Churchill's Grandmama

by Margaret E. Forster

  Randolph was at a crossroads. He was in huge favour with many but he had enemies who saw the situation differently. Chamberlain had inflamed the lobby against him before he actually took office: ‘We now know who is master. Goliath has surrendered to David and Lord Randolph Churchill has his foot on Lord Salisbury’s neck.’ Randolph, and indeed the whole Conservative party, was holding a poisoned chalice. No matter what his gifts or powers of application, the parameters of progress were laid down by the circumstances in which Randolph found himself.

  To make matters worse, one last by-election had to be fought on home ground, even though the Woodstock constituency was scheduled for extinction and Randolph was looking to Birmingham for a future seat. Inundated by the workload from his new post in the India Office, he was depending on Jennie and his sister Georgiana (Curzon) to carry the responsibility of the campaign. He was also without the support of his elder brother, now the 8th Duke, who had caused acrimony in the family by selling a major part of the collection from Blenheim: over 200 magnificent paintings. This showed a blatant disregard for a major and important part of the Palace heritage, a sale neither the 7th Duke nor Frances would have contemplated for a moment. It so appalled Frances, whose love and respect for Blenheim was deeply ingrained, that she refused to continue living at the Palace. Jennie and her supporters had to make their headquarters at the local hotel, the Bear. Theirs was not an easy task, but a flamboyant and determined campaign led by the flamboyant Jennie carried the day and Randolph was re-elected.

  Meanwhile the India Office was settling to its new Minister. Contrary to expectation, Randolph was successful, both in listening to his advisers and in making decisions. The notion of a shallow, if articulate, Randolph had to be discarded in favour of an able administrator with charm and a natural manner. It suited him to have such a powerful position; his better self prevailed and he flourished. He improved his relations with Salisbury and the letters between them show a marked cordiality; they moved into place for the General Election of 1885 with some confidence.

  For the first time, Frances had the pleasure and satisfaction of taking part, actively and publicly, in Randolph’s political life. Both she and Jennie canvassed for him in his new constituency in Birmingham, Woodstock having been abolished in 1885, in what must have been very contrasting styles. But these intelligent women could not carry the day and Randolph lost, and had to be found another seat, South Paddington.

  The Liberals won the 1885 election and Randolph was back in Opposition. The Irish party and Parnell had enough votes to make things awkward for the Liberals and so debate inevitably raged around the Home Rule issue. Despite his sympathy for the Irish people, Randolph totally opposed Home Rule. Like his father he saw improvement coming from better education and better living conditions. This was another opportunity to bait Gladstone, accusing him of ‘the ambition of an old man in a hurry’; Randolph delivered the ‘most severe verbal lambasting’ since the days of Disraeli in order to remind everyone of the failures of Gladstone’s policies:

  The negotiator of the Alabama arbitration, the hero of the Transvaal surrender, the perpetrator of the bombardment of Alexandria, the decimator of the struggling Sudan tribes, the betrayer of Khartoum, the person guilty of the death of Gordon, the patentee of the Penjdeh shame, now stands before the country all alone, rejected by a democratic House of Commons … He demands a vote of confidence from the constituencies … confidence in what? In the Liberal Party? No! The Liberal Party, as we know it, exists no longer. In his Irish project? No! It is dead … In himself? Yes! At this moment, so critical, we have not got to deal with a Government, or a party, or a policy. We have to deal with a man; with a man who makes the most unparalleled claim for dictatorial power which can be conceived by free men.7

  Even without the aid of Randolph’s voice and the inflection of his words, we can appreciate the effect of this pointed, stinging speech, the crescendo of accusation relentlessly building to its climax, and the final note of incredulity: ‘He demands a vote of confidence!!!’

  The Liberal Home Rule Bill failed, producing yet another election. Again Frances and Jennie campaigned for Randolph, their high point being a meeting in the Royal Military School near Hyde Park. As Randolph, Frances and Jennie entered the hall, the audience rose and sang Rule Britannia, applauded their candidate with warmth and approval, and concluded the proceedings with the National Anthem. This time the Conservatives won the election, Gladstone resigned and Lord Salisbury was invited to form his second administration. This time he could not ignore Randolph for a Cabinet post.

