For Clementine, Maclean’s conversion was a considerable coup and demonstrated not for the first time that she was her husband’s strongest and most faithful ally. It was also a sign that his reputation across the British Empire was recovering from its low point of five years before. To have the leading Canadian magazine of opinion come out so powerfully in his favour was excellent news. From now on, Canada to Churchill would always be ‘The Great Dominion’, a land of huge opportunity and potential vital to the security and future of the British Empire. His faith was powerfully enforced when at the end of the decade he crossed the country by train with his son Randolph, brother Jack, and Jack’s son, Johnny. ‘The immense size and progress of this country impresses itself upon one more every day,’ he enthused. ‘The sentimental feeling towards England is wonderful. The United States are stretching their tentacles out in all directions, but the Canadian National Spirit and personality is becoming so powerful and self-contained that I do not think we need fear for the future.’11
*
Still basking in the glow of his inheritance, and with a now carefree Clementine at Cap Ferrat dreaming of a new Lullenden, Churchill motored out to the Chiltern Hills some forty miles north-west of Downing Street and another grand house within easy reach of London. Nestling close to the ancient village of Ellesborough in a quintessentially English landscape thickly wooded with beech trees lay the ancient Tudor mansion known as Chequers, or Chequers Court. After entering its fine wrought-iron gates set between two lodges, he passed down ‘The Victory Way’, the long drive built during the war with the help of German prisoners of war, and soon caught his first glimpse of the house that during the Second World War was to become almost a second home to him and Clementine.
The surrounding Buckinghamshire countryside was rich in historical associations. John Hampden, a principal leader of the parliamentary opposition to King Charles I during the English Civil War, had lived close by, as had Benjamin Disraeli, the great leader of the Victorian Conservative Party and twice prime minister. Chequers’ own history went back to the Domesday Book of 1086, and its name derived from an earlier house once owned by a twelfth-century Exchequer official. Just four weeks before his visit, Lloyd George had formally taken possession of the keys from Sir Arthur and Lady Lee, who presented it in perpetuity to the nation as a place of rest and relaxation for British prime ministers. Churchill was one of his earliest guests. Along with him he brought Marigold.
Like Churchill himself, Chequers was the product of an Anglo-American union. Arthur Hamilton Lee had been a commissioned artillery officer in the British Army, where one of his earliest postings was to the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. It was there that he met Ruth Moore, the daughter of a wealthy Wall Street banker, whom he soon married. Later he served as the British military attaché with the United States Army in Cuba and made friends with the leader of the legendary ‘Rough Riders’, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who was to stay at Chequers several times over the coming years. In 1900 Lee left the army and was elected as a Tory Member of Parliament in the same ‘Khaki election’ that saw Churchill also enter the House of Commons. During the First World War, Lee fell under the spell of Lloyd George, worked for him at the Ministry of Munitions and the War Office, and was knighted for his efforts. Two years later he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lee of Fareham.
It was Ruth Lee’s Wall Street inheritance that created the Chequers the couple gave to the British nation. They spared no expense in lavishly modernizing and furnishing it throughout with seventeenth-century oak panelling, hanging the walls with almost two hundred historic portraits and other paintings, and stocking it with antique furniture and countless artefacts of historic interest. Amongst them was Napoleon’s scarlet and gold dispatch case, the octagonal table the deposed French Emperor used while an exile on St Helena, and a large collection of Cromwelliana, including a mask of the Lord Protector himself. One of the first sights to greet Churchill was a large collection of enemy trophies on display in the Great Hall.
