http://localhost:8080/josh-ireland Senior Fellow, Hillsdale College Churchill Project, Writer and Historian Fri, 11 Feb 2022 17:42:47 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 http://localhost:8080/josh-ireland#comment-43615 Tue, 13 Apr 2021 15:53:47 +0000 https://richardlangworth.com/?p=11427#comment-43615 A Churchill scholar writes: “Like you, I nearly binned the book after the first few chapters. I never saw such a sustained and concentrated assault on Lord Randolph and the author quite spoiled his case with repetition. I also, like you, persevered with the book and found it informative and useful in trying to understand what made Randolph tick. Not a man I could ever have liked, I think! And we see Winston all delighted with the birth of a son (exactly as his father was with him, with all the same expressions of affection); then be absent for long spells in his busy political life, and write him a crushing letter about gambling debts as savage as anything Lord Randolph ever wrote to Winston. My general observation is this: Lord Randolph, in all his ‘tyranny and lack of love for his son,’ produced a world class statesman. Winston, in all his gushing love and affection, produced a [fill in the blank]. Perhaps we should be glad not to have been born in the shadow of a mighty oak?”
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I didn’t know the man, except to get two kind letters from him just before he died, so I can’t be certain about him. Natalie Bevan loved him “despite everything.” Martin Gilbert insisted he had wonderful humanity. That cuts two ways, to channel Auberon Waugh–there were parts of Randolph that were not malignant! Yes, it was a hard thing making your own way in that milieu. —RML

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