Randolph Churchill

“ Yet, in contrast with these signs of triumph, what inward misgivings darkened Lord Randolph Churchill’s mind! In the presence of a trusted friend he dropped with relief his mask of unconcerned reserve and revealed himself plunged for a while in one of those fits of despondency which so often followed or preceded the crisis and action of his life. ‘I am very near the end of my tether,’ he said to this friend who met him at the Turf Club in these anxious days. ‘In the last five years I have lived twenty. I have fought Society. I have fought Mr. Gladstone at the head of a great majority. ”

“ It seemed incredible that this bald and bearded man with shaking hands and a white face drawn with pain and deeply marked with the lines of care and illness, and with a voice whose tremulous tones already betrayed the fatal difficulty of articulation, could be that same brilliant audacious leader who in the flush of exultant youth had marched irresistibly to power through the stormy days of 1886. ”

“ Nothing could be more disparaging to Lord Randolph Churchill personally or more prejudicial to the opinions he had expressed than that he and they should be publicly repudiated by the one man who of all others had stood by him until now. The political world found it difficult to believe that the tone of a speech apart from its tenor, a dispute about an amendment, or the accident of debate, could in themselves be a complete explanation of a sudden severance between such close political associates. ”

“ Lord Randolph Churchill turned to the fullest advantage the blunder into which his adversaries had been drawn. Every day for a week, in spite of repeated threats of personal violence, he journeyed to and fro in Birmingham and in a series of speeches, published and read in every part of the country, he fastened the responsibility for disorder and intimidation upon Mr. Chamberlain and his Caucus. He urged Conservative working men to take effective measures to protect themselves from tyranny and not to hesitate to meet force by force. ”

“ It is easy to deal with men whose motive is self-interest. Others can cypher out the chances, too. The influence which Lord Randolph Churchill exerted upon the men with whom he came in closest contact, upon Lord Salisbury and upon Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, could never have been acquired by a self-seeker, however brilliantly endowed. A veil of the incalculable shrouded the workings of his complex nature. No one could tell what he would do, or by what motive, lofty or trivial, of conviction or caprice, of irritation or self-sacrifice, he would be governed ”

“ In The Weekly Dispatch for May 22, 1881, there was a parody competition, and the prize of Two Guineas was awarded for the following poem:
Lord Randolph Churchill.
[Since the defection of his three friends, the once famous “Fourth” party consists of Lord Randolph alone.—Daily Paper.]
He’s the last of his party
Left sitting alone; 235
All his brilliant companions
Have left him and gone.
No Gorst of his kidney—
No Balfour is nigh,
To reflect his bright flashes
Or applaud him sky high!
They have left him, the lone one,
To speak all alone;
His audience are sleeping,
They cough and they groan. ”

“ It had been violently stimulated by the disastrous events of the Parliament of 1880. Although Lord Randolph Churchill was never what is nowadays called an Imperialist and always looked at home rather than abroad, his followers in the Tory Democracy were already alive with the new idea. A single touch sufficed to rouse it into a vital and dominant activity which for nearly twenty years has shaped the course of British history, and in spite of extravagances, puerilities and even turpitudes, has left a permanent imprint upon the national mind. ”

“ And then, all of a sudden, a man arose alone, or almost alone, to do battle on their behalf. They watched him struggling day after day against overwhelming odds, overthrown a score of times, deserted and even tripped up by those who should have sustained him; yet always returning with inexhaustible activity to the attack and gaining from month to month substantial and undoubted successes.
The Conservative party outside Parliament had as little real liking for much that Lord Randolph Churchill said about Ireland and Egypt as their leaders and representatives in the House. ”

“ I suppose I must make a speech in Paddington in the holidays. George might ascertain from Fardell what would be a good day.
How men may for a time prosper continually, whatever they do, and then for a time fail continually, whatever they do, is a theme in support of which history and romance supply innumerable examples. This chapter marks such a change in the character of the story I have to tell. Hitherto the life of Lord Randolph Churchill has been attended by almost unvarying success. His most powerful enemies had become his friends. ”

“ The wonderful charm of the host, his tact with his guests, his talent for drawing people out and making them appear at their best, linger in their memories as red-letter days and nights of their lives.
All Americans took great interest in the career of Lord Randolph Churchill. His wife was one of the most beautiful and popular women in English society, and an American. I knew her father, Leonard Jerome, very well. He was a successful banker and a highly educated and cultured gentleman. ”

“ Every official worked with enthusiasm in his service and all their mines of information were laid open to his hand. It has often been said that Lord Randolph won his popularity among permanent officials by his subservience to their views. This is by no means true. If he cast away altogether as vicious and unpractical the Fair Trade opinions which he had urged, and which commanded so much support among the Tory democracy, it will also be seen that he was able to enlist the interest and positive support of his subordinates in schemes far outside the orthodoxy of the official mind. ”

“ But for the recurring ailments to which his delicate constitution was subject and the want of money which so often teases a young married couple, his horizon had been without a cloud, his career without a care. But in the year 1876 an event happened which altered, darkened, and strengthened his whole life and character. Engaging in his brother’s quarrels with fierce and reckless partisanship, Lord Randolph incurred the deep displeasure of a great personage. The fashionable world no longer smiled. Powerful enemies were anxious to humiliate him. ”

