Typed Letter Signed ('Willoughby de Broke') and Autograph Letter Signed ('W. de B.') to Ormsby-Gore, concerning his desire to 'write a history of the Die-Hard affair'.

Text of both letters clear and complete, on aged, grubby paper. The 'Diehards' were a group of right-wing Conservative peers who attempted unsuccessfully to thwart Liberal legislation to limit the right of veto of the House of Lords over Commons legislation. (See G. D. Phillips, 'The Diehards: Aristocratic Society and Politics in Edwardian England', Cambridge, Mass., 1979.) TYPED LETTER: 17 December 1913. 4to, 1 p. He is going to try to write the history of the affair '[b]efore things fade altogether from my memory', and asks if OG has 'any papers, or letters, or diaries'. 'I propose to begin by recounting what took place at a very small house party here on the Saturday immediately after the election, and then to give my own account of the famous luncheon at Almeric Paget's.' Asks if OG can give an account of 'a house party at Hatfield of a particularly interesting character, of which you were one'. Also refers to 'our supper party at the Marlborough Club'. In a final sentence (in autograph) he states that the account is 'for Private circulation only, unless I am asked to Publish it'. AUTOGRAPH LETTER: 30 December [1913]. 4to, 2 pp. He has now 'resolved to write a chronicle of the whole thing, from December 1910 for publication, keeping back nothing [...] one or two intimate things, e.g. "l'affaire Hardwicke", may not perhaps appear. I remember all about that night, and the meetings at Chelsea and Holborn, as well as the Welbeck Party, and of course the Almeric Paget luncheon'. Asks OG to ballot in the Commons (where he was M.P. for Denbigh) for a bill he is going to introduce into the Lords next session: 'Holmes is going to, I believe'. Willoughby de Broke does not appear to have published an account of the affair before the appearance of his memoirs, 'The Passing Years', in 1924.