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H. H. Asquith: Last of the Romans chronicles the life of H. H. Asquith (1852–1928), the longest-serving British prime minister between Lord Liverpool and Margaret Thatcher. In this study, V. Markham Lester argues that the key to understanding Asquith is to recognize the classical virtues he acquired early in his education. Employing unpublished sources and documents made public since the last full-scale biography of Asquith was published more than forty years ago, Lester challenges many interpretations in earlier biographies. Previous studies of Asquith have often glossed over his education and early years, contending that his development did not contribute materially to his mature outlook...
First published in 1964, Asquith was one of the most crucial and controversial of modern Prime Ministers. He was opposed with a bitterness and a violence that English politicians have not subsequently known, yet he enjoyed eight and a half years of unbroken power, and for at least the first six years of these he presided with an easy authority over the most talented government of this century. The issues which he confronted were momentous – Peers v. People, Ireland, and the Great War. Bringing to bear exceptional knowledge, judgement, insight and tolerance, he survived them all. His fall seemed therefore all the more shocking.