“ While the days are swiftly ebbing, he builds large plans for the future; and a rosy glow of sunset conceals the approach of night. Therefore as Lord Randolph’s faculties were steadily impaired, his determination to persevere was inversely strengthened; and in spite of the advice and appeals of his family, by which he was deeply wounded, he carried out in its entirety the whole programme of speeches he had arranged. Huddersfield, Stalybridge, Bedford, Yarmouth, Dundee, Glasgow, Bradford and Camborne followed each other in quick succession in October and November. ”

“ Randolph Churchill's private character exhibited some of the contradictions of his public career. His personality, which fascinated men in masses, and attracted those whom he admitted to his intimacy, was often found repellent by casual acquaintances and by his political associates. The insolence of bearing, which excited so much resentment, particularly when displayed towards dignified and elderly colleagues, was sometimes said to be deliberately studied ”

“ Lord Randolph was teased with mischievous satisfaction upon all the former manœuvres of the Fourth Party. It was a severe, if appropriate, expiation. Nothing but imperturbable temper and physical endurance availed. The Leader of the House was always in his place. He listened to all the discussions. He defended every detail of the Civil Service Estimates himself. On warlike stores, on public accounts, on salaries in the House of Lords, on secret service and town holdings and polluted rivers, on poor ratepayers and gold coinage, he was found suave, adroit, and well informed. ”

“ The Bill was rejected by 307 to 165. Few private members, divorced alike from office and from the official Opposition, have in modern times been able by their unaided personal force so powerfully to sway the opinion of Parliament.
And now must be related an incident which, though not in itself of historical importance, created a great hubbub at the time and involved an open political dispute and severance between Lord Randolph Churchill and Mr. Chamberlain. Although Lord Randolph was comfortably settled in Paddington and enjoyed the luxury of a safe seat, he always hankered after Birmingham. ”

“ After Lord Randolph Churchill threw up the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and assumed a position of independence on a back bench, he found an able lieutenant in his old friend Louis Jennings. At that time Lord Randolph was feared on the Treasury Bench as much as he was hated. For a Conservative member to associate himself with him was to be ostracised by the official Conservatives. A man of Mr. Jennings's position and Parliamentary ability was worth buying off, and it was brought to his [Pg 388] knowledge that he might have a good price if he would desert Lord Randolph. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In times when good Conservatives despaired of the fortunes of their party under a democratic franchise and even, making a virtue of necessity, regarded it as almost immoral to court a working-class vote, and when the chiefs of Toryism looked upon the resisting powers of small shop and lodging-house keepers, of suburban villadom, and of the genial and seductive publican as almost the only remaining bulwarks of the Constitution, Lord Randolph Churchill boldly enlisted the British nation in defence of Church and State. ”

“ Was it strange that the rank and file of the Liberal party should welcome this easy yet honourable escape and certain respite amid alternatives so full of hazard?
The dangerous character of this manœuvre, not less than its extreme ingenuity, was patent to the Unionist leaders. The Whigs were embarrassed and perplexed, and Mr. Chamberlain’s position became one of aggravated and peculiar difficulty. On all sides forces laboriously accumulated threatened to dissolve. In this crisis Lord Randolph Churchill’s instinct and resolution were decisive. ”

“ Wild with delight, Lord Randolph Churchill actually leapt on to the bench, waving his hat with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy. His friends clustered round him, caught at him, drew him down, but could not restrain him from the vehement expression of his delight. The example was contagious. The whole House to the left of the speaker roared and shouted and thundered and waved its hats and clapped its hands in a frenzy of general delight. Their hour at last had come, and the fate of the ministry was sealed." Alas for human short-sightedness! ”

“ We no longer live in days when the public can be gulled by such arts.... The truth is, that Lord Randolph Churchill is a much over-rated man. He is now verging upon middle-age and has reached a time of life when even flighty minds ought to sober down. ”

“ Lord Randolph therefore became a natural and indispensable link. The force of political circumstances was strengthened by personal predilection. Both men liked each other’s company. Their moods and ways of looking at things—to some extent their methods—were not altogether dissimilar. Both were popular leaders drawing their strength from democracy. Both were bold, determined, outspoken and impulsive by nature. Both had been joined to their orthodox party colleagues by slender and uncertain bonds. So long as Chamberlain was a Minister, their communications were necessarily restricted ”

“ The doubtful or indifferent acquaintance of one year is the trusted comrade of the next. Combinations impossible in January are inevitable in June. Mortal offences are forgotten, if they are not forgiven; and as the ship moves forward into newer waters only a fading streak of froth lingers on the surface of the sea.
Lord Randolph Churchill returned from South Africa early in 1892, to find, so far as he was concerned, a better temper and complexion in public affairs than at any time since his resignation. The life of the Government was ebbing away ”

“ Sometimes he coaxed and sometimes he complained. Sometimes he resisted with vehemence only to make surrender an hour or two later more valued. Once, as has been shown, he appealed earnestly and with success to the House. Once he rapped out that the tactics of the obstructionists were ‘not conceived in the public interest,’ and after an angry debate made a reconciliation with them and secured incidentally some progress. He knew the House in all its moods. He humoured it and offended it and soothed it again with practised deliberation. Yet he always appeared to be its servant. ”

“ It was in the days when Lord Randolph Churchill started out on his great and meteoric career, at the beginning of the Parliament of '80. Sir John Gorst was, in many respects, the cleverest of the brilliant little group—at least, at the work which they were then doing. He is cold-blooded, quick, and dexterous, and, above all things, he has supreme pessimism and cynicism. To him, all political warfare is a somewhat squalid struggle, in which everybody is dishonest, and everybody playing for his own hand. It is an advantage in some respects to take that view ”