June 23, 2013

Finest Hour 137, Winter 2007-08

Page 50

The Right Parent Survived

By Barbara F. Langworth

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Barbara Langworth has served as publisher (business manager) of Finest Hour since 1982. She wrote “Churchill and Polo” in FH 72, and has contributed to two departments, “Recipes from Number 10” and “Churchilltrivia” (now Churchill Quiz).


American Jennie (UK title Jennie Churchill), by Anne Sebba. W. W. Norton, 384 pp., $26.95. Member price $21.60.


This may seem a new story to many readers, since the previous biographies of Lady Randolph Churchill are up to forty-eight years old, and her memoirs were published a century ago. Finest Hour readers, cognizant of the amount of Jennie material extant (see sidebar opposite), will want to know if this book offers anything which adds to our knowledge. Well…yes and no.

Jennie’s influence in Winston’s life is well known. She educated him, spent more time with him than most realize, and advanced his career as a writer and war correspondent. Much beloved, she died in 1921.

In the 1990s the editor and I twice visited Sir Winston’s nephew, Peregrine Churchill, and his wife Yvonne, at their home in Hampshire, where we discussed the current raft of Jennie gossip. There was a good deal of “neglected Winston” chatter going round, so Peregrine pulled out a box of Jennie’s diaries and letters to Winston and began reading aloud. It was touching to hear her own words—hardly those of an uncaring, distant mother.

Anne Sebba’s book pulls together facts, discussions and controversy from the previous books, adds new letters, and discusses recent Jennie historiography, producing no particularly new conclusions about this ethereal and alluring being. But there is none of the slapdash sloppiness that condemned the previous Jennie effort {Dark Lady, reviewed in FH 135), and her well-written book is worth a read.

Anne Sebba’s book pulls together facts, discussions and controversy from the previous books, adds new letters, and discusses recent Jennie historiography, producing no particularly new conclusions about this ethereal and alluring being. But there is none of the slapdash sloppiness that condemned the previous Jennie effort {Dark Lady, reviewed in FH 135), and her well-written book is worth a read.

We have a rounded mural of Jennie and her sisters: American girls in search of titles, who met British aristocrats in search of money. She was one of the most stunning women of her time, known as a “Professional Beauty” (Victorians would buy photographs of lovely women), educated in France, with a wit and gaiety renowned in London society. I had erroneously supposed that a famous sketch of Jennie by John Singer Sargent was for a later portrait. Apparently it was done for the cover of a benefit piano concert program she gave for charity.

Here is the Jennie of legend: sexy, innovative, literate, her flirting persona irresistible to younger (and some older) men. A concert pianist, accomplished artist, editor, playwright, interior decorator, author, devoted sister and daughter, she was the stuff that inspired a seven-hour television biography.

The book mentions the controversies, skirting conclusions: because there aren’t any.

In spite of the well-grounded likelihood that Lord Randolph Churchill died of something besides syphilis—a brain tumor is the leading possibility (see John Mather, “Maladies et Mort,” FH 93)—he was indisputably diagnosed with syphilis. So Mrs. Sebba’s take is simple: He was told he had it. He believed he had it. His wife and son thought he had it. And all their actions were based on the supposition that he did have it. Ergo, he might as well have had it.

This avoids a conclusion but does not challenge the truth in the way that vindictive or ignorant writers do, by referring, say, to “Winston’s syphilitic father” and moving on. As Dr. Mather has shown, Randolph’s malady was misdiagnosed from the start. Sebba’s thesis is undaring, and her medical evidence inconclusive; but it is a safe position to take.

Imagine what young Jennie must have felt at the time! You meet this fantastic fellow, and after three days the sparks are so bright that marriage is certain, however resisted by both sets of parents—and despite their financial gyrations. Your first-born comes quickly. Then you find out that your husband is a “nut”—brilliant and respected, an up-and-coming orator who excels at baiting the Opposition, but self-willed, vindictive, and withal not a very nice man. He quarrels with the Prince of Wales, and a few years into your marriage, he (with you) is ostracized from polite society. You end up in Ireland in a kind of luxurious exile.

Back in England finally, you’re told that Randolph has a sexually transmitted disease. You do much of his campaigning, since he is perpetually ill. A few years pass and (diseased or not) he reaches one of the highest offices in the land, a step below Prime Minister—only to cast himself from the ladder in an ill-considered resignation, never to rise again, and to spend the rest of his life “dying by inches in public.” Not only that, he is hardly ever home, and when he is has a violent temper. Is this fun for you?

Another son was born in Ireland, on which speculation is rife. Was he Randolph’s? Only a DNA test could tell and the essential male line has withered. Arguing strongly in favor of Jack’s legitimacy is his son Peregrine’s resemblance to the 7th Duke of Marlborough; arguing against is that he looked and acted nothing like WSC as an adult. Why is this important? Surely what matters is that Winston and Jack were devoted to each other and enjoyed a close-knit family life.

Unsurprisingly Jennie had numerous admirers—and lovers, whose number is hotly disputed by historians, buffs, and seekers of the prurient. The author discusses Jennie’s serious romance, while she was still married, with Count Charles Kinsky. Whilst on her last journey with Randolph she learned that Kinsky had become engaged—he needed the finances and progeny Jennie could not provide. Perhaps she had hoped he would wait until Randolph had died (though there had been talk of divorce). But what, Mrs. Sebba asks, would have been the consequences for Winston if Jennie had married Count Kinsky and put her energies into that relationship, instead of devoting herself to her son?

Given the literature extant, it is encouraging to find some new material. One “find” to me was that Jennie had a serious illness and almost died. In October 1892 she had severe abdominal pains and was diagnosed with peritonitis and perhaps a tumor or cyst, which miraculously healed on its own. Think of the aftermath if Jennie had not been there for Winston.

What did surprise me was the publicity-rumor that Jennie had a tattoo of a snake on her wrist. There is a well-known photo of Jennie holding Peregrine. Her arms are bare and there is no sign of a tattoo—there or on any other photo I have examined. The author duly displayed a snake on her arm in at least one of her book signings. I’m sure she meant it as a tribute, but it strikes me rather as it would if Sir Martin Gilbert showed up wearing a blue velvet siren suit.

It is too bad that the publicity surrounding this biography was so devoted to the salacious: how many men Jennie slept with, whedier Lord Randolph died of syphilis, and who Jack Churchill’s father was. Fastening onto flyspeck issues while ignoring what really matters is a feature of our age. What really matters is that Jennie Churchill was a notable person at a time when woman were mainly considered to be trophies, concubines or breeders.

She may have slept with many men (the number is vastly exaggerated). But while others of her class indulged in primping and fripperies, she raised the statesman of the century, produced a literary magazine, displayed multiple talents, raised money for charities, wrote literate memoirs, aided the troops on the scene of battle, and set new standards in dress and manners.

Anne Sebba suggests perceptively that while Lord Randolph lived he stood in the way of Winston’s aspirations. His death in 1895 was as crucial for Winston as the other things that happened that fateful year. (See Robert Pilpel: “What Churchill Owed the
Great Republic,”/7//125).

Jennie didn’t have the vote, and she didn’t care. She knew politics inside and out, and probably influenced more votes than many Members of Parliament. If she were alive and sentient today, she could qualify for elective office. Her influence on Winston, and her efforts to launch him in his careers of writing and politics, were at least as notable as Bourke Cockran’s, and far greater than the father Winston held in perhaps excessive awe.

For the young Winston, the right parent survived.

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