The Churchills Episode One: The Choice

foreign between Rome and Carthage there had been no such World War [Music] it involved all the Civilized peoples it extended to every part of the accessible Globe [Music] there was the Peril that the supremacy of One race and culture would be imposed by military force upon all others [Music] in no world conflict have the issues been more real and vital in none has the duty to defend a righteous cause being more compulsive upon the British Nation the tone is unmistakable the words could only be by Winston Churchill Prime Minister of Great Britain during the tragedy and Triumph of the second World War but they're not about the second world war instead they're about another great though now largely forgotten conflict fought 300 years ago at the beginning of the 18th century [Applause] it was a war to save Europe from Domination by Louis XIV France and it was the first truly global conflict of the Modern Age the British were victorious in that war also they were even led by another Churchill Winston's great ancestor John Churchill Duke of morba but John Churchill was more than just Winston's ancestor he was his inspiration and he was his subject [Music] for Winston spent the 10 crucial years before the second world war researching and writing a massive biography of him Marlborough his life and times it's almost impossible for us now think of this as a serious activity for a great politician because very clearly none of our politicians none ever could possibly undertake such a task they like the ancestry they like they lacked The Experience they like the appetite and they lack the talent and the most they can do is have their Memoirs ghosted I think this matters for it was writing his biography of mobra which above all transformed Churchill from a politician and frankly rather a recording one into a Statesman it sharpened his rhetoric it clarified his ideas and it prepared him for the immense intellectual task of leading the Allies to victory over Nazi tyranny so this is a work of history which Changed History it's a book about a great War leader which helped make another greater War leader in an even bigger bloodier War [Music] foreign [Music] this is Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire where our Story begins Winston Churchill was born in this room on the 30th of November 1874. the baby was a typical product of English Rank and American money his mother Jenny Jerome was a New York heiress his father Lord Randolph Churchill there was the third son of the seventh Duke of Marlborough and this room is one of over 40 bedrooms at Blenheim Palace which was designed and built for John Churchill first Duke of Marlborough and remains his family's seat to this present day Winston never lived at Blenheim but as the Duke's grandson he was a frequent visitor so we can imagine him as a small boy rooming these spectacular rooms but Blenheim is more than just another stately home however magnificent above all is a building designed inside and out to tell a story the story of war and Victory inside the gilded cannonballs even the spiers on the roof a fanciful representations a fizzing grenades [Music] inside a glorious series of large tapestries a sort of 18th century graphic novel show in historically accurate detail how more refashioned his troops into the greatest fighting force in Europe outmaneuvered and out for Louis XIV and turned the new nation Britain into a superpower [Applause] so it's no wonder that the young Winston developed an early and lifelong fascination with soldiering this shows in its first surviving letter written when he was age seven from Blenheim and addressed to his mother to thank her for his Christmas presents [Music] My Dear Mama I hope you're quite well I thank you very much for the beautiful present those soldiers and flags and Castle they are so nice it was so kind of you [Music] Harrow School Army class then went on to Sandhurst graduating as a Cavalry officer in the hazards [Music] he was no toy soldier he saw action in India the Sudan and South Africa his experiences provided the material for another great passion and talent writing his dispatches as a war correspondent and several well-received books made him a public figure and helped get him elected to Parliament when he sat in the Commons most of his life Winston never stopped writing producing a constant stream of Articles and books he even tried a motion picture screenplay but the project closest to his heart where the soldiering of the writing came together was his biography of Britain's greatest General his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough this is the long library at blenin where Churchill came to research marlborough's voluminous papers the resulting book would take him almost 10 years to write it would have a million words and it would fill four huge magnificently bound heavily Illustrated volumes it's one of the most remarkable works of History ever written and it is so because it's the work of someone who wielded power the sword as well as the pen yet the book was written when it seemed that Winston's days of political power were behind him in 1929 when he signed the contract to write the book he just lost office after spending nearly 20 years in the cabinet where he had been home secretary in a liberal government and Chancellor of the exchequer in a conservative one all through the 1930s Winston languished on the back benches it was a period that bears a striking similarity to today a financial crash led to a prolonged economic depression with which heavily indebted governments struggled to cope Britain the upheaval led to the downfall of the first labor Administration and a period of coalition government in Germany it led to the rise of fascism and in Europe to a seemingly inexorable drift towards another world war it was against this background that the four volumes of the mobra biography were published one by one between 1933 