The Jeromes arrived in England tired and despondent and made their way to London, where they stayed at Brown’s Hotel. Jennie recalled that “a winter spent in the gloom and fogs of London did not tend to dispel the melancholy which we felt.”14 She missed the French court and spent the time playing piano and walking around Hyde Park practicing her German conversation with an Austrian fräulein. A former pupil of Stephen Heller, Jennie was a gifted pianist, and Chopin’s Funeral March fitted her mood. France was over: some of their friends had been killed, others were ruined. Clara mourned the departure of the French aristocrat with whom she had been in love, and young Leonie was packed off to school in Germany.15 Jennie, a spectacular beauty of eighteen, began to realize that her future lay in England.
This became even more important two years later, when Leonard Jerome’s financial empire took a direct hit during a Wall Street crash. Leonard was not ruined exactly, but certainly compromised.16
It was a case of in England we trust, and rescue came when Clara and Jennie were invited to the Royal Regatta at Cowes on the Isle of Wight and presented to the Prince and Princess of Wales. Even at this early juncture, Jennie made an impression on Bertie. Later that evening, the girls attended a dance on board HMS Ariadne, given in honor of their Imperial Highnesses the Grand Duke Cesarevitch and Grand Duchess Cesarevitch of Russia. It was here that Jennie met her fate, in the form of Randolph Churchill.
At first glance, the twenty-three-year-old Randolph did not seem an obvious match for Jennie. Outwardly cold and reserved, Randolph possessed a slim boyish figure, a weird laugh, and a moustache that seemed to have a life of its own. His round protruding eyes had earned him the nickname “Gooseberry-faced Churchill” at school, and he was accompanied at all times by his pug.17 But Randolph had the distinction of being the younger son of the Duke of Marlborough; and he was also smitten with Jennie.
The dark hair, the gray eyes “put in with a sooty finger,”18 and the air of tragedy that hung about her after her European adventures gave Jennie an edge over the English debutantes. Randolph was invited to dinner the following evening, and made a great impression on the Jerome family, apart from Clara, who said straight out that she disliked him. But Jennie cut her short, telling Clara that this was the man she was going to marry. At the same time, Randolph was telling his friend Colonel Edgcombe that he intended to make “the dark one” his wife.19
The following evening, Randolph returned to the Jeromes’ villa, and, despite being completely unmusical, agreed to play a duet with Jennie. Colonel Edgcombe later commented on the lovely sight of the golden head and the dark side by side over the keyboard.20 After coffee, Randolph invited Jennie outside into the garden, where he proposed to her, and was accepted.
Winston Churchill, in his memoirs, pictured the scene: “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.”21 When the couple returned indoors, Mrs. Jerome demanded why they had spent so long outside. When Jennie retorted that she had just received a proposal of marriage, Mrs. Jerome replied that she felt the decision “precipitate” and “over-hasty.”22 Jennie must think this through. To which Jennie replied that there was nothing for her to think through. A similar response greeted Randolph when he told his father that he had proposed to an unknown American girl on the strength of three days’ acquaintance. Randolph, the future Conservative MP, used all his eloquence, responding that “all I can say is that I love her better than life itself … my one hope and dream now is that … I may soon be united to her by ties that nothing but death itself could have the power to sever…”23 and he asked for his allowance to be increased so that they could be married. “She is as good as she is beautiful … in every way qualified to fill any position.”24 This included being the wife of a Tory MP. Randolph had hitherto been reluctant to seek election to Parliament, a dream that his father had long cherished for him. Now Randolph as good as promised that he would stand for Parliament if he were allowed to marry Jennie. The duke, patriarch of a family that married for status, not for love, remained unconvinced. With the spectacular rudeness that is the hallmark of the British aristocracy, the Duke of Marlborough commented that Mr. Jerome was a “sporting and I should think vulgar sort of man,”25 a speculator who had been bankrupt once and might be so again. Worst of all, according to the duke, Mr. Jerome was “not respectable,” making Jennie nothing more than “an American adventuress.”26
Over in New York, Mr. Jerome showed a similar reaction when Jennie wrote him about her betrothal. “You quite startled me,” he replied. “I fear if anything goes wrong you will make a frightful shipwreck of your affections. I always thought that if you did fall in love it would be a very dangerous affair.”27 Leonard Jerome’s attitude softened, however, in the course of the letter, and by the close he was saying he was prepared to accept this sudden engagement. “I could not object … provided he is not a Frenchman or any of those Continental cusses.”28 Unfortunately, when Leonard Jerome learned about the Duke of Marlborough’s objections, he withdrew his consent. Jennie was forbidden to reply to Randolph’s letters, and Randolph himself was told that, as a test of his affection, the couple were to wait a year before getting married.