In giving the house to the nation, the Lees’ hope was twofold. First, that during an epoch of radical change in the nation’s history it would act as a moderating influence on its rulers. ‘To the revolutionary statesman the antiquity and calm tenacity of Chequers and its annals might suggest some saving virtues in the continuity of English history and exercise a check upon too hasty upheavals,’ wrote Lee in the deed of settlement, ‘whilst even the most reactionary could scarcely be insensible to the spirit of human freedom which permeates the countryside of Hampden . . .’ These were words that Churchill himself could have written, anxious as he was about the rising tide of socialism in Britain and revolution abroad, yet powerfully committed to a romantic view of English history that saw it as the steady march towards freedom embodied in a stable parliamentary monarchy. He had little religious belief. It was history, or this special version of it, that lay at the heart of his faith.12
The Lees also hoped that the rural tranquillity of Chequers would benefit the personal health of prime ministers. ‘The better the health of our rulers,’ declared Lee, ‘the more sanely they will rule.’ Ironically, during Churchill’s first official use of the house starting in 1940, it was to be far from a tranquil retreat from the cares of office. On the contrary, it became a buzzing hive of frantic activity and a powerhouse of strategy. Relatively safe from air attack, it was to serve as his command centre second only to the underground war rooms in Whitehall. Characteristically, one of the first changes he made was to install a direct telephone line to Downing Street. Another was to have the book-lined Long Gallery converted into a temporary cinema for the use of its wartime staff and himself after a long day’s work – a far cry from the quiet walking and contemplation of nature so lovingly envisaged by the Lees.
Churchill was deeply impressed. On the Sunday he sent a letter to Clementine from the house. ‘It is just the kind of house you admire,’ he wrote, ‘a panelled museum full of history, full of treasures,’ and added that Marigold had marched into his bedroom that morning in ‘blooming health’ but with no ‘special communication’ to make. Perhaps, he noted, Clementine would one day get to see it herself.
She was now at Cap Ferrat, a haven with its own seductive charm. Backed by precipitous white cliffs topped by the medieval village of Eze, the peninsula dangled like an earring into the Mediterranean and was an especially favoured spot for the wealthy. The drive from Nice had taken her along the French Corniche, the twisting road running high above sea level through cactus and pines that offered magnificent views of the Mediterranean. So when she sat down in Adele’s villa to write a letter expressing her optimism and joy at her husband’s new situation she readily fell back on images of the luxury that surrounded her. What with his new and exciting task at the Colonial Office, the visit to Chequers, his book, and his painting, it must feel, she wrote, that he was ‘soaring like an aeroplane above the great Corniche of life’. As for herself, she enthused in a later letter, she was now free of haunting care and felt like ‘a cork bobbing on a sunny sea’.13
*
Churchill took possession of his room at the Colonial Office on Tuesday 15 February, the first day of the new parliamentary session. It was twice as big as his old one in the War Office and reminded him of the days he had spent writing in the saloon at Blenheim Palace. ‘Fine and sedate . . . but well-warmed,’ he glowed. With him came Eddie Marsh, to whom it was familiar territory. It was here, as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, that Churchill had first taken him on, and Marsh had actually started his civil service career there some ten years before that. It seemed fitting, remarked one of his fellow civil servants, that the immaculately dressed Marsh ‘should spend his days in heavily-carpeted rooms, locking and unlocking Cabinet boxes with one of the four keys that dangled from a slim silver chain’.14
Churchill’s fresh surroundings matched the global scope of his new responsibilities. Britain had emerged from the Paris Peace Conference with an imperial reach
wider than ever before in its history. Not only had it acquired the mandated former Ottoman territories in the Middle East, but also several former German colonies. Along with the Indian Empire and the Dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, they made the British Empire the largest in the world.
