CHAPTER I

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LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

VOL I.

[Illustration: _Lord Randolph Churchill._

_1883._]

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

BY

WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL, M.P.

AUTHOR OF

‘THE STORY OF THE MALAKAND FIELD FORCE, 1897’

‘THE RIVER WAR,’ ‘LONDON TO LADYSMITH VIA PRETORIA,’ ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

1906

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1906,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1906.

Norwood Press

J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

TO

CHARLES RICHARD JOHN SPENCER-CHURCHILL

DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH

THIS BOOK

IN ALL FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP

IS INSCRIBED

_Deed of Trust Regulating the Papers of the late Lord Randolph

Churchill._

I, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE RANDOLPH HENRY SPENCER-CHURCHILL, P.C., M.P., of

50 Grosvenor Square in the County of London by these Presents send

Greeting WHEREAS I am possessed of various Political and State Documents

Correspondence and Papers which are now contained in Tin boxes deposited

in my name at the Westminster Branch of the London and Westminster Bank

Limited and in Tin boxes and Drawers at No. 50 Grosvenor Square

aforesaid NOW I BY THESE PRESENTS DO assign transfer and make over from

and after the date of my decease the above mentioned political and State

documents correspondence and papers unto George Richard Penn Viscount

Curzon M.P., of 23 Upper Brook Street in the said County of London and

Ernest William Beckett M.P., of 138 Piccadilly in the said County of

London UPON TRUST that they the said George Richard Penn Viscount Curzon

and Ernest William Beckett shall from and after the date of my decease

deal with and use the said Political and State documents correspondence

and papers for any purpose which they in their absolute discretion may

think well PROVIDED that no such Political or State documents

correspondence or paper relating either to the Department of the India

Office or the Department of the Foreign Office shall be printed

published or used in any way either directly or indirectly without the

written consent of Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for either of the

said Departments for the time being AND I HEREBY DECLARE that these

presents are executed by me in triplicate one Copy whereof is deposited

with the Right Honourable the Earl of Rosebery K.G., P.C., Her Majesty’s

Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the second Copy is

deposited at the Western Branch of the Bank of England, Burlington

Gardens in the name of my Solicitor Mr. Theodore Lumley and the third

Copy is retained by me

AS WITNESS my hand and seal this eighth day of March One thousand eight

hundred and ninety-three.

Signed Sealed and Delivered }

by the above named Randolph}

Henry Spencer-Churchill in } RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

the presence of }

THEODORE LUMLEY,

Solicitor,

37 Conduit Street, Bond Street, W.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

In the spring of 1893 Lord Randolph Churchill, feeling that he had

slender expectations of long life, placed all his papers, private and

official, under a trust-deed which consigned them at his death to the

charge of two of his most intimate political friends, Viscount Curzon

(now Earl Howe) and Mr. Ernest Beckett (now Lord Grimthorpe). As he made

a practice of preserving almost every letter he received, the number of

documents was sufficient to fill eleven considerable tin boxes. Subject

to the conditions prescribed in the trust-deed in regard to matters

affecting the India Office or the Foreign Office--which have, of course,

been strictly observed--these papers were placed in my hands by my

father’s literary executors in July 1902, for the purpose of my writing

a full account of his life and work. I am deeply sensible of the

confidence implied and of the honour conveyed in that commission, and

during the three and a half years which have passed since I accepted it,

I have diligently laboured--in spite of some political distractions--to

discharge it to the best of my ability.

Sir Michael Hicks-Beach (having consulted with the late Lord Salisbury)

and Lord Rosebery have expressed the opinion that the story of Lord

Randolph Churchill’s life may now be fully told without impropriety

towards individuals or the public. Indeed, it is high time to do so.

Lord Randolph’s part in national affairs is not to be measured by long

years of office. No great legislation stands in his name upon the

statute book. He was a Chancellor of the Exchequer without a Budget, a

Leader of the House of Commons but for a single session, a victor

without the spoils. No tangible or enduring records--unless it be the

Burma province--exist of his labours, and the great and decisive force

which he exerted upon the history of the Conservative and Unionist party

might be imperfectly realised by a later generation, unless it were

explained, asserted, and confirmed by the evidence of those who came in

contact or collision with his imperious and vivifying personality.

For a thing so commonly attempted, political biography is difficult. The

style and ideas of the writer must throughout be subordinated to the

necessity of embracing in the text those documentary proofs upon which

the story depends. Letters, memoranda, and extracts from speeches, which

inevitably and rightly interrupt the sequence of his narrative, must be

pieced together upon some consistent and harmonious plan. It is not by

the soft touches of a picture, but in hard mosaic or tessellated

pavement, that a man’s life and fortunes must be presented in all their

reality and romance. I have thought it my duty, so far as possible, to

assemble once and for all the whole body of historical evidence required

for the understanding of Lord Randolph Churchill’s career. Scarcely

anything of material consequence has been omitted, and such omissions as

have been necessary are made for others’ sakes and not his own.

Scarcely any statement of importance lacks documentary proof. There is

nothing more to tell. Wherever practicable I have endeavoured to employ

his own words in the narration; and the public is now in a position to

pronounce a complete, if not a final, judgment.

I have been fortunate in the abundance of the materials supplied me. In

addition to Lord Randolph Churchill’s tin boxes with their ample stores,

there was at hand an invaluable series of scrap-books, containing every

conceivable newspaper comment and cartoon, collected by his sister, Lady

Wimborne, and covering the whole period of his active political life.

But most of all I am indebted to those many friends, irrespective of

political party, who either by allowing their letters to be printed, or

by reading the proof-sheets, have enabled me to compile what may,

without presumption, be called an authoritative account. I accept, of

course, in the fullest sense, exclusive responsibility for whatever is

written here; but to Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, first of all, my grateful

acknowledgments are due, for not only has he with the greatest care and

pains thoroughly revised the whole book, but furnished me, besides, with

extensive memoranda in respect of those chapters with the events of

which he was specially concerned.

The biographer of an English statesman is often able to conduct his hero

prosperously through the recognised educational experiences, and to

instal him at an early age in some small office, whence his promotion in

due course is assured. It is otherwise with the life of Lord Randolph

Churchill. No smooth path of patronage was opened to him. No glittering

wheels of royal favour aided and accelerated his journey. Whatever power

he acquired was grudgingly conceded and hastily snatched away. Like

Disraeli, he had to fight every mile in all his marches. And this

account will, I think, be found to explain in almost mechanical detail

the steps and the forces by which he rose to the exercise of great

personal authority, as well as the converse process by which he

declined.

I have naturally been led to deal more fully with his public career than

with his private life. With the exception of the first two chapters and

the last, this story lies in a period of only ten years--from 1880 to

1890, and not less than half of its compass is concerned with the

succession of fierce political crises which disturbed the years 1885 and

1886. The epoch is brief; but so crowded is it with incident and

accident, so full of insights and sidelights upon the workings of party

and constitutional machinery in modern times, that it deserves the

closest examination. And I hope it may be attributed to the author’s

failings, and not to the actions and character of Lord Randolph

Churchill, if the reader is not attracted by an authentic drama of the

House of Commons.

WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL.

BLENHEIM PALACE, WOODSTOCK:

_November 1, 1905_.

CONTENTS

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME

CHAPTER I

1849-1874

EARLY YEARS

.....PAGE

Blenheim--Woodstock--Birth and parentage--Childhood--Cheam--Eton--The

family borough--Merton--The Blenheim harriers--Life at Oxford--Cowes

1873--Miss Jerome--The Woodstock election--Marriage.....1

CHAPTER II

1874-1880

MEMBER FOR WOODSTOCK

The Parliament of 1874--A maiden speech--A social quarrel--Ireland--At

the Little Lodge--FitzGibbon and Howth--The Historical Society--Irish

politics--Butt and Parnell--The beginnings of obstruction--An unguarded

speech--Irish education--The Eastern question--Correspondence with

Sir Charles Dilke--The County Government Bill--The Irish Famine

Fund--Ministerial embarrassments--Lord Beaconsfield’s letter to the

Duke of Marlborough--The General Election of 1880--Mr. Gladstone’s

triumph.....58

CHAPTER III

1880-1883

THE FOURTH PARTY

Position of parties--Tory depression--Bradlaugh--The origin of

the Fourth Party--The four friends--The Employers’ Liability

Bill--Fourth Party tactics--Differences with leaders--Sir Stafford

Northcote--Activities of the Fourth Party--The Fourth Party and

Lord Beaconsfield--Lord Salisbury at Woodstock--Correspondence with

Wolff--Joyous days.....119

CHAPTER IV

1881-1882

IRELAND UNDER STORM PAGE Outbreak of the storm--The Parnell

movement--Irish speeches--The Compensation for Disturbance Bill--The

winter of 1880--The Land League--The revolt of the Boers--Coercion--Mr.

Forster’s misfortunes--The Kilmainham Treaty--The Closure--Lord

Beaconsfield gone.....172

CHAPTER V

1883

ELIJAH’S MANTLE

The war in Egypt--The Conservative leaders--Minor tactics in the House

of Commons--Correspondence with Sir Stafford Northcote--The Beaconsfield

statue--Lord Randolph’s letter to the Times--Party displeasure--Elijah’s

mantle--The Affirmation Bill--The Primrose League--An Ishmaelite at

bay--His father’s death--An interlude.....224

CHAPTER VI

1882-1885

TORY DEMOCRACY

A period of crisis--Conditions in the House of Commons--Conservative

paralysis--The new champion--Power and popularity of Lord Randolph

Churchill--The Tory Democrat--A ‘Trilogy’ at Edinburgh--The

Blackpool speech--The Birmingham candidature--‘Peace, Retrenchment

and Reform’--Tory democracy and Fair Trade--Tory democracy and the

Constitution--The Church of England--The main achievement.....268

CHAPTER VII

1883-1884

THE PARTY MACHINE

A daring enterprise--The Fourth Party: final phase--The National

Union and the Central Committee--The conference at Birmingham--The

proceedings of the new council--Dispute with Lord Salisbury--Lord

Randolph elected chairman--The ‘charter’ letter--‘Notice to quit’--A

declaration of war--Close fighting--Lord Randolph resigns--Satisfaction

in the House of Commons--Dismay in the Conservative party--Intervention

of the provincial leaders--Lord Randolph reinstated--Progress of the

conflict.....302

CHAPTER VIII

1884

THE REFORM BILL

Embarrassments of the Ministry--‘Too late!’--The advent of the

Reform Bill--Divisions in the Conservative party--Lord Randolph and

reform--The ‘mud cabin’ argument--Power of Lord Randolph Churchill

in the House of Commons--The second vote of censure--The Reform Bill

in the Lords--Conflict between the two Houses--The conference of

the National Union at Sheffield--Lord Randolph’s victory--Agreement

with Lord Salisbury--The autumn campaign--Aston riots--The Aston

debate--Correspondence with Chamberlain--Differences with Gorst--An

Indian voyage.....332

CHAPTER IX

1885

THE FALL OF THE GOVERNMENT

1885-1785: a comparison--Increasing weakness and perplexities of the

Ministry--Lord Randolph returns--His authority over the Conservative

party--Penjdeh and the Vote of Credit--Correspondence with Lord

Salisbury--Lord Randolph’s attacks upon Mr. Gladstone and Lord

Granville--The Crimes Act--A mortal blow--Strange constitutional

situation--Relations with the Irish party--Defeat of the

Government--A threefold crisis--Formation of Lord Salisbury’s First

Administration--Lord Randolph refuses to join--The _Interregnum_--Lord

Randolph’s own account of these transactions--Appeals of various

kinds--At the Inns of Court--A Parliamentary incident--Sir Stafford

retires--Euthanasia of the Fourth party--_Moriturus te saluto_.....375

CHAPTER X

1885

THE ‘MINISTRY OF CARETAKERS’