  Notes

  1. In Birmingham, cited by Robert Rhodes James, p.133.

  2. In Blackpool, cited by Robert Rhodes James, p.136.

  3. Cited by Robert Rhodes James, pp.136-7.

  4. Cited by Robert Rhodes James, p.137.

  5. Cited by Robert Rhodes James pp.137-8.

  6. To the Primrose League, cited by Robert Rhodes James, p.162.

  7. To the electors of Paddington, cited by Robert Rhodes James, p.246.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A CARING GRANDMOTHER

  * * *

  Apart from the Irish Famine Fund, there was virtually no public awareness in Frances’ lifetime of her personal qualities or of anything else she accomplished. It is only when family letters (particularly Winston’s) became readily accessible, over 50 years after her death, that the vital part she played in the formation of her grandson Winston’s character begin to emerge.

  Neither Randolph nor Jennie was equipped to be adequate parents to Winston. He was preoccupied with his career and she threw herself back into the whirl of London society. They reflected the attitudes to parenting of their social class at that time: parents played little direct part in bringing up their children, which tended to be left first to servants and then to schools. Even so, Randolph and Jennie did not give Winston much of the parental support he still needed. Jennie was young, attractive and extrovert. Her world was dominated by the superficiality of fashionable society. Randolph’s life had been a rather impetuous pursuit of whatever he enjoyed, with little self-discipline or self-criticism. He joined Jennie in high society and public life, led by what Frances described as the ‘fast set’, and threw himself headlong into his political career. Neither he nor Jennie found much time to devote to Winston. Despite this Winston idolised both parents, writing of Jennie that ‘she shone for me like the Evening Star’, and making a biography of his father his first publication.

  His parents passed Winston on to his grandmother at Blenheim, where he spent his formative years. At 52, Frances might have been looking forward to a quieter life. She had worked hard to create a happy family home at Blenheim and her daughters were comfortably embarked on life, but once again her sense of responsibility and duty, her ‘warm heart particularly for members of her family’, as Jennie was later to describe it, and her sensitivity to the needs of the vulnerable responded to a new demand. On a basic level her help was practical: Blenheim or her London house provided Winston with somewhere safe, and soon familiar, for him to stay when it was inconvenient for his parents to have him. Winston, however, had a far greater need than simply for this ‘bed and board’, as it might be termed. The huge importance of Frances’ contribution lay in providing him with the security he cherished, his desperately longed-for love and affection.

  This period of Winston’s life consisted of being shuttled between Blenheim and London at the convenience of his parents. It was a great help socially and financially that he and his younger brother Jack, born in Dublin before they left, could stay at Blenheim, supervised by grandmother Frances. After lessons had been attended to, sometimes with his grandmother and sometimes with the governess, Jack and he, cousin Charles and later Guy were free to roam the Park, which was better, Winston assured his parents, than the London parks. Since Charles, the eldest, was lacking in confidence, and Jack and Guy were the youngest, the leadership fell to Winston, who was eager to rise to the challenge. All the
se juvenile ‘military operations’ were led by him with enthusiasm, and it was Winston who usually needed the discipline that Frances was known to insist on. With the golden stone of the Palace glowing in the evening sun, the serene beauty of the lake and trees, the occasional splash of a leaping fish, the wind in his face as he rode swiftly across the Park; this must have been the time when he laid the foundations of his great love of Blenheim. The busier Randolph and Jennie were, the more time he had to enjoy his grandparents’ home and the happier and more secure he became. He wrote later that he made two fortunate decisions at Blenheim: to be born and to marry. He never regretted either. During the whole of his lifetime the lovely home of his grandparents was his refuge and sanctuary, and at the very end it was in the nearby village of Bladon that he chose to be buried.

