Churchill's Grandmama

by Margaret E. Forster

  During the 15 years Consuelo lived alone in London, social work was the centre of her life. She used her title and position to generate finance to relieve any need she perceived, especially those involving women and children. A list of her involvements includes the Waifs and Strays Society, the Anti Sweated Labour League, the YWCA, Dr Barnardo’s, the Church Army, Prisoners’ Aid and Royal Holloway College. She discovered that no relief existed for children of women whose husbands were imprisoned; the streets were often their only recourse. Consuelo set up laundries where the women could work, and provided nurseries for their children. To further all these and other activities she became a London county councillor. Living in France during her second marriage, her support for sick and hungry French children before and immediately after the Second World War earned her the award of the Legion d’Honneur. Frances would have greatly respected her.

  The two ambitions Frances had expressed to her new granddaughter-in-law were subsequently fulfilled. With Consuelo’s fortune, Blenheim ‘was restored to its former glories’ by Charles, the 9th Duke. Gilded ceilings, exquisite furniture, extensive new Italian and Water Terrace Gardens and restoration of the Great Court all contributed to a rejuvenated environment which once more welcomed the family, their friends and political figures, just as it had in Frances’ own time.

  ‘The prestige of the family’ was more than upheld, too. Frances’ sons had disappointed her, but her daughters did much to compensate. Cornelia’s family produced a further Viceroy of Ireland, two Privy Counsellors, a Secretary of State, a Paymaster General, a Lord-in-Waiting to the King and four MPs. Her other daughters produced three further MPs, another Privy Counsellor, a Lord Privy Seal, a Lord President of the Council, a Comptroller of the Royal Household and a First Lord of the Admiralty. Frances would have been particularly pleased with Fanny, in whom she saw something of herself. She married the 2nd Baron Tweedmouth, and the Dictionary of National Biography records that his success as a Liberal politician was in no small measure a consequence of her being ‘endowed with a natural gift for society [who] shared her husband’s labour in bringing together Liberal politicians of all shades of opinion’. Annie, Duchess of Roxburghe, became Mistress of the Robes and Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, receiving, as her mother had done, the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert. As Dowager Duchess, in 1906 she launched the Mauretania from Swan Hunters, first of the great transatlantic ocean liners and holder of the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing for 28 years. Frances’ greatest delight would have been in Sarah, her youngest daughter: inheriting her mother’s intelligence, strength of character and resilience, she became a woman of the new century. As the first woman war correspondent, she covered the Siege of Mafeking in the field for the Daily Mail. Her reports gained a huge following in London, promoting, it was said, ‘the bulldog spirit’ among a population depressed by the poor news of the war.

  Above and beyond all these, of course, was the achievement of Frances’ grandson Winston. After he joined his regiment, the 4th Hussars, in February 1895 his arduous training as a regimental officer and his subsequent service abroad meant contact with his grandmother was very limited. Also, distracted by all the exciting activity, he was a little careless about remaining in touch, as he later admitted himself. Fortunately, two important letters exist, hitherto unpublished, which he wrote to Frances when he became more settled. Vividly revealing, with him at the exciting beginning of his career, and her very near the end of her life, the letters confirm many aspects of Frances’ character of which her life is a testimony. At the same time, they provide telling insights into Winston’s activities and the important decisions he was making at this critical time of his life.

  The first letter is from India, where he was with his regiment in October 1897, after well-recorded adventures in Cuba, Sudan and on the North West Frontier. Whatever Consuelo might have noted, the tone of both letters confirms the affection Frances had always shared with her grandson. In the first he leaves her with ‘I trust that you will regard affectionately, Your loving grandson’; the second ends ‘Goodbye, my dear Grandmama, with best love, I remain, Your affectionate grandson’. Even though he is apologising for having been out of touch, the tone in the first letter is so sincere and purposeful it indicates a confidence the affection he feels will be returned:

  I feel that I was very wrong not to have come to see you. Nor is there perhaps anything that I can say that can wholly explain or excuse my omission. I heard however that you disapproved very much of my having come home at all and this led me to put off coming from one day to another – until it was too late – and all intentions were involved in the hurry of departure. I will not say more, but will only beg you to believe that I regret and have regretted my neglect very much – and hope that in spite of it you still think of me with kindness.

  The account he gives Frances of what he has been doing, in particular the military activity, is a vivid foretaste of the drama in his writing to come, more so perhaps because it is so personal:

  … both in enabling me to get to the one brigade that was the most severely engaged – and bringing me safe back. I was with the unfortunate General Jeffreys on the big action of 16th September – and was myself with the 35th Sikhs, who as you perhaps remember were nearly cut to pieces. Indeed so close and critical did affairs become that I was forced to fire my revolver nine times in self-defence. However, though, a third of those troops at this point were either killed or wounded.

  His descriptions of conflicts in which he was engaged confirm what is now well known: Winston’s personal courage. He is quite indifferent to danger. Later in the letter, he writes almost casually, ‘If I live [sic] I intend to …’. Winston found the excitement of battle exhilarating, but throughout his life was sharply aware of the horrors of war, its human suffering and cost:

  I wonder if people in England have any idea of the savagery of the warfare that is being carried on here. It is so different from what one has been led to expect that I do not doubt that there are many people who do not realise, for instance, that no quarter is ever asked or given. The tribesmen torture the wounded and mutilate the dead. The troops never spare a single man who falls into their hands, whether he be wounded or not. The field hospitals and the sick convoys are the especial targets of the enemy and we destroy the tanks by which alone their water for the summer can be obtained – and employ against them a bullet – the new Dum-Dum bullet of which you may have heard – the shattering effects of which are simply appalling.

