English Perjurors - Jeffrey Archer, Christine Keeler, Elizabeth Canning, Jonathan Aitken, Titus Oates, Lionel Atwill, Stephen Dugdale (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Jeffrey Archer, Christine Keeler, Elizabeth Canning, Jonathan Aitken, Titus Oates, Lionel Atwill, Stephen Dugdale, Miles Prance. Excerpt: Christine Keeler Christine Keeler (born 22 February 1942) is an English former model and showgirl . Her involvement with a British government minister discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1963, in what is known as the Profumo Affair . Biography Born in Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, she was brought up by her mother and stepfather in two converted railway carriages in the Berkshire village of Wraysbury . At the age of 15, she found work as a model at a dress shop in London's Soho . At 17, she gave birth to a son after an affair with 'Jim', an African-American sergeant from Lakenheath Air Force base . She discovered she was pregnant only after he had returned to the United States, and she tried to abort the baby herself with a knitting needle, but failed. The child was born prematurely on 17 April 1959, and survived just six days. That summer, Keeler left Wraysbury, staying briefly in Slough with a friend before heading for London. She initially worked as a waitress at a restaurant on Baker Street and there met Maureen O Connor, a girl who worked at Murray s Cabaret Club in Soho . She introduced Keeler to the owner, Percy Murray, who hired her almost immediately as a topless showgirl. While at Murray's she met Stephen Ward . Soon the two were living together with the outward appearance of being a couple, but according to her, it was a platonic "brother and sister" type of relationship. The Profumo Affair Main article: Profumo Affair In July 1961, Ward introduced her to John Profumo, the British Secretary of State for War, at a pool party at Cliveden, the Buckinghamshire mansion owned by Lord Astor . Profumo entere...