Leonard Jerome, investigating Randolph’s background, would have heard of the following, discreditable incident. In March 1870, while he was an undergraduate, Randolph was involved in a fracas with two policemen following a dinner at the Randolph Hotel, Oxford. Randolph was fined ten shillings for assault, but acquitted of being drunk and disorderly. And there the matter might have been at an end had Randolph not decided to take out an action against Constable Partridge, one of the arresting officers, accusing him of perjury. A waiter, Alfred Wren, was summoned as a witness and provided an itemized list of the alcohol Randolph had consumed that fateful evening: champagne, hock, sherry, claret, port, and punch. At some point in the proceedings Randolph spilled some wine and threatened the waiter with a wine cooler. The charge against Constable Partridge was dropped, but the affair ended badly. After Randolph threatened that the Churchills would boycott the hotel as long as the waiter remained an employee there, Wren was sacked.29
Randolph, who was already becoming a consummate political operator, told Jennie that he would stand for Parliament, but, unless they were allowed to marry, he would withdraw at the last minute, allowing the radical candidate to triumph in a traditional Tory seat. “All tricks are fair in love and war.”30 The trick worked. Randolph was elected as MP for Woodstock, Oxfordshire, on February 4, 1874, with 569 votes. Randolph’s Liberal opponent was George Broderick, a fellow of Randolph’s own college, Merton.
The Duke of Marlborough had no option but to agree to the marriage, and the following week Randolph arrived in Paris to see Jennie and the couple were blissfully reunited. Just how blissfully and closely reunited they were is a matter for some conjecture. Mrs. Jerome was a strict mother, anxious to guard her daughter’s reputation. The couple were officially not permitted to see each other alone, and Mrs. Jerome attempted to keep Jennie under twenty-four-hour escort. Such were Victorian values. While it was considered entirely permissible for a young lady to go out riding with every Tom, Dick, and Harry, it was considered improper for a single woman to share a carriage with a man, let alone a drawing room. And yet there is the possibility that Jennie managed to give her mother the slip.31 This was a dangerous business: had Jennie been caught in Randolph’s hotel room at the Rue de Rivoli, her reputation would have been in tatters. And yet Randolph wrote: “I like to think of you being in my room. You can’t think, darling, how I long to be back—”32 It would have been an audacious move on Jennie’s part, considering that she had so much to lose, and yet it is typical of impulsive, unconventional Jennie that she would take such a risk.
By October 1874, the Duke of Marlborough agreed that the couple could marry as soon as Randolph was elected to Parliament. Leonie, Jennie’s little sister, heard the news
from a stranger while at school in Wiesbaden. “Last night at the circus someone told me that Jennie would marry the second son of the Duke of Marlborough—a Good Thing tho’ he is a younger son!”33
Jennie would become one of many American heiresses whose money contributed to the upkeep of a stately home and a ruined family. Despite his stock market losses, Leonard Jerome was still a wealthy man and contributed a settlement of £50,000, which he wanted to give to his daughter but which, in the end, went jointly to the couple. Jerome was shocked to discover that Jennie’s fortune would be absorbed by Randolph’s family, as was traditional. It would be another eight years before the Married Women’s Property Act ensured that women were permitted to keep their own money and property. Meanwhile, the Duke of Marlborough settled £20,000 on Randolph and paid off his son’s £2,000 debts.34
Jennie and Randolph were married at the British Embassy in Paris on April 15, 1874. Although Jennie had wanted a church wedding, this would have involved a lengthy period of residence in Paris to qualify. Leonie, permitted leave from boarding school to attend her sister’s wedding, recorded Jennie resplendent in a white satin dress trimmed with Alençon lace and a tulle veil that covered her entirely from head to foot.35 Clara and Leonie, her bridesmaids, were dressed in pale blue silk and wore their bridesmaids’ presents, crystal lockets. The service was performed a second time at the American Legation, and then the happy couple dined alone, as was the embassy tradition, while their guests sat down to a splendid lunch in a room bursting with white floral displays. At two o’clock, Jennie appeared in her “going away” outfit, a dark blue-and-white-striped traveling dress, and a virginal white coat with a white feather.36 A beautiful carriage with four gray horses and two postilions waited to carry them off to a chateau near Paris called Petit Val, lent by Mrs. Charles Moulton, an American expatriate. Just before the couple left, Leonard Jerome presented his daughter with a beautiful parasol, made of Alençon lace, with a gold and tortoiseshell handle.37 Bertie and Alix had already sent Jennie a locket of pearl and turquoises.38
When the happy couple arrived home from their honeymoon to Woodstock station in Oxfordshire, they were met by cheering tenants from Blenheim estate, who were so pleased to see them that they unfastened the horses from their carriage and dragged the carriage back to Blenheim Palace.
