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

When next you discuss your relations with your husband with the servants you may tell Jane—since you quote her views as having so much weight—that the marriage vow was not one-sided. You have worried me to distraction about my share of it. What about yours? You have wilfully disobeyed your husband—in a matter he was entitled to obedience—yes in a matter any other wife would have been only too delighted to obey him in.

You threaten me with a public scandal. Alright—expose me if that suits you. One scandal the more will but kill me the earlier. But you will not alter my resolution to have neither correspondence nor communication of any sort with you until it is more clearly understood how you purpose to guide your course for the future. I have borne it for years & have suffered in health & character. I’ll stand it no longer come what may. 10

He does not deny that Maggie has the ammunition to cause a scandal. Instead he argues that it is all her fault. Her neglect is responsible for his defects of both ‘health’ and ‘character’. Instead of reassurance, she received an ultimatum: he would not write or talk to her again until she agreed to join him in London. Her reply, unfortunately, is also lost and the trail of letters is difficult to follow, since in the heat of the argument they wrote to each other more than once a day, *but it seems that it was an angry one. This drew a curt and equally unconciliatory letter back from Lloyd George: ‘What colleague do you allude to? You are still at your old trick of innuendo. You say this business is childish. You may yet find it is more serious than child’s play.’ 11

Maggie must have sent another letter the same day containing an apology, for Lloyd George wrote again later in a softened tone, and although he returned to the ongoing quarrel, he also sent a gift of fruit: ‘I would much rather see you express sorrow for your refusal to comply with your husband’s earnest desire to see you than defend yourself as you do. It was a wilful act of disobedience. Of course I did not command. That is what no husband cares to do to his wife but I did entreat—for the last time.’ 12

Maggie, though, was not quite ready to let the matter rest. It seems she sent another intemperate letter—or perhaps their letters crossed—followed immediately by an apologetic and capitulatory telegram. Sensing victory, Lloyd George wrote back pressing his advantage to secure his goal of getting Maggie to agree to move to London:

My sweet but stupid Maggie

That telegram just saved you. Your letter this morning made me wild—there was the same self-complacent self-satisfied Pharisaism about it as ever. You had done no wrong. Even now there is a phrase in it that I cannot pass by unnoticed. When did I ever suggest in the faintest measure that you were a burden to me? Have I not always complained rather that you ‘burdened’ me too little with your society? You have no right to make these charges. What I have said I neither withdraw nor modify how grave soever the implication may be—nor do I wish to retract a syllable of what I told you in London about my being even happier when you & the kids are around me. A wise woman who loved her husband well & who knew herself well-beloved by him, would not write foolish letters arguing out the matter with him & doing that badly—she would rather put these things together, ponder them well & resolve at all costs to redeem the past.

He then goes for the kill.

Be candid with yourself. Drop that infernal Methodism which is the curse of your bitter nature & reflect whether you have not rather neglected your husband. I have more than once gone without breakfast. I have scores of times come home in the dead of night to a cold dark & comfortless flat without a soul to greet me. When you were surrounded by your pets.

Next comes the nearest thing to a confession Lloyd George ever made:

I am not the nature either physically or morally that ought to have been left thus. I decline to argue & you will mortally offend me if you attempt it. I simply ask you in all sincerity of soul—yes, & as a message of true love I supplicate you to give heed to what I am telling you now—not for the first time. I shall then ask you how you would like to meet your Judge if all this neglect led me astray. You have been a good mother. You have not—& I say this now not in anger—not always been a good wife. I can point you even amongst those whom you affect to look down upon—much better wives. You may be a blessing to your children. Oh Maggie annwyl [darling] beware lest you be a curse to your husband. My soul as well as my body has been committed to your charge & in many respects I am as helpless as a child. 13

As an argument of defence, the letter is masterful. It would not sound out of place as a sermon, delivered in solemn tones from the pulpit of Seion. How well Lloyd George knew his wife. In asking her to abandon her Methodism he plays on it for all he is worth, conjuring up the Calvinistic exhortation to reflect on sin, and encouraging her to take on the responsibility and guilt for his own moral lapses.

The row was over, and the correspondence between them swung back into its previous comfortable rhythm, but a powerful message had been delivered to Maggie. She did not dismiss Lloyd George’s covert warning that her absences were leading him into temptation. While she was in Wales the despised Mrs Tim had a clear field, and with the children growing older, she had less reason to cling on to Criccieth. Nevertheless, the bonds were difficult to break, and it was not until the end of 1898 that she finally agreed to join her husband in the city she hated.

With peace restored—somewhat precariously—between Maggie and Lloyd George, a happier period ensued. Indeed, for a family commuting between North Wales and London, theirs was a remarkably stable home life, due to Maggie’s unblinking focus on her children. The elder children, Dick, Mair and Olwen, had happy memories of growing up in Criccieth, largely cared for by Richard and Mary Owen and watched over by Uncle Lloyd in Garthcelyn, the house William had built for the family. With Maggie dividing her time unevenly between Criccieth and London, Dick remembers her as an occasional visitor during his infancy, with longer spells at home before a new brother or sister arrived. As a young child he missed his mother very much, and he may have exaggerated their periods of separation. His early memories may also have been coloured by the fact that he was sent back to Criccieth to attend school during the Boer War which broke out in 1899, and lived apart from his family for large parts of the year. Mair left no diary or memoir to speak for her, but Olwen, three years younger than Dick, writes of growing up in London with only extended holidays spent in Criccieth. The truth probably lies in between: the family was firmly based in Criccieth in the early 1890s, but as time went on pressure grew on Maggie to spend more time in London. She usually took the youngest member or members of the family with her, leaving the elder children behind, which would account for the different recollections of Dick and Olwen.

Dick was a sensitive boy who inherited his mother’s love of North Wales but did not possess his father’s brilliance and ambition. His restless energy found an outlet in mischief, especially during endless sermons in chapel, and he was made to sit with Richard Owen in the ‘set fawr’, the front pew reserved for deacons, on more than one occasion to put a stop to his antics. He had a gift for mimicry, and when he began to acquire some English he found he could deflect his mother’s anger by assuming an exaggerated accent and declaring ‘Oh I say!’, reducing her to helpless laughter. He was very close to Maggie, whom he worshipped, and as the first grandchild in either the Owen or the Lloyd family, he was secure in the attention of both.