* * *
At the same time that his political life was heating up, Winston had fallen deeply in love again. This time the woman in question was even more glamorous and unobtainable than Pamela. She was Ethel Barrymore, then a Broadway sensation in her early twenties, and a frequent visitor to Britain. For several years she had been spending her summer holidays with friends in London and at various country retreats, and had become especially close to Millicent Sutherland, who had ambitions to produce a play with Ethel in the starring role.
It was thanks to an introduction from Millicent that Winston came to know the young woman in 1902, when, as the New York Times reported, Ethel was “being made much of in London.” He had seen her onstage in town the previous summer in a one-night-only performance of her Broadway comedy hit, Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines. As he told her later, he fell in love with her the moment she made her entrance.23
She had that effect on men. She was known for her low-cut costumes with pretty flowers pinned to her bodice and other shimmering frills. After seeing her for the first time, the veteran explorer Arnold Landor wrote of her as though he had discovered some new exotic breed of woman, calling her “a pretty creature, with dangerously expressive eyes, luxuriant dark hair, and highly captivating manner.” For Winston, it was not only Ethel’s appearance that attracted him. It was also her voice, which he is said to have described as “soft, alluring, persuasive, magnetic.”24
She visited Blenheim in 1902 and became friends with both Consuelo and Jennie. The next summer she spent part of her holiday as Consuelo’s guest at the palace and saw Winston frequently, but, like Pamela before her, she was elusive, darting from one engagement to the next in a busy social whirl. Everyone wanted to meet her. She went to Warwick Castle to see the countess, visited the Asquiths at their rented summer home in Scotland, dined with Lord Rosebery, played bridge with Arthur Balfour, and was introduced to Max Beerbohm in London.
One summer day in 1903 Millicent invited her to lunch. The only other guests were Churchill, Millicent’s brother Lord Rosslyn, and the American novelist Henry James. “Millie made the mistake,” Ethel recalled, “of saying to Henry James, ‘Did you have a pleasant walk this morning.’ And he said, ‘Yes,’ in two and a half pages, with hardly a semicolon and never a period—a superb performance.” Winston never had a chance to get Ethel’s attention.25
What seemed to interest Ethel most, when she did focus on Winston, was his political career. She was fascinated by the Hooligans and their tactics, which she described with amusement as “unruly.” The theatrics of British politics appealed to her, but she didn’t appear to understand what all the sound and fury signified in a fight such as the one Churchill was waging against Chamberlain. Writing to Winston from New York in the autumn of 1903, she seemed to think he would be pleased to hear that she was following the political news from Britain. But she heaped praise on the wrong man.
“I have been so awfully interested in all the wonderful doings in England,” she wrote excitedly. “I can’t help thinking Joe the most brilliant living creature. I thought the Glasgow speech too wonderful—Is it true that he is succeeding?”
For a young American, it was easy to assume that because Winston and Joe sat on the same side in the House of Commons, they must be working toward the same end. Chamberlain’s argument in favor of “tariff reform” at Glasgow on October 6, 1903, was so long and complex that Ethel may have supposed it was safe to call him “brilliant.” But it was a mistake that Winston could easily shrug off. He would have been more than happy to spend time elucidating for her the correct view. In fact, he was anxiously awaiting her next visit in the summer.
And, in her cheerful manner, she led him to believe that it would be a visit worth waiting for. She was busy now acting in a new play on Broadway, but she expressed in her letter the hope that she was missed in Britain. There was even a chance that she might be starring in a play that would open in London in the late spring. Meanwhile, she encouraged him to keep her in his thoughts. “Do write often dear Winston,” she gently commanded. His end of the correspondence has not survived, but it must have been lengthy and passionate, because by the time he saw her again in London he was ready to propose.26
VII
DEPARTURES
Churchill’s internecine war with Chamberlain reached its climax early in 1904. It was on a Tuesday in the House of Commons at the end of March, and the government was being pummeled by the opposition for not calling a general election to let the country decide the free trade issue. Lloyd George was leading the attack, arguing that other pressing problems were being neglected, and that the nation had been left adrift, while Conservatives tried to decide how to make protectionism acceptable to the electorate.
Staring at Balfour, he mocked the leader’s coy refusal to take a clear stand and fight openly for it. The prime minister, Lloyd George claimed, wanted to pretend that the country shared his complacent attitude.
Churchill rose from the benches behind Balfour. The prime minister could easily guess what was coming—more pointed criticisms from a man who was supposed to be one of his followers. In the words of an excited parliamentary commentator, “A nasty look came into [Balfour’s] face which transfigured it in the same way that the claws do a cat’s paw.” At that instant the prime minister apparently decided that he had put up with enough from Winston. With uncharacteristic haste, he strode out of the chamber and didn’t look back.
Then something even more extraordinary happened. One by one the other ministers of the Crown got up and followed their chief, as did most of the backbenchers. The Tory dandy William Burdett-Coutts paused on his way out to regard the scene with “a look of studied insolence” until the opposition benches began shouting angrily at him, and he left. In a few minutes the long rows of benches on the government side were empty except for a dozen or so Tory free traders and Winston, who was still standing and trying to carry on with his speech in the wake of this shocking rebuke from his party.
Though taken aback, he finished speaking and didn’t spare Balfour for failing to lead. If anything, he was harder on the prime minister than Lloyd George had been. “The time had come,” he told the delighted members who stayed to listen, “when the country ought to be relieved from this shifty policy of equivocal evasion; they had a right to know what public men thought on public questions, and what political chiefs believed on great political principles.”1
In walking out Balfour had broken with the traditions of the House, and he was widely condemned for it. In typical fashion he wouldn’t even take responsibility for walking out, claiming that his absence was necessary because of “an engagement with the Chancellor of the Exchequer,” and that he had not intentionally snubbed Churchill. Few accepted his excuse. One paper referred to his “running away” as a “schoolboy antic and a sign of weakness.” The Spectator was convinced that the protest was “an organized attempt to slight Mr. Churchill” and scolded his party for refusing to play fair with a man “who shows courage as well as vivacity.”2
Instead of blaming Chamberlain for dividing the party over an unrealistic imperial scheme, Balfour and others found it easier to turn on Churchill and the handful of determined free traders in their ranks. Of course, Winston was headstrong and overbearing, but so was Joe. Yet little effort was made to accommodate Winston’s views or to give him any incentive to stick with the party. The Tories were in need of an energetic young fighter willing to question its elders, but Balfour was so indecisive and Chamberlain so intolerant that neither had much use for Winston. And he, in turn, slowly came to the conclusion that he couldn’t stay in a party dominated by these two men. They had created an impossible situation. Joe was too strong to be ignored but not strong enough to win the argument for his cause. Balfour had the power to lead but had chosen instead to prevaricate.
Churchill had been thinking about leaving for several months. In the autumn he had revealed his inclination in a letter to Hugh Cecil, saying that he was sick o
f “feigning friendship to a party where no friendship exists, & loyalty to leaders whose downfall is desired.” He even went so far as to say, “I hate the Tory party.” Knowing that this blunt talk would offend Hugh, whose Conservative roots ran deep, he didn’t send the letter. But by the end of 1903 he had said enough in public to make Hugh fear that he might soon abandon the party.3
His friend tried to talk him back from the edge, urging him “to go on fighting the battle within the party” and to win over those “who are in doubt, who hesitate not much liking Joe & his plan but strong in their devotion to the party.” He wanted him “to fight JC hard but at the same time to use the language of Conservatism.” Hugh didn’t yet understand that Winston wasn’t inclined to speak the language of conservatism. Whatever else it might be, what he spoke was always first and foremost the language of Winston. “He is a party all by himself,” the Scotsman newspaper correctly concluded in March 1904.4
The question was whether any party would ever be willing to offer him a leash long enough to make him happy. He would spend the rest of his career testing that proposition. Meanwhile, he had inspired in Hugh—his best follower to date—such a strong sense of outrage against Joe’s methods that it couldn’t be contained. It boiled over in the spring. Having survived his foray to Birmingham, Cecil felt emboldened to confront the great Joe face-to-face and tell him what he thought of him. It took place during an evening session of the House and left many members stunned at the vehemence of the attack.
Since leaving office, Chamberlain had tried to avoid parliamentary debates on protection, preferring to discuss it in public speeches so that Balfour and other ministers wouldn’t have to be drawn even deeper into the controversy. But what Hugh Cecil dared to do in the House was to point his finger at Joe and call him a coward for not debating the issue in its proper forum. Members could hardly believe that anyone—least of all Lord Hugh—would hurl such an insult at mighty Joe. But then the bookish aristocrat made the charge even more inflammatory by saying that Chamberlain reminded him of the buffoonish Bob Acres in Sheridan’s eighteenth-century play The Rivals.
“I should . . . compare my right hon. friend,” said Hugh, “to Bob Acres in the comedy, who exhibited courage elsewhere than on the field of battle, because my right hon. friend shrinks, like that character, from facing his opponents on the field of combat which is the House of Commons. When Bob Acres found himself in that situation his courage oozed out through the ends of his fingers.”
The comparison was witty but humiliating, and was greeted with laughter from the Liberals and indignant howls of protest from Joe’s friends. At first, Chamberlain pretended not to care. “It was a sight to see Mr. Joseph Chamberlain whilst Lord Hugh was speaking,” remarked a member of the press gallery. “His face wreathed itself into a great giant of a smile, and he did his utmost to appear like one who looked on the whole matter as a debating society joke.” But when Joe’s time came to respond he struck back with all his verbal skill, scornfully dismissing the notion that Hugh should lecture him on courage. If it came to a physical fight, there would be no contest, Joe suggested in a bullying way.
Partly as a result of his association with Winston, Hugh had emerged from the shadows of the Cecil family to tackle the biggest issue of the day and to put one of the most important politicians on the defensive. Even his cousin the prime minister was caught off guard by his audacity. At the end of the evening he felt obligated to defend his former Cabinet member and to disassociate himself from Hugh’s criticisms. Of Chamberlain he said, “The utmost ingenuity of hostility, which sometimes, I grieve to say, has risen to malignity, has been used to vilify him, and yet, in all the vocabulary of attack which I have ever heard levelled against him, I have never until this evening heard it even whispered that the quality that he was lacking in was courage.”5
Hugh innocently assumed that he could now get away with his attacks on a weakened foe, but Joe was not finished yet and never forgot the indignities of this night. He vowed revenge and began a campaign to discredit Hugh in his Greenwich constituency. Winston tried to warn his friend of the danger, telling him that Joe would retaliate whenever possible. “Have no sort of illusions as to any surrender,” he wrote him.
It would take time, but Joe worked methodically over the next year and a half to ruin Cecil’s political career, making it clear to his associates that he would rather see the party “lose 20 seats than allow [Lord Hugh] to be returned to Parliament.” Too late, Hugh realized that Joe had targeted him for defeat in the next election and would at one point be “spending £50 a day” to unseat him. Hugh lost badly in 1906 and would angrily blame Chamberlain for it, casting him in extravagant language as a Machiavellian monster who “engaged in a system of Renaissance style assassination of opponents by parliamentary bravos.” Wisely, Churchill would avoid such a fate by planning far ahead and placing himself in a position where Joe was powerless to reach him.6
* * *
From the time he entered Parliament, Churchill had been looking for ways to lead without having to bend to party discipline. He had hoped that by the sheer force of his personality he could win acceptance as an independent-minded Tory whom others would follow because of who he was and what he did, and not because of what he was owed in the party hierarchy. As early as 1901 he had told a learned society in Liverpool, “Nothing would be worse than that independent men should be snuffed out, and that there should be only two opinions in England—the Government opinion and the Opposition opinion. The perpetually unanimous Cabinet disquiets me. I believe in personality.”
It wasn’t a practical stand for a young man with only a few “unruly” Hooligans trailing in his wake. Though some in his party saw promise, many others saw only conceit. And the more trouble he caused the less he was liked. A burly backbencher’s response to him during an especially rowdy debate is not untypical. James L. Wanklyn, a railway speculator who had made a lot of money in South America, was one of many calling for order one afternoon when Churchill turned on him and told him to stop “shouting people down.” Wanklyn, a Chamberlain supporter, was not pleased. “Permit me to warn you,” he wrote Winston the next day, “that if I have any more impertinence from a young man like yourself, I shall know how to deal with it.”7
For several months Churchill had flirted with the idea of pushing for a “Government of the Middle,” as he called it, which would be led by Lord Rosebery and other powerful figures from the center of both major parties. He tried repeatedly to get Rosebery excited about the idea, but the pampered aristocrat was too attached to the easy life on his grand estates and was reluctant to throw himself into a new political movement with many hurdles facing it. As this idea faded, and life in the Tory ranks became increasingly difficult for him, Winston had little choice but to contemplate a fresh start as a Liberal.8
He had several friends among their number and felt especially at home in the company of the old Victorian statesman John Morley, who was so gracious and tolerant that he maintained close relationships with politicians of every kind, including even Joe Chamberlain. An accomplished man of letters, Gladstone’s official biographer, and an ardent free trader, Morley was an old-fashioned liberal who championed individual freedom against the reactionaries in the landed classes and the established church. Quietly, he had spent his life trying to keep the ship of state from racing into foreign entanglements or sinking under the weight of domestic burdens. He was happy to become one of Winston’s intellectual and political mentors, recommending books to him and occasionally offering advice in his modest, polite way. At Morley’s suggestion, Winston had made a close study of Seebohm Rowntree’s groundbreaking work Poverty: A Study of Town Life, which started him thinking seriously for the first time about ways of alleviating the suffering in Britain’s worst slums. “I see little glory,” Churchill wrote after reading the book, “in an Empire which can rule the waves and is unable to flush its sewers.”
A steady, undemonstrative man, Morley tried to soften Wins
ton’s bellicose manner and teach him the value of moderation and a slow, contemplative approach to formulating and carrying out policies. He didn’t have much success. In later years he would quietly lament Winston’s tendency to rush headlong into complex matters and to misjudge “a frothy bubble for a great wave,” as he put it. When he was told one day that Winston was caught up in reading yet another book on Napoleon, he shook his head in disappointment and said, “He would do better to study the drab heroes of life. Framing oneself upon Napoleon has proved a danger to many a man before him.”9
By and large, the Liberals were willing to accept Churchill into the fold, warts and all. As they had watched him travel the country denouncing Chamberlain, they could not help but be impressed by his passion and his way with words. None of their rising stars came close to him except Lloyd George, who seemed to like the idea of working in tandem with Winston against Chamberlain. It was this common foe that drew them together at this stage, and not much else. But it was enough. As even some of Joe’s friends were willing to admit, the two men would make a formidable team. The irascible Wanklyn thought of them as a couple of racehorses who would pull the Liberal cart at a breakneck speed. “You will make a perfect match-pair, you two,” he wrote Lloyd George in a taunting letter, “but I should be devilish sorry to try and drive you.”10
The prospects for advancement in the Liberal Party looked good for Winston. Its leader in the Commons, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, was a portly, amiable man with an open mind who wasn’t likely to stand in his way, and whose grip on the party machinery was weak. When he had become the party’s leader, no one thought of him as a powerhouse with grand ambitions. His talents were so modest that the Times called him “a leader who will serve adequately enough as a warming pan until a more commanding figure emerges.”11
In later years the charge would often be made that Churchill finally left the Tories because he saw a better chance of advancement on the other side. That was certainly one reason, but it is important not to underestimate just how hostile the atmosphere had become for him, thanks to Chamberlain. And it is worth keeping in mind that before he walked over to the other side, his party—led by his prime minister—had walked out on him, leaving him conspicuously isolated in the House on that dramatic day at the end of March. From that moment, he knew he had to go.
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