz. Perrier Jouet 1884 Champagne … £10—”, and “2 Dz. Giesler 1884 Champagne … £9.12—”. (My picture #5974.) Those writing (another) biography might wish to be the first to peruse this tome. JDAWiseman ( talk) 22:52, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of H. H. Asquith's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "odnb":
{{
cite web}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors=
(
help)
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 05:36, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
Are the claims made by Bobbie Neate worth including in the article at the present time? It seems to me to be a single, uncorroborated, and speculative source. Bobby Neate is not a historian. DuncanHill ( talk) 15:51, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
This section was semi-complete, almost entirely my fault as I started writing it up a few summers ago and had only managed to write up the period up to Edward VII's death. (I wish we could find a cite for the cry at the time that Asquith had "killed the King"). My notes from 1910 onwards are somewhere in development hell, along with my notes on the horribly complex intrigues of December 1916. A lot of good stuff has been added lately but a fair bit of baby - e.g. the real or perceived Irish dimension - had gone out with the bathwater.
At same stage we may need a bit more on Asquith's bullying of the new King late in 1910, e.g. telling him that he had no business consulting the Tory leaders, so King George gave a pledge unaware that Balfour would have been willing to form a government. And yet Edward VII had been consulting Balfour throughout. Asquith at one point lectured the new King that it had been established since the 1830s that ministerial advice was binding on the monarch - he was referring to William IV's attempt to put Peel in as Prime Minister in 1834 - a deliberate confusion of the monarch's purely nominal role in day-to-day government with his having to bow to political reality in the exercise of his powers as Head of State (legal textbooks to this day inform us that the monarch appoints and dismisses the Prime Minister and can take advice from whoever she pleases on that matter - otherwise a Prime Minister could give "binding advice" that he remain in office, or who his successor should be - even if in practice she has to appoint somebody who can command a majority in the House of Commons and it is hard to think of a crisis so grave that the monarch would actually get involved in politics nowadays). The same sort of thing was true over the Curragh Incident of March 1914 - Asquith cheekily lectured the King at one point that the Army was entirely under government orders, and the King's role purely nominal, in the same way as any government department like the Post Office. This view was most certainly not shared by the King or by senior officers, who made clear that they were not prepared to do the government's dirty work for them.
One does has to be careful with this topic as the Tories and Ulster Unionists of that era do get a very rough ride from even moderately leftish historians, e.g. crass talk that their actions were "barely legal", so much so that it's an eye-opener to read documents from the period and see how Asquith and his Cabinet were regarded by half the political nation as virtual traitors. If Asquith had failed, e.g. if Edward VII had told him to shove off in April when he demanded creation of peers without a second election, it's impossible to say where the crisis would have gone but it seems fair to say that historians would write about him rather differently. Paulturtle ( talk) 05:40, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
Well, I'm not stopping you from editing the article - I don't own it. My copies of Spender & Asquith, Jenkins and Koss are somewhere in the attic so I was relying on books about Edward VII – I’ve made notes from the Nicolson and Kenneth Rose biogs of George V but haven’t got round to posting them. I’ve also been making notes from Hattersley’s biog of Lloyd George. All of that is just to get an easy-to-read narrative in place.
Edward VII was a lazy man who did not read much, but at the same time was a shrewd judge of men and was keenly involved in political and military matters. George V was not terribly bright, and was famously better on paper than orally, because his papers were written for him by his eminence gris Lord Stamfordham – he later said that he should have sent Asquith away and insisted on time to give a considered answer. George V/Stamfordham did take legal advice as the Irish Home Rule Bill wended its way amidst angry scenes in the Commons (Asquith had been studiously ambiguous on the Irish issue in the Dec 1910 election) – and were told he was still perfectly entitled to dismiss the Prime Minister, to refuse a dissolution or to order one contrary to the Prime Minister’s wishes, or to veto the legislation. They backed off rather than be seen to be taking sides in politics.