and 1938. one hesitates to use word like magic when you're talking about something as sober as history but with this book there is repeatedly a sense of you're not quite sure which century and which tense anything is referring to mobra is the Great War leader the Great War leader who is not simply the great General but the manager of the great International Coalition in exactly the same way Churchill in the second world war is going to be just that except of course Churchill is writing about Marlborough almost as though he were in the present before Churchill himself has moved into that future you see what I mean it's as though Churchill has suddenly made the past a story that runs into the present and then into the future [Music] Chartwell Winston Churchill's house in the country it was a considerable extravagance for a man with only a backbench MP's salary fortunately Churchill was also the highest paid author of his day [Music] for the biography of his ancestor John Churchill Duke of morba his Publishers Advanced him a total of twenty thousand pounds not far short of a million in today's money that gave Winston the means to employ a small team specialist historical researchers their job was to produce memoranda summarizing the documentary evidence once Winston had digested these everyone would retire to a study where he would Pace up and down dictating his text to a shorthand secretary often until three or four in the morning one of his researchers Bill deakin wrote later one felt exhilarated part of his secret was his phenomenal fantastic power to concentrate on what he was doing my memorandum was only a frame my facts were there but he had seen them in a deeper perspective his penetrating mind revealed insights I had completely missed the more biography begins with a brilliant display of Winston's historical imagination the man who built Blenheim Palace was the richest and most powerful Aristocrat in Britain but he was born plain John Churchill the son of the man in this picture and impoverished Country Gentleman with his long hair and Lace cravat the first Sir Winston Churchill is the archetypical Cavalier a supporter of King Charles the first in his war against the round heads of parliament where the Cavaliers lost the Civil War King Charles lost his head as a Winston lost his Estates without the means to support his family Winston the Cavalier was forced to move in with his mother-in-law that would back the other side in the Civil War than was as Ardent her roundhead as he was a royalist in chapter 1 Winston the historian Fashions an unforgettable picture of the household straightened in circumstances and bitterly divided in ideology and Allegiance into which John Churchill was born in 1650 when England was briefly a republic Lord forbid that politics of the device hard must those years have been a crowded brood in a lean and War scarred house between them and whose owner lay the fierce contentions of the times then Winston speculates subtly and sensitively about the effect of such an upbringing of the boy and his the two prevailing Impressions which such experiences might arouse in the mind of a child would be first a hatred of poverty and dependence and secondly the need of hiding thoughts and feelings from those to whom their expression would be repugnant that ability to keep healings hidden with Sir John well [Music] fortunately for the Churchill family England's experiment with republicanism lasted just 11 years on the 25th of May 1660 at Dover the two sons of Charles the first set foot again on ingu soil James Duke of York the king's brother that have a vastly different temper his gracious Majesty King Charles II whose charm and ease of manna is matched only by his ceaseless energy be it in the Affairs of state or of love Charles II fathered many children but none of them was legitimate and so James as his brother was heir to the throne by God's grace I'll restore to the country it's all good nature it's all good manners and it's all good humor and get murdered for your pain the way you go about unguarded brother I'm safe enough they'll never put me out of the way to make you King peeps I don't agree [Music] at last so Winston's steadfast loyalty to the house of Stuart was rewarded with a position for his daughter Arabella as a maid of honor in James's household her brother John soon followed her as a page [Music] what happened next is described by Winston with mock producness our readers must now brace themselves for what will inevitably be a painful interlude we must follow the fortunes and misfortunes of a maiden of 17 and her younger brother as they successively entered a dissolute Court King Charles II is famous for his string of Mistresses but his brother James was of anything an even more Avid womanizer Winston tells a story of how Arabella here was out riding with the Duke when she was thrown from her horse she lay senseless upon the ground with her skirts thrown up to reveal her naked Limbs and more for remember then ladies did not yet wear knickers we are told that while annabella's face presented no more than the ordinary feminine charms her figure was exceedingly beautiful and that James was inflamed by the spectacle of Beauty in distress and also in disarray after this beginning it didn't take James long to seduce young Arabella who became his mistress and this was just the beginning of a long intimate and complex relationship between the Churchill family and the Royal House of Stuart thank you thanks to James's patronage John Churchill was soon a rising young officer in the guards Equity dashing Under Fire and at court he is if God this vision is this this man a Sublime handsomeness Beauty of figure he is infinitely Charming he is a courtier but now John caught it Royal displeasure by beginning an affair with the king's long-standing mistress Barbara Villas she was 29 and he 20. for more than three years this wanton and joyous couple shared pleasures and Hazards