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The ultimate Cold War sex scandal – and 11 other political outrages from British history
From the fall of Thomas Cromwell to Cold War sex dramas, James Osborne examines some of the most extraordinary episodes in British political history
- James Osborne
Published: May 17, 2026 at 3:30 PM
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The first English parliaments were intended as countermeasures to bad kingship, protecting the realm from the worst excesses of rogue royals.
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From these medieval beginnings, and through its evolution into the modern parliament of the United Kingdom, the institution has spread across the world as a model of representative government and as a symbol of democracy. But that doesn’t mean that it has been without controversy.
Since its inception, parliament has been dogged by scandals that have affected its reputation and altered its procedures. But which episodes have had the most lasting influence and infamy – and why? James Osborne investigates…
An 1850 painting by Ford Madox Brown imagines Canterbury Tales author Geoffrey Chaucer reading to Edward III and his mistress, Alice Perrers. The king’s relationship with Perrers drew intense scrutiny from MPs
1. Alice Perrers and the Good Parliament (1376)
By the start of the 1370s, King Edward III had ruled England for nearly half a century. He was a transformative monarch who had taken the country into the Hundred Years’ War with France. But age and illness had left him diminished, and he had withdrawn from day-to-day rule. Filling that vacuum of power were the king’s courtiers and confidants, including Alice Perrers.
Perrers had risen from relatively modest origins to become the king’s closest companion after the death of Queen Philippa. She was ever-present at court, decorated with jewels belonging to the crown. She had accumulated lands, wealth and influence on a scale that positioned her as one of the most powerful women in England. Both in appearance and power, she had assumed the role of a pseudo-queen.
Chroniclers accused her of inserting herself where she didn’t belong, interrupting legal proceedings and persuading the king to reward her allies. Whether these claims were true (or an instance of medieval misogyny) didn’t matter. The perception was that royal power was being manipulated for personal gain.
When parliament met in 1376, the long war with France was going badly, taxes were high and confidence in the royal household had collapsed. With Edward III’s power eroded, this assembly (later known as the Good Parliament) was able to be unusually assertive. Alice Perrers quickly became its central target.
MPs accused her of using her sexual relationship with the king to enrich herself, distort justice and dominate access to royal favour. Parliament forced Perrers to swear an oath to never again approach the king, stripped her of property, and removed her from court.
But within a few months, Perrers had returned, protected by the king and his allies, and many of the reforms of the Good Parliament were undone. It wasn’t until Edward’s death in 1377 that Perrers was tried for corruption and subsequently exiled.
The episode marked parliament’s growing confidence in naming, shaming and punishing abuses of power – even when those abuses were entangled with sexual politics and the private life of the crown.
A 17th-century engraving shows Thomas Cromwell presenting Henry VIII with Hans Holbein’s portrait of Anne of Cleves. The failure of Henry’s marriage to Anne led to Cromwell’s fall from grace (Image by Getty Images)
2. The fall of Thomas Cromwell (1540)
In the mid-16th century, during the apogee of Tudor England, Thomas Cromwell was second only to Henry VIII as the most powerful man in the realm.
The son of a blacksmith, Cromwell had risen from simple origins, elevating himself with a combination of fierce intelligence, canny administrative skill and absolute loyalty to the king. He was the architect of the English Reformation, the man who used parliament to break with the pope, dissolve the monasteries, and place the king at the head of the Church of England.
But by tying himself so closely to the king, Cromwell’s power was predicated on his patron’s favour. When Henry’s fourth marriage, to Anne of Cleves, proved a humiliating failure, Cromwell was blamed. It proved disastrous: his numerous enemies at court seized the moment, assembling accusations of treason and heresy.
Cromwell was arrested in June 1540, stripped of office, and executed a month later on Tower Hill. The man who had expanded parliament’s authority was killed by the same institution, at the king’s behest. Later generations would look back on cases like Cromwell’s as examples of how parliamentary power could be abused, and why limits on that power were necessary.
The House of Lords in session during the reign of King Charles I. The monarch’s efforts to raise taxes without parliamentary consent were among the factors that later contributed to the outbreak of civil war (Image by Getty Images)
3. The ship money crisis (1630s)
The second Stuart king, Charles I, deemed parliament a nuisance. He dissolved it in 1629 and chose to govern without it. This period, later dubbed the ‘Personal Rule’, lasted 11 years. This wasn’t illegal in itself – and parliaments were only called periodically anyway – but it created a practical problem: war, government and the royal court all required money. But taxes were meant to be raised only with parliament’s approval.