  Winston’s earliest letters from Blenheim to his mother, at Christmas 1881, reveal an almost urgent longing to be loved. The pattern of emotional need was to be repeated and became the norm. After thanking Jennie for his presents, Winston devotes the rest of his first short letter to declaring the strength of his affection: ‘I send you my love and a great many kisses, Your loving Winston.’ As a goodbye the emphasis is not surprising, but it dominates such a short letter: he needs his parents and he fears they will not come. His next two letters, written within days, begin to fill out the picture of his insecurity and vulnerability. Much of one letter is devoted to his lengthy and almost impassioned declaration of love, kisses and affection; the other introduces a significant new note, being a blunt request for Jennie to come to Blenheim to see him. Virtually every subsequent letter for years contains the same two forceful expressions of emotional intensity: he pours out his love and begs for his parents to come and see him. They rarely responded.

  Within months Winston had been left at Blenheim once more and wrote again to his parents. Only in one letter does he conclude in a way that would be normal for a seven-year-old, restricting himself to ‘I am your loving son’. The other three, written in close succession, reveal his need to express deeper feelings: ‘With best love, Your ever loving son’, ‘With many kisses, Your loving son’, ‘With best love and kisses, Your ever loving son’. In another short letter, again from Blenheim, he three times states his pathetic need to see his parents: ‘When are you coming? … Jack and I want you very much … please do come soon.’

  Winston’s emotional sensibility is demonstrated by his affection towards brother Jack, younger by six years. In the early letters from Blenheim Winston makes a point of reporting on Jack when he was with him: ‘Baby is quite well’, ‘Baby sends you his love’. If they were separated, there is frequent reference to him: ‘I had a nice letter from Jack’, ‘Give my love to him’. This fondness remained with Winston all Jack’s life.

  From the boarding preparatory schools, where Winston was sent at the age of seven, his letters were dominated by the same theme: a pouring out of love and desperate requests to be visited, again virtually unheeded by Randolph and Jennie. After his eighth birthday, when they failed to visit him, the need for his parents is so great that he urges his mother not to forget to collect him for Christmas, before concluding with his usual ‘Love and kisses’. He and baby brother Jack, aged only two, were subsequently left with their grandmother while Jennie and Randolph pursued interests elsewhere. It was not the custom for Victorian parents to visit their children at school. Frances may have feared to run the risk of Jennie’s disapproval by visiting herself, but there are certainly on record visits by Lady Marjoribanks, Winston’s aunt, who had a son there.

  Winston’s distress was reflected in poor behaviour. At St George’s, Ascot, where he was desperately unhappy, a rather sadistic regime does not seem to have controlled his behaviour: beatings were frequent and his reports were critical. In one letter in particular his emotional needs got the better of him: in a state of high tension he scrawled 46 crosses for kisses and added desperately, ‘I am coming home in a month.’

  During all this time Frances supplied the warmth, affection and security he was crying out for. Together with his much loved nanny, Mrs Everest (‘Woomany’), she was his major support. Her kindly nature, sense of responsibility and experience as the mother of her own large family made her a remarkable surrogate mother. His letters from Blenheim are peppered with indications of how he is enjoying himself there: ‘I am enjoying myself very much’, he writes at Christmas 1881, and the following spring: ‘I am enjoying myself here; it is so nice being in the country.’

  Winston’s poor health, hitherto ignored by his parents, finally necessitated his removal from St George’s, but his relief was only temporary: in the autumn of 1884 he was enrolled at a school in Brighton run by two unmarried ladies. This establishment, in contrast to St George’s, had little or no pretension and Winston tells us later it had an element of kindness and warmth which had been completely lacking in Ascot. It made no claims to be academic, however, as Winston was to find to his cost.