Yet for him politically, at any moment the aeroplane soaring above the great Corniche of Life could stall and come crashing to earth. The reason was simple. Politically, he was almost completely dependent on Lloyd George. It was the Welsh Wizard who had brought him back to high office after the Dardanelles disaster, and he could still now make or unmake him. This would leave him isolated. He had a coterie of loyal personal friends, but he lacked any strong and independent political base. ‘He was not interested [in other people and their opinions],’ observed Violet Asquith. ‘Nor did he seek to conceal his indifference by any softening subterfuge. To save his life he could not have pretended an interest he did not feel . . . He enjoyed the ovation of the crowd but he still ignored the necessity of having a personal following.’ Alexander MacCallum Scott, his first biographer, noted the same weakness. ‘He was not a man who encouraged intimacies,’ he wrote. ‘His brusqueness often verged on rudeness, and alienated many a well-wisher.’ This stood in sharp contrast to Lloyd George, who possessed the gift of demonstrating genuine interest in others’ opinions. During their lifetime the two men promoted the image of a close and enduring friendship. Yet Clementine’s private gibe about Lloyd George and Judas Iscariot was easily matched by Lloyd George’s own, that Churchill ‘would make a drum out of the skin of his own mother in order to sound his own praises.’15
But if Churchill was dangerously reliant on Lloyd George, the prime minister himself was precariously placed. He had stormed to power in the 1918 General (‘Victory’) Election by leading his Coalition of National Liberals and Conservatives to win over 500 seats in the House of Commons. Combined with his personal standing as the prime minister who had won the war, this gave him two years’ mastery of the political scene. But as 1921 opened, his grip on the Coalition and the country was patently weakening. It was a grim winter. The post-war boom was over. Unemployment was rising steeply, and the Labour Party was gaining more and more popular support. Amongst diehards on the Conservative backbenches, pressure was growing for reductions in state spending. The Treasury, which was under Conservative control, took the same line. To keep them happy, Lloyd George was forced to cut back on some of the progressive measures the government had introduced to make the country ‘fit for heroes’, his great electoral promise. In January the victory of an ‘anti-waste’ candidate at a by-election in Dover increased the pressure, which was spurred on by a virulent anti-Lloyd George press campaign. Spearheaded by the Northcliffe press, owner of The Times and Daily Mail, it began to cast doubt on the very survival of the Coalition. On the very day that Churchill was luxuriating in his bed at Chequers hinting to Clementine that one day, too, she might be able to enjoy its splendours, The Sunday Times declared roundly that ‘Everyone knows that the present Coalition cannot last indefinitely.’16
As rumours of a possible general election spread, Lloyd George moved firmly to strengthen his political base. The Liberals had split when he displaced Asquith as prime minister in 1916. His followers took the designation of ‘National’ (or ‘Coalition’) Liberals’, while those remaining loyal to Asquith became known as ‘Independent Liberals’. It was a bitter schism. The Independents kept control of the Liberal Party machine and funds, as well as the National Liberal Club in central London. Here, relations between the rival Liberal factions became so acrimonious that both Lloyd George and Churchill saw their portraits rudely relegated to the basement. In response, the Lloyd George Liberals set up an alternative club known as the 1920 Club. Formed shortly before Christmas 1920 and cheekily situated almost next door, it held its first general meeting in mid-February at the Central Hall in Westminster, just off Parliament Square. Moving the vote of thanks for its creation was the Chief Liberal Whip – none other than Captain Frederick (Freddie) Guest, Churchill’s cousin and shrewd political crony.17
As the first British prime minister to fully appreciate the power of the press, Lloyd George went out of his way to court press magnates and avidly read the newspapers to gauge public opinion. Thanks to Freddie, he even possessed one of his own after Churchill’s cousin master-minded the purchase of the Daily Chronicle as his personal mouthpiece. Baron Lee, who was now First Lord of the Admiralty, also pitched in by purchasing the weekly journal Outlook as a pro-government organ. In October 1920 the Lloyd George Liberal Magazine had also been launched, specifically to bolster the Coalition. Guest was one of the principal electoral architects of the Coalition government and a figure key to its continuing survival. As a leader with no party machinery or treasury behind him, Lloyd George needed a war chest to finance his political activities. Here, Freddie proved indispensable by building up a fund eventually reaching £3 million through the sale of honours such as knighthoods and other forms of political patronage. Although there was little new about the trading of honours for political purposes, the scheme was becoming a growing target for Lloyd George’s political enemies. Freddie’s dubious dealings were one of the reasons why Clementine disapproved of him. Now, as the political ground beneath his feet began to shake, Lloyd George turned to Churchill’s cousin once again for help.18