  His judgement on the horror of war as ‘appalling’ remained with him for life: ‘Jaw, Jaw is better than War, War!’ was his later dictum. He already anticipates this belief here, aged only 22. He also reveals a maturity when he judges his experience on the frontier to have been valuable in many ways, and well worth having from an educational point of view.

  In another of his characteristics revealed in the letter Frances must have recognised Randolph. Like his father Winston was ready, often unwisely, to challenge those he thought were in error, despite the possible consequences. Both he and Randolph damaged their careers seriously because of this, Randolph irretrievably. Only the overwhelming threat of the Second World War rescued Winston from the same descent into political oblivion. He was critical of the generals and politicians behind the war in a way that recalled Randolph’s campaign against his leader, Stafford Northcote:

  I wish I could come to the conclusion that all this barbarity – all these losses, all this expenditure – had resulted in a permanent settlement being obtained. I do not think, however, that anything has been done that will not have to be done again. It seems that many years of war and disturbance await the Indian Frontier.1

  When Winston confesses that he intends to leave the Army and stand for Parliament he shows he understood his grandmother: ‘I am afraid you will disapprove of all this.’ A political career for him would have been attractive to her, but stability, order, a sense of responsibility and perseverance were virtues
of immense importance to her. She had seen both her sons fail conspicuously to achieve them, and rightly judged that her preference would be for him to stick with what he had begun. When he mentioned that he had left his regiment in India and come back to England on leave he knew this further example of his not being fully committed would bring her disapproval.

  Family meant much to Frances. All her life she looked after and supported its members, and Winston was careful now to give her news of another of her grandsons, Cornelia’s son Ivor. Winston had received several letters from him and was soon to spend a week or two with Ivor at Bangalore, where he was stationed with his regiment. Winston was looking forward to the visit as he found Ivor a congenial companion.

  Only two or three weeks before she died, Frances received a second, equally illuminating letter from Winston, this time from Suez. Now she learned of another momentous decision in his young life, an intention to embark upon a writing career: ‘... how much writing my new book has entailed. I have now finished eighteen of the twenty three chapters, 135,000 words.’ He reaffirms his decision to leave the Army but now puts forward a reason for it he knows will appeal to Frances. Throughout Randolph and Jennie’s marriage, their extravagance, their heedlessness of the need to establish security had caused her anxiety, so Winston’s thinking now could only be a pleasure to her. He tells her:

  Had the Army been a source of income to me instead of a channel of expenditure, I might have felt compelled to stick to it. But I can live cheaper and earn more as a writer, special correspondent or journalist.

  Infinitely more pleasing to her would be Winston’s hard-headed assessment of his financial situation and his determination:

  You will be glad to hear that the serial rights of Affairs of State have been bought by Messrs Macmillan for their magazine – for £100. The story is to begin publication next month and will run for six months, after which it becomes again my property and I shall make Longmans publish it in book form in the autumn. This serial publication is very satisfactory from a financial point of view as it means an extra hundred pounds – for the value of the book is rather enhanced than depreciated by it.2

  Never, even in her most optimistic moments, could Frances have foreseen the prestige he was to bring to the family name. His breadth of achievement as politician, statesman, writer, orator and painter brought him the nation’s, and the world’s, highest honours: Order of Merit, Companion of Honour, Knight of the Garter, Nobel Prize, even the offer of a Dukedom (declined!). Her pleasure would have been to recognise in him so much of Randolph at his best: the crackling wit and power of his oratory, his energy, industry and phenomenal memory, his adherence to the principles of Tory Democracy and the Primrose League. She would recognise, too, something of herself in him, especially the humanity, compassion and love of family and home. His great Marlborough ancestor, the 1st Duke, had his rescue of Europe from French domination recorded by the inscription carved into the South Front of Blenheim Palace: ‘Protector of the Freedom of Europe’. Winston’s rescue of a virtually defeated nation, and of much of the rest of the world, earned him a parallel accolade, ‘The Greatest Briton’, by popular acclaim. His grandmother would have been both proud and satisfied.

  Frances died on 16 April 1899, aged 77, at 45 Portman Square, London, but was brought back to Blenheim for burial next to her husband in the vault beneath the chapel. Above her, in the chapel itself, are the two monuments she had raised at particularly sad times: to her husband John Winston and to her son Randolph. Winston lies close by in Bladon churchyard.

  This intelligent, loyal, principled and compassionate woman was a true Victorian, of an age eloquently described by Winston himself:

  I was a child of the Victorian era, when the structure of our country seemed firmly set, when its position in trade was unrivalled, and when the realisation of the greatness of our Empire and of our duty to preserve it was ever growing stronger. In those days the dominant forces in Great Britain were very sure of themselves and of their doctrines.3

  This supreme confidence was to be shattered, but the foundations had been laid for Winston to become a worthy descendant of his great ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough; he would be an elder statesman who raised the courage of his countrymen and led them to victory in that same glorious spirit. If she could have looked ahead, Frances would have seen her faith in Randolph justified and fulfilled in his son, and possibly been content with her own contribution. Certainly, she could not have wished for a greater memorial.

  Notes

  1. WSC from Bangalore (1897), Churchill Archives.

  2. WSC from Suez (1899), Churchill Archives.

  3. My Early Life by Winston S. Churchill, Preface (1930).

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  * * *

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