The Holy Fox: The Life of Lord Halifax

For Churchill, the mindset was utterly different: These two giants of British politics were both sons of aristocrats one born in a palace, the other in a castle , and both suffered from speech lisp impediments. But there was little else to unite them in character and disposition. The immensely tall, cadaverous-looking Halifax, born with a withered left arm and no hand, was stately, courteous, attentive, principled and coolly logical.

Churchill, still building alliances — and his reputation — in those early weeks of his premiership, needed all his guile to outflank his rival in the War Cabinet.

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Halifax — who had met Hitler in — wanted to pursue a diplomatic settlement with Germany. Churchill, however, arguing that Hitler would never be satisfied, played for time, making noncommittal noises about Italy — hostile, but still neutral — as a mediator in possible negotiations with Germany. Those disagreements remained, and were fought over ferociously, around the Cabinet table in late May As a historian, Roberts is facing a defining moment. Next week sees the publication of The Storm of War, subtitled with characteristic bravado: It runs to well over pages and may be his masterpiece, concentrating on Hitler's personality and his Nazism and providing an answer to the biggest question of all: Advance reviews, such as that published in last week's Economist, proclaim that it's a "magnificent book" and a serious work of scholarship.

Readers of gossip columns, including Roberts's own, which he has just started writing for the reinvigorated monthly Tatler, might be surprised to find he has any time to spend in archives. But the Economist praises his research as "startling" and "gritty". The Second World War is hardly new ground and publishing a worthwhile book about it requires both impressive research and a striking degree of self-belief.

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Roberts's biography of Lord Halifax, The Holy Fox, published in , was in fact written some six years after he graduated, after a short and unsuccessful stint as a merchant banker at Fleming. He has not looked back. At the same time, he has been married, had two children with his first wife, Camilla; been divorced and enjoyed a long relationship with Leonie Frieda, herself divorced from celebrity hairdresser John Frieda, and whom he encouraged to write a bestselling historical biography of her own on Catherine de Medici.

Now he is married to Susan Gilchrist. Roberts was born in January in London, the son of Simon, who had inherited the Job's Dairy milk business, and Katie, a housewife.

He was sent away to Cranleigh School and it was there, at the age of nine - "I was an absolutely beautiful child" - that he became interested in history: In the senior school, he was bullied and took refuge in the library where he first embraced Trotskyism and then Thatcherism.

He has never abandoned the latter. These days, he jokes about the bullying - "I was a hubristic little tosser" - but at the time he found his unpopularity "absolutely terrifying".

After his A-levels, he was expelled from Cranleigh and prepared for his Oxbridge entrance exams at a crammer in Cambridge. He graduated in from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, with a first-class degree in history and was approached as a possible recruit for MI6. His mind is sharp and his published works have won many an award. However, unlike in America, where successful academics are expected to be politically active and socially accomplished, his reputation in Britain is muddied by his neoconservative politics and his relentless socialising.

How can he be both objective and a friend of George Bush?

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At first Chamberlain continued to dominate foreign affairs and use personal diplomacy to circumvent the normal diplomatic channels. And at a subsequent mission to Italy to woo Mussolini in January , Halifax played only a secondary role.

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In September he led the Cabinet in insisting on making fewer concessions to Germany over the Sudetenland. Later that summer Halifax also made Chamberlain reassure France very publicly if rather belatedly of British military support should it too be invaded by Germany.



Chamberlain resigned as Prime Minister in May following the debacle of the Norwegian campaign. Halifax was seen as a leading candidate to replace him but he realised that Churchill would make a superior war leader and, pleading ill-health, withdrew from the race. Halifax remained as Foreign Secretary and has been identified with various peacemaking initiatives in the summer of Churchill then decided he wanted Eden back as Foreign Secretary and in January Halifax was persuaded to take up the ambassadorship to Washington.

There, after an initially hesitant start, he formed a strong working relationship with President Roosevelt and remained until May To help us improve GOV. It will take only 2 minutes to fill in.