Churchill's Grandmama

by Margaret E. Forster

  The Duke and Duchess did not attend, and no reason for this has ever been established, although it does not signify a lack of support for the marriage: the agreement had been made and the Marlboroughs were people of their word. There could have been a perfectly practical reason for their non-attendance, now lost in time. Certainly Randolph was well supported by his brother, three of his sisters and his aunt. There is uncertainty over why the marriage took place in Paris, but perhaps this was Mrs Jerome’s natural base; it was to Paris that she brought Jennie and her sisters when they travelled to Europe. Nevertheless, to the modern eye the marriage does seem to have begun under a slight cloud.

  On his wedding morning Randolph received a very carefully written letter from his father which, nominally expressing good wishes for the occasion, actually says much more. The text reads in full:

  I must send you a few lines to reach you tomorrow, one of the most important days of your life, and which I sincerely pray will be blessed to you, and be the commencement of a united existence of happiness for you and your wife. She is one that you have chosen with rather less than usual deliberation, but you have adhered to your love with unwavering constancy, and I cannot doubt the truth of your affection, and now I hope that, as time goes on, your two natures will prove to have been brought not accidentally together. May you both be ‘lovely and pleasant in your lives’ is my earnest prayer. I am very glad that harmony is again restored, and that no cloud obscures the day of sunshine; but what has happened will show that the severest faith is not without its throes, and I must say ought not to be without its lesson to you … We shall look forward shortly to seeing you and Jeannette here, whom I need not say we shall welcome into her new family.1

  This expresses support and welcome, but it is difficult to see wholehearted approval in it: Randolph is reminded bluntly that he acted with ‘less than the usual deliberation’. John Winston avoids the word ‘confidence’ but uses the much more limited ‘hope’: ‘which I sincerely pray will be blessed to you ... I hope that as time goes on … is my earnest prayer … not to be without its lesson to you.’ Is responsibility rather than love behind the Duke’s closing words: ‘We shall welcome [her] into her new family.’

  Randolph brought Jennie to Blenheim on a late spring day in May 1874. The villagers of Woodstock demonstrated their support in the traditional way by meeting them at the station, taking the horses from the carriage and dragging it themselves to the Palace. The first sight of Blenheim is always most impressive, its dramatic and powerful shape silhouetted against the skyline. As they entered the Park, Randolph drew his wife’s attention to the view of the Palace, the Grand Bridge and the lake. ‘This is the finest view in England,’ he told her. Writing about the moment nearly 40 years later Jennie admitted how awed and impressed she had been, but confessed that her American pride forbade the admission and she tried to conceal her feelings.

  She was welcomed by the 7th Duke and Duchess and the rest of the family. The Duchess of Marlborough was by 1874 showing a strong resemblance to her mother, which was enough in some eyes either to elevate or condemn her. She had grasped the nettle at Blenheim and pitted her strength against what Sarah, the 1st Duchess, called ‘this wild and unmerciful house’. Certainly Frances had come a long way from that baby her glamorous and cavalier parents had rattled over the snow-covered Alps in the winter of 1822: she was still a tiny figure against her ducal background but those who underestimated her did so at their peril. Her grandson Winston Churchill was to write later that she was a ‘woman of exceptional capacity, energy and decision’. At this point in time, she was enjoying the social and political success she and the Duke had planned and worked for. They nurtured hopes that Randolph and Jennie would become part of this, with Randolph at last settling down and applying himself to a Parliamentary career, and that the love and passion the two young people had declared for each other would develop into a successful and stable marriage. Jennie was welcomed into the family circle at Blenheim. She was in awe of the way in which Frances organised the household, but she saw the Duke as a man of grace, courtesy and kindness. She decided that Randolph’s sisters were less beautiful than herself, though she was aware of her husband’s affection for them. As a family they exuded warmth and humour. They did their best to make Jennie welcome, although there must have been concern for the future. Certainly Jennie, from her own account, was ill at ease at Blenheim.

