Mitford family: Death of Duchess of Devonshire

ONE was in love with Hitler, one was a communist organiser, one was a supporter of British fascism, one was a writer and daring lover. The Mitfords could be modern history’s most remarkable family.

Deborah Mitford and her son, the current Duke of Devonshire. Picture: Devonshire Collection Chatsworth, reproduced by permission of Chatsworth Settlement Trustees

BEFORE women’s rights fuelled a global debate, there were the Mitford girls.

This extraordinary family mixed intelligence and determination, sex, politics, and tragedy. The last member of the clan, Deborah the Duchess of Devonshire, died this week aged 94.

She is being mourned by many younger Britons including Mary McCartney who today tweeted, “RIP the Dowager Duchess”.

Debt, as her sisters called her, was grandmother of supermodel Stella Tennant and a fixture of the aristocracy.

With her goes the last contact with the remarkable Mitford women who lived extraordinary lives they shaped for themselves.

One was in love with Hitler, another was a socialist who organised workers in California. Yet another was an author and mistress to some of the most powerful figures of Europe

These were Debo’s sisters.

JESSICA (1917-1996)

Jessica "Decca" Mitford, with her husband Esmond Romilly at Roma Bar in Miami. Jessica was a socialist author, and an outcast from her family. Picture: Mitford/family Historical Romilly/family

The woman known as Decca moved to Spain aged 19 during its civil war in the late 1930s. She married a cousin after opposition from her family, and had a daughter, Julia whom she later ignored, not even mentioning her in an autobiography.

Jessica had another daughter, Constance in Washington in 1941. Her husband joined the Canadian air force and went missing in action.

She became a US citizen in 1944 and married a civil rights activist. This led her to a life of protests, renouncing her privileged upbringing by supporting Communist campaigns. She was also an investigative journalist and wrote a hugely influential book, “The American Way of Death” exposing the mortuary industry. “You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty,” she said at one point.

She died having never reconciled with sisters who took a different path.

DIANA (1910-2003)

Diana Mosley (nee Mitford) (right), and her sister Unity pictured in Germany. Picture from book: Diana Mosley by Anne de Coucy.

Diana was a great beauty whose second husband was Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists which supported Hitler’s Nazis while rejecting a German invasion. The 1936 wedding was held at the home of Joseph Goebbels (Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda), with Hitler himself a guest of honour.

Writer and admirer Evelyn Waugh said her beauty “ran through the room like a peal of bells”, but many Britons found her politics unattractive and there were demands she and her husband be detained for the duration of WWII.

In an autobiography she said of her political life, “I can’t regret it, it was so interesting.”

Another sister went even further in right wing politics.

UNITY VALKYRIE (1914-1948)

Adolf Hitler and Unity Mitford were understood to have been very close.

Following Diana’s lead, Unity travelled to German, fell in love with Hitler and became part of his close group of friends and advisers. She was torn when war was declared between Britain and Germany. In Munich she tried with kill herself with a small pistol Hitler had given her for protection. The suicide bid failed, and she was sent back to Britain for health care. She never recovered the botched attempt on her own life.

Watching these personal and family dramas was the most sophisticated of the Mitfords.

NANCY (1904-1973)

Author Nancy Mitford was renown for her fiction work Love in a Cold Climate.

The eldest sister was an author and journalist who examined her own aristocratic class in books such as “Noblesse Oblige”. Her fiction includes the big selling “Love in a Cold Climate”. After WWII she ended a sham marriage in which both partners had a variety of affairs, and moved to Paris. She had fallen in love with a French military officer whom she never married. When Nancy was dying Jessica and Diana came to Paris to be with her. But they still could not speak to each other, their political positions kept them forever apart.

Nancy was the worldly Mitford, chain smoking, a competitive drinker, acclaimed writer and adventure lover.

She was a stark contrast to her sibling closest in age.

PAM (1907-1994)

The Mitfords. One of modern history’s most remarkable families. Back row (L-R) Lady Redesdale, Nancy, Diana, Tom, Pamela and Lord Redesdale. Front (L-R) Unity, Jessica and Deborah, 1934. Picture: Mitford family / supplied

Pam was teased by her sisters who usually referred to her simply as Woman.

She made no great impact on world affairs and kept to her farm life. But her ability to live as she wanted rather than be drawn into Mitford fights showed a strong determination.

After a divorce she set up a home with an Italian horse woman, her companion for the rest of her life. “She’s a you-know-what-bias,” Jessica explained in a family letter.