There was more in this vein, hinting that Jennie’s own behaviour was unacceptable, and especially her continued extravagance. Visitors to 2 Connaught Place recalled that there was a constant stream of deliveries to the house of hats and dress boxes, all bearing exclusive and expensive names. It was almost unavoidable, given that Jennie ran with what the Dowager Duchess called the ‘fast lot’ who peopled Marlborough House parties. And Randolph was in deep water financially at that point, partly because of the extravagant manner in which both he and Jennie lived. But the fact remains that though they kept up appearances and were socially in great demand, both parties in this marriage were engaged in extramarital affairs. The Duchess could see the inherent dangers, but it was useless for her to ask Jennie to give up everything she most cared for in life.
In November the Queen invited them to dine at Windsor, a great honour, as well as to visit Sandringham (one of several such invitations that year), where the Prince and Princess of Wales held their alternative and far livelier court. And there were always house parties, which Jennie attended usually with Randolph; but sometimes she went alone, and on these occasions Kinsky was often to be found among the guests. Jennie adored these house parties – ‘Do come from Friday to Monday…’ (the word ‘weekend’ was not then in general use). A large wardrobe was required, and a maid; and a gentleman required a valet. So a hostess not only had her guests to accommodate and feed but the same number of servants, at least; for a woman might bring her dresser as well as her maid. It is difficult today to appreciate the sheer number of clothes such a woman of the Victorian era would have to pack, besides the voluminous underclothes worn in those days.
For breakfast, while the men wore either hunting clothes or plus-fours, the women could dress casually in a tweed skirt and blouse with a tweed jacket (unless they were riding to hounds). The morning would be spent writing letters or chatting and then they would invariably set off in pony traps to join the shooters for a substantial hot picnic set out in tents or buildings somewhere on the estate. By 5 p.m. they had to be back at the big house, bathed and dressed in elaborate tea gowns for tea, and they would perhaps be asked to play the piano or sing. At seven the dressing gong would sound and all the guests trooped to their rooms, to be dressed in formal attire – white tie for the men, and for the women low cut, tightly laced evening dresses and whatever jewels (‘never diamonds in the country’) were appropriate. A woman could not travel to one of these three-night house parties with fewer than three tea gowns, three evening gowns (which must not have been seen before), plus walking clothes and the correct shoes and accoutrements that accompanied all this paraphernalia. For Jennie, chatting, charming the male guests, playing the piano – this was her element.
In November the Dowager Duchess Fanny wrote to her, again on the subject of Randolph: ‘My heart aches for you but I feel you intensify matters and worry yourself in vain. If you could only be quiet and calm – I feel sure everybody at Sandringham saw your jealousy…there is much talk about it. And people will not pity you. The idea is that you who have led so independent a life are foolish now to be so jealous. And you have been too successful and prosperous not to have made enemies.’30
By December the Churchills’ personal difficulties seem to have subsided somewhat, for Jennie gave out in her letters, at least, that she anticipated Christmas 1886 would be an especially happy one. Randolph’s career seemed to be going from strength to strength; her boys, now twelve and six and both away at school, were coming home for the holidays; and on 20 December Randolph was again invited to Windsor to dine with the Queen and stay overnight.
During their conversation there the Queen noted that Randolph looked ‘low’, and she told him she hoped the new Parliament would be a happier session for him than the previous one when he had appeared so tired. She recorded in her diary that he answered her evasively. In fact Randolph was in serious trouble, probably aggravated, as ever, by poor health and, at this time, by his emotional and domestic problems. The financial demands of the War Office (headed by W.H. Smith*) and the Admiralty (headed by Lord George Hamilton) could not be met from the national budget. The Queen could have had no idea that on his way to Windsor Randolph had already made the decision to issue what amounted to an ultimatum: when he retired that night he wrote to Lord Salisbury, on Windsor Castle writing paper, stating that, as Chancellor, he could no longer be responsible for the country’s finances since neither Smith nor Hamilton would reduce their estimates for the coming year.