Just flicking through the Balfour biogs (Zebel, Ruddock Mackay, Adams, Egremont) makes it clear how exercised the Tories were about tariff reform in 1910. Adams’ biog of Bonar Law (1999) might be worth looking at, and Robert Blake’s classic “The Unknown Prime Minister” is still serviceable. Beyond that one would have to dig deeper into specialist works on the politics of the period – people like Peter Clarke and Ross McKibbin have written on Liberal and Labour politics.
Obviously it’s a biography of Asquith so the focus needs to be on what Asquith said, wrote and did. My main concern is to make sure that everybody’s point of view is covered fairly, rather than slipping into a jejune account of how the Liberals were bringing in self-evidently beneficial reforms in the teeth of “obstruction” from the stupid and wicked Tories. Paulturtle ( talk) 03:26, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Just flicked through a few books this evening and it appears that Asquith's demand for secret assurances off King George in November 1910 - having asked for no such assurances when he first requested an election a few days earlier - is thought to have been so that he could be seen to have kept his pledge back in the debate in April that he would seek assurances "in that parliament". Unless any of the Asquith biogs say different. More on this anon. Paulturtle ( talk) 00:55, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
I've just given Bonar Law's biog a thorough comb-through. It's largely based on the 1999 Adams biog (my copy of which is sadly in storage) but does give a clear picture of how heated tempers were getting over Ireland in the 1912-14 period, with Asquith pushing through a major constitutional change without any clear mandate, and doing his best to avoid a General Election which the Liberals would very likely have lost. Asquith had deliberately not committed himself to any settlement over Ulster, so what would have happened had war not intervened is hard to say: either hostilities as is usually assumed, or perhaps as Keith Jeffrey argues, deprived of the option of using the Army the government would have had to back down, grant the Six Counties a complete opt-out and tell Redmond to lump it ... and of course the arguments about potential Home Rule settlements just rumbled on and on until they were left behind by events in southern Ireland. Anyway, more on this anon. Paulturtle ( talk) 12:34, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
A note on the proposed Catholic procession (currently note 65) is "Devlin, pp. 408–409". The book's title needs to be included as it is not in the references section.-- Britannicus ( talk) 15:30, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Just combing through Wehwalt's recent rewrite of the article - most of it, in fairness, excellent work and a good effort has clearly been made to disentangle the byzantine intrigues of December 1916, in which, as the article quite rightly points out, important discrepancies and differences of interpretation still remain.
I'm just raising a slight query for the time being about the claim that Balfour "shifted allegiance" prior to the Buckingham Palace Conference. Just had a flick through four Balfour biogs which I have to hand - Egremont, Zebel, Adams and Ruddock Mackay (annoyingly I don't own the Kenneth Young biog which is cited in the article) - they all seem to agree that Balfour, who had been ill, resigned because he thought Lloyd George deserved a chance to run his small War Council and did not intrigue or rustle up support to hang onto the Admiralty. On the other hand, like most of the players at first he insisted that he wanted Asquith to stay on as a figurehead PM (because Asquith could run a broader-based administration in which the Irish nats and left-wing Liberals were more likely to stay on board, although he doesn't specifically say so). Only after the Buckingham Palace Conference did he agree to serve as Foreign Secretary under Lloyd George, either when asked by Bonar Law on his way away from the Palace, or if Aitken's more picturesque account is to be preferred Bonar Law called on him and he replied something like "very well, if you put a gun to my head I accept", an account which cannot be discounted altogether as Balfour apparently did use that phrase.
I'm not quite sure how Woy Jenkins interprets all this as "a change of allegiance" at the time of his resignation. My copy of Jenkins is buried deep in the attic but I'll have a chance to look at a copy when I next go up to London on Tuesday.
