Queer Places:
Belvoir Castle
Belvoir, Melton Borough, Leicestershire, England
Diana Olivia Winifred Maud Cooper, Viscountess Norwich (née Lady
Diana Manners; 29 August 1892 – 16 June 1986) was a famously glamorous
social figure in London and Paris. As a young woman, she moved in a celebrated
group of intellectuals known as
the
Coterie, most of whom were killed in the
First World War. Some see them as people ahead of their time, precursors of
the Jazz
Age. She married one of the few survivors, Duff
Cooper, later
British Ambassador to France. After his death, she wrote three volumes of
memoirs which reveal much about early 20th-century upper-class life.
Officially the youngest daughter of the
8th Duke of Rutland and his wife, the
Duchess of Rutland, Lady Diana's biological father was the writer
Henry
(or Harry) Cust.[1]
As early as 1908, various pamphlets were being circulated by a former
governess claiming that Cust fathered Diana Manners, and
David Lindsay (a distant cousin of her mother) noted in his diary that the
resemblance was said to be striking.[2]
In her prime, she had the widespread reputation as the most beautiful young
woman in England, and appeared in countless profiles, photographs and articles
in newspapers and magazines.
Lady Diana was the most famous of the group, which included
Raymond Asquith (son of
H.
H. Asquith, the Prime Minister),
Patrick Shaw-Stewart,
Edward Horner, Sir Denis Anson and Duff Cooper. Following the deaths at
relatively young ages of Asquith, Horner, Shaw-Stewart, and Anson—the first
three in the war; Anson by drowning—Lady Diana married
Cooper,
one of her circle of friends' last surviving male members, in June 1919. It
was not a popular choice with Diana's parents who took a dim view of his lack
of title and wealth, and his drinking, gambling and womanising. They had hopes
for a marriage to the
Prince of Wales. 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."[3]
In 1929 she gave birth to her only child,
John Julius Cooper, later the
2nd Viscount Norwich and known as John Julius Norwich, who became a writer
and broadcaster.
Lady Diana Cooper (Viscountess Norwich 1892-1986)
Paris, 26 May6 1948
Fashion: Molyneux
Vintage print
Vogue, The Condé Nast Publications Ltd
After working as a nurse at Guy's Hospital during the war and working as
editor of the magazine Femina, she wrote a column in the
Beaverbrook newspapers before turning to acting.
Already in 1918 Lady Diana took uncredited roles; in The Great Love
she played herself in her capacity of a celebrity. A few years later she
starred in two of the first British colour films. 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.[4]
In 1924, her husband gained election to
Parliament, while Lady Diana continued as a society celebrity. She
supported her husband in his political posts, even travelling with him to the
Far East in late 1941 prior to, then during, the Japanese attack on British
Malaya.[5]
As Prime Minister Churchill's personal representative Duff Cooper MP was
unsuccessful in effecting a positive strategy, the Japanese occupied
Singapore, and the couple had to be evacuated from the war zone. Her
reputation became even more celebrated in France as the centrepoint of
immediate post-Second World War French literary culture when Cooper served
from 1944 to 1948 as
Britain's ambassador to France. During this period, Lady Diana's
popularity as a hostess remained undimmed, even after allegations that the
embassy guest list included "pederasts and collaborators".[6][7][8]
Following Duff Cooper's retirement in 1947, the couple continued to live in
France at
Chantilly, until his death in 1954, following an upper gastrointestinal
haemorrhage. He was created
Viscount Norwich in 1952, for services to the nation, but Lady Diana
refused to be called Viscountess Norwich, claiming that it sounded like
"porridge".[9]
Following her husband's death, she made an announcement in
The Times
to this effect, stating that she had "reverted to the name and title of Lady
Diana Cooper".[10]
Lady Diana sharply reduced her activities in the late 1950s but did produce
three volumes of memoirs: The Rainbow Comes and Goes, The Light of
Common Day, and Trumpets from the Steep. The three volumes are
included in a compilation called Autobiography.
Several writers used her as inspiration for their novels, including
Evelyn Waugh, who fictionalised her as
Mrs.
Stitch in the
Sword of Honour trilogy and elsewhere, and
Nancy Mitford, who portrayed her as the narcissistic, self-dramatizing
Lady Leone in Don't Tell Alfred. In
F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "The Jelly-bean",[11]
the character Nancy Lamar states that she wants to be like Lady Diana Manners.
Enid
Bagnold published The Loved and Envied
in 1951. The novel, based on Lady Diana and her group of friends, dealt with
the effects of ageing on a beautiful woman.
Oliver Anderson dedicated Random Rendezvous, published in 1955, to
"Diana Cooper and Jenny Day".
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Diana_Cooper