14 AUGUST 1976, Page 17

Toughs

James Hughes-Onslow The Wives of Downing Street Kirsty McLeod (Collins £4.95) While her husband, suffering from madness and gout, was still Prime Minister, Lady Chatham was fending off Cabinet colleagues and conducting the daily affairs of the nation herself. To cure the old man she gave him two glasses of plain hock and two glasses of red port every day—this was the doctor's prescription—'over and above the Madeira and the Port which is taken in sago'. The Prime Minister was also given red meat, totally deprived of exercise, subjected to blood-letting, and sometimes kept in solitary confinement in a small top-floor