  Life at the Palace soon bored her. It was much more formal than she was used to: in her Memoirs, she later recounted how, after a leisurely breakfast, one read the newspapers with a view to being able to join in discussion at dinner. The afternoons meant visiting, both social and charitable. After dinner, which was a formal affair, everyone congregated in the Van Dyck room, perhaps playing whist, till 11 p.m., when they fetched their candles and dutifully kissed the parents good night. So tedious were the evenings that it was not unknown for a sleepy member of the family surreptitiously to advance the clocks a quarter of an hour. In between times Jennie read, painted and practised piano. Any inadequacies in the heating system were compensated for by furs and hot-water bottles.

  His insistence that love was enough meant Randolph had given no consideration to how the youthful Jennie, with her vital and lively nature, would fit into his family’s way of life. The strains soon appeared. Her letters back to her family carried scornful criticism: there was no knowledge of fashion, the tableware was ‘frumpy’ and she described the table water decanters as having thick tumblers on top, ‘the kind we use in bedrooms’. The typically formal meals, when the Duke and Duchess presided over a large gathering consisting not only of family but also of staff, such as nannies, tutors and governesses, as well as the frequent guests, were something to endure. Jennie and her friends relieved the monotony by dressing up as tourists and giggling at the comments they overheard as they made their anonymous way round the Palace on open days. ‘My, what poppy eyes these Churchills have got!’ was one remark she enjoyed. She does not seem to have identified with the Marlboroughs or thought of herself in any way as part of the family; her attitude was objective and critical.

  Anita Leslie, her niece, has written that Jennie had no small opinion of herself. However, she worked very hard at her music, practising for four or five hours every day, and, trained by her father, she was a skilful horsewoman. Randolph’s sisters, on the other hand, had supported their brother over the last few months and were prepared to welcome and include her in their family circle. They lived simply and economically and were astonished by the 23 beautiful dresses from Paris with which Jennie arrived. Frances, who had been quiet but influential before the marriage, does not seem to have said much at this point. What all were agreed upon, however, was that Jennie was Randolph’s choice, and now his wife, and so the sensible and proper thing to do was for everyone to be pleasant and to get on with each other as well as possible.

  Randolph himself kept his part of the bargain and was elected to Parliament for the Woodstock seat. On 22 May 1874 he duly made his maiden speech in the House of Commons. This moment must have stood out as an occasion of great happiness and pride for Frances and John Winston, especially after the crisis Randolph had caused over his marriage. He spoke against a proposal that a new military centre should be built near Oxford, speaking passionately in defence of the peace of the city and his university. Disraeli, Prime Minister and leader of Randolph’s party and friend of the family since the time of Frances’ mother, was moved to write to Frances in praise: he told her the House was captivated by his energy and natural flow, and by his natural manner; he believed it was a speech of great promise. Whatever indignities Randolph’s son Winston was to suffer at his father’s hands, he was indebted to him for one major asset: an extraordinary talent with the spoken word. Eighty years later this was to be part of the citation awarding Winston the Nobel Prize for Literature. Disraeli gave some ominous warnings also, however. His letter drew attention to Randolph’s need for self-control and warned that he ‘said some
imprudent things’, a view endorsed by another member, Sir William Harcourt, who criticised Randolph for the intemperance of his language and attitude. So the Marlboroughs’ pleasure was marred a little. The old problem remained: the lack of restraint was still there.

  Disraeli had already given Randolph encouragement and support and was a powerful ally. Perhaps he saw in Randolph’s oratorical power an echo of himself. Years earlier, ‘this strange and brilliant man’ had destroyed Peel’s leadership of the Conservative party with a series of speeches ‘that for concentrated invective have rarely been equalled’ in the House of Commons. One of Disraeli’s characteristics in Parliament for over 30 years had been the priority he gave to being in the House almost constantly while it was sitting; thus ‘his acute perception of real Parliamentary talent’ was the consequence of lengthy attendance on the front benches. The Duke and Duchess’s pleasure was well founded. Here was an icon of their own political generation making a judgement on Randolph which could be respected.

