Churchill's Grandmama

by Margaret E. Forster

  Predictably, Randolph’s deep-seated weaknesses, self-justification and emotional extravagance, re-emerged to govern his response. He refused to accept his father’s criticism and did not even seem to be aware (or care about) the hurt he caused his mother. He told his father that if this was his attitude then further communications between them were not only ‘useless but impossible’.

  Thus both sons were alienated from their parents. Jennie emerges out of the matter quite well. Appalled at the storm she had occasioned, she wrote next day to Frances, tactfully attempting to smooth things over, and expressing her concern about ‘being the unintentional cause’ of the dispute. But one might question the vanity or naivety of a young bride taking a gift as personal as a ring from another man, albeit her brother-in-law. She tried to defend Randolph, but failed to explain his use of ‘vicious looks and insinuations’ ascribed to his mother. Her letter seems to be a genuine attempt to heal the breach and restore good relations and was therefore most commendable.

  Frances was too upset and worried to respond graciously to this; the long letter she wrote to Jennie in reply is revealing. Normally so self-contained and self-disciplined, she was so upset that she could not help but pour out just how deeply she had been hurt. When she bursts out, ‘It is a bitter sorrow to find both our sons turn against us and reward our affection and kindness by insult and abuse,’ we sympathise readily, and we feel her hurt when she comments on how Randolph and Blandford have got into a way of ‘abusing and ridiculing us’. She made it clear that Randolph’s accusation of ‘vicious looks and insinuations’ was completely untrue, and when she claimed that Randolph was deliberately rousing Blandford’s angry temper, it is difficult to question her. The claim that ‘He has got himself so into the habit of abusing people’ also has a ring of truth. Frances was a caring, loving and warm-hearted parent, and she could not refrain from an outpouring of her feelings: ‘never was so upset … such a blow … could not control my emotions … I feel too cut up … cuts me to the heart … trampled on my affections … God forgive’. Such an outburst is so uncharacteristic of Frances that it is completely convincing.

  Her distress is made all the more poignant by the contrast in the second half of her letter, where she declares her love and affection for Jennie and the baby: ‘I love you and your dear little child and I shall never cease to take a loving interest in you.’ She is totally honest and all the more compelling for being so.

  We are fortunate that this letter has survived. There could be no better insight into the sensitive, caring nature of this often undervalued woman. It is obvious that she had been deeply wounded. Blandford’s insulting letter is completely lacking in the courtesy and consideration one would expect; Randolph enjoyed his mother’s confidence and should have been sensitive to her feelings, as his father observed; and the language of Frances’ letter to Jennie is highly personal. Randolph and Jennie had been married only 18 months and already there were cracks appearing in the family; unfortunately they involved Jennie. Perhaps these were ‘teething troubles’, the tensions of any family settling into its adult relationships, but they do not come as a surprise. It was several months before this family quarrel was made up and there are almost prophetic tones in the last letter of the Duchess. Blandford and Randolph were indeed unrestrained in language and behaviour, as their mother well knew, and both seemed strangely unaware of the extent of the present damage. Soon those same faults would cause more trouble on a larger scale.

  Notes

  1. Marlborough to Randolph (wedding day) 14.4.74, Blenheim Archives A IV/21.

  2. Frances to Clara Jerome 30.11.74, Blenheim Archives A IV/23.

  Chapter Sixteen

  DISAPPOINTED HOPES

  * * *

  There were some warning signals of trouble ahead. Jennie was a beautiful young woman, with very dark hair and flashing eyes; she was radiant with health and when stimulated socially became vivacious and amusing. Sometimes there were unfortunate repercussions. The story is told of how, when Lord Falmouth was visiting, Jennie’s attention was caught by an old lady stepping out of a four-wheeler carriage in St James’s Place. ‘Who on earth is that old demon?’ she demanded. ‘Why, it’s my mother,’ replied Lord Falmouth courteously. On another occasion, at a masked ball in Holland House, her sister Clara had been walking in the garden with an eligible young man who was the target for designing mothers with marriageable daughters. Later in the evening, disguised in a painted mask and yellow wig, Jennie pretended to be Clara’s mother and approached him, saying that her daughter had just confided that he had proposed to her and she had accepted him. The sight of his horrified face must have amused the pair of them but it was unlikely to bring them friends. It gradually became obvious that her lovely face and figure were not allied to other desirable qualities, such as sensitivity to others’ feelings.

