‘I AM THANKFUL Sir Oswald Quisling has been jugged, arne’t [sic] you but think it quite useless if Lady Q is still at large,’ wrote Nancy to Mark Ogilvie-Grant on 24 May 1940.
Nancy did not confine her misgivings to letters to friends. She also actively ‘shopped’ her sister, telephoning anyone she thought was influential. Among them was Gladwyn Jebb at the Foreign Office. ‘I am disturbed about my sister, Diana Mosley,’ she told him. ‘She’s madly pro-German and I think something should be done to restrain her activities.’ Jebb, as he had promised on the telephone, passed on her views to the Home Office.
Letters from the public were also arriving. One was from a Mr Clarence Percy Hitchen, of Leeds, who reported that his stepdaughter Edith Mary Hitchen had sat next to Diana on a flight to Nuremberg in August 1939. At Nuremberg, reported Mr Hitchen, Lady Mosley was met by Julius Streicher and her sister Unity Mitford, who arranged for a motor car to take his stepdaughter to the railway station to continue her journey. As they said goodbye, Unity offered to show Miss Hitchen round Munich if she came there, but because of the international situation Edith Hitchen was summoned home by telegram before she could take up the offer. However, said Mr Hitchen, the girls corresponded briefly, and his stepdaughter had handed over her letters – letters which clearly showed how well the Mitford sisters knew various highly placed Nazi officials.
Jebb’s report of Nancy’s view to the Home Office, like the public’s letters, were taken calmly by Sir Alexander Maxwell, the Permanent Secretary. On 30 May he wrote to Major-General Sir Vernon Kell:
I have spoken to the Home Secretary about the case of Lady Mosley.
He does not think it would be a wise course to intern her at present.
He thinks there would be advantages in having her carefully watched as it is possible she may be a channel through which we can get further information. The Home Secretary would be glad if you would do all that was possible to have her correspondence and telephone calls and doings kept under observation.
The next day Lady Astor asked a question in the House. Ostensibly referring to a raid on the Anti-Vivisectionist Society, it was capable of another interpretation. ‘Is it really wise to lock up the man and leave his wife free when the wife is more notorious than the man?’ she asked, to a rumble of approval.
At Denham, Diana was notified that the authorities wished to requisition Savehay, and would need it by 1 July. They would also want the cottages in which lived the two gardeners, whom they would rehouse in Uxbridge. On her weekly visit to Mosley in Brixton, Diana suggested that the best thing would be for the families to split up, his children by Cimmie going to live with one of his sisters-in-law, while she, the two youngest Mosley children and the Guinness boys went to Pam at Rignell, in Oxfordshire. The house at Rignell was large; Pam’s husband, Derek – a Mosley sympathiser – was away in the Royal Air Force; and Diana offered to pay a generous weekly sum for the keep of her family. Pam, delighted at the idea of company, jumped at the proposal.
Packing up Savehay began at once – there was little more than a fortnight before they had to leave. Andrée went to work for Irene and those servants who had not already joined up were paid off. Some of the furniture went up to Grosvenor Road, smaller items were put in high cupboards under the lofty vaulted ceilings, which could only be reached by ladder. Trunks were prepared for departure. Diana, husbandless and now homeless, planned to leave for Rignell on 30 June. Unsuspectingly, she continued to breast-feed Max, to collect and return her husband’s laundry, to visit the Dolphin Square flats, to sit on the lawn by the river on sunny afternoons.
In the world outside, the net was drawing tighter. The fall of France on 22 June brought the prospect of invasion dramatically closer – and sharpened the terror of an enemy within the gates.
On 25 June it was the turn of Diana’s former father-in-law, Lord Moyne, to wield the knife. He had been immensely fond of her, he had been devastated for his son’s sake when she had walked out of her marriage and he had not forgiven her for what she had done. His retribution was painstaking and efficient: he had suborned her son’s governess, Jean Gillies, to spy on her; now, he wrote to his friend Lord Swinton, Chairman of the Security Executive, a committee so secret few knew of it.
It has been on my conscience for some time to make sure that the authorities concerned are aware of the extremely dangerous character of my former daughter-in-law, now Lady Mosley [his letter began]. As the matter was mentioned in a Secret Session the other day, I have no doubt that those concerned are aware of the public comment on the arrest of Mrs Joe Beckett and the immunity of Lady Mosley and there are many who are glad to draw the conclusion that there is one law for the influential rich and another for the friendless poor.
It has been suggested to me that the Authorities concerned have no detailed evidence as to the opinions which are freely expressed by Lady Mosley, so I enclose herewith a summary of conversations which my grandson’s governess has had with her when taking him on visits to his mother.
It is widely believed by those who are aware of Lady Mosley’s movements that her frequent visits to Germany were concerned with bringing over funds from the Nazi government. I also enclose a list of the dates on which Lady Mosley went to Germany, which the governess has extracted from her diary. Owing to the governess being absent for many months in 1939, on account of a serious operation, she has no dates entered in her diary during the last year before the war. I feel it rather embarrassing to write you this letter and am sure you will understand that it would be very hard on the governess to call on her for any evidence on the subject, which would lead the Mosley family to know of the information which she is giving. For this reason, I do not mention the governess’s name, though it could of course be readily supplied if required.
I am not clear on the activities of your Committee. If this matter is outside your scope, perhaps you could have the letter passed on to whoever is responsible.