  One thing Randolph did not share with Disraeli was his debating chamber stance. Disraeli sat, impassive and sombre, arms folded, head bent on to his shirt front, seemingly asleep but actually acutely aware. His thoughts and likely response were difficult to predict. Randolph, on the other hand, indicative of his confidence, adopted a dominating and challenging sprawl on the bench, which, although hugely irritating to the Opposition, possibly made his likely reactions easier to predict.

  As part of the Duke’s settlement on his son, he had paid £10,000 for the 37-year lease on 48 Charles Street, Mayfair, the gracious four-storey house with balconies and window boxes. London was much more to Jennie’s taste, and Frances was supremely well-equipped to guide Jennie into the highest levels of London society. The Duchess helped her pay the customary visits to those who were socially important; Jennie wrote to her mother that she and Frances set off in grand style in the family coach. She wore the pearls her father had given her, while the Duchess lent her diamonds and rubies for her hair. A bouquet of gardenias was also given her by Frances, and Jennie acknowledged her appreciation of all the characteristic thoughtfulness.

  She was presented to Queen Victoria and introduced into the elite circle of friends surrounding the Prince of Wales. She moved quickly and easily into a hectic social life. At Ascot Races in 1874 she appeared, as fashion then dictated, in her slightly modified wedding dress of white satin, her exquisite white lace parasol held like a cobweb behind her head. She wrote to her family that dinners, balls and parties succeeded one another without intermission till the end of July. She found a natural place in the fashionable world that flocked to the Derby and Ascot and Goodwood races. She described how they used to drive down in coaches in Ascot frocks and feathered hats, and stay to dinner, driving back by moonlight. For Jennie, the social life that marriage had brought her was everything. Whereas Frances’ priority had been to create a home for her husband and children, her new daughter-in-law had little time or inclination for anything but the social scene.

  There was one family event, however, which interrupted Jennie’s social whirl: the birth of her first son. In late November 1874, Randolph and Jennie were staying with his parents at Blenheim. Predictably, the fun-loving Jennie would go out into the Park with the shooting party, despite being over seven months pregnant. A combination of a fall and a bumpy carriage ride brought on her confinement some six weeks prematurely and so, on 30 November 1874, her first son, Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was born.

  This stroke of chance had huge consequences. Winston’s birth at Blenheim began a relationship with that great house, and the achievements of his great ancestor which it represented, which were to become an essential part of Winston’s inspiration and his belief in himself. The sense of his destiny, of being born to fulfil some great task which, against all the odds, carried his country and allies to victory in the Second World War, was centred on Blenheim. Energetic and precipitate as he was in all things, Winston was no less so in his birth. His early arrival meant there was no time to summon the obstetrician from London; the local doctor from Woodstock delivered the baby, who was then dressed in a borrowed layette. As soon as the mother and baby were through their ordeal, Frances slipped away to send the news to Jennie’s mother in Paris, reassuring her of her daughter’s safety and that of the baby: ‘We had neither cradle or baby linen nor anything ready,’ she wrote, ‘but fortunately everything went well and all difficulties were overcome.’2

  The new baby was the second Spencer-Churchill grandson for John Winston and Frances and someone with whom Frances in particular would forge strong affections; she was to play a vital part in shaping him for the role he was called upon to play 66 years later, in 1940.