So, Charles and his advisers turned to older forms of revenue that didn’t require parliamentary assent. The most controversial was ‘ship money’, a levy traditionally raised from coastal towns to fund naval defence in emergencies. In the 1630s, the crown extended ship money across the country and began demanding it in peacetime.
In effect, this was a tax by another name, imposed without parliament’s consent. Ship money wasn’t the largest source of royal income, but it did become the clearest example of royal overreach.
When Charles later faced rebellion in Scotland and needed funds for an army, he was forced to recall parliament in 1640 – which was now an assembly brimming with pent-up anger. In the long term, the scandal became part of the chain of events that led to civil war.
A Victorian-era painting shows speculators clamouring to buy shares in the South Sea Company. The company’s collapse left many investors facing financial ruin – including several politicians (Image by Alamy)
4. The South Sea Bubble (1720)
The South Sea Company was founded in 1711. A joint-stock company, it took on government debt in return for guaranteed interest payments, and in 1713 secured a significant contract to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish South America. This was one of many examples of complex arrangements between government and private companies, as the state sought to deal with the heavy burden of debt accumulated from protracted wars.
In 1719, the company proposed a new and ambitious scheme. It would absorb a large portion of the national debt, and in return, it would offer its shares as a route to great wealth. Parliament approved the plan, and ministers, MPs and members of the royal family were given shares on favourable terms.
The value of the company’s shares rose rapidly, driven by hype rather than financial stability or impressive profits. Similar opportunist ventures quickly popped up, many with no serious business behind them. Ordinary investors, encouraged by the involvement of political leaders, poured their savings into the schemes. By the summer of 1720, the bubble burst and prices collapsed, ruining the finances of thousands who had become involved.
Against a backdrop of intense public anger, parliament was forced to act against its own members who had accepted bribes in the form of shares and loans, or unscrupulously promoted legislation from which they stood to profit directly. Several politicians were expelled or otherwise left in disgrace.
One figure who emerged strengthened was Robert Walpole, who helped stabilise the system and limit the fallout. He would later become Britain’s first prime minister.
An engraving by William Hogarth depicts a demonic-looking John Wilkes armed with a ‘liberty bell’. Wilkes provoked controversy with his newspaper The North Briton – copies of which can also be seen in the image (Image by Getty Images)
5. The Wilkes affair (1763–74)
As the Georgian era progressed, Britain was becoming a more politically engaged society. With growing press freedoms, newspapers had taken on a new and important role, and elections were becoming fiercely contested. Parliament was no longer such a distant institution.
John Wilkes benefited from these changes. He was a journalist, pamphleteer and MP who made his name by attacking the government in print.
Wilkes was elected to parliament in 1757, and within a few years he had become a sharp critic of the ministry and of George III’s advisers. In 1763 his newspaper, The North Briton, published an issue accusing the king’s speech to parliament of being deliberately misleading.
Fearing the damage he might cause to royal reputations, the government responded by issuing a general warrant for Wilkes’s arrest. Wilkes was imprisoned, but successfully argued that as an MP he was protected by parliamentary privilege. He was released and became a public cause célèbre.
The conflict between Wilkes and the government escalated when he fled abroad and was convicted of obscene and seditious libel in absentia.
On his return, he was repeatedly elected as MP for Middlesex. Each time, the House of Commons expelled him. At one point, parliament declared his defeated opponent the winner of the election, despite Wilkes having the most votes. The affair dragged on, but, eventually, parliament retreated. Wilkes was allowed to take his seat in 1774.
Wilkes’s name became a shorthand for a wider series of demands: freedom of the press, fair elections and limits on parliamentary privileges.
Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess of Kingston, depicted around the time of her 1776 trial for bigamy. The case, which was heard in the House of Lords, became a cause célèbre (Image by Bridgeman Images)
6. The Duchess of Kingston’s bigamy trial (1776)
For much of its history, parliament acted in certain cases as a court. Members of the peerage could only be tried by the House of Lords. This placed some of the most private and scandalous disputes of elite life at the centre of public politics – including the trial of Elizabeth Chudleigh in 1776.
Elizabeth Chudleigh had built a reputation as one of the most flamboyant figures of Georgian high society. She served as a maid of honour at court, cultivated powerful patrons, and was well known for her conspicuous wealth and independence. In 1769 she married Evelyn Pierrepont, Duke of Kingston, only enhancing her status further.
But after the duke’s death in 1773, questions were raised about whether the marriage had been legal. In 1744, Chudleigh had secretly married a naval officer, Augustus Hervey. The marriage was poorly documented and later disputed, but it had never been formally dissolved. If it was valid, her later marriage to the Duke of Kingston would have amounted to bigamy – a serious criminal offence.
