June 3, 2015

Finest Hour 112, Autumn 2001

Page 32

By Michael McMenamin

125 Years Ago:

Autumn 1876 • Age 1

“I Have the Crown of England in My Pocket”

Safe in the care of his nanny, Mrs. Everest, infant Winston was blissfully unaware of the tempest swirling around him. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was reaping that autumn the harvest he had sown in the spring. The problem had arisen when Lord Blandford, Randolph’s older brother and heir to the Dukedom, became involved in an illicit affair with Lady Aylesford— whose husband, like Lord Randolph, was a close friend of the Prince of Wales. Lord Aylesford had been traveling with the Prince in India when the infidelity was disclosed to him in a letter from his wayward wife.

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A public divorce was threatened by Lord Aylesford and Lord Randolph unwisely intervened on his brother’s behalf. As Winston’s son Randolph later wrote: “Accordingly [Lord Randolph] took upon himself to call on the Princess of Wales. He was accompanied by a young newly created peer, Lord Alington. They pointed out to the Princess that it would be undesirable for divorce proceedings to be instituted and they asked her to tell the Prince to stop Aylesford continuing with his divorce plans. At the same time, Lord Randolph let it be widely known that he had in his possession certain letters which the Prince of Wales had written to Lady Aylesford; and Sir Charles Dilke recollected that he said: ‘I have the Crown of England in my pocket.'”

The Prince was incensed to hear of Lord Randolph’s visit to his wife, and of what Celia Sandys accurately characterizes in her biography of her grandfather’s childhood as “barely disguised blackmail.” The royal displeasure was occasioned, in part, because the Prince’s letters demonstrated that her dalliance with Blandford was not the first instance of infidelity by Lady Aylesford, i.e., the Prince had preceded Lord Randolph’s brother.

In the event, Prime Minister Disraeli was asked to intervene, and persuaded Lord Randolph’s father, the Duke of Marlborough, to become the Viceroy of Ireland. Lord Randolph left with him as his unpaid private secretary, an assignment which effected the exile of Winston’s parents from Court and Society for over three years.

100 Years Ago:

Autumn 1901 • Age 26

“A Particularly Interesting and Rather Amiable Figure”

A century ago Churchill was hunting stags in Scotland with the King who, a quarter century earlier, had ostracized his father. He spent most of November and early December hunting and shooting as well. In between, he gave a series of speeches highly critical of the government’s prosecution of the war in South Africa.

On 4 October he criticized the government’s offer of amnesty for Boers who had surrendered by 15 September. By that time, the British had defeated the Boer armies in set piece battles and occupied their capital towns. But, as Churchill observed, “[I]t was one thing to defeat the Boer armies and quite another to conquer the Boer people.” No Boers had surrendered by 15 September, exposing the government to ridicule and abuse in European newspapers; “…what disquiets me, for it is of serious and alarming import, is that the Government in August should have known so little of the real situation in South Africa,” Churchill said.

Churchill attempted to absolve the government of some of its responsibility, blaming instead the miliary counsel they were receiving: “All war is a prolonged muddle, and when a Government embarks on war it has to put itself in a great degree into the hands of its military advisers. And these military advisers sometimes give very peculiar and contradictory advice.”

In November, Churchill received a letter from the popular science fiction writer and socialist, H.G. Wells, whose latest book Churchill had criticized. “That you should find my estimate of the rapidity of development excessive,” Wells wrote, “is simply due to the difference in our social circumstances. You belong to a class that has scarcely altered internally in a hundred years. If you could be transported by some magic into the Household of your ancestors of 1800, a week would make you at home with them….But of the four grandparents who represented me in 1800 it’s highly probable two could not read & that any of them would find me and that I should find them as alien as contemporary Chinese. I really do not think that your people who gather in great country houses realize the pace of things.”

In a second letter a few days later, Wells wrote: “It will interest me tremendously to make your acquaintance. To me you are a particularly interesting & rather amiable figure….I speculate whether you anticipate that when you are sixty you will be in or upon a Conservative Party with a Liberal opposition & an Irish Corner in a British or Imperial Parliament & if not where you expect to be.”

75 Years Ago:

Autumn 1926 • Age 51

“Lapped up like Cats Drinking Cream”

Churchill was preoccupied with mediating an end to the coal strike, something which did not happen until 20 November. Despite his anti-labor reputation, Churchill was far more sympathetic to the miners’ plight than other Tories. But he saw both sides clearly, including the fact that an earlier government subsidy had been sought by the owners solely to buy labor peace. As Sir Martin Gilbert writes: “Having gone much further in his efforts at mediation than several of his colleagues wanted, and having exposed himself to their anger, Churchill was disappointed by the miners’ refusal to accept his compromise, and became increasingly angry at the attitudes now adopted by both the miners and the owners. Both sides, he believed, had only been prevented from reaching a settlement because of extremists in their ranks.”

This is illustrated by Churchill’s response to a young Conservative MP, Robert Boothby, who had written WSC encouragingly on 9 October. Churchill replied: “The Miners get 10 l/2d out of every shilling of profits calculated on an agreed basis. If this is not good enough for them, they ought to find something else to do. There are twelve hundred thousand living on the same coal-output which sustained a million twenty years ago. There are too many miners. In trying to divide work they have divided wages. Anyhow the rest of the country is not going to pay a shilling to keep the miners on an artificial level. So much for the economics.”

In a speech on 28 October, WSC said: “I am going to tell you a secret. I am not in favour of the mine owners or the miners. I am against both. They are thoroughly unreasonable in the attitude they have taken from beginning to end….Both sides lapped up the [coal] subsidy like cats drinking cream and thought no more of the future than those domestic animals….”

Earlier that month, to the Institute of Actuaries in London, Churchill gave one more of his many prescient speeches in the Twenties. Using statistics, he forecast what England would look like in 1970: “[w]e will see a small increase in the total population, a very marked increase of aged persons, an increase particularly in women after middle age, and an actual decline in the proportion of adult males. But let us not be discouraged. Science and civilization will bring with them, if diey are properly used, compensatory resources.”

50 Years Ago:

Autumn 1951• Age 76

“Hanging in the Balance”

Churchill kicked off his fourteenth General Election Campaign with a speech on 2 October at the stadium in Liverpool, where he set the tone for what was to become a bitter campaign: “I never had the same feeling—no, not even in the war—that I have now that the future of our country is hanging in the balance….A mood of deep anxiety, mingled with bewilderment, oppresses the nation.”

In a radio broadcast on 8 October, Churchill summed up the party differences: “Our opponents say: ‘The more controls and restrictions we have the nearer we approach the Socialist ideal.’ The Conservatives say: ‘The fewer we have the better for a vigorous and expanding Britain.’ The difference between our outlook and the Socialist outlook on life is the difference between the ladder and the queue. We are for the ladder. Let all try their best to climb. They are for the queue. Let each wait in his place till his turn comes.”

The Socialists retaliated with a nasty campaign accusing Churchill of being a warmonger, but the tactic probably backfired. In the election, although the Conservatives lost the popular vote to Labour by less than 250,000 votes out of over 28 million, they won 321 seats in Parliament to Labour’s 295. Winston was back.

Churchill set about with great energy to put together his new cabinet, naming himself once more as Minister of Defence, on which he addressed the House December 6th. In the debate which followed, Churchill rose to pay tribute to his opposite number, Emanuel Shinwell, the former Minister of Defence: “We have our party battles and bitterness…but I have always felt and have always testified, even in moments of party strife, to the Rt Hon Gentleman’s sterling patriotism and to the fact that his heart is in the right place where the life and strength of our country are concerned. Tonight he has made a speech which was the most statesmanlike, if he will allow me to say so, that I have heard him make in this House in those days that we have gone through. I am so glad to be able to say tonight, in these very few moments, that the spirit which has animated the Rt Hon Gentleman in the main discharge of his great duties was one which has, in peace as well as in war, added to the strength and security of our country.” Churchill might have said his theme was: “change the tone.”