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| children = | allegiance = | branch = | serviceyears = 1914–1918, 1939〔As Territorial, pre-outbreak of World War II.〕 | rank = Major | commands = | unit = King's Royal Rifle Corps | battles = World War I | mawards = Military Cross | footnotes = }} }} Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative politician who served three periods as Foreign Secretary and then a relatively brief term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 to 1957. Achieving rapid promotion as a young Member of Parliament, he was Foreign Secretary at the early age of thirty-eight, before resigning in protest at Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Mussolini's Italy. He again held that position during the last five years of the Second World War, and a third time in the early 1950s. Having been Churchill's undisputed deputy for almost fifteen years, he succeeded him as Prime Minister in 1955, and a month later won a general election. By this time Eden was suffering from recurrent fevers and using mood-altering prescription drugs following a series of botched operations. His worldwide reputation as an opponent of appeasement, a "Man of Peace", and a skilled diplomat was overshadowed in 1956 when the United States refused to support the Anglo-French military response to the Suez Crisis, which critics across party lines regarded as an historic setback for British foreign policy, signalling the end of British predominance in the Middle East.〔David Dutton: ''Anthony Eden. A Life and Reputation'' (London, Arnold, 1997).〕 Most historians argue that he made a series of blunders, especially not realising the depth of the United States' opposition to military action.〔Tony Shaw, ''Eden, Suez & the Mass Media: Propaganda & Persuasion during the Suez Crisis'' (1996)〕 After the Suez Crisis he resigned as Prime Minister on grounds of ill health, and because he was widely suspected of having misled the House of Commons over the degree of “collusion” between Britain and Israel. He stayed out of the public eye thereafter. He is generally ranked among the least successful British Prime Ministers of the 20th century,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Churchill 'greatest PM of 20th Century' )〕 although two broadly sympathetic biographies (in 1986 and 2003) have gone some way to redressing the balance of opinion.〔Robert Rhodes James (1986) ''Anthony Eden''; D.R. Thorpe (2003) ''Eden''〕 D.R. Thorpe says the Suez Crisis "was a truly tragic end to his premiership, and one that came to assume a disproportionate importance in any assessment of his career."〔Thorpe (2003)〕 ==Early life== Eden was born at Windlestone Hall, County Durham, England, into a very conservative landed gentry family. He was a younger son of Sir William Eden, baronet, a former army officer and local magistrate from an old titled family, and an eccentric and often foul-tempered man. His mother, Sybil Frances Grey, was a member of the famous Grey family of Northumberland (see below). She had wanted to marry Francis Knollys, later an important Royal adviser. Although she was a popular figure locally, she had a strained relationship with her children, and her profligacy ruined the family fortunes.〔Rhodes James 1986, p9-14〕 Eden’s older brother Tim had to sell Windlestone in 1936.〔Rhodes James 1986, p6〕 Rab Butler would later quip that Eden—a handsome but ill-tempered man—was "half mad baronet, half beautiful woman".〔D. R. Thorpe (2003) ''Eden''; John Charmley (1989) ''Chamberlain and the Lost Peace''〕 Eden's great-grandfather was William Iremonger who commanded the 2nd Regiment of Foot during the Peninsular War, fighting under Wellington (as he became) at Vimiero.〔''Antiques Trade Gazette'', 26 November 2011 at page 45〕 He was also descended from Governor Sir Robert Eden, 1st Baronet, of Maryland, the Calvert Family of Maryland, the Schaffalitzky de Muckadell family of Denmark, and Bie family of Norway.〔Ole Feldbæk, Ole Justesen, Svend Ellehøj, Kolonierne i Asien og Afrika, 1980, p. 171〕 Eden was once amused to learn that one of his ancestors had, like Churchill’s ancestor the Duke of Marlborough, been the lover of Barbara Castlemaine.〔Rhodes James 1986, p3〕 There was speculation for many years that Eden's natural father was the politician and man of letters George Wyndham, but this is considered impossible as Wyndham was in South Africa at the time of Eden's conception.〔D. R. Thorpe, 'Eden, (Robert) Anthony, first earl of Avon (1897–1977)', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2011〕 His mother was rumoured to have had an affair with Wyndham.〔 Eden had an elder brother called John, who was killed in action in 1914 and a younger brother, Nicholas, who was killed when the battlecruiser HMS ''Indefatigable'' blew up and sank at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Anthony Eden」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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