Lord Salisbury’s difficulties--The last of the Woodstock elections--The

new ministry--A truce at Westminster--A legislative feat--‘Maamtrasna’

and its consequences--Lord Carnarvon’s opinions--The ‘empty house’

meeting--The Prime Minister’s reticence--The Conservative Cabinet and

Home Rule--The election campaign--General confusion--The ‘unauthorised

programme’--Parnell’s demand--The lines of battle--Lord Randolph’s

exertions and activities--A visit to Dublin--‘Come over and help

us’--Dispute with Lord Hartington--The ‘boa-constrictor’ speech--The

contest in Birmingham--Popularity of the Conservative Government--The

poll--Victories of Tory Democracy in the boroughs--The loss of the

counties--The Birmingham Election--‘Low water-mark’.....423

CHAPTER XI

1885

AT THE INDIA OFFICE

A serener sphere--The Council of India--Lord Randolph in office--Railway

development in India--Mr. Moore--The Russian crisis--The Afghan

boundary--Correspondence with the Queen--Increase of the British and

Native Armies in India--Appointment of Sir Frederick Roberts--The

Indian Budget in the House of Commons--Lord Randolph and Lord

Salisbury as letter-writers--The Bombay command--Resignation of Lord

Randolph Churchill--Correspondence--Lord Salisbury yields--Settlement

of the dispute--Conquest and annexation of Burma--The New Year’s

Proclamation.....474

APPENDICES

I. THREE ELECTION ADDRESSES, 1874, 1880, 1885.....527

II. FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO THE NATIONAL UNION OF

CONSERVATIVE ASSOCIATIONS.....537

III. LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL’S EXPLANATION OF HIS ACTION IN REGARD TO

THE REFORM BILL, 1884.....550

IV. LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL’S LETTERS FROM INDIA, 1885.....554

ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE FIRST VOLUME

.....TO FACE PAGE

1. Lord Randolph Churchill, 1886 (Photogravure).....Frontispiece

2. LORD RANDOLPH AT ETON AND AT OXFORD (_Photogravure_).....12

3. {LORD RANDOLPH AND HIS FATHER} (_Photogravure_) {LORD RANDOLPH AND

HIS MOTHER}.....28

4. LADY RANDOLPH CHURCHILL (_Photogravure_).....72

5. MEMBER FOR WOODSTOCK (_Photogravure_).....108

6. THE FOURTH PARTY (’_Vanity Fair_’), by Leslie Ward.....

7. ATHWART THE COURSE (_Cartoon from ‘Punch’_).....232

8. A DREAM OF THE FUTURE (_Cartoon from ‘Punch’_).....252

9. THE FIRST DIPLOMA OF THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE (_facsimile_).....260

10. THE WAITS (_Cartoon from ‘Punch’_).....472

‘Heard are the voices,

Heard are the sages,

The worlds and the ages;

“Choose well; your choice is

Brief and yet endless.

Here eyes do regard you,

In Eternity’s stillness:

Here is all fulness,

Ye brave, to reward you;

Work and despair not.”’

--_Goethe._

CHAPTER I

EARLY YEARS

The cumulative labours of Vanbrugh and ‘Capability’ Brown have succeeded

at Blenheim in setting an Italian palace in an English park without

apparent incongruity. The combination of these different ideas, each

singly attractive, produces a remarkable effect. The palace is severe in

its symmetry and completeness. Nothing has been added to the original

plan; nothing has been taken away. The approaches are formal; the wings

are balanced; four equal towers maintain its corners; and the fantastic

ornaments of one side are elaborately matched on the other. Natural

simplicity and even confusion are, on the contrary, the characteristic

of the park and gardens. Instead of that arrangement of gravel paths, of

geometrical flower-beds, and of yews disciplined with grotesque

exactness which the character of the house would seem to suggest, there

spreads a rich and varied landscape. Green lawns and shining water,

banks of laurel and fern, groves of oak and cedar, fountains and

islands, are conjoined in artful disarray to offer on every side a

promise of rest and shade. And yet there is no violent contrast, no

abrupt dividing-line between the wildness and freshness of the garden

and the pomp of the architecture.

The whole region is as rich in history as in charm; for the antiquity of

Woodstock is not measured by a thousand years, and Blenheim is heir to

all the memories of Woodstock. Here Kings--Saxon, Norman, and

Plantagenet--have held their Courts. Ethelred the Unready, Alfred the

Great, Queen Eleanor, the Black Prince, loom in vague majesty out of the

past. Woodstock was notable before the Norman Conquest. It was already a

borough when the Domesday Book was being compiled. The park was walled

to keep the foreign wild beasts of Henry I. Fair Rosamond’s Well still

bubbles by the lake. From the gatehouse of the old manor the imprisoned

Princess Elizabeth watched the years of Mary’s persecution. In the

tumults of the Civil Wars Woodstock House was held for King Charles by

an intrepid officer through a long and bitter siege and ravaged by the

victorious Roundheads at its close. And beyond the most distant of these

events, in the dim backward of time, the Roman generals administering

the districts east and west of Akeman Street had built their winter

villas in that pleasant, temperate retreat; so that Woodstock and its

neighbourhood were venerable and famous long before John Churchill, in

the early years of the eighteenth century, superimposed upon it the

glory of his victories over the French.

[Sidenote: 1849]

Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill, commonly called Lord Randolph

Churchill, was born in London on February 13, 1849. His father was the

eldest son of the sixth Duke of Marlborough by his first wife, Lady Jane

Stewart, daughter of George, eighth Earl of Galloway. The Marquess of

Blandford, as he then was, had married on July 12, 1843, the Lady

Frances Anne Emily Vane (of whom more hereafter), eldest daughter of the

third Marquess of Londonderry, by whom he had five sons and six

daughters. Of these sons three died in infancy, the elder of the

survivors ultimately succeeded to the title, and the younger is the

subject of this account.

[Sidenote: 1857 ÆT. 8]

In his father’s lifetime Lord Blandford lived at Hensington House, an

unpretentious building outside the circumference of the Blenheim Park

wall and about half a mile from the palace. Here his numerous family

were brought up. Their childhood must have been a very happy one, with

such a fine and ample place for a playground, many dear playmates and

parents who watched over them with unremitting care. The boy grew up

with his brother and sisters, as little boys are wont to do; and when

his father became, in 1857, seventh Duke of Marlborough, they all moved

into the palace at the other end of the great avenue, and this became

for many years their home. Randolph was sent to Mr. Tabor’s school at

Cheam when he was eight years old. This was very young for one who had

so much space and happiness at home; but he seems to have been most

kindly treated and to have been quite content. He did not prove

exceptionally clever at his letters, though he made steady progress at

school. He had an excellent memory, and was fond of reading books of

history, biography, and adventure. But much more pronounced than any

liking for study were his passion for sport and his love of animals. By

the time he was nine years old he rode well, and even at that early age

he showed decision and determination in his ways. In those days the

telegraph was some miles distant from Blenheim and the telegraph boy

used to ride in with his messages upon a ragged, wiry little pony called

‘The Mouse.’ Once he had seen this pony, Lord Randolph wearied his

father and family with requests to buy it and never rested till it was

his own. After the pony was purchased, he trained it and called it his

hunter. The next step was to go hunting.

[Sidenote: 1860 ÆT. 11]

On an autumn afternoon in 1859 he waylaid Colonel Thomas, the tenant of

Woodstock House and an old and valued friend of the family, on his

return from a day with the Heythrop hounds, and, riding up to him,

persuaded him to ask his father’s permission to take him out hunting.

This was the beginning of a friendship between these two which lasted

through life. To the next meet of the Heythrop they accordingly repaired

together. The day was fortunate. Lord Randolph, carried to the front by

‘The Mouse,’ was in at the death in King’s Wood, was presented with

brush or pad, went through the ceremony of being ‘blooded,’ and returned

home in great delight, with glowing cheeks well besmeared with fox’s

blood. From that day he became passionately fond not merely of riding

to hounds but of hunting as an art.

A glimpse of his later days at Cheam has been preserved by a schoolboy

friend who, early in 1860, under the fostering wing of an elder brother,

was entered as the youngest and newest of sixty-two boarders at the

school. ‘Randolph Churchill,’ he writes, ‘was then very near, and before

he left I think he reached, the headship of the school. He and my

brother were “chums,” whereby I was brought into closer touch with him

than otherwise would have been the case. His good-natured and somewhat

magnificent patronage of my shivering novitiate has imprinted on my

memory a few incidents characteristic of his personality. At any rate,

he must have bulked large in my regard, as I have of him a far more

vivid recollection than of any other boy, through the whole six years of

my Cheam schooling.

‘From the nature of the case my recollections are not of the class room.

He was in “the first class,” as the top form was styled; I was in “the

sixth,” or lowest. The general muster in the big schoolroom, or the

recreations of the playground, were the scenes in which I chiefly saw

him; and, of course, whatever of his doings I noticed, are glamoured by

the small boy’s reverence for the big. I cannot “place” him in either

cricket or football; but there are some things with which he is in my

memory so closely associated that I cannot even now see their like

without recalling him in liveliest imagination. Thus I can never see

children playing at “horses” without the instant recollection of the

showy four-in-hand which Randolph Churchill “tooled” round the

playground, or of which he was an interchangeable part. Besides himself

the team and coachman consisted of Curzon, Suirdale (afterwards Lord

Donoughmore), and the two brothers Gordon (one of whom is now Lord

Aberdeen). The harness with which they were caparisoned belonged, I

remember, to the elder Gordon. But in my recollection Randolph Churchill

shares with him pre-eminence in the quintette. There was a large

magnificence about his Cheam days that impressed me with the idea that,

no matter how well another boy might acquit himself, Randolph Churchill

would always “go one better.”

‘He was always ready with some surprise in the Sunday texts and

exercises for which Mr. Tabor assembled us in big school on Sunday

afternoons. I can never open the book of Ecclesiastes without recalling

the breathless astonishment with which I heard him recite, with that

vehemence he always showed in speech, those eight verses which tell us

that “to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose

under the heaven.” For me Churchill achieved a wonder. No boy, and I

should think hardly a man, is likely to have much more than an abstract

and somewhat perfunctory interest in the Thirty-nine Articles. But I can

never glance at the sombre sentences of the Article on Predestination

and Election without the passages ringing with his declamation as he

repeated the whole, _ore rotundo_, without hesitation or the tremor of

an eyelash. At that time there was at Cheam one of those holy and

blameless boys who come sometimes to sanctify the rough brutalities of

schoolboy life. He was Mackworth Dolben, from Finedon, in Northants,

where his memory is still kept green. He used once a week to assemble in

his cubicle a few of us, with whom he would read the Bible and pray. He

had enrolled my brother in the _coterie_, and through my brother,

myself. Churchill was one of the little band; and I can see him now,

kneeling down by the bed, with his face in his hands resting on the

white coverlet, leading us in fervent prayer.

‘I have alluded to his vehemence of speech; but I should be wrong if I

were thought to mean violence of language. He always at that time spoke

open-mouthed, with a full voice and great rapidity of utterance, as if

his thoughts came faster than his words could follow; the impression

conveyed being that he was determined to overbear all opposition and

gain the mastery of argument.