This was a major miscalculation on Randolph’s part – the greatest mistake of his political life, in fact. He was confident that he acted from a position of strength, believing (as many great men before him have done) that the government could not succeed without him, and that his implied resignation would ensure Salisbury’s support. But although he had flashes of brilliance, Randolph had often been more of a hindrance to the government than an asset. He had on occasion leaked information to The Times and spoken frankly against government policies; he frequently threw tantrums and behaved in a manner which many of his colleagues thought out of keeping with the expected behaviour of a minister of state. If this was not enough, he appears to have alienated many Tories by his open ambition to head the party. As well as the rumours of his liaison with Lady de Grey, new rumours were circulating that he was mentally unstable, certainly very unwell. With a clear majority in the House, Salisbury no longer needed to pander to Randolph and his diminishing band of supporters. The letter played straight into his hands.
Randolph travelled back to London on the train with one of the two chief protagonists of his political troubles, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord George Hamilton. Randolph told him that he could no longer go on as Chancellor because of the exorbitant estimates of the cost of the Army and Navy for the coming year. He then showed him the letter he had written and Hamilton was stunned. Although he was one of those most concerned in the matter he urged Randolph to consult someone else – or at least talk to Duchess Frances – before sending it to the Prime Minister. Randolph ignored this advice and later that day sent the letter by special messenger. It arrived at Hatfield House* during a ball at which Randolph’s mother was present. Salisbury did not mention the matter to her. In fact he did not mention the matter to anyone, not even the Queen, while he took time to consider all the implications. Two days later he wrote to W.H. Smith telling him that he considered Randolph’s letter as offering his resignation, which he had accepted.
Still having heard nothing from Salisbury himself, Randolph went to lunch with Smith, who told him of the content of Salisbury’s letter, which he had just received. Later that day when he took Jennie to the theatre, Randolph was fidgety, and shortly after the first act he left her, saying he was going to the club. It was there, at the Carlton Club,† that Randolph received Salisbury’s formal reply unequivocally accepting his resignation. Randolph’s instant reaction was that he would have his letter published, to demonstrate that he had not actually resigned (later he would insist that it had been intended merely as ‘the beginning of a correspondence’ on the subject), and he went immediately to see George Earl Buckle, editor of The Times. Having read the letter Buckle was aghast and told him, ‘You can’t send that.’ Randolph said it had already been sent, told him of the outcome and asked for Buckle’s support in a leader article, in return for publishing it. Buckle refused, saying, ‘You can’t bribe The Times.’ But the next edition carried the dynamite letter anyway.
Jennie had no idea that all this was going on. Probably it is a measure of how far apart their personal lives had grown that all had seemed quite normal to her, with Randolph coming and going, attending the theatre, visiting his club as usual. He had allowed her to carry on organising a big party at the Foreign Office, merely saying to her at the theatre when she queried something about the guest list, ‘Oh I shouldn’t worry about it…it probably will never take place.’ Puzzled, she had asked him what he meant, but he declined to explain as he left for the club
. The following day, 23 December, when Jennie’s breakfast tea and newspaper were delivered to her bedroom, she read Randolph’s resignation letter. Their personal lives may have been in turmoil but she had become so sure of his political brilliance that, though dumbfounded at what she read, even then she believed there was some rational explanation – that it was a ploy of Randolph’s to gain greater control. She wrote of that morning in her memoirs: ‘When I came down to breakfast, the fatal paper in my hand, I found him calm and smiling. “Quite a surprise for you,” he said. He went into no explanation, and I felt too utterly crushed and miserable to ask for any, or even to remonstrate. Mr Moore [Randolph’s private secretary]…rushed in, pale and anxious, and with a faltering voice said to me, “He has thrown himself from the top of the ladder, and [he] will never reach it again!”’31
It was a political sensation, of course, and the main topic of conversation at social events that Christmas. Salisbury at last informed the Queen, who was furious with him because – like Jennie – she had been left to read Randolph’s letter in The Times, and with Randolph too, because he had abused her hospitality by writing his resignation letter on Windsor Castle paper.