  The year of 1874 was significant for people other than the Marlboroughs. On Christmas Eve, a bitterly cold day with snow falling, there occurred the worst railway disaster in Great Western Railway history. Because of extra Christmas traffic the 10 a.m. London to Birkenhead express had been forced to use extra carriages of out-dated design. Just outside the village of Hampton Gay, very near Blenheim, the express left the rails and tumbled down the embankment towards the frozen canal loaded with hundreds of passengers returning home for Christmas. The death toll finally came to 34, with over a hundred injured; many marvelled that the figures were not higher. Jackson’s Oxford Journal, the local paper, gave a dramatic account of the scene:

  The third class carriage was smashed to atoms in a meadow, some 16 to 20 feet below … other carriages imitated with fatal precision the example set by the third class. One laid beyond it, wheels upward, and splintered into matchwood, parts of the fragments flying into the canal, whilst another, which had carried away the stone parapet of the bridge, had evidently glanced over the top of the woodwork and plunged to the foot of the embankment, and was so completely ruined that the roof and lamps lay mixed up with the wheels and bottom of the carriage in dire confusion. Two other carriages lay next, on their side, both of course greatly shattered, and the next was a first class carriage which had found its way across the up line and was pitched down the embankment, and then three other carriages on the down side of the line, all lying on their side. One end of the first class was crumpled up, and the ghastly stains of blood on the yellow roof, the cushions and the floor testify to the terrible tragedy which was enacted therein.

  Among the helpers who quickly arrived on the scene was Lord Randolph Churchill and a party from Blenheim Palace; his strong instinct for immediate action was to his advantage for once. He and his party worked hard to do what they could; the wounded were carried to the house nearby and given food and blankets to protect them against the severe cold. Randolph, taking his position as MP very seriously, did not restrict his work to these practical measures; he spoke at length to the train crew at the scene of the accident and wrote a detailed letter to The Times newspaper, explaining the technical nature of the accident to the public at large.

  This was already an eventful winter for the Churchills, but more trouble was to come for Frances and John Winston. Randolph’s elder brother Blandford, the heir to the dukedom, was a highly intelligent and talented man but wayward and self-indulgent. He had married Bertha, daughter of the 1st Duke of Abercorn, a pleasant girl but not too intelligent, with a penchant for practical jokes of the bucket-above-the-door variety. Not surprisingly he had tired of her and his infidelity was common knowledge. On the other hand, he was very taken with Jennie and gave her a ring in October 1875 which she showed to the Duchess and Randolph’s sister Rosamund. They recognised it as Bertha’s, and this was just the kind of cynical action of which Blandford was capable. Randolph, in conciliatory fashion, wrote to his brother asking him to sort out the matter, pointing out that if the ring were indeed Bertha’s then Jennie could not accept it. It was a pleasant enough letter, but as usual Randolph did not guard his tongue completely, referring to his mother and sister ‘giving several vicious looks and insinuations’ concerning Blandford’s action.

  Blandfor
d’s behaviour had for years caused serious tension between himself and his parents. He seemed to seize the opportunity to cause trouble and maliciously forwarded Randolph’s letter to their mother, adding a harsh note of his own which accused her of ‘the intense jealousy which you often display’ and ‘the mischief which you so often make’. He ended by saying that if this was to be her behaviour then ‘you need not expect to hear very often from me’.

  All that is known of Frances’ family loyalty, her warmth and kindness, her affection and care for Blandford, as for all her children, makes it easy to understand how wounded she was. The letter hurt her dreadfully, as it was meant to, especially as she was sharply aware of how badly Blandford was treating Bertha, for whose vulnerability she had much sympathy. Knowing of Blandford’s attitude towards women, she could not completely dismiss the thought that he might have designs on his sister-in-law. But the problem was caused in the first place by Randolph’s typically careless language about his mother in his first letter.

  Tempers and feelings were becoming increasingly overwrought, when John Winston became involved, springing to Frances’ defence. Writing from London to Randolph, he accused him of provoking Blandford and made it abundantly clear that he saw his younger son as demonstrating once again the thoughtlessness and insensitive attitude with which he had plagued his parents for most of his life. In the context of the Duke’s hopes and prayers that Randolph might have begun a promising political career, his expression of disappointment in the letter is moving. He attacked Randolph on several fronts, pointing out to him that while he, Jennie and the baby had been received with kindness, he had ‘dishonourably and treacherously’ abused the confidence which he himself pretended he shared with his mother. The uncompromising language demonstrates the measure of the Duke’s (and Frances’) hurt.