As Good as God, as Clever as the Devil The Impossible Life of Mary Benson

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY. She is as good as God, and as clever as the Devil.' Dame Ethel Smyth, English composer and leader of the women's suffrage movement Archbishop of Canterbury, insufferable to the end, died on his knees in church saying the CoBGession, after a life of relentless success. At that moment his wife Mary became nobody... 'All this is over,' Mary wrote in her diary, 'it has fallen to pieces around us.'' her just three years later. Through her marriage to Edward, whose career would take him from success as a young head schoolmaster to become Archbishop of Canterbury, Mary Benson came to preside over Lambeth Palace and a social circle that ranged from famous politicians and celebrated writers to Queen Victoria herself. But Mrs Benson's most intense and intimate relationships were not with her husband, but with other women.