Of course there is Churchill's famous phrase about Balfour changing sides like "a powerful graceful cat" crossing a muddy street, but that really concerns his agreeing to serve under Lloyd George. Paulturtle ( talk) 02:58, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Re Balfour, I suspect he was just a well-practised political survivor and knew that it was not be helpful to make himself into the focus of attention by trying to hang onto the Admiralty if Lloyd George and Carson wanted him out. He could see which way the wind was blowing, i.e. that Asquith's position was a bit weak, but the evidence suggests that he was acting out of self-preservation rather than actively trying to deepen the crisis. He was still a major political "big beast" (in modern parlance), perhaps even a figurehead Prime Minister himself at a pinch. But at this stage nobody overtly wanted Asquith out as Prime Minister (unless, as you say, everybody was lying - but I don't think that's really what the most accurate books say): it was Asquith who then resigned as Prime Minister, and it's unclear whether he was just at the end of his tether or whether he was going all-in and gambling that nobody else could form a government, that the Tories would have to carry on putting up with him and the likes of Lloyd George and Carson would simply have to accept his authority no matter how much leeway he was willing to allow them. Maybe Jenkins is saying that Asquith had slipped up in not realising that others, including Balfour, might be willing to support a Lloyd George government. But I'll check when I get to a copy.
Re the article, I have stacks of notes on Asquith kicking around, most of them done last year, including stuff on some of the thornier bits like Welsh Disestablishment in the 1890s, Featherstone, Relugas (it was actually Asquith who was the first to rat), the outbreak of war in 1914, the formation of the coalition in 1915 (the evidence is quite thin on Asquith's sudden decision there, and Koss's theories aren't really accepted by other historians). I've also got a copy of the Michael and Eleanor Brock book on Margot turning up any day now - it has an excellent introduction on which I had taken notes which I then lost. I quite enjoy getting my head round complex material but I'm a bit bad at finishing articles ... but I'll see what I can do over the next month or so. Paulturtle ( talk) 13:53, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
It just isn't clear who was telling the truth. By the time Beaverbrook (as he was by then) wrote up his account, Bonar Law was dead. Balfour was old and sick, declined an offer to proof-read the manuscript, and said that his recollection was the discussion whilst walking away from the Palace, but that he couldn't be exactly sure. One of Balfour's biographers also remarks that he was in the habit of using the phrase "hold a pistol to x's head". So maybe one or all of the participants got genuinely muddled in his recollections (we've all had the experience of checking an old diary and finding we've mixed up events which happened on separate days, or conflated the two in our mind, or forgotten stuff altogether), or maybe both meetings happened. But as for Jenkins, based on what you say it sounds like he means that Balfour was distancing himself from Asquith a bit, not that he was (yet) actively aligning with Lloyd George, and as I said Asquith blundered in not realising that Balfour would jump ship once Asquith was no longer PM. Paulturtle ( talk) 05:05, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Just had a chance to reread the relevant chapter of Jenkins properly (reread Koss, which is much more deeply researched as you would expect of an academic historian, last week). Jenkins uses the same phrase again, Balfour "switching allegiance" a few pages later, to talk of Balfour accepting the FO. So it's not entirely clear whether it's sloppy writing on Jenkins' part - meaning that Asquith should have guessed from Balfour distancing himself that he might jump ship - or whether Jenkins is implying (without evidence) that Balfour already had switched allegiance. But I don't think we need to go into that. We can just stick to the facts. Paulturtle ( talk) 04:44, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
I see the issue over the Berkshire/Oxfordshire POD has rearisen today, so I've decided to raise the debate since it was originally my edit that was reverted a few weeks ago: In my opinion, the articles should be written in the context of their time. Sutton Courtenay was in Berkshire when Asquith died, and it was never in Oxfordshire during his lifetime. What I noticed was that his POB is listed as the West Riding of Yorkshire, which no longer exists as an administrative county, so why would one be reverted and not the other? I won't go to the extreme and say it's "confusing/distorting history" etc (see the Ridley Scott article), but on most other biographies, any counties listed are usually in the historical context (e.g. Liverpool, Lancashire/Sunderland, County Durham/Abingdon, Berkshire etc.). It's a minor issue but it shouldn't really be a contentious one. Samuel J Walker ( talk) 23:48, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
