Born to Rule (Not About Curzon)

This is not another Curzon post, but it is a wonderful insight into the British ruling class, as set forth in the wonderful David Gilmour biography of Curzon that I excerpted elsewhere. Gilmour is discussing the remarkable “coalition government” that ruled Britain from 1916 to 1922, The coalition came together to prosecute World War I, but then persisted longer in peacetime than it subsisted in time of war. Gilmour explains:

The Coalition survived largely because some of its Conservative leaders had come to see themselves as figures above party politics. Birkenhead thought the country simply required an oligarchy consisting of the two most charismatic Liberals, Churchill and Lloyd George, allied to Chamberlain, Balfour and himself; anyone who disagreed he abused or lectured for lack of loyalty. A similar, though much less typical, arrogance was displayed by Chamberlain, who deluded himself into thinking that the party needed its leaders more than they needed the party.

--David Gilmour, Curzon 549-50 (Papermac Paperback ed. 1994)

For men born to rule, they were oddly deficient in blue blood. “Birkenhead” would be F.E. Smith, a Johnny-come-lately among aristos, having been created Baron Birkenhead only in 1919 (link). “Chamberlain” would be Sir Austen Chamberlain, eldest son of Joseph, himself one of the most influential politicians of the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries (link), but a man of humble beginnings. The only true aristo of the three was Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, member of the Cecil family whose eminence goes back to the time of Elizabeth I (his Uncle, the Marquess of Salisbury, was the last prime minister to sit in the House of Lords) (link).*

Ironically, of the “Charistmatic liberals,” Churchill had a pedigree almost as eminent as Balfour’s: he descended from John Churchill, made Duke of Marlborough at the accession of William and Mary (link). The only true man of the people would have been Lloyd George, son of a Welsh schoolteacher (link).

Churchill’s own father, Randolph, blazed across the political landscape at the end of the 19^th Century (link) (he died prematurely in 1895). The elder Churchill and the elder Chamberlain both functioned as intriguers and mischief-makers who did more to revise than to retain the traditional hierarchy. Winston himself switched party lines more than once; he is perhaps better thought of as a romantic than as a conservative.

Perhaps needless to say, aside from the inner circle, Curzon certainly believed himself more fit to be prime minister than anybody. Ironically, the ultimate successor was Stanley Baldwin, regarded by most if not all of this crowd as a pipsqueak (link).

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*Alec Douglas Home was named from the House of Lords but he renounced his peerage to enter the Commons (link).