She was educated at home by a series of governesses, except for a six-month period in 1926 when she was sent to a day school in Paris. She was raised in the country estate of Batsford Park, Gloucestershire, then from the age of 10 at the family home, Asthall Manor in Oxfordshire, and later at Swinbrook House, a home her father had built in the nearby village of Swinbrook. She was a first cousin of Clementine Churchill, second cousin of Sir Angus Ogilvy, and first cousin, twice removed, of Bertrand Russell. ĭiana Mitford was the fourth child and third daughter of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale (1878–1958), and his wife Sydney (1880–1963). She was described as "unrepentant" about her previous political associations by obituary writers such as the historian Andrew Roberts. A family friend, James Lees-Milne, wrote of her beauty, "She was the nearest thing to Botticelli's Venus that I have ever seen". She was also a regular book reviewer for Books and Bookmen and later at The Evening Standard in the 1990s. Mosley's 1989 appearance on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs was controversial due to her Holocaust denial and admiration of Hitler. In 1977, she published her autobiography, A Life of Contrasts, and two more biographies in the 1980s. In the 1950s, she contributed diaries to Tatler and edited the magazine The European. She later moved to Paris and enjoyed some success as a writer. Her involvement with fascist political causes resulted in three years' internment during the Second World War, when Britain was at war with the fascist regime of Nazi Germany. In 1936, she married Mosley at the home of the propaganda minister for Nazi Germany, Joseph Goebbels, with Adolf Hitler as guest of honour. Her marriage ended in divorce as she was pursuing a relationship with Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. In 1929 she married Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, with whom she was part of the Bright Young Things social group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London. David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale (father)ĭiana, Lady Mosley ( née Freeman-Mitford 17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003) was one of the Mitford sisters.