There is a 1995 book by Paul Adelman --a leading expert on the Liberal party--that states I think very clearly that Asquith strongly disliked Lloyd George in the early 1920s: he writes: “The crises and quarrels that set Liberal against Liberal during the years between 1916 and 1922 could not easily be forgotten, and the personal relations of Asquith and Lloyd George were no better now than they had been during the years of the coalition itself. For Asquith, the National Liberals were ‘all of them renegades’, and he indicated to Herbert Gladstone that ‘he would never again accept Lloyd George as a colleague' . . . . Asquith nevertheless accepted the principle of reunion, however reluctantly; but it had to be reunion on his terms. He made it clear that the ex-Coalitionists (especially Lloyd George) would be welcomed back to the Liberal party, not in a spirit of equality and friendship but as erring sinners who had repented of their folly and were now prepared to accept the wisdom and leadership of the Asquithian establishment.” Paul Adelman, The Decline Of The Liberal Party 1910-1931 p 52. Rjensen ( talk) 11:19, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
I have just found two incorrect references - wrong pages being given. I wasn't even looking for them. Both were to the Roy Jenkins biography of Asquith. When I get the time I shall check all the refs to that work. DuncanHill ( talk) 15:33, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
Under H. H. Asquith#Family background, it lists Emily Willans Asquith as having lived from 1828-1888.
"and his wife Emily, née Willans (1828–1888)."
However, under H. H. Asquith#Childhood and schooling, it says that "[i]n 1863 Willans died".
Which one is correct? Tiniestkid ( talk) 21:34, 25 September 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiniestkid ( talk • contribs) 20:33, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
I have removed the succession box claim that Asquith was President of the Liberal Party from c 1924-1928, as he wasn't. Donald Maclean was President 1923-1926, J. A. Spender from 1926-1927, Charles Hobhouse from 1927-1930. I do not know why or when or by whom the claim was added to this article. DuncanHill ( talk) 10:39, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Henry Asquith. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 April 20#Henry Asquith until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. NotReallySoroka ( talk) (formerly DePlume) 22:57, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
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This page should be moved from "Herbert Henry Asquith" to "H.H. Asquith" because that was his actual use name. (See my edit of the page.) But although I am a registed user and logged on, when I try to do this I keep being sent to a page telling me that I need to be a registered user and log on to do this.
Whether or not Asquith preferred to be know as H.H. Asquith or not is irrelevant. His name was Herbert Henry Asquith and, importantly, it is as 'Herbert Asquith' that he is best known. Valiant Son 23:41, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, that is not true. Wikipedia practice is to put main entries under the name by which the person is best known, not under their full legal name. And Asquith is, and always has been, best-known as "H.H. Asquith" unless and until incorrect encyclopedia entries persuade people to call him by the wrong form of his name. - Kalimac, April 14, 2006
Edwardian gentlemen often referred to themselves by pairs of initials (eg. A.J.Balfour, C.T.Ritchie, F.E.Smith, C.B.Fry) rather as Indians do today. H.H.Asquith was no different - although his upward social mobility with his second marriage was marked by a change in the Christian name by which he was privately called. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.40.198.126 ( talk) 12:21, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Why does this page show up when I search for an entry on "squiff"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 170.20.11.116 ( talk • contribs) .
As i recall members of his liberal faction were named "squifites" while he himself was rather fond of a drink (squiffy). As i have no sources for this other than the memory of a history lesson i'll leave it here unless someone can confirm.
