unnatural") that she thought politics "a beastly profession ... and how greatly I admire your dignity and good humour". (In 1952 she had told Duff Cooper that she thought modern politics something of a "farce".) Macmillan's biographer Alistair Horne noted that, of the various animosities that arose before and during Macmillan's premiership, it was the "loyal wives", among whom he counted Lady Eden and Lady Butler, who "tended most to keep [them] alive". Although there is evidence of a long-standing and lasting rift between Eden and Macmillan, Eden himself maintained "a friendly (if not conspicuously warm) relationship" with his successor, often being used as a "sounding board" by Macmillan who occasionally lunched with the Edens at their home. Lady Eden, on the other hand, was said to have been consistently vitriolic about Macmillan and recalled to one of Eden's biographers that Churchill had found him "too 'viewy. There is some evidence that, following Suez, Macmillan had briefed sections of the press that he intended to retire, whereas his true intention had been to displace Eden as prime minister, and, as late as 2007, the future Lady Avon criticised his behaviour as Chancellor of the Exchequer during the crisis, claiming that he had been "too hasty" in using an American threat to withhold a loan from the International Monetary Fund as "an excuse to back down" from military action and had wept "crocodile tears" at Eden's resignation. Shortly after Eden's resignation, he and Lady Eden sailed to New Zealand for a further break. Their cabin steward, on what she described as "the hellship ", was the future deputy prime minister John Prescott. Half a century later Prescott recalled that, while kneeling to clean the ship's brass, he had occasion to admire a pair of legs that turned out to be Lady Eden's—"You naturally look, don't you"—whereupon Anthony Eden tapped him on the head. When they arrived in New Zealand, which was among the few countries publicly to have supported the Suez operation, the Edens received a rapturous "red carpet" reception. Eden's retirement and death Eden had been told by doctors that his life might be in danger if he remained in office. However, he was to live for another twenty years. The Avons' home was at Alvediston Manor, Wiltshire, where he died on 14 January 1977 and is buried. The last entry in Eden's diary, dated 11 September 1976, had read;