and had several affairs, including one with the press magnate Lord Beaverbrook. In 1923, she bore a daughter, Judith, who was said to be the child of William Humble Eric Ward, then Viscount Ednam and later 3rd Earl of Dudley. Judith grew up to befriend Princess Margaret during the Second World War and marry the American photographer Milton Gendel, with whom she created an artistic salon in Italy. Despite Venetia's affairs, her marriage lasted until Montagu's premature death in 1924. Once a widow, she renewed her friendship with Asquith. Asquith's final excursion before his death in 1928 was a visit to her. The same year, the Liberal Party invited her to stand as a parliamentary candidate for South Norfolk, where she had inherited Montagu's country house in Attleborough, but she declined the offer. After being widowed, she took an interest in flying. In 1931, she embarked on a 6,000-mile adventure in a DH Gypsy Moth piloted by Rupert Belleville. The journey took them across Russia, the Middle East and Persia. Of the journey she said that, "We are going for fun only, in the simplest, cheapest, and most modern way of seeing the world". Venetia Stanley Montagu died of cancer in 1948, shortly before her 61st birthday. Further reading Asquith, H.H. H.H. Asquith: Letters to Venetia Stanley. Ed. Michael Brock and Eleanor Brock. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Stefan Buczacki, My Darling Mr Asquith: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Venetia Stanley. Cato and Clarke, 2016. "When Asquith’s letters to Venetia were published in 1982, edited by Michael and Eleanor Brock, only around half of the total 300,000 words were included. Buczacki has read the other half and found that the editors omitted a lot of social gossip and an even larger quantity of 'desperately boring material. . .'" Jenkins, Roy. Asquith: Portrait of a Man and an Era. 1964. Rev. ed. London: Collins, 1978. Levine, Naomi B. Politics, Religion and Love: the Story of H.H. Asquith, Venetia Stanley and Edwin Montagu. New York: New York University Press, 1991. Susan Howatch's 1990 novel Scandalous Risks is a fictionalised version of the relationship between Venetia Stanley ("Venetia Flaxton") and H. H. Asquith ("Neville Aysgarth"), but set in the early 1960s. Bobbie Neate's 2012 work Conspiracy of Secrets claims, unsupported by evidence, that her stepfather Louis Stanley was the illegitimate son of Asquith and Venetia Stanley. References 1887 births 1948 deaths British