Added a sentence on Asquith's infatuation with her; it's sufficiently well-known (resulting after all in a published volume of his letters to her which is an important biographical resource) that it seemed odd not to find her mentioned. -- Andersonblog ( talk) 01:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Asquith's reputation remains pretty low because of his wartime failure. John Little is something of a supported but Little admits that A's "reputation suffered severe criticism from his political enemies following his fall from office, and historians, almost without exception, have followed this lead. The image that survives is of a vacillating prime minister, barely handling forces he could not contain." Wiki should rpeat that consensus --"almost without exception" is pretty strong. See John Gordon Little, H. H. Asquith and Britain's Manpower Problem, 1914-1915. History; 1997 82(267): 397-409 Rjensen ( talk) 17:40, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
No consensus to move. Vegaswikian ( talk) 02:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
H. H. Asquith → Herbert Henry Asquith – per wp:common which states "In determining which of several alternative names is most frequently used, it is useful to observe the usage of major international organizations, major English-language media outlets, quality encyclopedias, geographic name servers, major scientific bodies and scientific journals." The two are close with "Herbert Henry Asquith" edging out H.H. in GHits and the Dictionary of National Biography using "Herbert Henry Asquith". -- Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) ( talk) 03:45, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
It has been suggested that Louis T. Stanley, owner of the BRM Formula One team, was an illegitimate child of Asquith's with Louis' mother, Venetia Stanley. This has come out in a new book - Louis was the author's stepfather. I thought someone might be interested in this as it could have some influence on future additions to the page. Readro ( talk) 22:56, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
"After Lloyd George’s Paris speech (12 November) at which he said that “when he saw the appalling casualty lists he wish(ed) it had not been necessary to win so many (“victories”)” Asquith (briefed by Robertson) rose to loud cheers to debate the matter in the Commons (19 November) ..."
This sentence appears to be in need of a little expansion. Is there a summary of what Asquith said? Did the debate result in anything? etc EnigmaMcmxc ( talk) 07:40, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
A note for passing researchers, but unworthy of comment in the main text. In a Corney & Barrow order book (Guildhall Library, MS 11779) are records of orders of champagne, by “The Rt Hon’ble H. H. Asquith M.P.” (of “127 Mo[illegible]t Street”), on several dates including 10th January 1893. “2 Dz. Perrier Jouet 1884 Champagne … £10—”, and “2 Dz. Giesler 1884 Champagne … £9.12—”. (My picture #5974.) Those writing (another) biography might wish to be the first to peruse this tome. JDAWiseman ( talk) 22:52, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of H. H. Asquith's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "odnb":
{{
cite web}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors=
(
help)
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 05:36, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
Are the claims made by Bobbie Neate worth including in the article at the present time? It seems to me to be a single, uncorroborated, and speculative source. Bobby Neate is not a historian. DuncanHill ( talk) 15:51, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
This section was semi-complete, almost entirely my fault as I started writing it up a few summers ago and had only managed to write up the period up to Edward VII's death. (I wish we could find a cite for the cry at the time that Asquith had "killed the King"). My notes from 1910 onwards are somewhere in development hell, along with my notes on the horribly complex intrigues of December 1916. A lot of good stuff has been added lately but a fair bit of baby - e.g. the real or perceived Irish dimension - had gone out with the bathwater.
At same stage we may need a bit more on Asquith's bullying of the new King late in 1910, e.g. telling him that he had no business consulting the Tory leaders, so King George gave a pledge unaware that Balfour would have been willing to form a government. And yet Edward VII had been consulting Balfour throughout. Asquith at one point lectured the new King that it had been established since the 1830s that ministerial advice was binding on the monarch - he was referring to William IV's attempt to put Peel in as Prime Minister in 1834 - a deliberate confusion of the monarch's purely nominal role in day-to-day government with his having to bow to political reality in the exercise of his powers as Head of State (legal textbooks to this day inform us that the monarch appoints and dismisses the Prime Minister and can take advice from whoever she pleases on that matter - otherwise a Prime Minister could give "binding advice" that he remain in office, or who his successor should be - even if in practice she has to appoint somebody who can command a majority in the House of Commons and it is hard to think of a crisis so grave that the monarch would actually get involved in politics nowadays). The same sort of thing was true over the Curragh Incident of March 1914 - Asquith cheekily lectured the King at one point that the Army was entirely under government orders, and the King's role purely nominal, in the same way as any government department like the Post Office. This view was most certainly not shared by the King or by senior officers, who made clear that they were not prepared to do the government's dirty work for them.