The day after Churchill returned from his weekend at Chequers, the prime minister sent Guest to the West Country, Yorkshire, and Lancashire to bolster support for the National Liberals against attacks by their Independent Liberal rivals that threatened to weaken his political base. Here, Guest strongly banged the anti-socialist drum by telling an audi-ence at the Manchester Reform Club that only the Coalition could prevent a Labour government from coming to power – a theme that Lloyd George was to embellish himself at the inaugural dinner of the 1920 Club held the following month at the Savoy Hotel in London.19 In a similar talk at Leeds, Guest concluded by referring to the Liberal Club’s removal of its Lloyd George portrait to the basement. They should remember, he joked, that Guy Fawkes had once stored gunpowder in a cellar.20
But gunpowder is volatile and unpredictable. Outwardly the relations between Churchill and Lloyd George were civil and friendly. But they were far from seeing eye to eye on many issues, and at Cabinet meetings Churchill was often ‘a brooding source of discontent’.21 Contrary to popular myth, he was no reactionary. In the pre-war Liberal government, he had argued vigorously for active social reform, and its radical scheme of unemployment insurance was his personal brainchild. During the war he had argued for massive state intervention in the economy and in 1918 favoured the nationalization of the railways. He also strongly and consistently pressed for the taxation of war wealth – the amount by which personal wealth had increased during the war. When the Cabinet had rejected the idea the previous June, he made sure that his dissent was recorded in the official minutes. He also remained committed to the government’s housing programme, which was now coming under increasing attack. His own experience and lifestyle were privileged and aristocratic. But since 1908 he had been a Member of Parliament for Dundee, an impoverished and heavily working-class town dominated by the jute trade and hit badly by the current slump. After one of his earliest visits to Scotland, he had been struck by the unfriendly and disaffected attitude of the working classes. ‘They evidently [mean] trouble,’ he remarked. Now, unemployment was increasing steeply and poor relief was hard to get, as he was reminded almost daily by angry and anguished letters from his constituency. The swingeing cuts to social programmes being contemplated by the Cabinet seriously troubled him. When he visited his constituency later in the year he was shocked to see men in bare feet and children who were clearly starving and under-nourished. ‘Should our policy remain the austere bankers’ policy?’ he caustically asked Lloyd George.22
*
It was on foreign policy issues, however, that he was most seriously at loggerheads with the prime minist
er. Over the Bolsheviks they had frequently come to metaphorical blows, and there was now an uneasy truce. It was Turkey that now divided them. Two years before, eager to profit from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Greece had invaded the Anatolian mainland of Turkey and seized the city of Smyrna with its Greek population exceeding that of Athens itself. A former Ottoman army officer called Mustafa Kemal, known as ‘Ataturk’, was now leading a national war to drive out the Greeks. Lloyd George was passionately pro-Greek and an unqualified supporter of Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, whom he hailed as ‘the greatest statesman Greece had thrown up since the days of Pericles’. By contrast, Churchill wished to see Turkey kept as intact as possible as a bulwark against Bolshevik Russia and because he feared that a humiliation of the Turks would alienate Muslims across the Middle East and within the British Empire. The two men had frequently quarrelled over this. Shortly before Christmas, Churchill had accused Lloyd George of waging ‘a vendetta’ against the Turks.23
Things were to get worse. While he was holidaying on the Riviera with Clementine, he received an urgent plea from his friend Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, who was married to Clementine’s cousin and lifelong friend, Venetia Stanley; their home at Breccles in Norfolk frequently played host to the Churchills. Lloyd George was about to go to Paris and would be pressing his views about the Greek–Turkish war on the French. ‘His mood is violently anti-Turkish and he is dreaming in Greek,’ wrote Montagu. ‘Come back or go to Paris but act now and save the world.’ Five days later Churchill arrived in the French capital. He found Lloyd George in ‘a cursed bad humour’ and determined to keep on backing the Greeks. The next morning, the two men continued their row after Lloyd George accused him of having driven Turkey into the First World War in the first place when he was at the Admiralty. Back in London, Churchill wrote him a furious letter correcting certain facts, hinting strongly that he might resign, and pointing out that Lloyd George’s anti-Turkish stance would badly harm his own chances of finding a Middle East settlement.
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