Tag: Randolph Churchill

Pocahontas
“Pocahontas Saves the Life of Captain John Smith,” painting by Johann Friedrich Engel, 1921. (Wikimedia Commons)
Pocahontas: Randolph Churchill’s Jibe at the Race Question

Pocahontas: Randolph Churchill’s Jibe at the Race Question

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Pretend Indians

We all know how a cer­tain Amer­i­can politi­cian was nick­named “Poc­a­hon­tas,” years after claim­ing to be, with­out foun­da­tion, a native Amer­i­can. This has often been tried. Some­times, how­ev­er, it back­fires. “A friend got his son into a bet­ter pub­lic school by declar­ing he was trib­al,” a col­league writes. “Unfor­tu­nate­ly, they didn’t tell the boy, who was then invit­ed to an after-school meet­ing for those inter­est­ed in Indi­ans. My friend attempt­ed to cor­rect him­self, but he found that in that city, you can change your racial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion only once.” (Who writes these rules?)

Dur­ing a recent encounter with the med­ical world I received a ques­tion­naire with the inevitable ques­tion, “Race.”…

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memory
Not exactly a Nazi knee on the neck, but you get the analogy. “Your debt account, Churchill.” (Lustige Blätter, Berlin, 18 August 1944). The account book reads (with remarkable memory lapses): “England started the air war in the year 1940 against defenseless civilians! (Sylt, Freiburg.) It killed women and children, destroyed hospitals, residential quarters and churches, destroyed the cultural assets of Europe…Cologne, Hamburg…” etc. Chamberlain bombed the German airbase on Sylt on 19-20 March 1940 in reprisal for a German raid on Scapa Flow. Freiburg was mistakenly bombed by the Luftwaffe at the start of Hitler’s invasion on 10 May 1940, then by the Allies in 1944.
Defcon 1, The Battle for Churchill’s Memory: The Cause Endures

Defcon 1, The Battle for Churchill’s Memory: The Cause Endures

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Here­with final install­ments by var­i­ous writ­ers in our two-month defense of Win­ston Churchill’s mem­o­ry. These and the links below cov­er his most pop­u­lar cur­rent sins—even cas­tra­tion and nuk­ing the Mar­alin­ga. So, unless we get a new one, that’s a wrap! RML

Memory: “The stars still shone in the sky”

Lost in the pell-mell rush to den­i­grate his mem­o­ry was the 8oth anniver­sary of Churchill becom­ing Prime Min­ster, 10 May 1940. I thought of his words as I read the igno­rant, ill-informed, false attacks on his char­ac­ter. They occurred amid protest over a trag­ic event that had noth­ing to do with him.…

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nicknames
“Make Britain Great Again”? Attacking the opposition on behalf of the Tory candidate Anthony Fell (seated), Hammersmith, London, 23 February 1949. Labour won the safe seat, but by under five points, ominous in a usually reliable constituency. Sir Anthony eventually sat for Yarmouth, 1958-83. (Crown copyright expired, public domain)
Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

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Spo­rad­i­cal­ly, pun­dits com­pare Don­ald Trump with Win­ston Churchill. There’s even a book com­ing out on the sub­ject. I dep­re­cate all this by instinct and will avoid that book like the Coro­n­avirus. Sur­face sim­i­lar­i­ties may exist: both said or say main­ly what they thought or think, unfil­tered by polls (and some­times good advice). But Churchill’s lan­guage and thought were on a high­er plane. Still, when a friend said that Churchill nev­er stooped to deri­sive nick­names like Trump, I had to disagree.

Whether invent­ed by the Pres­i­dent or his scriptwrit­ers, some of Trump’s nick­names were very effec­tive.…

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Richard II
Richard II performance in the Slovenian Folk Theater, Celje, Poland. In the photo: Alexander Crohl (Henry IV.), Volodya Peer (Henry Percy), Joze Pristov (Earl of Northumberland). Public domain (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill’s Memorable Allusions to Shakespeare’s Richard II

Churchill’s Memorable Allusions to Shakespeare’s Richard II

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“Allu­sions to Richard II” is extract­ed from an arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the orig­i­nal text, click here.

Richard II and “This Sceptr’d Isle.”

We are asked: “Churchill quot­ed Shakespeare’s famous lines, ‘This scepter’d isle,’ in one of his speech­es. They are the words of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lan­cast­er, from Richard II, Act 2, sc. 1. Could you direct me to the speech?”