the cynical promiscuous sagacious indulgent Sovereign was outwitted or outfaced eventually The Story Goes Charles II discovered John hiding in a closet in Barbara's bed chamber the young man fell to his knees in Terror the king laughed the matter off go he's supposed to have said you are a rascal but I forgive you because you do it to get your bread Winston doubts the story but his research has proved that Barbara did indeed pay for John's Services by giving him 5 000 pounds this was a colossal sum which John characteristically used to buy himself an annuity that gave him Financial Security for life moralists have been shocked by the fact that John did not squander Barbara's gift in riotous living [Music] as a Young Man Winston who was no oil painting had considerably less luck with women than John but it all came good in the end this is the Temple of Diana in the grounds of Blenheim Palace it was here on August 11 1908 that Winston Churchill MP proposed two was accepted by Clementine Hosier a 22 year old beauty with whom he'd fallen in love earlier that year Winston at carefully stage managed the scene he'd engineered Clementine's invitation to Blenheim and he chose the spot perhaps forgetting since Winston was no classicist that Diana was a virgin goddess who had false warm both men and matrimony now why the trouble he can hardly have been because he thought that Clementine would be impressed by blenning since she was the least likely person in the world to be swayed by aristocratic pomp rather it was because this place mattered to Winston Winston knew that blinin was in part the fruit of a successful marriage for John Churchill would probably never have amounted to much had it not been for the girl he met in 1675. her name was Sarah Jennings at the mature age of 15. she was already a precocious Charming figure flex and hair blue eyes sparkling with the audacity and the nose well chiseled but with a slightly audacious upward tilt she also was entirely self-possessed and by inheritance she owned when roused The Temper of the devil Donald Sarah were eventually married in 1677. it turned out to be a lifelong love match complete with the occasional lover's quarrel Winston who himself was the beneficiary of a deeply happy marriage rights movingly about the morbus relationship though not as movingly as Sarah herself who long after Mobil was dead turned down a proposal of marriage from the Duke of Somerset the grandest grandee of the day with magnificent contempt if I were young and handsome as I was and not old and Faded as I am and you could lay the Empire of the world at my feet you should never share the Heart and Hand that once belonged to John Duke of Marlborough for both John and Winston marriage was the rock upon which their whole lives were built in one important respect however the two marriages were very different clemmy had the good sense not to get too involved in Winston's political career John and Sarah on the other hand were that very modern thing the power couple and Sarah's power depended on her relationship with the woman this portrait this is Anne the daughter of James the king's brother Anne was third in line to the throne after her father and her elder sister Mary Alan Sarah Bobby first met when Sarah came to court in 1673 Anne aged eight formed a schoolgirl crush on Sarah age 13 and it blossomed into a passionate though platonic love affair that was to last for almost 30 years but there was dissension in James's family while Anne and her sister Mary had been brought up as Protestants sometime in the 1670s their father James converted to Roman Catholicism it was a decision with devastating consequences for the house of Stuart Sarah's relationship with Anne placed her on the very fault line of the Schism that ran through the royal family a Schism that was both religious and political it was a position of unique influence which John and Sarah would use to shape the course of history [Music] Germany 1932 the government reeling from the economic effects of the depression is under siege from right and left Communists and followers of the National Socialist Workers Party quite bloody battles of the street foreign [Music] [Applause] steadily gained ground the elections it seems that the national socialists or Nazis under their leader Adolf Hitler May soon be in power to foreign observers the Nazis were a perplexing phenomenon worthy a bunch of buffoons a menace to the Peace of Europe or a useful bulwark against communism at first even Winston Church himself was ambivalent I had no National prejudices against Hitler at this time I admire men who stand up for their country in defeat he had a perfect right to be a patriotic German if he chose [Music] Winston's main preoccupation during the Ottoman winter of 1932 was trying to finish volume 1 of his biography of his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough in many ways the most remarkable chapter in this first volume is the one that should really be deadly which is this is the background of foreign policy it's it's called the Europe of Charles II but in fact it's brilliant analysis of choice essentially what he says is there are two choices facing England at this point one is to be swallowed up by this hegemonic totalitarian ideological France and the second is to resist it the Supreme fact upon the continent in the latter half of the 17th century was the might of France the civil wars were over all internal divisions had been effaced and Louis XIV reigned over a United Nation of 18 or 19 million Souls possessed of the fairest region on the globe [Music] the wealth and power of France was symbolized by Versailles the great Palace built by Louis XIV a monarch who wielded absolute sway over his subjects and who was worshiped almost as a God the Sun King the Sigh is a hymn In guilt and stone to Louis military ambitions foreign dressed as a Roman Emperor and forcing a crossing of the Rhine as he tramples German barbarians