Viscountess Nancy Astor, the member for Plymouth Sutton, interrupted Churchill twice. As Churchill said, "We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat, and that France has suffered even more than we have." She interjected, saying "Nonsense." Churchill acknowledged her and continued speaking. Later Churchill began to mention her, saying "The noble Lady says that that very harmless allusion is—" but she interrupted him saying "Rude". Churchill quipped back, saying, "She must very recently have been receiving her finishing course in manners." Astor and Churchill had a famously adversarial relationship and often used cleverly worded insults against each other, so this exchange would not have been unique. As a brash American heiress, Astor clashed with Churchill, who reportedly did not feel that women should be in Parliament. Another possible reason for Astor's opposition to Churchill's points in his speech was her alleged ties to Nazism. Churchill uses the metaphor of Ethelred the Unready, the old English king who succeeded Alfred the Great; his inability to live up to his predecessor represents how the Allies did not build on success in the Great War. Churchill said: "In my holiday I thought it was a chance to study the reign of King Ethelred the Unready. The House will remember that that was a period of great misfortune, in which, from the strong position which we had gained under the descendants of King Alfred, we fell very swiftly into chaos. It was the period of Danegeld and of foreign pressure. I must say that the rugged words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written a thousand years ago, seem to me apposite, at least as apposite as those quotations from Shakespeare with which we have been regaled by the last speaker from the Opposition Bench. Here is what the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle said, and I think the words apply very much to our treatment of Germany and our relations with her:  'All these calamities fell upon us because of evil counsel, because tribute was not offered to them at the right time nor yet were they resisted; but when they had done the most evil, then was peace made with them.' That is the wisdom of the past, for all wisdom is not new wisdom."