  When he was ten he was involved in an exchange with another boy which could have had serious consequences. The headmistress wrote to Jennie, explaining that Winston and the boy had been arguing about a knife which one of the masters had lent them when Winston received a small wound in the chest. The headmistress was considering the expulsion of the other boy but Jennie would not hear of it. She wrote to Randolph, who was in India at the time, ‘I have no doubt Winston teased the boy dreadfully – and it ought to be a lesson to him. Of course, as I thought, he began by pulling the other boy’s ear.’ Randolph agreed. ‘What adventures Winston does have,’ he answered. ‘It is a great mercy he was no worse injured.’ Winston was no angel, and Frances knew this. There is a story about Jack, who was a relatively innocent child, being asked by a visitor if he were a good boy. ‘Yes,’ he replied apologetically, ‘but Winston is teaching me to be naughty!’

  The Churchills’ family doctor, Robson Roose, had his main practice at Brighton and was able to keep an eye on Winston. The boy’s health caused considerable concern: ears, tummy, teeth, all gave him misery, aggravated no doubt by the fact he was unhappy. In 1886 he wrote to Mrs Everest after she and Jack had been on a visit, complaining of weakness and a tendency to cry at everything. He was going down with pneumonia, and his life was in danger. The letter was badly written, as usual when he was upset and miserable, and he became the concern of the whole family. Dr Roose did not leave his side for several days, finally reporting the passing of a critical night when Winston struggled through delirium with a temperature of 101. At last Jennie and Randolph arrived. There was concern from friends, including the Prince of Wales, and Moreton Frewen, Jennie’s brother-in-law, wrote in reproach, hoping that now that Winston had been given back to them they would find the time to make more of him. He had certainly had a narrow escape.

  That was certainly a critical year for Winston. He spent the summer at Blenheim, as usual, chasing butterflies and basking in happiness, but the following November Randolph, caught up in the heavy schedule of the General Election, was actually in Brighton and failed to visit his son. Grandmother Frances and two cousins visited and he was taken to Blenheim for the New Year while Randolph and Jennie went on a seven-week visit to Russia. Mrs Everest was ill with diphtheria at this point, looked after by Dr Roose. Frances, always anxious when she was in charge of the boys, wrote to Randolph in January 1887:

  It has done them good and I keep Winston in good order as I know you like it. He is a clever boy and really not naughty but he wants a firm hand. Jack requires no keeping in order. They stay at 46 till you return.1

  Later in January she took them all to her London home at 46 Grosvenor Square, and they had a wonderful time, going to see the new Gilbert and Sullivan, HMS Pinafore. This was their latest production, the toast of London at the time. Frances understood perfectly what a boy of Winston’s age would enjoy and gave him the colour, excitement, fun and spectacle he would love:

  Winston is going back to school today. Entre nous I do not feel very sorry for he is cert
ainly a handful. Not that he does anything seriously naughty except to use bad language which is bad for Jack. I am sure Harrow will do wonders for him for I fancy he was too clever and too much the boss at that Brighton school.2

  One of the main comforts that Frances provided for him at Blenheim was to remain a pleasure throughout his life. She ‘gave’ him the Park, which he loved. The magnificent 2,100-acre Park was a restorative in his troubled childhood and was to remain so. As an adult he wrote of Blenheim that Vanbrugh and ‘Capability’ Brown had created there ‘an Italian Palace in an English landscape with perfect harmony’. Blenheim was too dangerous a place during the bombing years of the Second World War, and he had to stay at nearby Ditchley Park. Nevertheless, he took every opportunity to walk or drive in the Park at Blenheim in order to refresh his spirits.

  From the age of seven he wrote regularly of childish play in the Park, making encampments using an umbrella as a tent. His time there with Frances instilled in him an appreciation and love of the natural world. He found primroses and put them in a basket, gathered wild hyacinths, caught butterflies and dragonflies. He saw a snake but was not allowed to kill it. He told his parents that the Park was ‘so much nicer to walk in than Green Park or Hyde Park’. Frances had him taught the countryside skills. He learnt to ride the pony she gave him: ‘I rode Rob Roy today around the Park.’ He learnt to fish, writing to his parents in excitement when he ‘caught his first’. Appreciation of the natural world sustained him for the rest of his life, either studying butterflies as a subaltern in India or designing and enjoying his gardens at Chartwell.