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).

Lord Curzon as a Tiepolo Ceiling

More Lord Curzon, and no apologies. In some sense, he is as distant from us as a Tiepolo ceiling (and yes, I have a soft spot for Tiepolo ceilings). As David Gilmour says correctly, his term in India was “a viceroyalty often seen as both the apogee of the British empire and the beginning of its decline.” And Gilmour is at his best assessing Curzon’s attitude towards India and the Indians:

Curzon has been much vilified for his alleged contempt for Indians … . He did not think Indians were congenitally corrupt and dishonest but regarded them as the heirs of a great civilization sunk in a decadence from which they must be rescued. …. Earlier nineteenth-century administrators—most notoriously Macaulay—had dismissed the entire range of Indian culture after no more than a slender acquaintance with it. Curzon admitted only that it was going through a bad stage. To think that the West had a monopoly of wisdom, he declared, was arrogant and foolish … . He did not want the Indians to become brown Englishmen but encouraged them to assimilate Western thought into their own culture. … [H]e resolutely opposed attempts to convert Indians to Christianity. … [H]e bluntly told [a Christian Bishop] that he did not want India flooded with missionaries; he did not believe the country would become Christian or that its loyalty would be increased if it did. …

Unquestionably [his service as viceroy] lacked an elementary dimension, a vision of what India might become or of what she might one day want to become. Curzon thought that what she needed was beneficent rule, a Roman proconsulship or an enlightened despotism, not sympathetic guiding towards constitutional development. He loved the people of India, as he claimed, but he did not love them as a parent who watches his children grow from dependant infants via stages of increasing independence to adulthood. He was like the headmaster of a school whose pupils are always the same age and whom he therefore treats in the same way from one year to the next. Such treatment, in India as elsewhere, may be good for certain people for a certain time, but it cannot last and cannot become a permanent system. At best, as in Curzon’s case, it may induce respect, but it brings neither affection nor gratitude.

David Gilmour, Curzon 170-171, 345 (Papermac Paperback ed. 1994)

“The chief objects of his rule,” Gilmour recounts, “were to make Britain’s administration equitable and her dominion permanent.” (171). Perhaps the most useful perspective to offer on that is that Curzon felt pretty much the same way about the British themselves—except, to his lasting disappointment and dismay, he never got the post of prime minister that he (and, to be fair, others) felt he so richly deserved.

The Durbar at Delhi

I risk making this blog into your go-to guide for quaint British historical figures, (cf. link), but here is another bit on Curzon, or more precisely, on his regime as Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905. Here we are: the Durbar at Delhi in 1903, celebrating the accession of Edward VII:

The Durbar Ceremony was held on New Year's Day in a large horseshoe ampitheatre, specially built in Mogul style with Saracenic arches and coupolas tipped with gold paint. The most moving moment came when the band struck up 'See the Conquering Hero Comes' and over three hundred veterans of the Mutiny, most of them Indians who had fought on the British side forty-five years before, entered the asrena. It was a 'most affecting sight,' remarked Mrs. Thompson, to watch these 'little old creatures tottering and hurrying along to keep up to the time that they once marched without difficulty.'. The crowd rose and cheered, but when the march was followed by 'the wailing pathos' of 'Auld Lang Syne', many of the audience broke down in tears.

David Gilmour, Curzon 244 (Papermac Paperback ed. 1995)

That would be "The Sepoy Mutiny" or (depending on your point of view), the "First War for Indian Independence" (link). For a more acerb view of the British experience in the Mutiny, see J. G. Farrell, The Siege of Khrisnapur.

Another memorable "old soldier's parade" (which I have around here somewhere) is the March of Sherman's Army down Pennsylvania Avenue, fresh from their triumph in "the Civil War" (or the "War for Southern Independence," depending on your point of view).

How Sad for You

Lord Curzon on his life as London's most eligible bachelor:

I have never left any woman morally worse than I found her.

--David Gilmour, Curzon 107 (Papermac paperback ed. 1995)

Blood Will Tell

My name is George Nathaniel Curzon,
I am a most superior person.
My cheeks are pink, my hair is sleek,
I dine at Blenheim twice a week.

In some ways, George Nathaniel Curzon is the model of the British Imperial aristo. Eton. Oxford. Viceroy of India. Foreign Secretary. Should have been Prime Minister. And with a blood line that stretches back into the mists of time.

And, as Curzon himself almost said, almost entirely worthless.

My ancestors were a feeble lot. No family could have remained in possession of the same estate since the twelfth century had they manifested the very slightest energy or courage.

To find anything noteworthy at all, David Gilmore in his biography (from which all this is quoted this is quoted) had to hoik up a couple of illegitimates and one younger son who took up careers in the military. Aside from these, however, Nineteenth Century Curzons

...remained on their estates except for brief appearances at Westminster, their immobility and lack of adventure symbolized by the family’s strikingly unambitious motto, ‘Let Curzon holde what Curzon helde.’

Except for the Great Man Himself, the Curzon’s almost notorious lack of achievement extended even into his own generation:

Blanche Scarsdale [Curzon’s mother] had eleven children in all, one of whom did not survive, before she died in 1875 at the age of 37 [!!!—Buce] Most of them belonged to that unambitious family strain so dramatically challenged by their eldest brother. ‘Albert does nothing but is an excellent fellow,’ George remarked when his brother was 34. Sophy, his eldest sister, was married to an ‘excellent clergyman, while young Blanche kept house for [their father].

Curzon and his brother Frank

...were several times forced to bail out their other brothers, especially the youngest one, Assheton, who earned himself a reputation as the family’s ‘black sheep’. In 1914, after various other transgressions, Assheton was caught stealing securities from his office … . The only solution for Assheton, declared his eldest brother, was the classic remedy for black sheep: exile to the colonies.

Evidently the habits and customs extend beyond the great man himself. Many years after his death, his widow

...damaged her husband’s reputation by publishing her Reminiscences, the sort of book that makes people wonder why Britain never experienced a revolution: it describes inspections of the wrists of aspirant footmen to appraise their elegance when holding plates, and recounts how in her widowhood she canvassed for her Conservative son in East London accoutredf with fur coat, French maid, Rolls-Royce and hampers from Fortnum and Mason.

I will spare you the People-Magazine dope on their three daughters, but if you care, look here. As my friend Larry would say, they are descended form A Long Line of Dead People.

All quotations are from David Gilmour, Curzon xiii, 1-7 (1994).