“As we passed through the entrance archway and the lovely scenery burst upon me,” Randolph said, with pardonable pride, “this is the best view in England.… Looking at the lake, the miles of magnificent park studded with old oaks … the huge and stately palace … I confess I felt awed.”39
But life for Jennie at Blenheim was not an unalloyed pleasure. Jennie was a city girl, urban to her fingertips, and she felt lonely and uncomfortable among the country set. As an American, and a nouveau riche American at that, she was accustomed to a more informal atmosphere. And as the daughter in a close-knit, happy family, Jennie struggled to cope with the cold and distant formality of the Churchills. Jennie’s mother-in-law, the Duchess of Marlborough, treated her with disdain. She “ruled Blenheim and nearly all those in it with a firm hand. At the rustle of her silk dress the household trembled.”40
The Churchill sisters were jealous of Jennie’s accomplishments as a gifted musician and horsewoman, and sneered at her “Red Indian” ancestry. Jennie, with her jet black hair and huge eyes, looked as out of place as a panther at a garden party. But even the Churchills had to acknowledge that this magnificent new brood mare brought a healthy streak to an otherwise inbred and delicate bloodline. As one admirer later put it, Jennie possessed “more of the panther than of the woman in her look, her courage not less than that of her husband—fit mother for the descendants of the great Duke.”41
Like many an American heiress, Jennie was horrified by the austere, unfashionable nature of country house life. In letters home to Mrs. Jerome, Jennie deplored the clunky water jugs and tumblers on the dinner table, the frumpy clothes of the Churchill women, and even their tablemats. She was shocked by the feudal tradition by which the duke and duchess carved the roasts and distributed them to the entire family, including governesses and tutors, with the remains being carried off to the children in their separate quarters. “How strange life in a big country house seemed to one whom until then, had been accustomed to towns!”42 It was almost like being back in the schoolroom, with every day the same, a cycle of reading, piano practice, and whiling away the time with walks in the garden or visits to neighbors before the long and tedious dinner, which was followed reading or a game of whist. For a high-spirited girl of twenty, the boredom was unendurable.
Jennie soon escaped to London, when she and Randolph moved to their house in Belgravia for a round of dinners, balls, and parties. Jennie was formally presented to Queen Victoria, and the Prince and Princess of Wales. This allowed Jennie to renew her acquaintance with Bertie, who had been so impressed by her beauty when they met at Cowes. And then there were the races, an obvious source of pleasure to Jennie after growing up in a racing household. “We used to drive down in coaches in Ascot frocks and feathered hats, and stay to dinner, driving back by moonlight,”43 she recalled. At Ascot in 1874, Jennie was the center of attention, wearing her wedding dress, as was the custom. A bonnet trimmed with pink roses completed the outfit, and the exquisite lace parasol, that wedding gift from Leonard Jerome, framed her beautiful features.44
As an excellent horsewoman, Jennie drew the grudging admiration of the Churchills for her skill in the saddle. But Jennie’s enjoyment was soon cut short when she discovered that she was pregnant. Banned from riding, she was forced to spend every afternoon with the duchess during visits to Blenheim. These visits, to a girl of Jennie’s spirit, sound unendurable: “Our return found the drawing room full of lots of people having tea.… You cannot imagine how stiff & uncomfortable the first hour of their arrivals are. No one knows each other & so content themselves with staring.…”45 Matters did not improve after dinner, when the time was spent talking “gossip & slander … everyone is pulled to pieces & and it is not only the women … the men I assure you are quite as bad.”46
In November, when the shooting season was under way, Jennie joined the guns for their picnic, then followed the men in a pony and trap. On November 28, rattling home from a shoot, Jennie went into labor. On November 30, 1874, Jennie gave birth to a son, Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, born some two months prematurely. While this might be taken as evidence that Jennie and Randolph had anticipated their marriage vows, Jennie’s second child was also born early, suggesting that Jennie may have had a weakness in the neck of the womb, causing premature labor.
Having produced an heir for Randolph and recovered swiftly from the ordeal, Jennie could look forward with excitement to her third season in London, away from the stultifying gloom of Blenheim Palace. Sadly, the stalwarts of London society had different ideas. Despite the fact that Jennie brought money to the Marlborough clan, she was regarded as a gold digger, while the British upper class revealed its deep-rooted racism by referring to her as a “Red Indian.”47 There was also more than a little jealousy: Jennie appeared to be a potential royal mistress. Bertie, who had sent Jennie a bracelet during the first year of her marriage, had become a regular guest at the Churchills’ house in Charles Street, often calling when Jennie was alone. Bertie was also a genuine friend of Randolph’s, finding him more entertaining than any other man he knew.48 But within a year, the Aylesford scandal would see Bertie fall out bitterly with Randolph and ban the Churchills from court. Jennie could do nothing but watch in horror as the scandal unfolded.
Chapter Six
THE AYLESFORD SCANDAL
Poor little Edith and that Churchill cad!
—“SPORTING JOE” AYLESFORD
In October 1875, Bertie set off on an official tour of India, against the wishes of Queen Victoria, who was genuinely concerned about her son’s health. Bertie had narrowly avoided death from typhoid in 1871, after contracting the disease at Londesborough Lodge near Scarborough. T
he drains had leaked into the drinking water, and Lord Chesterfield and a groom had died.1 The queen also had a low opinion of the companions Bertie had chosen to accompany him on the visit. While among the eighteen men Bertie had enlisted to travel with him were his nephew, Prince Louis of Battenberg, and Colonel Owen Williams, commander of the Royal Horse Guards, the party also included some notable reprobates. The queen particularly objected to Lieutenant Lord Charles “Charlie” Beresford, RN, and Lord Charles Carrington, with whom Bertie had shared Nellie Clifden. Queen Victoria instructed the prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, to warn both young men against “larks.” As Lord Carrington wrote to his mother, wistfully, “no jokes, or any approach to them … no whist and no sprees, or bear fights, or anything!”2 Another colorful character along for the ride was Heneage Finch, Earl of Aylesford, familiar to all as “Sporting Joe” because of his reputation for “racing, gaming and whoring.”3 Sporting Joe was a close friend of Bertie, and he and his wife, Edith, had entertained Bertie and Alix, at ruinous expense, at their country house, Packington Hall in Warwickshire. Edith was the sister of Colonel Owen Williams, and she and her sisters had all married into the peerage. Bringing up the rear of the Indian contingent was the Duke of Sutherland, who took along his own piper, Alistair, to serenade the party every night after dinner.4
Bertie made a good impression in India. The maharajahs admired his sporting prowess and royal bearing, while the Indian professional classes were impressed by his liberal views and refusal to tolerate racism. Bertie wrote angrily to Lord Salisbury, the secretary of state for India, protesting about the “disgraceful habit” of some British officers who referred to the Indians as “niggers.”5 Bertie toured India for five months, shooting elephants, tigers, and cheetahs, attending state receptions, meeting Indian royalty, and even visiting murderers in prison. In February 1876, he reached Nepal, where one thousand riding elephants and a squad of ten thousand soldiers were put at his disposal. On February 21, after shooting six tigers from the back of an elephant, Bertie returned to his lavishly appointed camp to find that a mood of despondency had descended on his companions. Bertie’s only reference to the event was recorded in his diary as “Letters!!!” but the word was highly significant.6
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