Churchill knew his Shake­speare and had a near-pho­to­graph­ic mem­o­ry. Dar­rell Holley’s Churchill’s Lit­er­ary Allu­sions tells us he alludes to Shake­speare more than any oth­er Eng­lish author. King…

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escape
The escaped desperado: Durban, Natal, 1908.
Churchill’s Escape from the Boers, 1899

Churchill’s Escape from the Boers, 1899

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Escape from the Boers, 1899:

Please can you com­ment on, the “Dutch­man, Bur­gen­er by name,” men­tioned by Churchill in his account of his escape from the Boers in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, My Ear­ly Life? Is he one and the same per­son as the Charles Burn­ham men­tioned by Sir Mar­tin Gilbert in Churchill: A Life? Per­haps the sur­name was changed to pro­tect Mr Burnham`s posi­tion in South Africa? Yet thoughthree decades had elapsed by the pub­li­ca­tion of My Ear­ly Life. It seems cer­tain that Churchill knew of Burn­ham and the role that he had played.…

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Bracken
Holding forth, London, 1941: Bracken lectures Dutch diplomat Eelco van Kleffens. Charles de Gaulle, seemingly oblivious, chats with U.S. Ambassador to Holland Tony Biddle. (Wikimedia Commons)
Brendan Bracken: “Winston’s Faithful Chela”

Brendan Bracken: “Winston’s Faithful Chela”

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“Stan­ley Bald­win, show­ing an unex­pect­ed famil­iar­i­ty with Indi­an phras­es, described Bren­dan Brack­en as ‘Winston’s faith­ful chela,‘ wrote the biog­ra­ph­er Charles Lysaght. “This is what gave Brack­en his place in his­to­ry, a minor but still an impor­tant one.”

The Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project has pub­lished two arti­cles on Bren­dan Brack­en, Churchill’s loy­al ally and friend for four decades. The first begins with a mem­oir by the late Ron Rob­bins, a Cana­di­an jour­nal­ist who ear­ly on cov­ered the House of Com­mons, where he met Brack­en. The post­script is by me, fol­lowed by reviews of the two Brack­en books by George Gale and A.J.P.…

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legacy
Presentation of Churchill’s honorary citizenship, 9 April 1963. L-R: Acting Secretary of State George Ball, Lady Ormsby Gore, British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby Gore, Winston Churchill (grandson), Naval Aide Tazewell Shepard, President Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Randolph Churchill. Photo by Cecil Stoughton.
A Fresh Look at the Churchills and Kennedys by Thomas Maier

A Fresh Look at the Churchills and Kennedys by Thomas Maier

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When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys, by Thomas Maier. New York: Crown Pub­lish­ers, 784 pages, $30, Kin­dle Edi­tion $11.99. Writ­ten for The Churchillian, Spring 2015.

The most touch­ing and durable vision left by Mr. Maier comes toward the end of this long book: the famous White House cer­e­mo­ny in April 1963, as Pres­i­dent Kennedy presents Sir Win­ston Churchill (in absen­tia) with Hon­orary Amer­i­can Citizenship—while from an upstairs win­dow his stroke-silenced father, Joseph P. Kennedy, watch­es close­ly, with heav­en knows what reflections:

What­ev­er thoughts raced through the mind of Joe Kennedy—the ran­cor of the past, the lost oppor­tu­ni­ties of his own polit­i­cal goals, and the trag­ic for­got­ten dreams he had once had for his old­est son, could not be expressed.…

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strikers
Police blockade a street during the Tonypandy riots of 1910. (Wikimedia)
Churchill, Troops & Strikers (1)

Churchill, Troops & Strikers (1)

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This is a time when we often ques­tion the actions of police forces. In Amer­i­ca, gov­er­nors occa­sion­al­ly call in the Nation­al Guard dur­ing riotous protests. Local res­i­dents are always the main vic­tims of such events. Churchill’s expe­ri­ence with strik­ers is wor­thy of study, his mag­na­nim­i­ty wor­thy of reflection.

Did WSC Send Troops Against Strikers?

For a cen­tu­ry it has been part of social­ist demonolo­gy that Churchill sent troops to attack strik­ers dur­ing a 1910 min­ers’ work stop­page in Tony­pandy, Wales. In 1967 an Oxford under­grad­u­ate wrote that Churchill faced down strik­ers with tanks. This was very pre­scient of him, since tanks didn’t exist in 1910.…

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Martin
(Photo: Lady Gilbert)
Sir Martin Gilbert CBE, 1936-2015 (2)

Sir Martin Gilbert CBE, 1936-2015 (2)

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The time you won your town the race, We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down,Townsman of a stiller town. So set, before its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade, And hold to the low lintel up, The still-defended challenge-cup. —Housman

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Winston S. Churchill 1940-2010

Winston S. Churchill 1940-2010

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You can read about Win­ston Churchill’s career else­where. I’d like rather to indulge in the remem­brance of a friend.

We met through the post forty-two years ago, when he became the third hon­orary mem­ber of the Churchill Study Unit, after his grand­moth­er and his father. The lat­ter had only just sent a let­ter of encour­age­ment to our lit­tle group of stamp col­lec­tors when he him­self died. It was June, 1968. In send­ing con­do­lences, I asked Win­ston to take his father’s place. He accept­ed, adding, “It is con­sol­ing to know so many share my loss.”…

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RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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