Ffion Hague - The Pain and the Privilege - The Women in Lloyd George’s Life

This story could not have been written if the women in Lloyd George’s life had not preserved and bequeathed or sold their letters, diaries and memoirs to public libraries. I make no apology for shining a spotlight on some private matters, for it was their intention that the story should be told. Nowhere does Lloyd George’s masterly understanding of the women in his life show better than in these papers. His letters to Margaret are different in tone and language to his letters to Frances. He speaks plainly to Margaret, combining Welsh and English as freely as she does, and his expressions of affection are natural without seeming sentimental: it is the language of a long-married couple who have found a way of accepting and accommodating each other’s weaknesses. Lloyd George and Frances, on the other hand, write to each other using extreme romantic language, even after more than twenty years as lovers. Frances’ daughter, Jennifer, who was privy to many of their daily conversations, finds their letters cloying and sentimental: it is not the language of everyday life, and Frances adopts a much more realistic tone in her diary.

Was the tone of these letters genuine? Commentators have taken them as proof that the passion that inspired Lloyd George to take a permanent mistress lasted for the rest of his life. It is true that the connection between him and Frances was strong and durable to the end, but it is equally possible that Lloyd George was playing the romantic hero in his letters, in full knowledge that Frances needed to feel that she was necessary to him if she was to endure her precarious and unequal position. Frances sought romance, passion and a cause to believe in, which is precisely what Lloyd George gave her in his letters. They may not have been written in the language of their day-to-day relationship—which may be why they sound false to Jennifer—but that was necessary if he was to keep Frances at his side. With an eye to posterity, Lloyd George may also have intended the letters to excuse and justify his adultery. Let the reader be the judge.

From being intrigued by Margaret and Frances it was a short step to extending my research to the other women in Lloyd George’s life. Mair, Olwen and Megan, his daughters, were important players in the life of their brilliant father, from whose spell they never fully broke free. Megan is the subject of an excellent biography by Mervyn Jones, and her groundbreaking career as female MP and political broadcaster deserves greater attention than it has been possible to give in this book. Other women, of whom there were many in Lloyd George’s life, make their appearance in the narrative but exert less influence on the man and are not permanent features in his life. Rebecca Llwyd, Betsy George and Polly—his grandmother, mother and sister—are the exceptions: profound in their influence even though they fade out of the story at an early stage.

I have become convinced that Margaret was one of the most successful Prime Minister’s wives of all time. She became famous for her dignity and her dedication. She achieved an immense amount for charity, and took to public life with ease. It was fascinating to me to reflect, not for the first time, on the ambiguous position of women married to men in public life. Margaret Lloyd George never put a foot wrong. During wartime she worked harder than anyone around her, eschewing social glitter for austerity and public service. She played a supporting role to Lloyd George in public, but never lost her own sense of identity. She was politically active, yet she never embarrassed or publicly contradicted her husband. She was a steadfast friend and a formidable foe. By the time she died she was famous throughout the world, but she remained a Criccieth girl at heart. I cannot think of a better role model for those who find themselves in this most difficult of situations. Yet she has been overlooked for reasons that are unfathomable to me, unless it is because of the fact that her voice was not preserved in a memoir or diary.

Our story begins in rural North Wales, among working men and women who suffered hardship, persecution and injustice. From this voiceless class and this unforgiving environment, one man had the talent and the opportunity to find his voice and to help shape the course of the twentieth century. His community and his family devoted their scarce resources to nurturing his talent. They were the first people to experience the pain and the privilege of smoothing the path of David Lloyd George. While his life provides the structure of this book, it is not primarily about him or about the politics he lived and breathed: I would encourage readers who wish to know more about both to read the work of John Grigg and Kenneth Morgan, whose expertise in political history far exceeds mine.

The writing of this book has been a pain and a privilege in itself. I have learned a vast amount about my country and my heritage. The nineteenth-century Wales I describe in the early chapters shaped the late-twentieth-century Wales in which I grew up. I have always been conscious that there is a different social structure in Wales to that in England: a meritocracy based on education and culture which can be baffling to those who are used to social structures largely determined by wealth and birth. Calvinistic Methodism, nationalism, education and poetry are all vitally important factors in my Wales. Margaret, I am sure, would have shared my outrage at the nineteenth-century Encyclopaedia Britannica which baldly states, ‘For Wales—see England.’

Finally, it has been my privilege to get to know members of three families: the Lloyd George, George and Longford families. I could not have undertaken this book without their help, and their friendship is the principal reward of writing it.

Ffion Hague

April 2008

THE SMALL VILLAGE OF Llanystumdwy lies on the south side of the Llŷn Peninsula in North Wales. From the hills behind, the bay of Criccieth comes into view, with a far-distant prospect of the hills of Eifionydd. On a clear day, the outline of Harlech Castle can be seen in the distance guarding the coastline. The village is a mile and a half inland and about the same distance to the west of the coastal town of Criccieth. The fast-moving river Dwyfor emerges from the woods to meander between its houses and lanes, and is crossed by an arched stone bridge that provides the village with its focal point to the present day. On those arches, nearly 150 years ago, a schoolboy carved his rough initials: D LL. They are there still, a reminder that the village gave Wales her most famous and successful statesman.

The main village street runs parallel to the coast. Opening directly onto its narrow pavement, stands a stone cottage half-covered in ivy. It is a simple two-up, two-down structure with a scullery at the back and a single-storey extension on the left-hand side to accommodate a small, two-roomed workshop. The cottage is called Highgate, and it now bears a plaque that marks it as the boyhood home of David Lloyd George.

The cottage is entered from the road through a small, narrow passageway. To the right is the parlour, a formal room furnished with care and kept for serious activity: study and Sunday best. To the left lies the largest room, running from the front of the house to the back and containing a large hearth with table and chairs for family meals and for making the most of the dying embers on winter evenings. Behind the living room, a small scullery houses the pots and pans and leads to the back door and the garden beyond, where the earth closet sits at the furthest possible point from the house.

A wooden staircase rises from the front hall to the upper level, where the space is similarly divided into two rooms. The stairs spill out directly into the largest of the two, to the left and directly above the living room below, while the smaller bedroom, reserved for the head of the household, is enclosed and to the right above the parlour. Space is cramped, the ceilings and doorways are low and the solid stone walls form an impenetrable barrier to both wind and sun. It is a long road from Highgate to No. 10 Downing Street, yet the journey was staged in only two generations.