  Jennie’s financial settlement, which supplemented what the Duke gave the couple, should have made comfortable provision for them, but Jennie’s deep-rooted inclination to gratify any fashionable whim took them far beyond their means. The Duke’s hopes that Randolph might be governed by Jennie’s competence in financial matters were not fulfilled. They lived far beyond their income and it was not long before creditors appeared.

  Her extravagance plunged them deeply into debt and this set Jennie in a role opposed to the two women on either side of her in the family. Her mother-in-law, Frances, and later her daughter-in-law, Clementine, were both excellent managers and effective complements to their respective husbands. In aristocratic terms John Winston was not a hugely rich man; his income of about £40,000 was scarcely adequate for the huge cost of running Blenheim and his large family. Despite being the daughter of one of the richest families in the country, Frances adjusted well to the management of the Blenheim household in an effective, non-extravagant way. There was never any question of Frances running her husband into debt, even though hospitality to the many guests welcomed at the Palace was, as we have seen, generous. There is, of course, one famous entry in the Visitors’ Book during Frances’ time: Sir Alexander Cockburn, the Lord Chief Justice, complained that while he was prepared to share almost everything in life, he drew the line at half a snipe for dinner. This is more likely to have been due to a temporary lack of supply rather than to any lack of generosity. Cockburn would hardly have been so abominably rude in all seriousness, particularly if he wished for a further invitation. Jennie herself describes the generosity of the usual lunch provision:

  rows of entree dishes adorned the table, joints beneath silver covers being placed before the Duke and Duchess, who each carved for the whole company, and as this included governesses, tutors and children it was no sinecure. Before leaving the dining-room the children filled with food small baskets kept for the purpose for poor cottagers or any who might be sick or sorry in Woodstock. These they distributed in the course of their afternoon walks.1

  Frances was her mother’s daughter. Frances Anne had managed not just the domestic households of her various magnificent homes, Wynyard Hall, Mount Stewart, Seaham Hall and Londonderry House, but also, after her husband’s death, the business affairs of the huge Londonderry estates and coal-mining interests. Jennie’s genetic inheritance was different. Her father had had the acumen to build several large fortunes but had been extravagant and dissipated every one in turn. One more burden that Randolph imposed on his mother as well as his father was the stress of having to watch as an extravagant wife ran their son into debt.

  This trait of Jennie’s seems to have passed to Winston who, for much of his earlier life, lived well beyond his means. However, unlike his father he acquired a wife who was a restraining factor. Although of aristocratic descent, Clementine had grown up in a household in straitened circumstances, where every penny had to be accounted for. Famously, after her marriage, her trousseau contained underwear of cotton, carefully mended; Winston’s underwear, on the other hand, was of silk for, as he himself put it, he could bear no other ‘against his tegume
nt [skin]’. Clementine was the counter to Winston’s extravagance. Jennie, on the other hand, was incorrigible; after Randolph’s death she frequently needed Winston to bail her out of the consequences of her extravagance, even though his income must have been very restricted at the time. Jennie had none of the character, the self-denial, the dedication and commitment possessed by Clementine, which made her such a powerful helpmate to Winston.

  Jennie’s behaviour seemed superficial. Randolph’s biographer, Robert Rhodes James makes it clear that at the time she was having little influence on Randolph’s political career apart from the important one of being a very successful hostess. There is little evidence of Randolph seeking her advice. Perhaps it is unreasonable to expect a young American girl to become conversant with the ideas and attitudes of British politics – but that, of course, is exactly what Randolph’s mother did. From her earliest years Frances had been exposed to the political world, internationally as well as nationally. Her father, after a brilliant military career, had become a diplomat, the British Ambassador to Vienna, an influential and successful representative at the post-Napoleonic Congresses of Vienna and Verona; Castlereagh, British Foreign Secretary, was her uncle; Wellington, soon to be Prime Minister, was her godfather. In character, background and experience she was ideally placed to provide a stable base, first for her husband’s political career and later for his diplomatic success as Viceroy of Ireland. Jennie had none of her advantages.