Yours ever, Walter
The governess recalled that on 27 September 1938 Mosley had said that Hitler would be perfectly justified in invading Czechoslovakia and that when the Athenia was sunk both Mosleys described this as ‘a good beginning’. The next day Diana had said of Poland, ‘Surely now the goddess of wisdom has forsaken them and they will realise their colossal folly before it is too late.’
She had also said ‘triumphantly’ to the governess that when Belgium was overrun the British army could not be extricated. ‘She added that it was perfectly obvious that the British army would be caught by a pincer movement, making no secret of her delight in what was happening.’ More than five months earlier, said the governess, Lady Mosley had described exactly the strategy adopted by the Germans when they broke through in France, saying that they would cut off the British and French armies from each other and with a scissorlike movement take the Channel ports. The implication was obvious: where else would Diana have got this strategic prediction but from Hitler?
Lord Moyne’s letter made such a deep impression on Swinton that he sent it on the following day (25 June) to Lieutenant-Colonel C. Alan Harker, acting head of MI5 and a member of Swinton’s Security Committee, with a copy to Sir Alexander Maxwell at the Home Office. In the covering letter to Maxwell, Swinton wrote, ‘[This letter] confirms information given me very confidentially yesterday by another member of the family, who said that they regarded Lady Mosley as at least as dangerous as her husband; that they knew she had been kept out of his overt activities; but that she had been much closer to Hitler than Mosley had ever been.’
But Maxwell was not as convinced as Swinton or MI5 that Diana posed a threat to the safety of the realm. On 27 June he wrote to Swinton thanking him for his letter of the previous day with its ‘disclosures’ by Lord Moyne. The Home Secretary, continued Maxwell, still thought there would be an advantage in leaving Lady Mosley at liberty but under surveillance.
His letter, with its note of cautious moderation, arrived twenty-four hours too late. Swinton had acted without waiting for the Home Office response. The order for Diana’s detention had been signed on 27 June by J. L. S. Hale, countersigned by Harker with the words ‘I approve this recommendation’, and despatched immediately. At the same time, Hale wrote to Maxwell:
I have today forwarded to Rumbelow in the usual way a recommendation for the detention of Lady Mosley. I have not included in the details given under ‘Remarks’ the information which Lord Swinton forwarded to you today which he had received from Lord Moyne. I understand that the presence of Lady Mosley at large is the subject of wide and universal comment, and while I am not suggesting that this should influence any decision which may be taken in the matter, it is a point which it would be as well not to ignore completely.
In view of present circumstances I do feel very strongly that this extremely dangerous and sinister young woman should be detained at the earliest possible moment.
The wheels for three years’ imprisonment without trial had been set irrevocably in motion.
Saturday 29 June dawned a warm, sunny day. With all the packing done, Diana gave Max – eleven weeks old that day – his usual two p.m. feed, changed him, gave him to Nanny Higgs to put in his pram in the garden, then collected her book and went outside to sit near him.
A few minutes later, one of the maids appeared, to say that a man and a woman were asking for Lady Mosley. The maid’s tone of voice made it clear that the two visitors were not friends who had called unexpectedly. Diana realised instantly that they must be police.
They walked across the lawn and told her that they had a warrant for her arrest.
‘Now what happens?’ she said. ‘I’ve got a tiny baby and I’m feeding him.’
‘You can take him with you,’ replied the policeman – the rule was that a mother could take one child with her, which in practice usually meant the baby of the family. Diana asked which prison they would be taking her to, wondering if perhaps it would be Aylesbury, forty miles from London. When she heard it was Holloway, her reaction was the instinctive one that, with France now in German hands, intensive bombing of London was more likely than ever.
‘I don’t think I’d better take a baby to London,’ she replied. ‘It wouldn’t be right. I’d better leave him with his brother.’
The policewoman took her upstairs to pack and Diana asked how much luggage to take. ‘Oh, only enough for the weekend,’ came the reply. ‘You’ll probably be out on Monday.’ She threw some things into a case and went downstairs to find Nanny Higgs.
‘They’re going to take me to prison so I’m going to leave Max with you,’ she said. ‘I think it’s better.’ Nanny burst into tears. With difficulty, Diana remained calm, kissed her children and said goodbye.
On the way to London she began to think that if she was only going to be in prison for forty-eight hours, she ought to continue breast-feeding Max. She asked the police to stop at John Bell & Croyden, where she bought a breast pump, before continuing to Holloway.
Holloway prison was a menacing sight. Bleak and dark with its coating of London grime, its fac,ade a replica of the main front of Warwick Castle, it was reminiscent of some medieval Castle Despair. The entrance to the central hall was flanked on either side by great stone pillars, surmounted by two ferocious-looking stone dragons, their huge fangs exposed. The long, curving talons of these guardians of the gate gripped the stonework; under the claws of one was an enormous stone key, a symbol to make the toughest shudder.
Inside, the first impressions were of high, smooth, impregnable walls, small windows, iron grilles and, above all, a harsh, constant noise. With nothing to muffle resonance, the sound of prisoners or staff moving from block to block of the cells that radiated outwards from the central courtyard or clattering up and down the iron spiral stairways leading to the upper floors echoed boomingly off the stone walls and floors. Over everything, like some despairing leitmotiv, could be heard the jangle of keys. Each prison officer carried a large bunch of them on a chain round her waist, a grisly echo of the chaˆtelaines worn by the black-clad housekeepers of the great houses where Diana had once stayed.
For Diana, the greatest shock was the dirt, a filthiness unbelievable by ordinary standards. Years later, she was to write, ‘I had no idea that dirt like that existed.’