Because she was now a duchess, the case was heard in the House of Lords, and the trial became a public spectacle. The personal life of a prominent woman was dissected in full view of parliament, attracting enormous public interest and extensive press coverage.
The Lords found Chudleigh guilty. She was spared imprisonment but stripped of her title.
A cartoon shows Charles Dilke reading a poster for a magic show. The scandal-hit MP had also attempted to ‘make a lady disappear’ while trying to hide his relationship with Virginia Crawford (Image by Bridgeman Images)
7. The Charles Dilke affair (1885–86)
Toward the final decades of Queen Victoria’s long reign, Britain’s political system was becoming more democratic, but it remained shaped by Victorian ideas about morality and respectability. Public figures were expected to embody private virtue, as well as public service.
Charles Dilke was a wealthy Radical Liberal MP, first elected in his mid-twenties and widely regarded as a future prime minister. He supported republican ideas, social reform, and the expansion of the franchise. By the mid-1880s he was president of the Local Government Board and one of the most recognisable faces in British politics.
But Dilke’s highest political ambitions were derailed by allegations that surfaced in Donald Crawford’s 1885 divorce petition against his wife, Virginia. The scandal became public at the first hearing of Crawford v Crawford and Dilke on 12 February 1886, when Donald Crawford told the court (repeating a confession Virginia had made to him in July 1885) that she had committed adultery with Dilke and described lurid “French vices”, including an allegation that Dilke involved her in a ménage-à-trois.
Although the judge dismissed the case against Dilke for lack of evidence while granting Crawford a divorce, press and political pressure made this an inadequate vindication for Dilke. Seeking to clear his name, Dilke helped trigger a second hearing in July 1886, in which further explicit testimony and admissions proved disastrous for him.
The MP lost his seat in the general election that same month, and although he re-entered parliament in 1892, Dilke’s political career never fully recovered.
A student undergoes wireless telegraphy training at Marconi’s London headquarters, 1913. The company became embroiled in an insider trading scandal that nearly brought down the chancellor (and future prime minister) David Lloyd George (Image by Getty Images)
8. The Marconi scandal (1912–13)
The Marconi scandal centred on a government contract to build a chain of wireless telegraphy stations across the British empire.
The contract was awarded to the British subsidiary of the Marconi Company, a firm at the forefront of a new and strategically important technology. But not long after the decision, questions were raised in parliament about whether ministers had financial interests connected to the deal.
It emerged that several senior figures in the Liberal government, including the chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George, the attorney general Sir Rufus Isaacs and the postmaster general Herbert Samuel, had bought shares in the American Marconi Company. Although this was a separate business from the British subsidiary that received the contract, the distinction was subtle, and widely misunderstood. Opposition MPs accused ministers of insider trading and misleading parliament and, thanks to interest from the press, the issue became a prolonged public controversy.
As for the fallout, Professor Nicholas Allen of Royal Holloway University of London tells HistoryExtra, “Lloyd George obviously survived Marconi after a (perceived friendly) select committee inquiry, and, indeed, went on to prosper!”
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The House of Lords during the state opening of parliament, c1915. Allegations that powerful figures could buy seats in parliament’s upper chamber caused public outcry (Image by Bridgeman Images)
9. Cash for honours (1916–22)
During the First World War and its immediate aftermath, Britain was governed by a coalition led by David Lloyd George, a forceful and unconventional prime minister. Lloyd George relied heavily on political fundraising to maintain his position, particularly after the war.
For many years, honours such as knighthoods and peerages had been influenced by political service and donation. Under Lloyd George, this informal system evolved into something altogether more formal. Wealthy individuals were invited to make large contributions to party funds with the clear expectation that an honour would follow: a knighthood for thousands of pounds, a peerage for a sizeable sum more.
The practice was an open secret in political circles, but it came to the attention of the public after Lloyd George left office in 1922. Former associates and journalists published details of the dealings, including lists of honours that appeared to match donations with suspicious precision. The idea that seats in the House of Lords could effectively be bought by the wealthy created widespread public anger.
The scandal damaged trust in the honours system and reinforced perceptions of postwar politics as cynical and corrupt, though Lloyd George managed to avoid any formal consequences – the second time he dodged punishment for a scandal within the space of a few years.
The wider impact has also been limited, according to Professor Allen. “Cash for honours led to legislation that made explicit sales illegal. But, of course, the correlation between party donations and honours has continued ever since.”
