Lady Clementine

The son of an American heiress, Winston Churchill functions as Clementine’s romantic interest and her husband. A dynamic character, his character development matches his political transformations, as he switches party allegiance from Conservative to Liberal and back to Conservative. He hails from an aristocratic family with an impeccable pedigree—his cousin, Sunny, is the Duke of Marlborough and owner of Blenheim Palace. Like Clementine, Winston has a painful childhood, bullied by his father for his “lisp or weak constitution” (43). He adores his mother, even as she ignores “the many letters he wrote to her, pleading for her attention while she traveled the world in the company of her lovers” (43).

A voracious reader and thinker, Winston’s speeches and writing help supplement his income, although his expensive tastes create tension and turmoil with his wife as she tries to economize and stretch a too-small budget. He holds a seat in parliament through the 1920s and serves in various positions in the government, from the Board of Trade to the first lord of the admiralty twice, before eventually becoming prime minister in 1939. His political career creates more opportunities for collaboration and conflict with Clementine, as he depends on her to read and edit speeches, offer ideas, and smooth over disagreements with other politicians while sometimes failing to acknowledge her contributions. This work, along with the causes she supports and the running of large households without enough money, often exhausts her.

Winston also creates other problems for his wife and more instances of conflict, as his support cools on suffrage and he takes an opposite position on the question of home rule for India. He unintentionally ignores issues central to women in the early- to mid-20th century, and Clementine tires herself “Shoring up the breech in the areas they’ve forgotten, as it were” (333). Winston develops through the novel, however, especially following his wife’s long journey to the East Indies. He finally recognizes her as his equal partner in the peace that follows Germany’s defeat in 1945, acknowledging the key role she has played alongside him in his career.

Lady Randolph serves as a dynamic character, although she first appears as a static character and a reminder of Winston’s painful childhood. Like Lady Hozier, Clementine’s mother, Jennie represents the aristocrat whose pursuit of pleasure and slippery morals appears often in the novel. Physically attractive, the American-born heiress has “grown to expect delight from her son simply because she is present” (43). According to Clementine, however, Jennie remains uninterested in Winston until he gains power, when she starts “to show him the slightest bit of affection, and, even then, only when she could benefit from the association” (43-44). She values the physical affection of her lovers and younger husband more than defending her son against his father.

Jennie first interacts with Clementine after the wedding when she announces to Clementine and Winston that she has redecorated their bedroom—a sign of her control over her son and his house. With much effort, Clementine removes Jennie from the house. These battles for control persist for years, with the vain Jennie unable to lose. After her third marriage, Jennie, now 67, trips wearing “too-high heels while walking down a flight of stairs” (163). After Jennie discovers her ankle is broken, Clementine and Jennie grow closer as Winston’s wife visits throughout June. Her break becomes infected, and, after the onset of gangrene, the doctor amputates her foot. She “has prized her beauty and her shapely ankles all her life” but “she accepts the news without histrionics” (163), suggesting that she has become less vain and more mature in her outlook. While she dies soon after, Jennie has changed, and dies having won Clementine’s respect.

Clementine’s mother is a financially-strapped aristocrat who serves as a stereotype of a distant mother and profligate aristocrat. She has four children: Kitty, her eldest daughter who died at 16, Clementine, and twins Nellie and Bill. Her aristocratic background conflicts with her desire to live a life without responsibilities: “She preferred to believe her title and aristocratic heritage would magically provide funds for housing, food, and servants,” even as she acts in contempt of her class’s social and moral codes (9). Her lack of steady income and revolving list of lovers mean that her children often work, taking in needlework or, in Clementine’s case, tutoring in French. Even though Nellie and Clementine must work to support the household, Hozier “loathed any reminder that [the] girls needed to contribute to the household upkeep” (9).

Hozier seems to care only for her pleasure, and, even at Clementine’s wedding, she “rearranged church seating so that next to her, in a place of utmost prominence, is Algernon-Bertram Freeman-Mitford, the First Baron Redesdale” (37). Rumored to be Clementine’s real father, Bertram’s closeness to Hozier distracts Clementine, again showing her the depth of her mother’s selfishness. Hozier does not change—although she does grieve for Bill after he dies—but Clementine comes to understand her motivations more as she also experiences the limitations of motherhood. As Clementine moves to London with her first child, she “understood Mother’s need to keep her children at bay, even to maintain a separate house for [them] and [their] governess, nearby but distinctly apart” (52).

While Clementine comes to see her mother in a different light, Lady Hozier remains an example of what not to do, as Clementine seeks to avoid her fate: Hozier “passed away in late 1925 and suffered a sad, lonely, somewhat destitute and often drink-fueled descent” (177). While Lady Hozier defies social norms only in pursuit of her own pleasure, Clementine learns to defy social norms to advance meaningful political causes and to find her own voice in her marriage.

Nellie, Bill’s twin, and Clementine’s younger sister, serves as one of the novel’s moral centers. Willing to critique Winston and Clementine’s marriage and to voice concern for her sister, Nellie gives honest feedback to her sister. After Winston becomes first lord of the admiralty, Nellie often wonders if Winston asks too much of her sister, anticipating Clementine’s own transformation following her time on the Rosaura. This genuine concern appears again and again, as Clementine worries about her sister’s often-frail health and increasingly insurmountable duties.

Her concern comes from their closeness and Nellie’s love for her sister. After Clementine visits Nellie and her brother before her wedding to Winston, Nellie’s care touches her, as well as her wisdom and “her astuteness” (9). Nellie serves as one of Clementine’s bridesmaids and, in a comforting gesture, adjusts her veil and flowers. Nellie’s care and honesty guide her in other parts of her life, making her a welcoming figure for all. Even Randolph, Clementine and Winston’s temperamental son, maintains a bond with his aunt, leaving Clementine wondering how Nellie “connect[s] so easily with my son, whom I find overly sensitive and mercurial” (74). Nellie, like her sister, experiences tragedy after tragedy, losing her son in World War II and her husband to cancer and surviving capture in World War I by the Germans while she works as a nurse at the front. Nellie’s sense of duty and service is another example of women in the novel making meaningful contributions to political and social life behind the scenes.