underfoot it commemorates an actual incident the capture of Strasbourg which carried the frontiers of France right up to the Rhine Churchill thought that Louie's Ambitions stretched even further and that he aimed to reconstitute the Empire of Charlemagne which had once embraced on either Bank of the Rhine France and Germany with ambitions like these none of Louie's neighbors could rest in peace instead in Winston's words again they cowered beneath his unrelenting laugh pain and fear uh during the whole of his life Louis XIV was the curse and Pest of Europe No Worse Enemy of human Freedom has appeared in the trappings of polite civilization insatiable appetite cold calculating ruthlessness Monumental conceit Petty and mediocre in all except his lusts and Power the Sun King Disturbed and harried mankind during more than 50 years of arrogant pump what do you think is striking is Churchill's ability to if you like personalized ideology he highlights Louie's colossal vanity this sense of a king always strutting in front of a mirror what we would call The Cult of Personality Louis is the God of War Louis is a Roman Emperor it's this image of War as vanity as the Supreme expression of the leader and of course he sees the very beginnings of the Nazis he doesn't meet Hitler but he watches him and he sees this enormous overblown personality he notices The Cult of War he realizes just like Louis XIV France Louis remember dies on his deathbed saying I have loved War tomb and he sees Hitler as somebody who loves War too much creating a nation which is every aspect of which is mobilized for war [Music] but in the 17th century as in the 1930s it was not England but Louie's immediate neighbors who were most threatened by France Louis coveted the rich towns and cities of the Spanish Netherlands roughly speaking modern day Belgium then a province of the declining Spanish Empire the Dutch to the north fearing that they would be next determined to fight for the Netherlands their leader William of Orange became Louie's implacable foam England's vital centuries-old concern with the control of the channel meant that it was more or less inevitable that she would join in the war but would she Ally with France against Holland Holland against France and again as in the 1930s this Choice was not just a matter of power politics it was also a question of ideology not a fascism or democracy [Applause] but a Protestant or Catholic [Music] following the great 16th century Schism in Western Christianity known as the Reformation both England and France had fought a Civil War about religion but with the opposite result in England Parliament and protestantism had won in France it was the monarchy and Catholicism that was triumphant as here in the Royal and religious splendors of the great Chapel at the Palace of Versailles in both countries however there survived an important minority of the defeated religion Protestants in France and Catholics in England but they were viewed with profound suspicion by both the government and the majority as potential subversives or worse Tulu the 14th protestantism was a hostile ideology he was determined to uproot from France he began a campaign a forcible conversion in the revocation of the Edict of not an act which Louis had commemorated in this allegorical painting which hangs in Versailles the edict which was issued by Louis grandfather King Henry IV had brought the terrible French Wars of religion to an end by offering Toleration to Protestants but in 1685 Louis decided that he could no longer endure what he saw as an affront to his Catholic conscience and his kingly dignity the edict was revoked and protestantism was outlawed throughout France the allegory of the painting depicts the revocation up here as all sweetness and angels and Light but the reality hinted at just hinted at down here was very different it was confiscation extreme violence imprisonment Exile and even death in short what we might call religious cleansing as Winston worked to finish volume 1 of his biography events in Germany began to Echo Louis XIV France elections in 1932 established the Nazis as the largest park in Parliament and in January 1933 Hitler became Chancellor in a coalition cabinet to most observers it all seemed Democratic enough but within weeks legislation was passed which granted Hitler power to rule by decree [Music] soon after that legal discrimination persecution against Germany's Jewish citizens began in Britain criticism from both politicians and the Press was muted as no one wish to offend Germany however on the 13th of April Winston Rose in the house to warm bluntly and in unambiguous terms about the real nature of the new dictatorship which would seize power in Germany about its persecution of the Jews and about the threat that it posed to the whole peace and security of Europe Churchill is astonishingly quick Off the Mark and the reason is he's watched Louis XIV doing exactly the same thing and I think it's the experience it's the soaking in the world of the late 17th early 18th century that enables Churchill not only to understand the 1930s better than his contemporaries to understand them faster at exactly the moment that everybody else in Britain is saying Mr Hitler is a man that we can do business with Churchill says look what he really is he is murdering the Jews and if you don't stop him he'll murder you [Music] in January 1685 King Charles II of England suddenly fell ill instead long lived the king [Applause] [Music] Charles was succeeded by his brother James for John Churchill the accession of his long-standing Patron friend could have been should have been the gateway to influence and wealth but James was a Catholic whilst John and Sarah like James's daughter Anne were sincere Protestants and James was determined to coax or if need be coerce is realm back to her ancient allegiance to the Roman Church [Music] soon John Churchill the courtier would have to choose between a king and