Randolph spent the entire Christmas lying prostrate on the sofa at home, chain-smoking. Jennie, having ascertained that there was probably no way back into government for him, was very bitter, for apart from anything else, what Randolph had done was tantamount to financial suicide. It is probable that she took the two boys away to spend Christmas with her sisters or perhaps even her mother-in-law, since callers at No. 2 Connaught Place who wrote about Randolph’s demeanour did not mention Jennie. The letters and accounts of this period in the Churchill archive suggest that Randolph knew very well that he was critically ill, and that – tired and depleted – he was trying to come to terms with this while affecting nonchalance. It is impossible to believe that a man of Randolph’s sagacity and means had not consulted all the eminent specialists in the field of his illness; he undoubtedly knew the prognosis only too well. He would not have been human had his health problems and his shattered career not depressed him.
No one in the family has written of what that Christmas was like, although Winston was then twelve and would no doubt have recalled it when he came to write his memoir of his early life. When he returned to school he undoubtedly had to face the questions and even the jeers of his contemporaries. However, he was a child who had already shouldered more emotional stress than most children are ever required to do, and his letters home in January 1887 did not touch on the domestic situation, merely recording his good health, that his marks were ‘not bad for me’ and that he had managed to get into the first eleven at football. By the first week in January, however, London was buzzing with rumours that Lady Randolph was about to file for divorce citing Lady de Grey, and that Lord Randolph was to counter-sue citing John Delacour,* a dandyish sportsman with whom Jennie sometimes hunted. If there was an affair between Jennie and Delacour it was brief and unrecorded.
Count Kinsky was immediately recalled to Vienna, to avoid a diplomatic crisis. Lord Derby wrote in his diary that he had been told Randolph was ‘taking steps to get rid of his wife whom he accuses of playing tricks with four men. A pleasant disclosure of manners in that set.’32 Newspaper reporters were given short shrift by Randolph, but one contemporary diarist wrote of the on-dit going round the London clubs and dining rooms:
Question: Why did Lord Randolph leave the Government?
Answer: Because he did not approve of the Austrian alliance.
It was exactly the sort of scandal that terrified the Dowager Duchess, and even Jennie.
Randolph had banked on there being no one else in the Conservative Party qualified to take on the post of Chancellor. And, indeed, it was extremely difficult for Salisbury to replace him. Eventually, though, more than a week later, he asked George Goschen, a Liberal Unionist, to take the vacated position. It was a bold move on Salisbury’s part, for Goschen had initially been a Liberal MP and had served under Gladstone as Paymaster General and Vice-President of the Board of Trade. He was a Director of the Bank of England and had moved from the Liberal benches at the time Gladstone first espoused Home Rule. When told of Goschen’s appointment Randolph famously remarked, ‘Ah, yes. I had forgotten Goschen.’ George Goschen was ever afterwards known to his contemporaries as ‘the forgotten man’, though political history probably remembers him best for resolving the national debt problem within a year of taking on the role of Chancellor.
The Dowager Duchess went to see Lord Salisbury and begged him to forgive Randolph and take him back into government in some other capacity. Salisbury refused, and later when discussing the matter is said to have remarked to a colleague: ‘Did you ever hear of a man who, having got rid of a carbuncle on his back, wants it back again?’
6
1887–95
Lilian’s Millions
Having effectively wrecked his career, Randolph’s reaction was to crave some winter sun and warmth. He left almost immediately for North Africa, with a few male companions.* Jennie seems to have undergone a sudden change of heart towards him. Was this because of a realisation of the distance between them, or was it possibly at this point that she was told by his physicians of their diagnosis and prognosis? Her letters to him, addressed to ‘Dearest R.’, became friendly and affectionate again. She kept him informed of what was happening on the political scene and what was being said about him, though her accounts of the latter were abridged versions. She certainly seems to have grasped how serious his illness was, and her letters became bolstering in tone.
