Banker, Traitor, Scapegoat, Spy?: The Troublesome Case of Sir Edgar Speyer

In the early summer of 1914 Sir Edgar Speyer and his wife Leonora stood at the center of London society, an era made famous by the television series Downton Abbey. He was the "King of the Underground" and a patron of the arts, she a famous violinist and poetess. Yet within weeks of the outbreak of war, they became pariahs, objects of suspicion and aversion. The "anti-alien" campaign following the sinking of the Lusitania forced the Speyers into exile in the United States. He was stripped of his membership of the Privy Council, but she went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry.