† The original family name of West had been changed to Cornwallis-West in 1886 under the terms of a will.
*This was not in fact the last cavalry charge; there were others after Omdurman, but they were smaller affairs.
*At Duart Castle, now renamed Torosay Castle.
†Duchess Frances died on 16 April 1899 aged seventy-seven.
‡Members of Parliament first received recompense in 1911.
*The contract stipulated £1000 for four months’ work, £200 a month thereafter. All expenses ‘shore to shore’ were to be paid, and the Post kept the copyright of Winston’s dispatches.
*Leopold Charles Amery (1873–1955) was a Conservative politician and journalist, noted for his military knowledge. He is probably best remembered for his intervention during the Norway debate in 1940 when he attacked Chamberlain’s government, blaming it for the recent military and naval defeats. This heralded the downfall of the government and the formation of a national government under Churchill.
†Many years later this account of Winston’s capture was queried by a former serving Boer, who said it could not have been Louis Botha who personally captured him, although he was undoubtedly the CO in charge of that area and Churchill would have been taken before him for questioning. Churchill, however, insisted that his captor had been Botha in person.
*Haldane escaped a few months later and included a report of his first escape attempt which matched Winston’s in every detail. Years later, though, Haldane became embittered and wrote a different account, accusing Winston of abandoning his fellow escapees in the prison.
*Twenty-five pounds would have represented several months’ income, at least, to most workers.
†The former name of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.
*Winston’s columns were eagerly read by those at home avid for news. Only once did he raise hackles when he wrote sympathising with the Boers, whom he admired as brave enemies. With his easy grasp of the essential facts he could already see both sides of the affair, and despite his utter loyalty to Britain he dared to comment that had he been a Boer he too would have been fighting the British.
*In the event her brother-in-law was too unwell to eat the provisions Churchill carried, so he ate them himself.
†Prime Minister at the outbreak of the Second World War.
*Lady Sarah’s sister, Georgina Curzon, Countess Howe, also involved herself in the war, raising money and organising field hospitals. Heading a committee of titled women, she bullied, harried and begged, slicing through red tape with the self-confidence of the daughter of a Duke, adroitly managing harassed War Office officials and keeping her committee unanimous and contented. Within three months a fully equipped base hospital containing over five hundred beds (subsequently increased to a thousand) was shipped from England. She worked herself to a standstill and damaged her heart. She died aged forty-six.
*Off Park Lane, it was a few steps to Lansdowne House, owned by his second cousin the Marquess of Lansdowne.
†The Connaught, then called the Coburg (after Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg), was built in 1897. The name was changed during the First World War.
*Gilbert John Elliot-Murray, 4th Earl of Minto (1845–1914), served as Governor General of Canada from 1898 to 1904 and as Viceroy of India from 1905 to 1910.
†Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Sir Ernest Joseph Cassel (1852–1921) arrived penniless in England at the age of seventeen. He found work in banks, rapidly gaining promotion, where his industry, ability and cosmopolitan outlook made him a shrewd investor. He became one of the country’s wealthiest men. He was a friend of King Edward VII and of leading politicians such as Asquith and Churchill. After his marriage he converted to Catholicism and following the early deaths of his wife and his only daughter he raised his two granddaughters, one of whom, Edwina, was to marry Lord Louis Mountbatten. Churchill later wrote about Cassel: ‘He fed the sheep with great prudence. They did not multiply fast, but they fattened steadily, and none of them ever died. Indeed from year to year they had a few lambs, but these were not numerous enough for me to live on. I had every year to eat a sheep or two as well, so gradually my flock grew smaller.’
*Mrs Alice Keppel, the new King’s mistress, was the great-grandmother of Camilla, present Duchess of Cornwall.
*Thomas Gibson Bowles was the maternal grandfather of the Mitford sisters. See Mary S. Lovell, The Mitford Girls (Little, Brown 2005) and The Sisters (W.W. Norton, New York, 2005). As well as being an MP, he was a successful entrepreneur and among his ventures was the founding of the magazines Vanity Fair and The Lady. The latter is still going strong and is still owned by his descendants.
*Bowles had whispered: ‘You might say “Instead of making his violent speech without moving his moderate amendment, he had better have moved his moderate amendment without making his violent speech.”’
*Known as the ‘Mr Brodrick’s Army’ debate, it was a scheme for Army reform proposed by St John Brodrick, Secretary of State for War.
†He earned for these talks a total of £586.
*‘Now she loves me,’ he wrote in August 1899, ‘[and] if there be any possibility of marrying she would marry me.’
†Colonel J.P. Brabazon, who had ensured Winston’s commission in the 4th Hussars. Winston was ‘devoted’ to him.
‡Victor Alexander Bulwer-Lytton (1876–1947), 2nd Earl of Lytton, was a politician and served as Under-Secretary of State for India during 1920–2 and as Governor of Bengal during 1922–7.
*His only daughter Judith was the wife of Victor Lytton’s younger brother, who succeeded as 3rd Earl because Pamela and Victor’s two sons would both predecease them.
† Later Helen Violet Bonham Carter, Baroness Asquith DBE (1887–1969). Her father Herbert Henry Asquith, the Liberal politician, was Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916.
*In 1902 British Imperial India was at its apogee, and the coronation of Edward VII as King–Emperor was celebrated in a show of pomp, spectacle and pageantry never seen before or since. Organised by the Viceroy Lord Curzon, the Delhi Durbar lasted two weeks, and more than a million people lined the streets jostling to see the state processions of maharajas, ambassadors and national leaders who attended. On painted elephants and tasselled horses, in howdahs and carriages, they paraded between massed ranks of marching soldiers, bands and functionaries. Special medals were struck, and there were firework displays, exhibitions and glamorous balls, culminating in the Coronation Ball presided over by Lord Curzon representing the King, and Lady Curzon wearing a stunning gown of peacock feathers. (As these feathers are considered unlucky in India, few among the local community were surprised when the beautiful young Vicereine died suddenly less than two years later.)
*The oldest English dukedom, it was established in 1483.
*Daughter of a banker, Oliver Harriman; her former husband was the cousin of Consuelo’s first love, Winthrop Rutherfurd.
*Muriel Wilson eventually married an Army officer, who is reputed to have loved fast cars more than his wife. She kept Winston’s letters even before he became famous, which may suggest that she cared for him more than her casual rejection implied. The seven letters from Winston to Muriel were auctioned by Christie’s in 1994 by her family.
*A professional soldier, Sir Henry Hozier (1838–1907) acted as Assistant Military Secretary to Lord Napier of Magdala. He served with the Royal Artillery in China and was a war correspondent during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. He was Secretary of Lloyd’s of London for thirty-two years.
†Grandfather of the well-known Mitford girls.
*Her diary entry of 24 February 1882: ‘Took Winston [then aged seven] and had tea with Blanche Hozier in her lodgings.’
†Captain Middleton was red-haired and had hazel eyes.
‡It is still not known for sure. Lady Churchill only discovered in middle life that Hozier was not her natural father and at first she was very upset, but later accepted it. In 2002 Clementine’s daughter Mary Soames, having read the Blunt dia
ries, felt that Bay Middleton was probably Clementine’s father.
*Sickert’s paintings were often explicit nudes, and he took a deep interest in the crimes of Jack the Ripper. In 2002 the crime writer Patricia Cornwell wrote a book in which she stated that Sickert was Jack the Ripper.
*Caused by an accident as he jumped from his troopship for a ladder set into the wall in Bombay harbour. He always had the shoulder strapped up when he played polo.
†The house was extensively remodelled in 1668, after which it was used as a petite garçonnière (‘bachelor pad’) by Charles II; but he may have used it years earlier as a hiding place when he was on the run from Cromwell’s troops. Nell Gwynne was installed at Salisbury Hall for some years by the King. It was there in 1670 that she gave birth to his illegitimate son Charles. Legend has it that on the arrival of the King soon after she had given birth, Nell Gwynne called for her child and holding out her arms, said: ‘Come here you little bastard and greet your father.’ When the King laughingly rebuked her, she replied: ‘Your majesty has given me no other name to call him by’, whereupon the King created the baby the Earl of Burford. Subsequently, he was created Duke of St Albans.
* ‘I am not a socialist, in the sense of believing that communistic effort can replace individual inducement,’ Ivor Guest wrote to Winston in November 1905, ‘although I have a great deal of sympathy for those who get crushed in the modern machine.’
†£1000. Churchill sent it to Cassel to invest for him.
‡The Most Noble Order of the Garter is the oldest order of knighthood still in existence, and the most senior order of chivalry in the British honours system. Membership of the Order (a male member is known as a Knight Companion and a woman as a Lady Companion) is strictly limited. The sovereign and the Prince of Wales hold office by birthright, and membership (never more than twenty-four, in addition to certain members of the royal family and certain ‘strangers’) is conferred by the sovereign alone.
*A strain of King Charles Cavalier spaniel said to have been brought back to England by the 1st Duke. These chestnut-and-white dogs are renowned for their faithfulness and good temperament. The lozenge, or spot, on the head of true Blenheim Cavaliers has a charming legend attached to it. It is said that while Sarah Churchill waited anxiously for news of her husband fighting at the Battle of Blenheim, to calm her nerves she sat with her pregnant bitch for company. As she fondled the little dog’s head and ears her thumb was continually pressed against its head. When the bitch whelped each of her puppies had a spot (or ‘thumbprint’) on the top of their heads.
*Perhaps now best remembered for his notorious four-volume autobiography, My Life and Loves, which included sexually explicit descriptions of Harris’s numerous relationships, and for his exaggerated view of his own role in history. It was published in the 1920 s, and until recently shelved under ‘banned books’ in the British Library.
*In 1999 when I interviewed Churchill’s cousin Diana Mosley for another book, she reminded me of this passage. She already knew of it when she was incarcerated, without trial, in appalling conditions in Holloway for the duration of the Second World War. She never forgave Churchill for separating her from her small children, nor for subjecting her to the experience which, she said, was perfectly summed up by this quotation.
*The Labour Representation Committee was third, winning 29 seats. After the 1906 election it was reformed as the Labour Party under the leadership of Keir Hardie.
*Charles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Lord Castlereagh (1878–1949), elder son of the Marquess of Londonderry, who succeeded his father to the title in 1915.
*Edith Chaplin, daughter of the 1st Viscount Chaplin and granddaughter of the Duke of Sutherland. She married Charles, Viscount Castlereagh, in 1899 and eventually became Marchioness of Londonderry.
*Lord Hugh R. Cecil (1869–1956) was a younger son of the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury and became Tory MP for Greenwich in 1895, a seat he lost in the Liberal rout of 1906. In 1910 he became MP for Oxford and remained so for twenty-seven years. He had been close to Churchill since they were young backbenchers critical of the leadership of Arthur Balfour. Then, together with F.E. Smith, Arthur Stanley and Ian Malcolm, they had formed a group of young Tory politicians calling themselves ‘the Hughligans’, based loosely on Lord Randolph’s ‘Fourth Party’.
*The diamond was later sent to Holland for cutting into nine smaller stones. Of these, the largest was a 530.2-carat tear-shaped diamond called the Star of Africa Number 1, which fits into the royal sceptre but can be removed and worn as a piece of jewellery. Star of Africa Number 2 is a 317.4-carat cushion-shaped diamond in the front of the British imperial state crown.
*Proust told Count Loche Radziwill that he had never met a girl ‘with such beauty – such magnificent intelligence, such goodness’.
*An image of him with the rhino was used on the front jacket of his book about the East African journey.
†Matthew White, Lord Ridley (1874–1916), married in 1899 Winston’s first cousin the Honourable Rosamund (Rose) Guest, youngest daughter of Viscount Wimborne and Lady Cornelia (Guest née Spencer Churchill).
‡The Blagdon estate, Northumberland, has been in the Ridley family since the seventeenth century. One famous family member was Bishop Ridley, the scholar who was burnt at the stake by Bloody Mary in 1555 and to whom Bishop Hugh Latimer addressed the words: ‘Play the man, Master Ridley. We shall this day light such a candle by God’s Grace in England as I trust shall never be put out.’
*F.E. Smith (1872–1930), always called ‘F.E.’, had served as a Yeomanry officer with Winston in the Oxfordshire Light Hussars (before Winston was posted to the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars) and was a brilliant lawyer, MP and wit. Although they were often politically opposed – F.E. was a protectionist – the two men were the best of friends and gambled, drank and dined together. He was created Viscount Birkenhead in 1921; he introduced Winston to Max Beaverbrook.
*Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908), a Liberal, was the first man to be called ‘Prime Minister’. Before this the leader of the party in power was known as First Lord of the Treasury (which is still the formal title of the Prime Minister). Bannerman served from December 1905 until his resignation on 3 April 1908. He died three weeks later.
*In 1707 it was laid down that any member of the Commons who accepted ‘an office of profit under the Crown’ must seek re-election by his constituents. This requirement was abolished in 1926.
†Susan Mary, née Stewart-MacKenzie, was a hostess and journalist – ‘What is shopping these days,’ she once wrote, ‘but an unsuccessful struggle against overwhelming temptation?’ – and an indefatigable charity worker. Her second husband, Francis Henry Jeune, was created first and last Baron St Helier in 1881. Lady St Helier had pulled strings with her friend Sir Evelyn Wood in order to help Churchill get to the Omdurman campaign.
*Churchill (Liberal) 7079; Baxter (Conservative) 4370; Stuart (Labour) 4014; Scrymgeour (Prohibition) 655.
*The parish church of the House of Commons.
*John George Spencer Churchill.
*When Theresa Garnett was arrested, she defiantly countered: ‘Has it hurt him much?’ Christabel Pankhurst excused her behaviour: ‘Moved by the spirit of pure chivalry, Miss Garnett took what she thought to be the best available means of avenging the insult done to womanhood by the Government to which Mr. Churchill belongs.’ Churchill did not press charges, but Theresa Garnett was sentenced to a month in prison for disturbing the peace.
*Peel was thirty-four when he first held the post in 1822. Churchill was thirty-five.
*At number 11, over the premises of Huntsman the tailors.
*At Edward VII’s coronation in 1902 Jennie had been seated in a private box with other ladies who were or had been ‘special friends’ of the new King. It was called ‘the King’s Loose Box’.
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