Jennie refused to go into retirement and went about as normal, but she took a good deal of flak socially, most of it good-natured; undoubtedly a lesser woman would have found it hard to face. She gave as good as she got, and with the Prince of Wales and other good friends supporting her she coped, on one occasion unhesitatingly accepting an invitation to a party thrown by the Salisburys. Both Lord and Lady Salisbury were nervously attentive, skirting round the subject of Randolph, but eventually the conversation turned to winter sunshine and Jennie said that Randolph was enjoying his trip. Later she reported the incident, writing to Randolph that Salisbury had remarked, ‘I am sure the rest will do him good, Randolph’s brain works so quickly that it must wear out his nervous system.’ Jennie responded that it was certainly true that his brain was so quick he usually reached a conclusion six months before most other people. Her assessment was that Salisbury wanted to remain friendly but that he would not help Randolph politically.1
At one dinner party when someone asked her mischievously if she would be offering to sell Randolph’s robes (the Chancellor’s costly robes of office) to Mr Goschen, she answered hotly that she could not, as Randolph would need them again before too long. The Liberal Unionist leader Lord Hartington gallantly interrupted to say, ‘Randolph won’t want them in the future, as he will be P.M. next time.’2 Other friends rallied round but they were in the minority, and Jennie watched bitterly as people whom she had regarded as close friends deserted Randolph now he was out of power.
Winston was not spared. After he returned to school in January he was taken to a pantomime in Brighton where Lord Randolph’s resignation was referred to in a sketch. The audience booed and hooted and Winston, who seldom saw his father – but was immensely proud of him – was livid with rage. Turning to the man immediately behind him, he hissed: ‘Stop that row, you snub-nosed Radical!’ Randolph was delighted when he heard of his son’s loyalty and asked Jennie to send him a sovereign with her next letter.
Writing of all this to her sister Leonie, Jennie gave a franker version of London gossip and her meeting with Salisbury than she had reported to Randolph. She knew now that Salisbury would never reinstate Randolph in his Cabinet and said she sometimes felt sick at heart that Randolph had thrown away such a splendid position. He had flown too high and convinced himself that ‘he could do anything’ with impunity. However, there was a compensation, for Randolph had been m
uch nicer to her since the crisis, she wrote. His letters were very affectionate and she had hopes that their relationship would be better when he returned.3
Jennie saw little of Blandford, who came to London rarely. The stigma of his divorce still clung to him and he was a lonely figure. He began making regular annual trips to America, where he was not shunned – in fact, the reverse, for he found himself lionised by Society hostesses despite adverse newspaper comments. One disclosed the fact that the Duke had arrived with thirty-five pieces of luggage: ‘Everything His Grace of Marlborough [sic] brought with him was clean, except his reputation.’4
It had not taken Blandford long to run through the money he had raised from the sale of Blenheim’s finest art treasures. Within four years it was clear that he had to find another huge sum to keep himself and Blenheim afloat. Now, at the suggestion of an acquaintance, an obvious solution presented itself: during his visits to America he was introduced to an apparently endless supply of rich American girls – why not marry an heiress? Perhaps secretly he hoped to find someone like Jennie, who had been such an asset to Randolph, but with money.
Leonard Jerome was happy to introduce the forty-four-year-old Duke to New York’s rich set, as a result of which, in the early summer of 1888 the Duke met Mrs Lilian Hammersley, a widow. Lilian was hardly a girl, at thirty-three years old,* but in addition to a significant legacy from her father she had been left a fortune of $5 million by her late husband. Her claim to fame seems to rest on the fact that she festooned the small room behind her box at the opera with expensive orchids, and that she changed her name to Lily because Lilian rhymed too easily with ‘million’ for copywriters to resist. She was no great beauty – indeed, she had a faint moustache, which was widely commented upon. She did not dress fashionably, and she was not witty or bright in conversation, but she was an intelligent, kind person with a pleasant nature, and the Duke was not looking for a love match.
The Churchills Page 12