One does has to be careful with this topic as the Tories and Ulster Unionists of that era do get a very rough ride from even moderately leftish historians, e.g. crass talk that their actions were "barely legal", so much so that it's an eye-opener to read documents from the period and see how Asquith and his Cabinet were regarded by half the political nation as virtual traitors. If Asquith had failed, e.g. if Edward VII had told him to shove off in April when he demanded creation of peers without a second election, it's impossible to say where the crisis would have gone but it seems fair to say that historians would write about him rather differently. Paulturtle ( talk) 05:40, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
Well, I'm not stopping you from editing the article - I don't own it. My copies of Spender & Asquith, Jenkins and Koss are somewhere in the attic so I was relying on books about Edward VII – I’ve made notes from the Nicolson and Kenneth Rose biogs of George V but haven’t got round to posting them. I’ve also been making notes from Hattersley’s biog of Lloyd George. All of that is just to get an easy-to-read narrative in place.
Edward VII was a lazy man who did not read much, but at the same time was a shrewd judge of men and was keenly involved in political and military matters. George V was not terribly bright, and was famously better on paper than orally, because his papers were written for him by his eminence gris Lord Stamfordham – he later said that he should have sent Asquith away and insisted on time to give a considered answer. George V/Stamfordham did take legal advice as the Irish Home Rule Bill wended its way amidst angry scenes in the Commons (Asquith had been studiously ambiguous on the Irish issue in the Dec 1910 election) – and were told he was still perfectly entitled to dismiss the Prime Minister, to refuse a dissolution or to order one contrary to the Prime Minister’s wishes, or to veto the legislation. They backed off rather than be seen to be taking sides in politics.
Just flicking through the Balfour biogs (Zebel, Ruddock Mackay, Adams, Egremont) makes it clear how exercised the Tories were about tariff reform in 1910. Adams’ biog of Bonar Law (1999) might be worth looking at, and Robert Blake’s classic “The Unknown Prime Minister” is still serviceable. Beyond that one would have to dig deeper into specialist works on the politics of the period – people like Peter Clarke and Ross McKibbin have written on Liberal and Labour politics.
Obviously it’s a biography of Asquith so the focus needs to be on what Asquith said, wrote and did. My main concern is to make sure that everybody’s point of view is covered fairly, rather than slipping into a jejune account of how the Liberals were bringing in self-evidently beneficial reforms in the teeth of “obstruction” from the stupid and wicked Tories. Paulturtle ( talk) 03:26, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Just flicked through a few books this evening and it appears that Asquith's demand for secret assurances off King George in November 1910 - having asked for no such assurances when he first requested an election a few days earlier - is thought to have been so that he could be seen to have kept his pledge back in the debate in April that he would seek assurances "in that parliament". Unless any of the Asquith biogs say different. More on this anon. Paulturtle ( talk) 00:55, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
I've just given Bonar Law's biog a thorough comb-through. It's largely based on the 1999 Adams biog (my copy of which is sadly in storage) but does give a clear picture of how heated tempers were getting over Ireland in the 1912-14 period, with Asquith pushing through a major constitutional change without any clear mandate, and doing his best to avoid a General Election which the Liberals would very likely have lost. Asquith had deliberately not committed himself to any settlement over Ulster, so what would have happened had war not intervened is hard to say: either hostilities as is usually assumed, or perhaps as Keith Jeffrey argues, deprived of the option of using the Army the government would have had to back down, grant the Six Counties a complete opt-out and tell Redmond to lump it ... and of course the arguments about potential Home Rule settlements just rumbled on and on until they were left behind by events in southern Ireland. Anyway, more on this anon. Paulturtle ( talk) 12:34, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
A note on the proposed Catholic procession (currently note 65) is "Devlin, pp. 408–409". The book's title needs to be included as it is not in the references section.-- Britannicus ( talk) 15:30, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Just combing through Wehwalt's recent rewrite of the article - most of it, in fairness, excellent work and a good effort has clearly been made to disentangle the byzantine intrigues of December 1916, in which, as the article quite rightly points out, important discrepancies and differences of interpretation still remain.
