Page "Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor" Paragraph 26

The tarnishing of Lady Astor's image accelerated with the rise of Nazism.

Although Astor had criticised the Nazis for devaluing the position of women, she was also adamantly opposed to the idea of another World War.

Several of her friends and associates, especially Lord Lothian ( Philip Kerr ), became heavily involved in the German appeasement policy ; this group became known as the " Cliveden set ".

The term was first used in The Week, a newspaper run by the radical journalist Claud Cockburn, but over time the allegations became more elaborate.

The Cliveden set was seen variously as the prime mover for appeasement, or a society that secretly ran the nation, or even as a beachhead for Nazism in Britain.

Astor was viewed by some as Adolf Hitler's woman in Britain, and some went so far as to claim that she had hypnotic powers.