  Randolph’s sisters, too, were politically interested and informed, but the circumstances leading up to Randolph and Jennie’s marriage had been difficult and their early years did not suggest the kind of stability that Frances and her husband had always known in their own marriage. Jennie’s lack of familiarity with the political system was a concern. Was she going to be able to give Randolph the motivation and support in the career which his parents hoped would be his future? They would not wish there to be an area of family interest from which she might feel excluded.

  Although the early years of the marriage were happy, this was based on the excitement of their social lifestyle and not on any commitment to Randolph’s political career. It was probably this more than anything which caused the coolness between Jennie and Frances, although it is difficult to establish this exactly. Only a deeper commitment to the serious development of Randolph’s career, instead of the superficiality of the social whirl, would have satisfied his parents.

  Rhodes James gives us a detailed description of Randolph, regarded at this time as one of the most fashionable figures of the day. He dressed immaculately although he tended to wear far too much jewellery for a man, including a large ring shaped like a Maltese cross set with diamonds, given to him by Jennie; he smoked heavily, using a holder. He became one of the dandies of the day, often wearing a dark blue frock coat and coloured shirts. The ostentation was possibly a compensation for his lack of height, as he was slightly built. He was alert, with large, bright, protuberant eyes, his nickname having been ‘Gooseberry’ Churchill at Eton. He had a heavy moustache and a rather unhealthy mahogany brown complexion. Altogether, he appeared like a young man more at home in the stalls of the Gaiety theatre than in the councils of the state.

  His was a figure which lent itself readily to caricature but that if anything enhanced his image in the eyes of the electorate. We have the example of his son Winston to indicate how aspects of appearance and manner can fix a politician endearingly in the public imagination. Who can forget Winston’s V-sign, his cigar or his lisp? But there has to be substance behind the appearance: with Winston this was there in abundance; with his father, so far, there was nothing. What distressed Frances and her husband was that Randolph’s reputation was not being built on solid Parliamentary performances but on a superficiality with which they associated Jennie. The promised commitment to politics, which Randolph had used to force his father’s agreement to his marriage, did not seem to be happening. Instead, he seemed satisfied at a level of social accomplishment which was distasteful to both parents.

  His admitted dislike of a public career now seemed evident and his attendance to Parliamentary duties was fitful. It took him several months to make his maiden speech, although Disraeli found it quite promising. What his parents had become accustomed to regard as normal in Randolph, his rashness and lack of considered and responsible thought, surfaced once again when he managed to alienate Disraeli, Prime Minister and leader of his party, by cutting him at a social function. Disraeli believed this was because he had not given Randolph the vacant Lordship of the Treasury, and such a petulant response would certainly have been characteristic. His tactlessness compounded the resentment Disraeli already felt because of a letter in The Times signed ‘by a Conservative MP’, attacking the arrangements made by his government for the forthcoming visit to India by the Prince of Wales; Disraeli was convinced it was written by Randolph.

  Randolph’s lifestyle could only bring disappointment and pain to his long-suffering parents; and this state of affairs could have continued indefinitely if there had not taken place an event that was to alter dramatically the career and character of this talented but flawed personality. Randolph was to reach the heights of achievement, but not before he had caused even more pain and frustration than he had so far inflicted.