Hugh Dalton displays his red budget box to reporters on 12 November 1947. The next day, the chancellor was sacked by prime minister Clement Attlee when it transpired that he had leaked key details of his budget to the press (Image by Getty Images)
10. Hugh Dalton’s accidental budget leak (1947)
Hugh Dalton was chancellor of the Exchequer in the postwar Labour government led by Clement Attlee. Dalton was an experienced figure, a key architect of Labour’s economic policy and the expansion of the welfare state.
On 12 November 1947, he arrived at the House of Commons to deliver his latest budget. While waiting outside the chamber, Dalton chatted briefly to a journalist and mentioned a small detail of the forthcoming budget: a proposed increase in the rate of purchase tax.
Working quickly, the journalist was able to rush from parliament and publish the information almost immediately. As a result, a detail from the budget appeared in print before Dalton had even finished presenting it to parliament.
The next day, Dalton resigned – though this was only a “formal resignation”, according to Professor Allen, who says that, in reality, the chancellor was “swiftly sacked by Attlee”.
There wasn’t any suggestion of personal gain, corruption or deception. Dalton’s only mistake had been to unintentionally break the convention that parliament should be the first recipient of major financial information from the government – but it was a fatal mistake.
Surely one of the strangest and most arcane scandals in parliamentary history, Professor Allen says that Dalton’s downfall “was more of an executive failing. Though, of course, Dalton re-entered government later in Labour’s term.”
John Profumo with his wife, Valerie, shortly after his resignation as war secretary in 1963. The politician’s affair with Christine Keeler raised security concerns when it emerged that Keeler had also been involved with a Soviet naval attaché (Image by Getty Images)
11. The Profumo affair (1963)
John Profumo was the secretary of state for war in the Conservative government led by Harold Macmillan.
Profumo was seen as a reliable figure in a sensitive defence role during the peak of Cold War tensions. Profumo was married, but in 1961 he began a brief sexual relationship with Christine Keeler, a 19-year-old model and showgirl connected to social circles that included prominent diplomats and figures within the intelligence community.
But Profumo wasn’t Keeler’s only romantic liaison. Keeler was also intimately acquainted with Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval attaché widely believed to be an intelligence officer working for the Soviet Union. At the height of the Cold War, the possibility that a prominent cabinet minister – and the secretary of state for war, no less – might have shared a lover with a Soviet spy raised shocking security concerns.
Rumours began circulating in Westminster in early 1963, prompting Profumo to make a personal statement to the House of Commons in which he categorically denied any impropriety. Within weeks, mounting evidence made that denial untenable. Profumo was forced to admit that he had conducted a sexual affair with Keeler and, crucially, that he had deliberately misled parliament.
He resigned immediately. That resignation helped to embed the expectation that lying to parliament or misleading the house would be widely accepted (though not entirely accepted) as a resigning matter.
The affair eroded confidence in the judgment and competence of Macmillan’s government, reinforcing simmering perceptions of moral decay and elite irresponsibility. Macmillan’s personal authority never fully recovered, and he resigned later in 1963, officially citing ill health.
Jeremy Thorpe arrives at the Old Bailey during his trial for conspiracy and incitement to murder. A group of gay rights activists can be seen in background of the image, protesting the way that homosexuality was being discussed during the trial (Image by Getty Images)
12. The Jeremy Thorpe affair (1976–79)
In 1967, during Harold Wilson’s tenure as prime minister, homosexuality between consenting adults had been partially decriminalised in England and Wales. But well into the 1970s, parliament still clung to old expectations about private conduct.
Jeremy Thorpe was leader of the Liberal Party from 1967 and, for a time, one of the most prominent politicians outside the two leading parties. He was articulate, media-savvy, and played a key role in the closely fought general elections of 1974, when the Liberals briefly held the balance of power at Westminster.
But Thorpe had a secret that would quickly spiral out of control. Thorpe had met a man called Norman Scott (then known as Norman Josiffe) in the early 1960s, and the pair began a relationship. However, noting the damage that it would do to his political career if this secret relationship were to become public, Thorpe allegedly threatened Scott into silence. This escalated into a botched conspiracy to have Scott killed to ensure that the secret would never get out.
In 1975, Scott’s dog was shot by an associate of Thorpe who was sent to intimidate Scott. Scott himself was unharmed, but the incident triggered a police investigation.
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Thorpe was charged in 1978 with conspiracy to murder. The trial, held at the Old Bailey, was followed with immense interest by the press. Thorpe denied the charges and was ultimately acquitted, but the damage was irreversible. He had already resigned as party leader, and his parliamentary career had effectively ended.
Authors
James OsborneSenior content producer
James Osborne is a senior content producer at HistoryExtra
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