Marriage
Katharine met her future husband, Raymond Asquith (1878–1916), a barrister and the eldest son of H. H. Asquith, in the summer of 1901 at Mells. Subsequent holidays with the Horners in Austria (1903), Venice (1904) and Ireland (1905) and a shared love of poetry brought the two closer together. Raymond wrote to her: "You know how I would like to give you the whole world, if it were mine, and the sun and moon and all the stars." Marriage, however, was not possible due to her parents' desire that Katharine see "a little more of the world and a few more potential husbands," and Raymond's inability to support a wife on his earnings from the law.
However, Raymond's father and stepmother, Margot Tennant Asquith, provided him an allowance. Katharine and Raymond became engaged in February 1907, and on 25 July 1907, they were married in St Margaret's, Westminster. They made their home at 49 Bedford Square in Bloomsbury and at Mells Manor, where Katharine's parents continued to live. Raymond was killed on the battlefront in 1916, and Sir John died in 1927. Lady Horner continued to live with the family until her own death in 1940. Both Raymond and Katharine were central members of the "Corrupt Coterie" composed largely of children of the Souls and who in the words of Lady Diana Cooper, were "unafraid of words, unshocked by drink, and unashamed of "decadence" and gambling." Raymond's nickname for Katharine was "Fawnia". Katharine and Raymond had three children:
Lady Helen Asquith OBE (1908–2000), a teacher and school inspector. She did not marry.
Lady Perdita Asquith (1910–1996), who married William Jolliffe, 4th Baron Hylton (d. 1967) and had three children. Perdita's grandchildren included the actress Anna Chancellor.
Julian Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith KCMG (1916–2011), who married Anne Palairet (daughter of Sir Michael Palairet) and had five children, including Raymond Asquith, 3rd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, the current earl.
When their third child and only son was born, Asquith wrote from the Front to Katharine about their future plans; "Shall we send him into the Cabinet or into the Grenadiers?" They nicknamed the boy "Trim" after Trimalchio, a character in the work of Petronius. Katharine and her friend Lady Diana Manners were both Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurses during the war, and Diana recorded that they both gained some temporary relief from their troubles during this period by drugging themselves with morphia. In April 1918, Katharine's nursing career took her to the Duchess of Sutherland's Hospital at Saint-Omer, France, and the children were looked after by a nanny. While in France, Katharine movingly wrote her mother: "We drove back quite late we weren't very far from the front lines - say eight miles & the sky was lit by the guns - just like summer lightning & I felt that I saw just what Raymond & E must have seen every night." Katharine was recommended for the British Empire Medal for her performance of duty.