[Sidenote: 1863 ÆT. 14]

‘Once when I had disfigured an Ovid which I had borrowed from my

brother, who came to reproach me in the playground, it was Churchill who

convinced me of the enormity of my offence, and it is his eager and

animated face that lives in my memory of the little scene. There was, I

think, in my boyish mind (I was little more than eight, and I never saw

him after he left Cheam) a distinct, if indefinite, sense of vigour,

fluency, masterfulness, and good-nature in his character. Living, as

boys do, in the present, I am sure that I had no idea of his

after-fame.’

When Lord Randolph was in his fourteenth year he went in due course to

Eton, where he was placed in the form known as ‘Remove,’ and in the

house of the Rev. W. A. Carter. A year later he was moved into Mr.

Frewer’s house, and there continued while at Eton. His career

henceforward was chequered, for he had already developed a will of his

own and a considerable facility in expressing it. I submit to the reader

the first extracts from the many letters which this story will

contain:--

_Lord Randolph to his Mother._

Eton College, Windsor, 1863.

I am very sorry I did not write you before, but I wrote one letter

to you and I cannot find it anywhere, and I have not had a bit of

time since, for I had to bring a hundred lines every day to Mr.----

for cutting my name on the new table in the new schools. Mr.---- is

such a horrid man; I had one or two punishments for him yesterday

and I put them in his pupil room and somebody must have taken them

away for he said he never saw them. He has been rude too; he called

me a ‘little blackguard’ the other day just because I was sitting

with my legs on the form, and he is always calling the fellows

names. I shall never do any good with him, he is so unjust.

There is smallpox in the barracks and half Eton is being

vaccinated. They offered to perform on me, but I declined. The

Queen came to Windsor from Osborne on Thursday night and rushed off

on Friday morning to Balmoral, which struck me as being rather

eccentric. There has not been much going on here, though they have

had a grand reformation of the rifle corps. They made everybody

re-enlist and they had to take a sort of oath and sign their names

to a lot of nonsense.

And another:--

_To his Father._

Eton College: March 11, 1863.

It was not my fault that my letter did not reach you before, for I

gave it to the servant the same day to post, and she forgot all

about it. I have written to you about the reception on Saturday; I

will now tell you about the fireworks on Monday and the wedding

yesterday.

On Monday night we were all ordered to be present in the

school-yard at nine o’clock. When we were all there we formed fours

and marched up Windsor with a large body of police before us (which

rather spoilt the fun) to clear the way. Then we got into the Home

Park by the South Western Station, just under the windows of the

State Rooms, and there we stood all the time the fireworks were

going on. I luckily had the forethought to take my great-coat, or

else I do not believe I should have got home, it was so dreadfully

cold. The fireworks were very pretty, only there was such an awful

lot of rockets and too few catherine-wheels and all that sort of

fun.

The Princess Alexandra having never seen fireworks before, they

were on Monday night instead of on Tuesday night, because she

wanted to see them. We did not get home till nearly twelve o’clock.

There was no illumination that night. Yesterday morning was a whole

holiday without any early school or chapel. We were all mustered in

the school-yard about eleven o’clock, and then marched up Windsor

into the Castle by Henry the VIIIth’s gate. There we had to stand

for a tremendous time without anything coming. (It luckily was fine

and not very cold.) At last the first procession came; it was the

King of Denmark and all those people. We had a beautiful view of

all the people. Then we had to wait about a quarter of an hour,

and then came the Princess Royal. She was sitting on our side, and

she bowed away as hard as she could go. (I think her neck must have

been stiff.) And then came the Prince; he looked extremely

gracious. I never saw him put his hat on, and he held it about an

inch from his head, and kept bowing, always in the same place. And

last of all came the Princess. And then there was such a row, in

spite of the Queen’s express commands that there was to be no

cheering. I never heard such an awful noise in all my life. I

think, if the Queen heard it, she must have had a headache for a

long time afterwards. We were not allowed to go into the chapel, or

into the courtyard by the chapel. A whole lot of us charged the

policemen and soldiers to get in, but it was no use; they managed

to keep us back that time. But we had our revenge afterwards. After

they had come back we went back into college. Then at three o’clock

we all came to see the Princess go away. She did not come till

about a quarter past four in the afternoon--the Prince and Princess

in an open carriage; and then came the squashing. We all rushed

after the carriage. (I was right in the front of the charge; it was

a second Balaclava.) Nothing stood before us; the policemen charged

in a body, but they were knocked down. There was a chain put across

the road, but we broke that; several old _genteel_ ladies tried to

stop me, but I snapped my fingers in their face and cried ‘Hurrah!’

and ‘What larks!’ I frightened some of them horribly. There was a

wooden palisade put up at the station (it was the Great Western),

but we broke it down; and there, to my unspeakable grief, I was

bereaved of a portion of my clothing, viz. my hat. Somebody knocked

it off. I could not stop to pick it up, I shrieked out a convulsive

‘Oh, my hat!’ and was then borne on. I got right down to the door

of the carriage where the Prince of Wales was, wildly shouting

‘Hurrah!’ He bowed to me, I am perfectly certain; but I shrieked

louder. I am sure, if the Princess did not possess very strong

nerves, she would have been frightened; but all she did was to

smile blandly. At last the train moved off while the band played

‘God save the Queen.’ I am sure I wonder there were no accidents,

we were all so close to the carriage. There I was, left in the

station, ‘hatless.’ I met Lord Churchill there, who told me Lady

Churchill was in waiting. I was introduced to lots of soldiers by

one of the masters who caught me. And then I began to search for my

hat; but it was in vain, for I never saw it again. I was told to

get another one, for I had no other to wear. At last I got home,

and in the evening we went out again to see the illumination. There

was not much to see. I think I have given you a full account of the

wedding and the reception.

Believe me ever to remain

Your affectionate son,

RANDOLPH CHURCHILL.

P.S.--My holidays begin on the 27th of March.

The letters which Lord Randolph received from his father during these

Eton years were affectionate and pleasant, and were evidently intended

to exert a considerable influence upon his education. Besides ordinary

family news and the accounts of sport, of partridges and pheasants, of

the health of dogs and ponies, of the exertions of the Heythrop

hounds--always industrious, and sometimes successful--there was

generally allusion to some more serious or public event, a political

opinion, an account of an election at Woodstock, or a few sentences

about Mr. Disraeli. Often the Duke would take pains to impart a lesson

in conduct under the guise of information. ‘Your aunt,’ wrote this

devout, yet not intolerant, man, ‘who is with us now is most unhappy;

for I fear she is a Roman Catholic at heart, and does not like to say

so. If this be true, it would be much better for her to declare her

mind; and then, of course, however we might be grieved, the matter

would never be alluded to in conversation.’ He encouraged his son always

to confide in him; nothing mattered so much as what could not be told;

and when it was necessary, as it often was, to reprove some schoolboy

misdemeanour--pert speeches to masters, an overbearing manner, the

unwarranted fagging of small companions, or the breaking of other

people’s windows--he never founded his rebukes upon authority; but

always upon reason, arguing the matter quite fairly with his son,

pointing out to him the consequences of his actions, and appealing to

his good sense, his self-respect, and the love and honour in which he

held his parents. The care and patience thus displayed were not

unrepaid, and both Lord Randolph and his elder brother, throughout lives

strongly marked by an attitude of challenge towards men and things,

preserved at all times an old-world reverence for their father.

Considering that mischief and a disposition to argue were the gravest

crimes imputed to the boy, the paternal rebukes were frequently rather

severe. They followed, if I may judge by old letters, a regular course.

First, on receiving the bad report, the father would, with much

deliberation, ask his son what he had to say in defence or in excuse.

Lord Randolph would reply with a long, carefully-written letter of

justification, defending himself with freedom and ingenuity. Next the

Duke, now duly in possession of both sides of the case, would take up

his largest pen and deliver majestic censure. ‘To tell you the truth,’

he wrote on one occasion, ‘I fear that you yourself are very impatient

and resentful of any control; and while you stand upon some fancied

right or injury, you fail to perceive what is your _duty_, and allow

both your language and manner a most improper scope.’ The third stage of

these estrangements would be a frank letter of submission and promises

for future improvement, after which complete forgiveness and the return

of sunshine.

[Illustration: _Eton_ _Oxford_]

These are simple chronicles, and I have tried, so far as possible, to

use the actual words in which they have come to me; but it is well to

notice how early a strong, masterful character develops. How much can

parents really do? One would think that the future lay in their hands.

They are at the beginning supreme. They control with authority, from

which there is no appeal, all early impressions and actions and every

avenue of experience. It would not be strange if they could shape and

mould the child according to their fancies. Is it not, on the contrary,

wonderful how comparatively powerless they so often are? The tiny child,

scarcely out of the cradle, asserts his personality. This schoolboy,

pausing unembarrassed on the threshold of life, has made up his mind

already. Nothing will change him much. Lord Randolph’s letters as a boy

are his letters as a man. The same vigour of expression; the same

simple, yet direct, language; the same odd, penetrating flashes; the

same coolly independent judgments about people and laws, and readiness

to criticise both as if it were a right; the same vein of humour and

freedom from all affectation; the same knack of giving nicknames, which

often stuck and sometimes stung--all are there. His mind, indeed, gained

knowledge and experience from instruction; but his essential character,

changing hardly at all by contact with the world, unfolded with

remorseless and unalterable persistency, as every seed brings forth in

its proper season its own peculiar flower.

‘He had,’ wrote his mother a few months before her death, ‘a wonderful

faculty for making firm friends, who remained through life devoted to

him. He was very constant and decided in his attachments, and

outspoken--often imprudently--in his likes or dislikes. He was always

pertinacious in his opinions. He never wavered in his plans, and,

whether right or wrong, he carried them out. This enabled him to succeed

in life, but also often brought him into trouble.... When I look back in

sadness to his youth, and remember his ready wit, his warm affection,

his bright spirits, and his energy in carrying out any undertaking, I

feel how great was the want of foresight and intellect on my part in his

training and management; for one of his most endearing qualities was

extraordinary affection for his father and me, and his constant interest

and pride in his family from his earliest days.... Alas!’ she wrote in

unmerited self-reproach, ‘had I been a clever woman, I must have had

more ability to curb and control his impulses, and I should have taught

him patience and moderation. Yet at times he had extraordinary good

judgment, and it was only on rare occasions that he took the bit between

his teeth, and then there was no stopping him.’

Lord Randolph himself seems to have dreamed no dreams at Eton. He lived,

with his faithful bull-dog, entirely in the present, obeying with

spontaneity the varied impulses of a boisterous yet amiable nature. ‘He

was,’ we are told, ‘an easy lower boy to catch, for his whereabouts

could be ascertained by his incessant peals of laughter. There was not a

boy in the school who laughed so much or whose laughter was so

contagious. There was scarcely one who was so frolicsome. His preferred

method of descending a staircase was to skate down it with a rush; and

if he had to enter the room of another lower boy, he would sooner bound

against the door and force it open with his shoulder than go through the

stale formality of turning the handle.’[1] He is furthermore described

as ‘very fond of collisions with “cads”’ when there was any event

drawing crowds at Eton or Windsor; but ‘he would single out antagonists

much older or bigger than himself.’

Two other fleeting impressions have been preserved.[2] ‘I can just

remember young Churchill,’ writes a well-known Eton authority, ‘as a

striking, whimsical personality, with full, large, round, astonished

eyes and a determined bull-dog type of face. He was addicted to dressing

loudly, and I vividly recollect his appearance one day in a daring

violet-coloured waistcoat. Botham’s Hotel was in those days a favourite

resort for Etonians, in the way of succession to Coningsby’s

“Christopher,” where the friends entertained each other at sumptuous

breakfasts and luncheons. A special feature of this hostelry, as well as

a powerful attraction to the younger boys, was a spacious fruit-garden,

celebrated for the size and flavour of its strawberries. During a

certain summer this Elysian enclosure was so pillaged as to cause the

proprietor to complain to the headmaster, Mr. Balston. As a consequence

Mr. Austen Leigh was despatched to watch, and, if possible, to catch the

offenders _in flagrante delicto_. That representative of the highest

Eton authority very soon flushed a large covey of juvenile depredators.