I'm just raising a slight query for the time being about the claim that Balfour "shifted allegiance" prior to the Buckingham Palace Conference. Just had a flick through four Balfour biogs which I have to hand - Egremont, Zebel, Adams and Ruddock Mackay (annoyingly I don't own the Kenneth Young biog which is cited in the article) - they all seem to agree that Balfour, who had been ill, resigned because he thought Lloyd George deserved a chance to run his small War Council and did not intrigue or rustle up support to hang onto the Admiralty. On the other hand, like most of the players at first he insisted that he wanted Asquith to stay on as a figurehead PM (because Asquith could run a broader-based administration in which the Irish nats and left-wing Liberals were more likely to stay on board, although he doesn't specifically say so). Only after the Buckingham Palace Conference did he agree to serve as Foreign Secretary under Lloyd George, either when asked by Bonar Law on his way away from the Palace, or if Aitken's more picturesque account is to be preferred Bonar Law called on him and he replied something like "very well, if you put a gun to my head I accept", an account which cannot be discounted altogether as Balfour apparently did use that phrase.
I'm not quite sure how Woy Jenkins interprets all this as "a change of allegiance" at the time of his resignation. My copy of Jenkins is buried deep in the attic but I'll have a chance to look at a copy when I next go up to London on Tuesday.
Of course there is Churchill's famous phrase about Balfour changing sides like "a powerful graceful cat" crossing a muddy street, but that really concerns his agreeing to serve under Lloyd George. Paulturtle ( talk) 02:58, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Re Balfour, I suspect he was just a well-practised political survivor and knew that it was not be helpful to make himself into the focus of attention by trying to hang onto the Admiralty if Lloyd George and Carson wanted him out. He could see which way the wind was blowing, i.e. that Asquith's position was a bit weak, but the evidence suggests that he was acting out of self-preservation rather than actively trying to deepen the crisis. He was still a major political "big beast" (in modern parlance), perhaps even a figurehead Prime Minister himself at a pinch. But at this stage nobody overtly wanted Asquith out as Prime Minister (unless, as you say, everybody was lying - but I don't think that's really what the most accurate books say): it was Asquith who then resigned as Prime Minister, and it's unclear whether he was just at the end of his tether or whether he was going all-in and gambling that nobody else could form a government, that the Tories would have to carry on putting up with him and the likes of Lloyd George and Carson would simply have to accept his authority no matter how much leeway he was willing to allow them. Maybe Jenkins is saying that Asquith had slipped up in not realising that others, including Balfour, might be willing to support a Lloyd George government. But I'll check when I get to a copy.
