Clarissa Eden, Countess of Avon - Eden's Premiership

Eden's Premiership

Churchill had told Lady Avon, following her honeymoon in 1952, that he wanted to give up the premiership. However, it was not until 6 April 1955 that Eden succeeded him as Prime Minister, shortly afterward winning a general election in which his Conservative Party polled the largest percentage of the popular vote recorded by a party between 1945 and the present day. Colville noted that, at a dinner, attended by the Queen, to mark Churchill’s retirement, the Duchess of Westminster had put her foot through Lady Avon’s train, causing the monarch's consort, The Duke of Edinburgh, to remark, "that's torn it, in more than one sense".

Eden’s premiership lasted less than two years. For much of this period Eden was the subject of hostility from elements of the Conservative press, notably the Daily Telegraph, the wife of whose Chairman, Lady Pamela Berry (a noted society hostess, described by the biographer of her father, Lord Birkenhead, as "the politician manquée of the second generation") was said by some to have had a "blood row" (Macmillan's phrase) with Lady Avon. The latter's attempts to make up this puzzling rift were apparently shunned.