All of them, however, got away, except Randolph Churchill, who jumped as

far as he could towards the road with his pursuer close upon him. They

both fell together into the ditch, Mr. Austen Leigh uppermost. Lord

Randolph, seeing that any further attempt at escape would be useless,

crawled out, much scratched and bruised, into the middle of the road,

where, incensed at his own discomfiture, he deliberately sat down,

crossed his legs, glared at Mr. Leigh, and with all the vehemence of

enraged fourteen, exclaimed, “You beast!” How he escaped the birch after

this adventure tradition does not relate.’

‘I can recall him at Eton,’ wrote ‘J. S.’ in the _Realm_ of March 1895,

‘but only for one amazing moment. It was a summer evening, just before

“lock-up,” and the whole wall, the little old wall so fitted for the

height of small boys, which separates the public road from the borders

of Upper School, was thronged with youths, resting after the labours of

the day. Even they felt the charm of the stillness. There was no

drumming of heels on the wall, only chatter and occasional laughter. On

the other side of the road, gathered at the top of Keate’s Lane, where

in those days was an iron bar for the “seat of the scornful,” were the

“Swells.” Between these awe-inspiring _aristoi_ and us urchins

indiscriminate on the wall lay the empty road. Down the middle of that

road alone, ringing discordant music from a Volunteer’s bugle, marched a

boy in jackets. It was Churchill, wending homeward to Frewer’s. As I

recall the “Swells” of that time, this progress of a boy in jackets, on

his right a long line of his fellows, on his left, for one awful minute,

that sublime group at the corner, I feel once more the breathless wonder

at audacity so magnificent.’

I cannot set down with exactness the time when Lord Randolph’s parents

began to realise that their son possessed and was, underneath an

exuberance of animal spirits, developing character and qualities of an

unusual order; but, at any rate, before he left Eton they had begun to

hope that some considerable career lay before him. Henceforth they

neglected nothing that might stimulate his interest or his ambition. A

degree at Oxford in history and law, suitable and extended tours on the

Continent, frequent contact with men of affairs, seemed the most obvious

steps which were first required in preparation for political life. And

meanwhile the family borough of Woodstock was watched by the Duke with a

jealous and reflective eye. Its representation had lately caused him for

various reasons many heart-burnings.

Woodstock possessed a Parliamentary history of such curious distinction

that perhaps no other seat in England could rival the interest of its

chequered fortunes. From the earliest beginnings of popular

representation to the Reform Bill of 1832, it had returned, with some

intermission, two members to the House of Commons; and among these

William Lenthall, the famous Speaker, was its representative in the Long

Parliament; William Eden, afterwards the first Lord Auckland and

Governor-General of India, sat for it in the Parliament of 1774; Charles

Abbot, also Speaker, in 1802; Sir John Gladstone, father of the famous

Prime Minister, in 1820; and the great philanthropist, better known as

the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, from 1826 to 1830. Down to the time of

Queen Anne the members for Woodstock had most often been drawn from the

old families of the neighbourhood; but after the delivery of the Manor

of New Woodstock to John, first Duke of Marlborough, and the building of

Blenheim, the seat practically became the property of the Churchills and

its representatives were uniformly the nominees of the reigning Duke.

This dominion, though always maintained, was not seldom challenged; and

the bitter and unscrupulous contests which were fought when some Indian

nabob or other wealthy champion made an effort to wrest the borough from

the great local influences under whose shadow it reposed were an almost

incredible source of profit to the electors.

In April 1844 Lord Randolph’s father, then Marquess of Blandford, was

elected member. Although always a staunch Conservative, he immediately

developed progressive tendencies in social and economic questions and

became a steady supporter of Free Trade measures. This speedily brought

him into collision with the Duke, whose interest in the Corn Laws was by

no means theoretical; and since he remained altogether unyielding, he

was forced in April 1845 to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds and to

retire from Parliament. The vacancy was filled (May 1) by Viscount

Loftus, a trusty Protectionist; and on his becoming Marquess of Ely, in

December, Lord Alfred Churchill was brought forward without opposition

in his stead. The question of the Corn Laws having been swept into the

past by the decisions of Parliament in 1846, domestic differences were

once more composed, and at the General Election of 1847 Lord Blandford

was again elected, and continued to sit for the borough at the General

Elections of July 1852 and March 1857, until in July 1857 he succeeded

as seventh Duke of Marlborough.

[Sidenote: 1867 ÆT. 18]

Lord Alfred Churchill, his brother, now became again the member for

Woodstock. For two years all had been smooth and satisfactory; but after

the General Election of 1859, and during the year 1860, Lord Alfred

began to manifest an increasing sympathy with the Whigs and Liberals,

and finally became ranged with the supporters of Lord Palmerston. His

vote in favour of Mr. Gladstone’s famous Budget of 1860 was the first

definite step and it instantly drew a strong protest from the Duke, who

seems to have been less an admirer--after succeeding to great position

and estate--both of political independence and of Free Trade measures.

Lord Alfred explained that he considered his vote perfectly consistent

with his character as a Conservative. ‘I really should like to know,’

replied his brother severely, ‘by what change of terms a measure can be

called “Conservative” which substitutes direct for indirect taxation,

which has been prepared by Mr. Cobden, proposed by Mr. Gladstone, and is

the avowed policy of a Liberal Government.’ The correspondence was not

on either side so couched as to repair the differences which had opened

between the brothers, and Lord Alfred’s subsequent conduct produced a

complete estrangement. The Duke, a stalwart Churchman, had long been

warmly interested in the question of Church Rates. They were to him a

pet and special subject and he had publicly expressed on various

occasions a high Tory view. Lord Alfred now began to give Church Rates

his careful attention, and, as the result of his studies, he proceeded

to introduce into the House of Commons a Bill dealing with the whole

subject in an extremely Liberal--not to say Radical--spirit. He

expounded his plan with elaboration in a letter and forwarded it with

his Bill to his brother as a suggested ‘compromise’ greatly to be

desired in the public interest. This was decisive. The Duke replied that

he understood an affront was intended, and that he hoped, whatever line

of politics Lord Alfred might pursue in the future, he would not

consider it necessary to consult him upon it. Through the medium of

various persons it was presently arranged that, as no one could force

Lord Alfred to retire, he should be free to act as he pleased till the

General Election; and that at the election, as the Duke would once more

be the master of the situation, another candidate should be brought

forward. There the matter rested, to the extreme dissatisfaction of both

parties. So embittered were the relations between the brothers that,

when the departing Lord Alfred was entertained by his constituents in

Woodstock in 1864, the Duke would not attend the dinner, but sent Lord

Randolph in his place; and this schoolboy of fifteen, with impressive

gravity and unfaltering utterance, delivered--or, rather, recited--the

necessary speeches, and so made, under rather a lowering sky, his first

embarkation upon the uncertain waters of party politics.

In 1867 Lord Randolph left Eton in order to obtain some education from a

private tutor before going to Oxford. In spite of these precautions his

first attempt to pass the entrance examination was unsuccessful; and it

was arranged that he should work for six months under the care of an

accomplished clergyman, the Rev. Lionel Dawson Damer, who lived at

Cheddington, near Aylesbury.

_Lord Randolph to his Father._

Cheddington: March, 1867.

I wrote to you in my last that we did not intend to go to Oxford,

but we changed our minds and went yesterday. It was a horrid day,

snowing and blowing from the East, and dreadfully cold. As we were

getting into the train we met Mr.---- to whom you offered the

living at Waddesdon. He seemed really a charming man, so very

gentlemanlike and quiet. I am sure you would like him very much. He

tells me he had at first declined the living, but now, having seen

it, he thought that if certain things were done he would accept it,

if you had not offered it to anyone else already. He wants to get

back into this neighbourhood, and really I should think he would be

a capital person from all Mr. Damer says, and from what I saw. I

asked Mr. Damer to go and call upon Dr. Scott. I thought he might

find out something about me. Dr. Scott told him a different story

from what he told you. He said that my papers as a whole gave the

Dons the idea that I made tremendous guesses at everything, and

that they thought they could not on that let me in. He said nothing

about the essay at all. I do not think he is much to be relied on.

We also called upon Dr. Marsham. He was very civil and seemed to be

pleased at our calling. He was very glad he said at your taking

office, and said he would be able to offer me rooms in October, so

I think we did no harm by calling, but that he thought it very

civil. I only saw Dalmeny and Donoughmore, everyone else was out.

I think General Peel’s speech very clear and intelligible. I

suppose he will be a much greater loss than Lord Carnarvon or Lord

Cranborne. How very troublesome the Fenians are! I suppose you have

complete information now about it all. I am afraid the Whigs are

getting very disagreeable, but I hope their machinations will not

succeed. I think Dizzy gave it to Gladstone well.

I am going out with the Harriers to-morrow.

_Lord Randolph to his Father._

Cheddington: March, 1867.

I must say I think it very kind of Dr. Marsham letting us know so

soon that he can give me a room, for he said nothing about a chance

vacancy, so that I expect he has made some other arrangement.

I cannot tell you how delighted I was when you wrote and told me

that you had accepted the office of Lord President of the Council.

I think it is just the office that you would like best. Do you know

who is to be Lord Steward? Do you at all expect a split in the

Cabinet? I do hope you will be able to do something now, as it

seems perhaps that the Conservatives have been placed in rather a

humiliating position. I am so glad you are in the Cabinet; but Mr.

Damer and I look forward to a change in the Cabinet policy.

There has been very little to do here. I assisted Mr. Damer at some

penny readings the other night in the school here, as he had been

thrown over by a clergyman he had asked to come and read. I read

‘Reminiscences of Margot’ and the ‘Ingoldsby Legends.’ They were

very much applauded. Mr. Damer and I have got a charming plan, I

think you will approve of it. He says that after the 20th of June,

which is the Choral Festival at Aylesbury of which he has the

management, he will be quite free, and we thought we might make a

very pleasant trip abroad for two months, beginning about July to

the end of August, if you did not mind. I should have passed the

examination for Merton and just come back in time for the October

term. Mr. Damer says he would like it very much. But should you

mind?

Do you think you would be able to run down here some Saturday

afternoon and stay Sunday? I am afraid you will have a tremendous

lot to do now. I wish I could be your Secretary.

[Sidenote: 1868 ÆT. 19]

The Continental tour commended itself to the Duke, and Lord Randolph was

allowed to roam through Switzerland and Italy at his pleasure for two or

three months. On his return he matriculated and took up his residence at

Merton, under the tutelage of Dr. Creighton, afterwards Bishop of

London. It must have been with relief and satisfaction that he exchanged

the rough bigotry of school life for the free and generous atmosphere of

a famous University. At Eton he had gained neither distinction in games

nor profit from studies. He had learned to row and swim, without

aspiring to renown; and as for cricket and football, he heartily

detested them both. But Oxford opened opportunities of all kinds. Its

proximity to Blenheim enabled him to live practically at home. The happy

companionship of his family and the sporting possibilities of a landed

estate were both within easy and constant reach. His nature responded to

the glory and romance of Oxford; and in its cloistered courts, so rich

in youth and history, he found a scheme of life more varied, tolerant,

and real than any he had ever known.