his God [Music] by late 1685 Louis xiv's brutal campaign against French Protestants was gathering Force thousands and thousands of refugees began to pour into England to the English these refugees were living proof that Catholicism meant persecution and tyranny James so more and more of his subjects felt was plotting to become an English Louis XIV and subvert the Liberties and religion of his people but though James was a Catholic his heirs his two surviving children from his first marriage Mary and Anne were both Protestants Elder Mary was married to William of Orange the military leader of the Dutch Republic and so everyone knew that when King James II died England would once more have a Protestant Queen her consort the leading opponent of French aggression it was a comforting thought but in June 1688 after 15 years of childless marriage James's second wife Queen Mary of moderner gave birth to a healthy baby boy this changed everything James was no longer a Catholic aberration in an otherwise Protestant royal family instead he was the founder of a new Catholic Dynasty that might rule England forever thought as Winston put it was unendurable to Protestant England solution was to invent a lie a noble lie in Plato's phrase the baby Prince it was claimed wasn't James's child at all instead it was a changeling smuggled into the Queen's bed in a warming pan for many in England the only salvation from a fraudulent Catholic succession now lay across the North Sea the William of Orange and his Protestant Army in a coded message seven leading parliamentarians invited William to bring a Dutch Army to England to defend the Protestant faith and assert his wife Mary's claim to the throne as William weighed his options and Mr Sydney arrived with another letter it was from John Churchill Winston reproduces it in fact simile as well he might for it is one of the most significant letters in British history [Music] Mr Sydney will let you know how I intend to behave myself I think it is what I owe to God in my country if you think there is anything else I ought to do you have but to command me and I shall pay an entire obedience to it being resolved to die in that religion that it has pleased God to give you both the will and power to protect first sight this letter is somewhat elliptical as John Churchill describes his motives for Action patriotism and protestantism but not the act itself but that's hardly surprising since the ACT neither more nor less to which he was committing himself was treason as William would have realized the moment he read the letter here was England's leading general and James's right-hand man committing himself to help William invade England and by extension to overthrow James on October the 15th William M Bart 15 000 troops in an armada of over 500 ships [Music] in England everybody including James knew that the invasion was coming the Rebellion Eden had a theme song Lily Bolero whose lyrics mocked the Irish Catholic troops that James was supposed to be bringing over to defend his crown [Music] and street corners across the land [Music] they said that James really knew there was a military conspiracy when he heard the century at his door that whistling the tomb on the 5th of November symbolic day 1688 William landed at Torbay in Devon but James quickly concentrated 25 000 men on Salisbury Plain between William and London his army was larger but would it be loyal James hurried from Windsor to join his troops with John Churchill at his side newly promoted Lieutenant General on the 23rd of November James held a council of War John Churchill as usual believing that attack was the best form of Defense recommended advancing towards William but the French General that James had put in overall command instead advised falling back towards London James concurred that same night John Churchill and 400 officers and Men crept out of the royal camp and rode for their lives to join William [Music] wounding personal betrayal unnerved James band of the army and raced back to London sending orders that Sarah Churchill be arrested foreign [Music] was ready Sarah and Anne managed to slip Down The Back Stairs Of The Palace and out of the capital before the orders could be put into effect God help me cry James Eden my children desert me It's The End James fled England for France with scarcely a shot fired the English had got rid of the last king who would ever try to claim absolute authority over them from now on Parliament would be Sovereign and the monarchy in the shape of William and Mary would be Protestant and England at that point embarks on the New Path not simply a dependent a satellite a France but a new rival power representing a new different way of doing things and at that moment in 1688 with more Bruce Choice with that letter that we looked at a new chapter or rather a new book a new volume in English and European history opens and it continues through war after war with first of all France is the enemy then Germany and that of course is what Churchill sees his own career about it's what he's trying to remind people in 1932 and 1933 is at stake representative government democracy the legacy of 1688 is an ancestors Legacy these are all at stake and Churchill feels that it will be his Destiny to take a moba's sword to defend them writing the first volume of mobra an open Winston's eyes and helped him to be the first to recognize the Nazi threat to Britain over the next six years his work on the remaining three volumes took him still further he gave added weight to his repeated warnings of the dangers of Germany Armament and as time went by it mocked him out more and more as the man to lead Britain in her forthcoming life and death struggle with Hitler and the Nazis and in sert we'll see how writing Marlborough helped Winston back to Power thank you [Music]

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Id: 1CB6OBsCwNE

Length: 47min 59sec (2879 seconds)

Published: Sat May 27 2023