October 5, 2013

WIT AND WISDOM: FINEST HOUR 102, SPRING 1999

===================

“A WRITTEN CONSTITUTION MAKES SLAVES OF ITS SUBJECTS”

There’s a gem around every corner of Lady Soames’s marvelous compilation of her parents’ correspondence (reviewed, page 36). This one, written to his wife after Churchill’s second speech to Congress in 1943, stopped us in our tracks:

2025 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 42nd International Churchill Conference. Washington, DC | October 9-11, 2025

2025 International Churchill Conference

“Although after 12 arduous years [President Roosevelt] would gladly be rid of it, it would be painful to leave with the war unfinished….To me this would be a disaster of the first magnitude. There is no-one to replace him….On the other hand, the Constitution says there must be an election, and even now when it is twenty months away [November 1944] all thoughts are turned to the question of who is to hold the power. We should certainly not allow such a state of affairs in our country, but a written Constitution makes slaves of its subjects and is in this case totally unfitted to the waging of war.”

“DUKE OF BARDOGS”
CHURCHILL ON A DUKEDOM

The possibility of Churchill’s receiving a Dukedom after the war led to speculations about what his son would be known as. (Page references are from Sir Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Vol. 8, “Never Despair,” London: Heinemann, Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1988.)

1947: In February Churchill acquired 120 acre Bardogs Farm, adjacent to Chartwell Farm, for £8700. About a quarter of it was rented in tenancies. In a letter to his barrister, Leslie Graham-Dixon, discussing a possible dukedom, WSC wrote with what we must think was tongue in cheek: “Duke of Bardogs would sound well, and Randolph could be Marquess of Chartwell.” (327 footnote 4; Churchill Papers, 1/34; Dixon to Gilbert, 15 Mar ’82). Earlier, George VI had offered WSC a knighthood, the Order of the Garter, to which he famously replied (but not to the King): “I could hardly accept His Majesty’s offer of the Garter when his people have given me the Order of the Boot.”

1952: On 22 February Jock Colville and Lord Moran (Churchill’s private secretary and physician respectively) went to Lord Salisbury for advice: the PM was “not doing his brief” and was indifferent to business. He hated delegating anything, yet he quickly noticed and reacted against any plan to “kick him upstairs.” Salisbury felt WSC might go to the Lords and remain Premier, with Eden leading the House as effective Premier.

Colville said: “He won’t do it. I did once suggest to him that he should go to the Lords, and thought at first he was taking it seriously, when he said: ‘I should have to be the Duke of Chartwell, and Randolph would be the Marquess of Toodledo.’ I saw that he was laughing at me.” Salisbury agreed, saying, “He regards us in the Lords as a rather disreputable collection of old gentlemen.” (Rather the way the Lords seem to be regarded by Tony Blair’s present government…)

They agreed that one person might persuade Churchill to go the Lords: The Queen. But soon he made another remarkable comeback with a great fighting speech, and the matter was laid aside. (703; see also Moran’s Churchill: Struggle for Survival, pp. 375-8, quoting Colville; and Colville, Fringes of Power, p. 642.)

1955: By the time Churchill resigned on 4 April, it had been determined that no furtther dukedoms would be offered except to Royal personages. Yet WSC was different from other Prime Ministers and an exception was considered. The Palace asked Colville if they could offer a dukedom, confident that Churchill would refuse it. Colville took some soundings. Churchill told him that he would never accept: “First of all what could he be Duke of?” Colville reported. “Secondly, even if he were Duke of Westerham, what would Randolph be? He could only be Marquess of Puddleduck Lane which was the only other possession he had apart from Chartwell. And thirdly, and quite seriously, he wished to die in the House of Commons as Winston Churchill.”

The oddest thing then happened. On April 5th the PM donned his frock coat and top hat for his Audience, and Colville, knowing he was hopelessly in love with The Queen, feared that despite all WSC’s assurances he might accept out of his affection for her!

Churchill returned from the Palace with tears in his eyes: “Do you know, the most remarkable thing—she offered me a Duke.” With trepidation Jock asked what he had replied. “Well, you know, I very nearly accepted, I was so moved by her beauty and her charm and the kindness with which she made this offer, that for a moment I thought of accepting. But finally I remembered that I must die as I have always been—Winston Churchill.

And so I asked her to forgive my not accepting it. And do you know, it’s an odd thing, but she seemed almost relieved.” (1123-24; Colville to Randolph Churchill 8 Jun ’65.)

CHURCHILL ON NAPOLEON

Graham Taylor writes: “I should probably know the answer to this one, but what did Churchill find so fascinating about Napoleon? He didn’t relegate him to the power-mad dictator’ heap, so there must be something he found attractive. “

Surely it was his reverence for France, and for great war leaders (he wrote cogently about Caesar and Marlborough) cast to a schoolmate that he would lead the defense of London against a deadly foe. He also intended to write a Napoleon biography, but never found the time. From the editor’s next book, The Churchill Lexicon:

• “I certainly deprecate any comparison between Herr Hitler and Napoleon; I do not wish to insult the dead.” —Commons, December 1940

• “Is it really true that a seven-mile cross-country run is enforced upon all in this division, from generals to privates? Does the Army Council think this a good idea? It looks to me rather excessive. A colonel or general ought not to exhaust himself in trying to compete with young boys running across country seven miles at a time. The duty of officers is no doubt to keep themselves fit, but still more to think for their men, and to take decisions affecting their safety or comfort….Could Napoleon have run seven miles across country at Austerlitz? Perhaps it was the other fellow he made run. In my experience based on many years’ observation, officers with high athletic qualifications are not usually successful in the higher ranks.”

—Minute to Sec. of State for War Capt. H.D.R. Margesson, 4 Feb ’41, The Grand Alliance (1950), p. 175.

• “Some have compared Hitler’s conquests with those of Napoleon. It may be that Spain and Russia will shortly furnish new chapters to that theme. It must be remembered, however, that Napoleon’s armies carried with them the fierce, liberating and equalitarian winds of the French Revolution, whereas Hitler’s empire has nothing behind it but racial self-assertion, espionage, pillage, corruption and the Prussian boot.” —Commons, 7 May 1941

• “I always hate to compare Napoleon with Hitler, as it seems an insult to the great Emperor and warrior to connect him in any way with a squalid caucus boss and butcher.” —Commons, 28 Sep. 1944