Meanwhile Lord Randolph had long outgrown ‘The Mouse’; and even while an

Eton boy, upon a new and quickly distinguished animal called ‘Pillbox,’

with occasional mounts from his elder sisters, he had begun in his

holidays to acquire some glory in the Oxfordshire fields. He is

described at sixteen as ‘a very bold and good horseman, who also took

the greatest interest in the hunting.’ Aided as he was by the light

weight of youth and his native knowledge of the country, few in the hunt

could beat him. His love of the art of venery grew into worship. At

fifteen the ownership of two beagles, the gift of his father,

transported him with delight. They proved the humble forerunners of a

pack which is not yet forgotten in Oxfordshire. Within the next two

years he became possessed of ‘two or three hounds, kept in some pigsties

at the back of the gardens, under the care of a somewhat ragged and

disreputable “Boy Jim,” whom he called his “whipper-in,”’ and of an old

retired keeper--one of the Duke’s pensioners--who, with his wife,

discharged the duties of ‘feeder.’ But it was not till he went to

Merton, in the autumn of 1867, that he aspired to a higher state and

created, in all the serious purpose of nine couple of hounds and the

pomp of ‘a whip well mounted and in livery,’ the celebrated ‘Blenheim

Harriers.’ September 21, 1867, is the first entry in his hunting-book,

thenceforward kept with the utmost regularity throughout the three years

of his Oxford life.

+----------+--------+-------+--------------+---------+-------------+

|Date |Horses |Hounds |Weather |Meet |Hares Killed |

+----------+--------+-------+--------------+---------+-------------+

|Sept. 21, |Lady Di |7½ |Cloudy, |Bladon | 1 |

|1867 | |couple |rain overhead |toll-bar | |

+----------+--------+-------+--------------+---------+-------------+

‘_Remarks._

‘First time of taking out the hounds--rather wild and did not run

together.... Found in Margett’s grass field, and ran a ring with a

bad scent. Jumped up in the middle of the pack, and ran a straight

line across the Hensington Road and Taylor’s Farm, where three of

the hounds, getting away quietly (Resolute, Blameless, and

Careful), ran into her. Others got wrong. Cheerful not up at the

death. Did not find again, but went home at once. Fencer and

Blue-cap lame next day. Ground very hard. Scent very bad.--R. H. S.

C.’

And so on through many pages of neat, compact handwriting, with which,

since these episodes are more diverting in the enterprise than in the

chronicle, the reader need not be concerned. The reputation, the

popularity, and the fields of the Blenheim Harriers grew steadily. ‘I

became,’ wrote Colonel Thomas, ‘very proud of the way in which he hunted

his own hounds, as I never knew a more patient persevering Huntsman,

with great determination, self-confidence, and quickness in taking any

advantage that might occur.’ ‘Killed altogether last season,’ writes

Lord Randolph contentfully at the end of February 1868, ‘twenty-nine

brace of hares and one fox. Season commencing September 8, 1868.’

The harriers required attention in the summer, and the eye of the Master

was never long astray. The pack steadily improved in numbers and

quality. Some were bred at the Blenheim kennels, others were purchased.

One hound he bought from Lord Granville, who sent an amusing letter with

him, explaining that he was called ‘Radical.’ Lord Randolph’s

correspondence at this time seems to have been chiefly concerned with

these important matters. Here is a specimen letter:--

_Lord Randolph Churchill to Mr. Blake, one of

his father’s tenants._

_Gloster Hotel, Cowes, Isle of Wight._

Dear Sir,--You were kind enough in the spring to say that if you

could overcome Mrs. Blake’s objections you would bring up a puppy

for me. I have a very promising litter now by Dexter out of Crazy,

that are quite old enough to go out ‘to walk,’ and should be so

very much obliged to you if you would take care of one for me. I

have altogether seven couple of puppies, and shall have great

difficulty in finding walks for all of them. If you will let Mr.

Napier know you will take one, he will send you one, and by doing

so you will greatly oblige

Yours faithfully,

RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

Lord Randolph soon became one of the best-known and best-liked figures

in the county. He was tactful and considerate to the farmers, whose

hospitality he enjoyed, and courteous and composed with his field. Many

are the stories of merry lunches at farmhouses, of mournful tumbles into

muddy brooks, of jaunts and jollities and every varied chance or

mischance of the chase over all that pleasant countryside. Whenever the

responsibilities of the harriers permitted and a horse was fresh and

fit, he hunted besides with the Heythrop, the Bicester and other

neighbouring packs.

But the world did not always smile upon him. It is odd how often persons

who in private life, and indeed on all other occasions, are the mildest

and kindest of men, develop, when engaged in equestrian sport, an

unwonted severity and even roughness of manner. Tom Duffield, the Master

of the Old Berkshire Hounds, was, like so many good sportsmen, somewhat

addicted to the use of firmer language in the hunting-field than the

occasion always required. One day, early in the winter of 1868, when

Lord Randolph was nearly twenty years old, he had the misfortune to ride

too close to the Old Berkshire Hounds and to incur the displeasure of

their Master, who rated him in a very violent fashion before the whole

company. Lord Randolph was deeply offended. He went home at once; but,

as he said nothing at the moment, the incident was for a while

forgotten. Towards the end of the season, however, a hunt dinner was

held in Oxford, to which Mr. Duffield and many of the Old Berkshire

field were bidden, and at which Lord Randolph was called upon to propose

the toast of ‘Fox-hunting.’ He described himself as an enthusiast for

all forms of sport. Fox-hunting, he said, in his opinion, ranked first

among field sports; but he was himself very fond of hare-hunting too.

‘So keen am I that, if I cannot get fox-hunting and cannot get

hare-hunting, I like an afternoon with a terrier hunting a rat in a

barn; and if I can’t get that,’ he proceeded, looking round with much

deliberation, ‘rather than dawdle indoors, I’d go out with Tom Duffield

and the Old Berkshire.’ There was a minute of general consternation,

which the orator complacently surveyed. Then the company, overcome by

the audacity of the speaker, burst into laughter, led by Mr. Duffield

himself. The story has become a local classic, and, surviving the worthy

sportsman against whom it was directed, is still preserved among the

farmers from Banbury to Bicester.

[Illustration: _Lord Randolph & his Father_ _Lord Randolph & his

Mother._]

For three successive seasons (1867-1869), with unimportant intervals

occasionally filled by study, Lord Randolph harried the hares of

Blenheim and enjoyed himself hugely. His brother, Lord Blandford, to

whom he was much attached, was serving in the Blues. His sisters were

growing up, and the eldest three were already ‘out.’ He became the

autocrat of the family circle, and, like a wise ruler, took an intense

interest in all that concerned his subjects. What balls they had been

to, whom they had danced with, and all the similar incidents of a girl’s

life were the constant objects of his inquiries; and upon all points he

expressed his approval or disapproval in the clearest possible terms.

Although the Duke might still assert a disciplinary control, there is no

doubt that his younger son was from this time forward increasingly

petted and beloved by his mother and sisters, to whom in return he

showed all the gay and affectionate sides of his nature. ‘He was,’ wrote

his mother, ‘the soul of wit and fun and cheerfulness in those happy

days.’ He made some good friends at Merton--not many in number, but

staunch and true. His Eton acquaintance with Lord Dalmeny (afterwards

Lord Rosebery) ripened at Oxford into a life-long friendship. Dalmeny’s

rooms in the Canterbury quadrangle of Christ Church were within a

stone’s-throw of Merton. The two young men were close companions in the

adventures and vicissitudes of undergraduate life and Lord Randolph used

often to bring his friend over to Blenheim. Here they met on many

occasions Mr. Disraeli, and the great Minister, who loved young people,

would talk and joke with them by the hour together. He seems to have

been delighted with both. His regrets were undisguised when, ten years

later, Lord Rosebery threw himself into the tides of the Midlothian

campaign. ‘I remember,’ wrote the Duchess of Marlborough, ‘that he first

told me (in 1869) that it rested with Randolph to become a distinguished

man. From that time he was ever friendly to him, and he watched with

interest his early efforts in Parliament, and always wrote to

congratulate me when he approved them.’

[Sidenote: 1869 ÆT. 20]

Besides the harriers, Lord Randolph’s greatest amusement at Oxford was

chess; and he soon acquired, for an amateur, more than ordinary skill in

the game. In conjunction with several friends he founded the University

Chess Club; and on the first visit of Mr. Steinitz, the champion

chess-player of the world, he conducted one of the boards at the

blindfold exhibition. Although his play necessarily lacked the strength

derivable from book knowledge and experience, it is described in this,

as in other affairs, as being ‘original, daring, and sometimes

brilliant.’ His game with Mr. Steinitz has been recorded; so that

competent persons may judge of his quality for themselves:--

Game No. 1 (published in the _Chess Players’ Quarterly Chronicle_,

vol. ii., p. 110).

ALLGAIER GAMBIT.

White. Black. | White. Black.

|

Mr. Steinitz. Lord Randolph | Mr. Steinitz. Lord Randolph

(blindfold) Churchill. | Churchill.

|

1. P--K 4 P--K 4 | 18. B × R Kt × B

2. P--K B 4 P × P | 19. R--K sq P--Q Kt 3 [d]

3. Kt--K B 3 P--K Kt 4 | 20. R × P (ch) K--Q sq

4. P--K R 4 P--K Kt 5 | 21. B--Q B 4 B--Q Kt 2

5. Kt--K 5 Q--K 2 [a] | 22. R--Kt 4 Kt--K Kt 3

6. P--Q 4 P--Q 3 | 23. P--R 5 Kt--K 2

7. Kt × Kt P Q × P (ch) | 24. R--K sq Q Kt--Q B 3

8. Q--K 2 P--Q 4 | 25. P--Q 5 Kt--Q Kt 5 [e]

9. Kt--K 5 Kt--K R 3 [b] | 26. P--Q B 6 B--Q B sq

10. Kt--Q B 3 B--Q Kt 5 | 27. R--K Kt 7 Kt--Q B 3

11. Q × Q P × Q | 28. P × Kt Kt × P

12. B × P Kt--K B 4 | 29. B--Q Kt 5 B--Q Kt 2

13. Castles B × Kt | 30. R--Q sq (ch) K--K sq

14. P X B Kt--Q 3 | 31. R × Q B P K--B sq

15. P--Q B 4 [c] P--K B 3 | 32. R--K B sq (ch) K--Kt sq

16. P--Q B 5 P × Kt | 33. B--Q B 4 (ch), and mates in a

17. B × P Kt--K B 2 | few moves.

[a] This was once a common defence to the Allgaier opening, but it seems

to entail the loss of the gambit pawn.

[b] B--R 3 would not have done, for White would then have exchanged

queens, and played B--Q B 4, &c.

[c] This move loses White a piece, but he obtains for it a full

equivalent.

[d] Black should have lost no time here in getting his pieces out; B--K

3, followed by K--Q 2 seems the best play.

[e] Kt--Q R 4 would be, perhaps, better; but in any case he must have

the worst of it.

It is not worth while to dwell on college scrapes, though of these some,

at any rate, have been recorded. Thus we learn that Lord Randolph

Churchill was fined ten shillings for the offence of smoking in his cap

and gown; that he broke the windows of the Randolph hotel; that he was

taken into custody by the police, with the rest of a noisy supper party,

and charged with being drunk; that, infuriated by such an accusation,

which was not sustained in court, he brought an action for perjury

against the police witness; that the college authorities appealed to the

Duke of Marlborough to stop the legal proceedings; that the Duke of

Marlborough replied that, on the contrary, they had his entire

concurrence; that learned counsel were brought by both parties from

London; but that in the end the summons was dismissed and the officer

exonerated of any wilful intention to deceive. We are also told that one

day he was sent for by the Warden to be rebuked for some delinquency. It

was winter, and the interview began with the Warden standing before the

fireplace and the undergraduate in the middle of the room. By the time

the next culprit arrived Lord Randolph was explaining his conduct with

his back to the fire and the Warden was a somewhat embarrassed listener

in a chilly corner. Such are the tales.

