Macmillan's biographer Alistair Horne noted that, of the various animosities that arose before and during Macmillan's premiership, it was the "loyal wives", among whom he counted Lady Avon and Lady Butler, who "tended most to keep alive". Although there is evidence of a long-standing and lasting rift between Eden and Macmillan, Eden himself maintained "a friendly (if not conspicuously warm) relationship" with his successor, often being used as a "sounding board" by Macmillan who occasionally lunched with the Edens at their home. Lady Avon, on the other hand, was said to have been consistently vitriolic about Macmillan and recalled to one of Eden's biographers that Churchill had found him too "viewy". There is some evidence that, following Suez, Macmillan had briefed sections of the press that he himself intended to retire, whereas his true intention had been to displace Eden as Prime Minister, and, as late as 2007, Lady Avon criticised his behaviour as Chancellor of the Exchequer during the crisis, claiming that he had been "too hasty" in using an American threat to withhold a loan from the International Monetary Fund as "an excuse to back down" from military action and had wept "crocodile tears" at Eden's resignation.