  Notes

  1. Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill, pp.58-9.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE PRINCE’S REVENGE

  * * *

  Frances and her husband were soon to be confronted with a crisis which was to surpass by far any of the previous excesses of either son. On this occasion, however, the degree of Frances’ pain was revealed through no less a person than Queen Victoria herself. The Queen and Frances were contemporaries and friends, the Queen only three years older, and their lives had run parallel in several respects. They had shared anxieties and commiserations over the years, particularly about their children, and Victoria felt great compassion for her friend. When the traumatic experience was over, the Queen invited Frances and John Winston to Windsor. In writing later of the meeting, the Queen noted the anguish Frances had suffered, singling her out particularly. She was much grieved, she recorded in her Journal, to see them look so distressed and unhappy and noted that Frances, especially, ‘could scarcely restrain her tears’. So intense was Frances’ grief that she was unable to control it, even among the formality and protocol of the Court; nothing could reveal the depth of her pain more.

  The trouble did not actually begin with Randolph. Fashionable social life in London revolved around the Marlborough House set. The splendid house, built by the 1st Duke and Duchess of Marlborough in the early eighteenth century as their London home, was on land leased from Queen Anne for four generations which had reverted to the Crown on the death of the 4th Duke. It was now the home of Edward and Alexandra, the Prince and Princess of Wales. The unwritten rules of this small but exclusive social set, to which both Randolph and Blandford belonged, were dictated by the portly Prince, who was notorious for his marital infidelity and the looseness of his living generally. He was renowned for his demands on the wives of friends and he had a particular fondness for American women. His attentions to Jennie were, of course, noticeable and could have been responsible, in part, for Randolph’s actions in the dramatic events which were to follow. The Prince’s behaviour was seen as acceptable among his set, on the condition it was discreet. Any public scandal resulted in immediate expulsion from the set and from society in general. The London Season ran from spring to the end of July, and included Henley Regatta, Ascot Races, and yachting at Cowes; it was followed by the round of country house shooting-parties. These gave plenty of opportunity for what came to be regarded as a kind of sexual open season. Country house hostesses were expected to accommodate clandestine relationships by tacitly providing adjacent rooms where required; staff maintained a diplomatic silence.

  The year 1876 was to bring trouble and heartache to the Marlboroughs, felt as usual more by Frances and John Winston, in
their decency and integrity, than by the careless and self-willed perpetrators of the events. It began unexpectedly. Lord Blandford, a womaniser with little scruple about marital fidelity, set the disaster in motion. The Prince of Wales had arranged for himself and some friends a Grand Tour of India, financed by Parliament (£112,000) and the Indian government (£100,000). Since it consisted of shooting wild animals, especially tigers, and enjoying extravagant entertainment, in particular state banquets, its excesses were greatly disapproved of by Queen Victoria, as were most of the raffish friends the Prince took with him. Among them was Lord Aylesford, popularly known as ‘Sporting Joe’. As soon as he was gone to India Blandford moved himself and his horses to an inn near Packington Hall, the Aylesfords’ home near Coventry. He and Lady Aylesford were conducting what they thought was a secret affair; he was there to hunt, he said, but it became common knowledge that he had a key to her house and used it to visit her as soon as darkness fell.

  Edith, Lady Aylesford, wrote to her husband in India that she and Blandford were in love and intended to elope; she asked him for a divorce so they could marry, and told him that Blandford intended to divorce the Marchioness, Albertha. Aylesford set off for home amid great consternation while, back in England, Randolph tried to restrain his brother from doing anything irrevocable. He was well aware of the disaster that divorce would bring for Blandford, understanding perfectly well the cynical code on social licentiousness and divorce which prevailed among the Victorian aristocratic class. Commentators on the Victorian age and its social propriety have pointed out the apparent paradox between the horror of adultery, if made public, and the lack of private morality which prevailed among the upper classes. The guiding principle was to prevent revelation and scandal. Not only was divorce destructive of the family structure and a disgrace in itself, but to have adultery disclosed was a serious social error, especially among the upper classes. The French Revolution and its dreadful warning to aristocrats had not yet passed into historical obscurity, and the Russian Revolution was still to come. Those few families, including the royal family, which belonged to the privileged class were acutely aware of the need to set an example to those less fortunate: to provide the moral leadership of the time. Thus there emerged an attitude that the public face of society must be preserved at all costs.