Until he was in his twentieth year Lord Randolph’s studies seem to have

been fitful. He had, indeed, enjoyed the ordinary education of an

English gentleman. He had consumed a vast number of hours at Eton and

elsewhere in making those intricate combinations of Latin words and

syllables which are perhaps as useful or as harmless a form of mental

training as youth can receive. He had--in addition to any acquaintance

with classical learning which these exercises may be supposed to impart,

and the wide but discursive reading of history and poetry that his

tastes had prompted--a peculiar, exact, and intimate knowledge (made

effective by an exceptional memory) of the Bible, Gibbon, and

‘Jorrocks.’ From these books--not so ill-assorted as they sound--he

could recite in an extraordinary manner whole pages at a time. In the

strong, simple, homely words and phrases, sonorous sentences, and veins

of rough spontaneous mirth which characterise the style and language of

his rhetoric and writings, the influence of these three varied

fountains, quaintly, yet not incongruously, intermingled, can be plainly

seen.

Although it is much better for the brain, and for the practical purposes

of life, to know and understand one book than to have read a hundred,

such an educational outfit was no title to academic distinction; and

after he had been three years at Merton Lord Randolph determined to work

seriously for an honours degree in history and law. He forthwith

proceeded to put away his ‘toys,’ as he called them; and the Blenheim

Harriers were given up without delay. The county gentlemen and farmers

who had followed their fortunes with pleasure, if not with profit,

determined to mark their appreciation of the pack and its youthful

Master by the customary British ceremony of a dinner. A banquet was

accordingly held at the Bear hotel in Woodstock at which Lord Randolph

was hospitably entertained and generally praised. He replied to the

toast of his health simply and briefly, as one speaking in his own place

to his friends and neighbours.

‘Now that the harriers are gone,’ he said, ‘the future seems rather a

blank. Perchance, in the course of time and events, I may find myself

separated from these scenes of my youth. But you may rest assured that

my Oxfordshire home and my Oxfordshire friends will ever be present and

dear to my mind; and that, in whatever quarter of the world I may find

myself, among whatever people, or pursuing whatever occupation, you,

gentlemen, who have asked me here to dinner this evening, the happy

hours I have spent among you, the fields and pastures of our well-known

and favourite hunting grounds, and, last but not least, the old pack of

harriers, will remain amongst those pleasant and gratifying

recollections of days that are gone by, upon which I shall at all times

delight to dwell.’

After this he began to work in earnest. The time which intervened before

the December examinations was all too short to repair the well-spent

idleness of previous years. It was fortunate that in these busy months

he came under the influence of that good and eminent man Dr. Creighton,

who took the greatest interest in him and aided and encouraged his

exertions by every means. ‘He was always amenable to expostulation, when

wisely administered,’ wrote Bishop Creighton in a letter to Mr. Escott

in 1895, ‘and consulted me with freedom on all matters relating to the

daily conduct of his life. At first he did not read much, having a habit

of going to sleep in his chair after dinner, often for hours, which he

only gradually overcame. But from the first I was interested to see his

growing appreciation of the value of history, especially on its legal

and constitutional side. He would take up a subject and talk about it

till he had reached its bottom. As his interest grew he read more....’

The Bishop proceeds to relate an incident which seems to have impressed

him. ‘My attention was called to his marked ability for practical

politics early in his career. Soon after he came to Merton he deemed it

his duty to write a letter in defence of his father, who had been

attacked on some question of Woodstock politics. Before sending the note

he brought it to me. I was greatly impressed by its dignity and its

dexterity--the former as the composition of a son about his father, the

latter in the administration of a reproof without leaving a loophole of

escape.’ Dr. Creighton advised him not to enter into political

controversy at his time of life. Lord Randolph’s answer was: ‘I have

thought it over, and decided that point for myself. What I came to ask

you was if you saw anything in the letter which you thought unbecoming.’

On this Dr. Creighton admitted, ‘If you are going to send a letter at

all, you could not send a better one.’

‘That incident gave me,’ writes the Bishop, ‘a real insight into

Churchill’s character, and showed me his capacity for practical

politics. He made up his own mind; having well reflected, he chose his

ground of attack, and then took every pains about the form of

expression. He sought no advice about what he was going to do, but was

anxious to do it “as well as possible.”’

[Sidenote: 1870 ÆT. 21]

_Dr. Creighton to the Duchess of Marlborough._

November 14, 1870.

I only wish that greater numbers took the same interest that you

and the Duke do in your son’s proceedings at Oxford, and then its

results might be greater than they are.

As regards Lord Randolph, I still think that he is wise in going in

for examination now rather than in the summer. It is, of course,

always difficult to predict the result of an examination; but I

think that it would be very improbable, so far as my experience

goes, that he should get any lower class than a second: some of his

subjects he knows remarkably well--quite up to the standard of a

first class--others he is not so much interested in. At present he

is quite in earnest with his work, and has vigour and freshness in

his treatment of it. He might no doubt, and probably would, be

better prepared in six weeks’ time; but the interval of six months

would be too long, and would give him temptations to listlessness

and idleness which might leave him in a worse position at the end

of that time than he is now.

I shall, however, require from him a rigorous account of what he

does in examination; and if I think he has not done himself

justice, I shall advise him to remove his name before the end, and

so put off his examination to the summer. Do not, however, suggest

this to him as a possibility. It is bad for anyone to have an

alternative before him, and it were better that I judged after the

event than that he thought of it during the process. At present I

certainly think he will get a second class at least.

Lord Randolph himself was hopeful:--

_Lord Randolph to his Mother._

Merton College: Tuesday.

I hope you won’t hope for too much when I tell you that yesterday

and to-day I have been doing much better in my examination, which

has been chiefly about what I have been reading this term; so I

have been able to do it. I am very much afraid Saturday’s work

will go against me. A great deal depends on how I do to-morrow

morning, which is the last day. There is no more writing work; it

is what they call _viva voce_ and that is the hardest. I hope that

I will have a little luck and be asked what I know best and then

perhaps it will come right, but even if it does the whole thing has

been a dreadful scramble and I see now, too late, that I had much

better have waited until June. However, I saw Creighton yesterday,

and he was all against my scratching, and thinks I shall get

through all right. I shall know by three or four o’clock to-morrow

and shall telegraph. I am not very sanguine, but shall be

dreadfully disappointed.

I shall not be able to come home until Saturday or Monday anyhow,

as I must keep my term. Poor little Wasp died yesterday. I am very

much distressed, for she was so nice and was the first dog I had

you did not object to. I do not think I shall get another, they all

seem to die.

Gladstone is safe to be beaten they say to-day. The Conservatives

are beginning to pick up a little now, but we shall be in a

shocking minority. I think Papa will be glad to get out of it

though, and that is the only thing that consoles me. The papers

seem to be in a dreadful fright for fear the Queen should send for

Lord Granville. How spiteful they are!

Dr. Creighton’s forecast was, however, justified by the result:--

_Dr. Creighton to the Duchess of Marlborough_,

December 15.

I must own I was sorry when I heard how narrowly Lord Randolph

missed the first class: a few more questions answered, and a few

omissions in some of his papers, and he would have secured it. He

was, I am told by the examiners, the best man who was put in the

second class; and the great hardship is, as your Grace observes,

that he should be in the same class with so many who are very

greatly his inferior in knowledge and ability.

It is rather tantalising to think he came so near; if he had been

further off I should have been more content. Still I am glad he

went in for examination this time. I think he would only have idled

the six months before the next examination.

On the whole I think he has learned a good deal during his time at

Oxford, and I do not think he regrets his residence here. I am

sorry to lose him.

After leaving Oxford Lord Randolph made (1870) another and much longer

tour in Europe. He liked few things better than to prowl about at his

leisure from one new place to another, seeing all the sights, the

galleries, the monuments, the circuses, and above all the zoological

gardens, with eyes that never lost their interest even for the smallest

trifles. Through France, Italy, and Austria he rambled light-heartedly;

and when, after an absence of nearly a year, he came back to Blenheim he

had enlarged his fancy and extended his education in various directions

beyond the limits of a University curriculum. Behold him now at

twenty-three, a man grown, markedly reserved in his manner to

acquaintances, utterly unguarded to his intimate friends, something of a

dandy in his dress, an earnest sportsman, an omnivorous reader, moving

with a jaunty step through what were in those days the very select

circles of fashion and clubland, seeking the pleasures of the Turf and

town.

This interlude was soon ended.

[Sidenote: 1873 ÆT. 24]

In August of 1873 Lord Randolph went to Cowes upon what proved to him a

memorable visit. In honour of the arrival of the Czarewitch and the

Czarevna the officers of the cruiser _Ariadne_, then lying as guard-ship

in the Roads, gave a ball, to which all the pleasure-seekers who

frequent the Solent at this season of the year made haste to go in boats

and launches from the shore and from the pleasure fleet. Here for the

first time he met Miss Jerome, an American girl whose singular beauty

and gifted vivacity had excited general attention. He was presented to

her by a common friend. Waltzing made him giddy, and he detested dancing

of all kinds; so that after a formal quadrille they sat and talked. She

was living with her mother and eldest sister at Rosetta Cottage, a small

house which they had taken for the summer, with a tiny garden facing the

sea. Thither the next night, duly bidden, he repaired to dine. The

dinner was good, the company gay and attractive, and with the two young

ladies chatting and playing duets at the piano the evening passed very

pleasantly. She was nineteen, and he scarcely twenty-four; and, if

Montaigne is to be believed, this period of extreme youth is Love’s

golden moment. That very night Miss Jerome told her laughing and

incredulous sister of a presentiment that their new friend was the man

she would marry; and Lord Randolph confided to Colonel Edgecumbe, who

was of the party, that he admired the two sisters and meant, if he

could, to make ‘the dark one’ his wife.

Next day they met again ‘by accident’--so runs the account I have

received--and went for a walk. That evening he was once more a guest at

Rosetta Cottage. That night--the third of their acquaintance--was a

beautiful night, warm and still, with the lights of the yachts shining

on the water and the sky bright with stars. After dinner they found

themselves alone together in the garden, and--brief court-ship

notwithstanding--he proposed and was accepted.

So far as the principals were concerned, everything was thus easily and

swiftly settled, and the matter having become so earnest all further

meetings were suspended until the Duke of Marlborough and Mr. Jerome,

who was in America, had been consulted. Lord Randolph returned to

Blenheim shaken by alternating emotions of joy and despondency. He had

never been in love before and the force and volume of the tide swept him

altogether off his feet. At one moment he could scarcely believe that

one so unworthy as he could have been preferred; the next he trembled

lest all his hopes should be shattered by circumstances unforeseen. Nor

indeed was his anxiety without reason; for many and serious obstacles

had yet to be encountered and smoothed away. From Blenheim he wrote to

his father.

_To his Father._

Blenheim: Wednesday, August 20, 1873.

I must not any longer keep you in ignorance of a very important

step I have taken--one which will undoubtedly influence very

strongly all my future life.