Re the article, I have stacks of notes on Asquith kicking around, most of them done last year, including stuff on some of the thornier bits like Welsh Disestablishment in the 1890s, Featherstone, Relugas (it was actually Asquith who was the first to rat), the outbreak of war in 1914, the formation of the coalition in 1915 (the evidence is quite thin on Asquith's sudden decision there, and Koss's theories aren't really accepted by other historians). I've also got a copy of the Michael and Eleanor Brock book on Margot turning up any day now - it has an excellent introduction on which I had taken notes which I then lost. I quite enjoy getting my head round complex material but I'm a bit bad at finishing articles ... but I'll see what I can do over the next month or so. Paulturtle ( talk) 13:53, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
It just isn't clear who was telling the truth. By the time Beaverbrook (as he was by then) wrote up his account, Bonar Law was dead. Balfour was old and sick, declined an offer to proof-read the manuscript, and said that his recollection was the discussion whilst walking away from the Palace, but that he couldn't be exactly sure. One of Balfour's biographers also remarks that he was in the habit of using the phrase "hold a pistol to x's head". So maybe one or all of the participants got genuinely muddled in his recollections (we've all had the experience of checking an old diary and finding we've mixed up events which happened on separate days, or conflated the two in our mind, or forgotten stuff altogether), or maybe both meetings happened. But as for Jenkins, based on what you say it sounds like he means that Balfour was distancing himself from Asquith a bit, not that he was (yet) actively aligning with Lloyd George, and as I said Asquith blundered in not realising that Balfour would jump ship once Asquith was no longer PM. Paulturtle ( talk) 05:05, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Just had a chance to reread the relevant chapter of Jenkins properly (reread Koss, which is much more deeply researched as you would expect of an academic historian, last week). Jenkins uses the same phrase again, Balfour "switching allegiance" a few pages later, to talk of Balfour accepting the FO. So it's not entirely clear whether it's sloppy writing on Jenkins' part - meaning that Asquith should have guessed from Balfour distancing himself that he might jump ship - or whether Jenkins is implying (without evidence) that Balfour already had switched allegiance. But I don't think we need to go into that. We can just stick to the facts. Paulturtle ( talk) 04:44, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
I see the issue over the Berkshire/Oxfordshire POD has rearisen today, so I've decided to raise the debate since it was originally my edit that was reverted a few weeks ago: In my opinion, the articles should be written in the context of their time. Sutton Courtenay was in Berkshire when Asquith died, and it was never in Oxfordshire during his lifetime. What I noticed was that his POB is listed as the West Riding of Yorkshire, which no longer exists as an administrative county, so why would one be reverted and not the other? I won't go to the extreme and say it's "confusing/distorting history" etc (see the Ridley Scott article), but on most other biographies, any counties listed are usually in the historical context (e.g. Liverpool, Lancashire/Sunderland, County Durham/Abingdon, Berkshire etc.). It's a minor issue but it shouldn't really be a contentious one. Samuel J Walker ( talk) 23:48, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
There is a 1995 book by Paul Adelman --a leading expert on the Liberal party--that states I think very clearly that Asquith strongly disliked Lloyd George in the early 1920s: he writes: “The crises and quarrels that set Liberal against Liberal during the years between 1916 and 1922 could not easily be forgotten, and the personal relations of Asquith and Lloyd George were no better now than they had been during the years of the coalition itself. For Asquith, the National Liberals were ‘all of them renegades’, and he indicated to Herbert Gladstone that ‘he would never again accept Lloyd George as a colleague' . . . . Asquith nevertheless accepted the principle of reunion, however reluctantly; but it had to be reunion on his terms. He made it clear that the ex-Coalitionists (especially Lloyd George) would be welcomed back to the Liberal party, not in a spirit of equality and friendship but as erring sinners who had repented of their folly and were now prepared to accept the wisdom and leadership of the Asquithian establishment.” Paul Adelman, The Decline Of The Liberal Party 1910-1931 p 52. Rjensen ( talk) 11:19, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
I have just found two incorrect references - wrong pages being given. I wasn't even looking for them. Both were to the Roy Jenkins biography of Asquith. When I get the time I shall check all the refs to that work. DuncanHill ( talk) 15:33, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
Under H. H. Asquith#Family background, it lists Emily Willans Asquith as having lived from 1828-1888.
"and his wife Emily, née Willans (1828–1888)."
However, under H. H. Asquith#Childhood and schooling, it says that "[i]n 1863 Willans died".
Which one is correct? Tiniestkid ( talk) 21:34, 25 September 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiniestkid ( talk • contribs) 20:33, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
I have removed the succession box claim that Asquith was President of the Liberal Party from c 1924-1928, as he wasn't. Donald Maclean was President 1923-1926, J. A. Spender from 1926-1927, Charles Hobhouse from 1927-1930. I do not know why or when or by whom the claim was added to this article. DuncanHill ( talk) 10:39, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Henry Asquith. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 April 20#Henry Asquith until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. NotReallySoroka ( talk) (formerly DePlume) 22:57, 20 April 2021 (UTC)