| Chapter 1: | Two Tory Radicals: Lord Randolph Churchill, Joseph Chamberlain and the Evolution of their Views on the Irish Question to 1880 |
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politic. For over ten years Parnell succeeded in keeping the Irish question to the forefront of British politics and in the process helped to make and ruin several British governments and politicians.
The subjects of this chapter, Lord Randolph Churchill and Joseph Chamberlain, were two of these British politicians. The Irish question was to dominate the early career of Chamberlain, and most of Churchill’s political life.
For an understanding of how and why the Irish question impacted so vividly on nineteenth century British politics, it is necessary to look at the background of the men who did so much to thwart the Irish demand for legislative independence. This chapter will contrast the background of Lord Randolph Churchill and Joseph Chamberlain and also the genesis of their approach to Irish affairs. Their background will be studied in the context of events which would have a lasting influence on their ideology, and which help to explain how their hitherto separate Irish policies eventually coalesced into the one aim of defeating self-government for Ireland.
Churchill’s Background
Although both Lord Randolph Churchill and Joseph Chamberlain were born in London, they came from entirely different backgrounds. Churchill was a direct descendant of the first Duke of Marlborough, John Churchill, who had won fame at the battles of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet. Born on 13 February 1849, Lord Randolph was the third son of the then Marquess of Blandford. His mother was the eldest daughter of the third Marquess of Londonderry, who was the half-brother of the Unionist politician Viscount Castlereagh. Notwithstanding that Lord Randolph’s parents have been described as relatively ‘impoverished’,2 his childhood was certainly not deprived. In 1857, when his father became the 7th Duke of Marlborough, Churchill moved into the opulent splendour of Blenheim Palace, where his family inculcated in him their strong belief in Tory politics. His father was the Conservative member for the family borough of Woodstock. He had once been described as ‘a Tory of a narrow dispensation … a complete, full-blown Victorian prig’.3 The Duke of Marlborough was a strong advocate of