I met, soon after my arrival at Cowes, a Miss Jeannette Jerome, the

daughter of an American lady who has lived for some years in Paris

and whose husband lives in New York. I passed most of my time at

Cowes in her (Jeannette’s) society, and before leaving asked her if

she loved me well enough to marry me; and she told me she did. I

do not think that if I were to write pages I could give you any

idea of the strength of my feelings and affection and love for her;

all I can say is that I love her better than life itself, and that

my one hope and dream now is that matters may be so arranged that

soon I may be united to her by ties that nothing but death itself

could have the power to sever.

I know, of course, that you will be very much surprised, and find

it difficult to understand how an attachment so strong could have

arisen in so short a space of time; and really I feel it quite

impossible for me to give any explanation of it that could appear

reasonable to anyone practical and dispassionate. I must, however,

ask you to believe it as you could the truest and most real

statement that could possibly be made to you, and to believe also

that upon a subject so important, and I may say so solemn, I could

not write one word that was in the smallest degree exaggerated, or

that might not be taken at its fullest meaning.

I hope you won’t feel any annoyance with me for not having

consulted you before saying anything to her. I really meant to have

done so; but on the night before I was leaving Cowes (Friday) my

feelings of sorrow at parting from her were more than I could

restrain, and I told her all. I did not say anything to her mother,

but I believe that she did after I was gone; for she wrote to me

just as I was starting (I did not, after all, leave Cowes till the

Monday), and she said in her letter that her mother could not hear

of it. That I am at a loss to understand.

I told Mama when I got here and should have written at once to tell

you; but I was so wretched and miserable at leaving thus, I was

quite incapable of writing quietly.

I now write to tell you of it all, and to ask you whether you will

be able to increase my allowance to some extent to put me in the

position to ask Mrs. Jerome to let me become her daughter’s future

husband. I enclose you her photograph, and will only say about her

that she is as nice, as lovable, and amiable and charming in every

way as she is beautiful, and that by her education and bringing-up

she is in every way qualified to fill any position.

She had an elder sister, and one younger, who is not yet out. Mr.

Jerome is a gentleman who is obliged to live in New York to look

after his business. I do not know what it is. He is reputed to be

very well off, and his daughters, I believe, have very good

fortunes, but I do not know any thing for certain. He generally

comes over for three or four months every year. Mrs. Jerome has

lived in Paris for several years and has educated her daughters

there. They go out in Society there and are very well known.

I have told you all I know about them at present. You have always

been very good to me, and done as much and more for me always than

I had any right to expect; and with any arrangement that you may at

any time make for me I shall be perfectly contented and happy. I

see before me now a very happy future, almost in one’s grasp. In

the last year or so I feel I have lost a great deal of what energy

and ambition I possessed, and an idle and comparatively useless

life has at times appeared to me to be the pleasantest; but if I

were married to her whom I have told you about, if I had a

companion, such as she would be, I feel sure, to take an interest

in one’s prospects and career, and to encourage me to exertions and

to doing something towards making a name for myself, I think that I

might become, with the help of Providence, all and perhaps more

than you had ever wished and hoped for me. On the other hand, if

anything should occur to prevent my fondest hopes and wishes being

realised (a possibility which I dare not and cannot bring myself to

think of), how dreary and uninteresting would life become to me! No

one goes through what I have lately gone through without its

leaving a strong impress and bias on their character and future.

Time might, of course, partially efface the impression and

recollection of feelings so strong as those I have tried to

describe to you, but in the interval the best years of one’s life

would be going, and one’s energies and hopes would become blunted

and deadened.

I will not allude to her. I believe and am convinced that she loves

me as fully, and as strongly if possible, as I do her; and when two

people feel towards each other what we do, it becomes, I know, a

great responsibility for anyone to assist in either bringing about

or thwarting a union so closely desired by each.

Good-bye. I have written to you all I have done, all I feel, and

all I know.

Anxiously wishing for an answer from you,

I remain

Ever your most affectionate son,

RANDOLPH.

The Duke was very seriously disturbed at the news of his son’s intention

and declined to commit himself to any expression of approval until he

had made searching inquiry into the standing and circumstances of the

Jerome family. He deplored the precipitancy with which the decision had

been taken. ‘It is not likely,’ he wrote upon August 31, ‘that at

present you can look at anything except from your own point of view; but

persons from the outside cannot but be struck with the unwisdom of your

proceedings, and the uncontrolled state of your feelings, which

completely paralyses your judgment.’ His rebuke was supported by his

wife, who urged affectionate counsels of caution, patience, and

self-restraint, and was pointed by a set of witty and satirical verses

from his brother, Lord Blandford, setting forth the unhappy fate of

those who marry in haste and repent at leisure.

It will easily be understood how this attitude--most Americans being

proud as the devil--raised corresponding objections on the other side.

Mr. Jerome was himself in many ways a remarkable personality. He had

made and lost and made again considerable fortunes in the enterprise and

struggle of American life. He had founded the first two great American

racecourses, Jerome Park and Coney Island Jockey Club, and divides with

Mr. August Belmont the claim to be the father of the American Turf. He

owned and edited the _New York Times_. A vehement Federalist in the

Civil War, he was said to have subscribed nearly half his fortune to the

Federal war funds. When in 1862 the war party in New York was

discredited by the disasters of the campaign, and riotous mobs attacked

the _Times_ office, Mr. Jerome--having purchased a battery of cannon and

armed his staff with rifles--beat them off, not without bloodshed.

Altogether he was a man of force and versatility. He had at first,

indeed, written a conditional assent to his daughter’s engagement, but

he withdrew it with promptness as soon as he heard a murmur of

opposition. Mrs. Jerome and her daughters retreated to France; and all

interviews, and even communications, were forbidden by all the parents.

Randolph Churchill, however, knew his own mind in many things, and most

especially in this. Such was his vehemence that the Duke was soon

persuaded, for the sake of his son’s peace of mind and of his own

authority, to acquiesce--at any rate, provisionally--in a formal

engagement. But he insisted upon delay. Nothing, he declared, but time

could prove an affection so rapidly excited; and with this decision,

supported and emphasised by the Jeromes, the lovers had perforce to be

content.

The control of parents over grown-up children was in those unregenerate

days much more severe than now. Letters were indeed allowed to pass

freely between the lovers; but visits were grudged and restricted. Only

at intervals of a month, or even six weeks, were they permitted to see

each other, and in these circumstances it may be imagined that both pens

were busy. In this field the young lady had a great advantage. The

placid succession of the duties and amusements of country life--the

round of shooting parties, the varying totals of slaughtered hares and

pheasants, the mornings on the Woodstock bench, and descriptions of

relations and county folk--however vivacious, were inadequate materials

to set against days spent in Paris during the autumn of 1873, when the

gossip of the world was reviving after the gag of the war, when Bazaine

was upon his trial for his life, when Gambetta declaimed in the

Assembly, and when the drawing-rooms, even of foreigners, were full of

Royalist and Bonapartist whisperings. For the most part his letters were

strictly confined to the subject of main importance. They told over and

over again, in the forcible, homely English of which he was a natural

master, the oldest story in the world. Indeed, but for the contributions

of Miss Jerome the correspondence would certainly have lacked variety.

Towards the end of September the Duke committed himself with preciseness

to the opinion that one year’s delay was necessary. To this Lord

Randolph was far from agreeing and he conceived himself possessed of a

lever which might be used to shorten considerably this weary period of

waiting.

_To Miss Jerome._

Blenheim: Tuesday, September 23.

I cannot tell you what pleasure and happiness your letter gives me;

it makes me feel quite a different being, so you really must not

threaten me with a long silence. You certainly have great powers of

perception, and I cannot but own that there is a good deal of truth

in what you say about my being one moment very despairing and

another moment very sanguine. I cannot help it; I was made so.

My father has been away for a few days, and yesterday I got a

‘piece’ from him on the subject of his consent. After a good deal

of unnecessary rigmarole and verbosity he says:

‘The great question is still unsolved, whether you and the young

lady who has gained your affections are, or can be, after a few

days’ acquaintance, sufficiently aware of your own minds to venture

on the step which is to bind you together for life. What I have now

to say is that if I am to believe that your future is really bound

up in your marriage with Miss Jerome you must show me the proof of

it by bringing it to the test of time. I will say no more to you on

this subject for the present, but if this time next year you come

and tell me that you are both of the same mind we will receive Miss

Jerome as a daughter, and, I need not say, in the affection you

could desire for your wife.’

Now these are his words, but I do not mind telling you that it is

all humbug about waiting a year. I could, and would, wait a good

deal more than a year, but I do not mean to, as it is not the least

necessary; for though we have only known each other a short time, I

know we both know our own minds well enough, and I wrote a very

long and diplomatic letter to my father yesterday, doing what I

have never done before, contradicting him and arguing with him and,

I hope, persuading him that he has got very wrong and foolish

ideas in his head. You see, both he and my mother have set their

hearts on my being member for Woodstock. It is a family borough,

and for years and years a member of the family has sat for it. The

present member is a stranger, though a Conservative, and is so

unpopular that he is almost sure to be beaten if he were to stand;

and the fact of a Radical sitting for Woodstock is perfectly

insupportable to my family. It is for this that they have kept me

idle ever since I left Oxford, waiting for a dissolution. Well, as

I told you the other day, a dissolution is sure to come almost

before the end of the year. I have two courses open to me: either

to refuse to stand altogether unless they consent to my being

married immediately afterwards; or else--and this is still more

Machiavellian and deep--to stand, but at the last moment to

threaten to withdraw and leave the Radical to walk over. All tricks

are fair in love and war.

These desperate expedients were not, however, necessary. The parents on

both sides only wished to be assured that the attachment of their

children was no passing caprice, but a sincere and profound affection;

and as the weeks grew into months this conviction was irresistibly borne

in upon them. In October the Duke was willing to admit that the period

of probation might be considerably curtailed. But he still had strong

reasons for not wishing the marriage to take place immediately. The

dissolution was certainly in the air. By-election after by-election had

gone against Mr. Gladstone’s Government. Greenwich, Stroud, Dover, Hull,

Exeter, East Staffordshire, and Renfrewshire had renounced their

allegiance; Bath had been barely retained, and the Solicitor-General,

whose victory at Taunton had been a much-paraded compensation, was

threatened with a petition for bribery. It was most important that

Woodstock should be held for the Conservatives. No one could possibly

have so good a chance as the young cadet born and bred on the soil, who

knew half the farmers and local magnates personally, whose excursions

with the harriers had made him familiar with all parts of the

constituency, and whose gay and stormy attractiveness had won him a host

of sworn allies.

Yet he had often in words and in letters expressed a disinclination for

public life. It is curious to notice how even in the days of buoyant

unconquered youth, moods of depression cast their shadows across his

path. Although possessed of unusual nervous energy, his whole life was a

struggle against ill-health. Excitement fretted him cruelly. He smoked

cigarettes ‘till his tongue was sore’ to soothe himself. Capable upon

emergency of prolonged and vehement exertion, of manifold activities and

pugnacities, of leaps and heaves beyond the common strength of men, he

suffered by reaction fits of utter exhaustion and despondency. Most

people grow tired before they are over-tired. But Lord Randolph

Churchill was of the temper that gallops till it falls. An instinct

warned him of the perils which threatened him in a life of effort. He

shrank from it in apprehension. Peace and quiet, sport and friends,

agricultural interests--above all a home--offered a woodland path far

more alluring than the dusty road to London. The Duke felt, and with

reason, that unless Lord Randolph were member for Woodstock before his

marriage, not only would the borough be seduced to Radicalism, but that

the son in whom all the hopes and ambitions of his later life were

centred might never enter Parliament at all.

Lord Randolph was very grateful for the friendly attitude his family had

now assumed and was quite prepared to repay concession by patience in

one direction and by energy in another:--

_To his Father._

Blenheim: Thursday, October (?), 1873.

I write by an early post to acknowledge your letter and to thank

you very much for it. It is indeed a most kind letter and I am most

grateful to you, as it is all I could have expected. Mama tells me

that you got up early in the morning to write it, and indeed I

thank you very much indeed for writing to me as you have done, and

I only hope you did not tire yourself very much before your long

journey.

I go to London to-day and to Paris to-morrow. I enclose you a

letter from Hawkins about the registration, which seems to be

satisfactory. I am sure you need not fear my doing my very best to

get in, and therefore to be some credit to you. I feel that in this

you have acted very kindly to me and I feel very grateful to you,

although I know there are circumstances now which would have led

some people to very different conclusions. I am, however, perfectly

confident that ultimately you will never regret for a moment having

acted as you have done.

_To Miss Jerome._

Blenheim: Monday, October (?), 1873.

I was so happy to see your handwriting again; it is next best thing

to seeing you. As you will have seen from my letter of Friday, we

have no cause now to be disappointed or to be in bad spirits;

everything goes on as favourably as we could expect, and my father

does not wish, for a moment, to prevent my seeing you as often as I

can, and has promised to give his consent to our marriage when he

is sure we are fond of each other. As to the year, I have every

right to say that I do not think they will insist on it....

The clouds have all cleared away, and the sky is bluer than I have

ever seen it since I first met you at Cowes. It is exactly six

weeks to-morrow since we met on board the Ariadne, and I am sure I

seem to have lived six years. How I do bless that day, in spite of

all the worry and bother that has come since; and I am sure you

will not regret it. I have not had a further conversation with my

father since I wrote to you, for I think it is best to leave things

for the present as they are. Our early golden dreams of being

married in December won’t quite become realised, but still it won’t

be very long to wait; and I shall be able to see you from time to

time, and write as often as I like; in fact, we can be regularly

engaged, and all the world may know it....

It is curious what an effect books have on me; I have two old

favourites. When I feel very cross and angry I read Gibbon, whose

profound philosophy and easy though majestic writing soon quiets me

down, and in an hour I feel at peace with all the world. When I

feel very low and desponding I read Horace, whose thorough

epicureanism, quiet maxims, and beautiful verse are most

tranquillising. Of late I have had to have frequent recourse to my

two friends, and they have never failed me. I strongly recommend

you to read some great works or histories; they pass the time, and

prevent you from worrying or thinking too much about the future.

Novels, or even travels, are rather unsatisfactory, and do one no

good, because they create an unhealthy excitement, which is bad for

anyone. I wonder whether you will understand all this, or only

think me rather odd.

There are three new elections to come off, owing to death

vacancies; and if they go against the Government, as they very

probably will, we are sure to have a dissolution, and then I shall

become member for Woodstock. But, after all, public life has no

great charms for me, as I am naturally very quiet, and hate bother

and publicity, which, after all, is full of vanity and vexation of

spirit. Still, it will all have greater attractions for me if I

think it will please you and that you take an interest in it and

will encourage me to keep up to the mark.

I hope your sister is quite well, comforts you, and sticks up for

me when you abuse me to her or doubt me.

[Sidenote: 1874 ÆT. 25]

A fortnight later he insisted that he should be allowed to visit the

Jeromes in the middle of December; and this having been agreed to, the

process of counting the days began. But upon the eve of departure an

unexpected misfortune intervened. His aunt Lady Portarlington was taken

dangerously ill. The family were hurriedly summoned to Emo, and the

delightful anticipations of a fortnight in Paris under such

circumstances were exchanged for the melancholy reality of nearly a

month in Ireland, watching in daily uncertainty a painful and unavailing

struggle with death. It is easy to imagine the vexation of such delay

and the longings which possessed him to leave the house of mourning. But

the family leant on him and, while his presence was of real use and

value, he felt bound to wait wearily on from day to day. The course of

the illness was varied: once recovery seemed almost certain; but after

many relapses the end came in the middle of January. Immediately after

the funeral--which was celebrated with much Catholic pomp--Lord Randolph

tore himself away, crossed the Irish Channel the same night, and was

about to proceed the next evening to France, when another even more

imperative call arrested him. Parliament was dissolved.

This event, long looked for, often rumoured, had come at last with the

suddenness of surprise. But Woodstock was not unprepared. The Duke of

Marlborough had waited impatiently for the first General Election after

his brother’s lapse to regain his control over the representation of his

borough. When Parliament had been dissolved in July 1865, Lord Alfred

Churchill, according to his agreement, did not open his candidature; and

Mr. Henry Barnett, the Squire of Glympton Park, a well-known London

banker, was put forward as the Conservative candidate and (let it not be

overlooked) ducal nominee. A Liberal was found in Mr. Mitchell Henry,

afterwards better known as the Home Rule member for Galway; but the

Squire carried the election by 24 votes, and, having been again

successful in 1868, was the sitting member at the time when another

cadet of the great house had ripened to a Parliamentary age.

Mr. Barnett now, as it turned out, very conveniently, expressed an

earnest wish to relinquish the toils and responsibilities of public

life; and the ancient borough, with an imperturbable solemnity and a

conservative reverence for the form in which things should be done, was

prompt in sending a regular requisition for Lord Randolph’s services.

The electors, according to this document, declared that no one could

better champion their cause at this crisis, or more fitly represent

their views in the ensuing Parliament. They urged him to stand; and in

view of the fact that there happened to be that very afternoon a

coursing meeting in the Park which all the local farmers were expected

to attend, he had to set off for Blenheim without delay.

The series of letters to Paris was sadly broken into by the contest, and

for the most part only telegrams had to fill the gap: but here and there

a moment could be snatched.

_To Miss Jerome._

Blenheim: Monday.

It was perfectly impossible for me to get any letter off by last

night’s post, as I have not had a moment to spare. Since ten this

morning I went and saw several people at Woodstock, and had, on the

whole, satisfactory answers and assurances of support. It was a

most fortunate circumstance that the Annual Coursing Meeting, which

my father allows every year in the Park, had been fixed for to-day;

all the farmers were there, and as they had a good day’s sport were

all in great spirits. I took the chair at their dinner at the Bear

hotel, and you cannot imagine how enthusiastic they were for me.

They all go as one man. I hear nothing certain as to any

opposition; there are no end of rumours, but no one as yet has

appeared publicly; I suppose we shall know for certain to-morrow.

I am now off to a part of the borough four miles distant, to see

more people, and I have a large meeting of my committee at four in

Woodstock. I think I may say that for the present everything is

satisfactory. There are 1,071 voters, and I do not think more than

800 will poll; out of these I calculate at least on 460, which will

be enough. But this is, of course, mere guess-work; it is all still

very uncertain, and I am glad I lost no time in arriving.

Blenheim: Tuesday.

The radical candidate, Mr. Brodrick, arrived this morning; I made

his acquaintance, and we shook hands and were very friendly. The

contest will be a hard one and the result doubtful; it is

impossible to say how the labourers will go. However, I have made a

very good start, and have nothing to complain of as yet.

Blenheim: Saturday.

I am sure it is not necessary for me to excuse myself for not

writing to you; you would not believe what work it is. We had a

great meeting last night, which was very successful; we had a good

speaker down from London, and I made a speech. How I have been

longing for you to have been with me! If we had only been married

before this! I think the reception you would have got, would have

astonished you. The number of houses I have been into--many of them

dirty cottages--the number of unwashed hands I have cordially

shaken, you would not believe. My head is in a whirl of voters,

committee meetings, and goodness knows what. I am glad it is

drawing to an end, as I could not stand it very long; I cannot eat

or sleep.

I am now off again, 10 A.M., to see more people.

Blenheim: Sunday.

At last I have a pretty quiet day; but I have been very busy this

afternoon, and, in spite of its being Sunday, I have been active

among several little odd fellows whom it is important to pick up.

How this election is going I really can form no opinion, and the

excitement and uncertainty of it make me quite ill. Yesterday I was

canvassing all day in Woodstock itself. People that I think know

better than anybody, tell me it will be very close. You see, with

the ballot one can tell nothing--one can only trust to promises,

and I have no doubt a good many will be broken. Our organisation

and preparations for Tuesday are very perfect, and the old borough

has never been worked in such a way before. You have no idea how

this election gets hold of me. One can positively think of nothing

else except voters and committees, &c., till one’s brain gets quite

addled and in a whirl. I have a presentiment that it will go wrong.

I am such a fool to care so much about it. I hate all this

excitement.... I saw my opponent to-day in church. He looks awfully

harassed. I feel quite sorry for him, as all his friends here are

such a dreadfully disreputable lot; and as I have got the three

principal hotels in the town, he has nothing except a wretched,

low, miserable pot-house to stay in.

Unfortunate Mr. Brodrick! The result of the election in no way belied

the quality of his accommodation.

Ever since I met you everything goes well with me--too well; I am

getting afraid of a Nemesis. I always hoped I should win the

election, but that under the ballot and against a man like Brodrick

I should have that crushing, overwhelming majority [of 165 out of

973 voters] never entered into my wildest dreams. It was a great

victory--we shall never have a contest again. The last two

contests--‘65 and ‘68--were won only by 17 and 21 majorities; so

just conceive the blow it is to the other side. You never heard

such cheering in all your life. The poll was not declared till

eleven, and the hours of suspense were most trying; but when it was

known, there was such a burst of cheers that must have made the old

Dukes in the vault jump. I addressed a few words to the

committee--and so did Blandford--and was immensely cheered; and

then they accompanied us, the whole crowd of them, through the town

and up to Blenheim, shouting and cheering all the way. Oh, it was a

great triumph--and that you were not there to witness it will

always be a source of great regret to me....

There is nothing more to be done except to pay the bill, and that I

have left to my father.

The Woodstock election being out of the way, the road was cleared for

more important matters. The Duke, his political anxieties laid to rest,

journeyed to Paris, saw the young lady for himself, and, returning

completely converted, withdrew all remaining stipulations for delay. But

further difficulties presented themselves. The question of settlements

proved delicate and thorny. Mr. Jerome had strong and, it would seem,

not unreasonable views, suggested by American usage, about married

women’s property and made some propositions which Lord Randolph

considered derogatory to him. Although he was to benefit considerably

under the arrangement proposed, he refused utterly to agree to any

settlement which contained even technical provisions to which he

objected; and after an embarrassing discussion went off to prepare

determined plans to earn a living ‘in England or out of it,’ as fortune

should dictate, for himself and his future wife--‘a course in which,’ so

he wrote to his father, ‘I am bound to say she thoroughly agrees with

me.’

Face to face with this ultimatum--the first of any importance and not

the least successful in Lord Randolph’s forceful career--Mr. Jerome, who

after all only wished to make a proper and prudent arrangement,

capitulated after twenty-four hours’ consideration. A satisfactory

treaty was ratified, and it only remained to fulfil the conditions. The

negotiations had already extended over seven months and the ceremony was

appointed without further delay. The Duke, though unable to be present

himself, sent his blessing in a most cordial letter. ‘Although, my dear

Randolph, you have acted in this business with less than usual

deliberation, you have adhered to your choice with unwavering constancy

and I cannot doubt the truth and force of your affection.’ On April 15,

1874, the marriage was celebrated at the British Embassy in Paris, and

after a tour--not too prolonged--upon the Continent, Lord Randolph

Churchill returned in triumph with his bride to receive the dutiful

laudations of the borough of Woodstock and enjoy the leafy glories of

Blenheim in the spring.