The Prime Minister. Harold Spender
Owen, held no mean or unworthy place.
The years flew swiftly, and by 1888 it became clear that Maggie’s aunt was the true prophetess, and that the young Criccieth solicitor was a coming man. The rumour of him was spreading through the county like the roar of a “spate” from the hills of Snowdon. What was more important, he was earning an income. Not even the thrifty, careful farmer of Ednyfed could doubt any longer.
So with the opening of that year it was decided that the marriage should take place.
On January 24th, 1888, just after the twenty-fifth birthday of the young bridegroom,[24] David Lloyd George and Maggie Owen were married. The wedding took place in a romantic spot, in the little chapel of Pencaenewydd, an inland Carnarvonshire village, a few miles from Chwilog. Uncle Lloyd took David over by train on that fateful morning to Chwilog; there they breakfasted, and walked over to Pencaenewydd. Uncle Lloyd and the Rev. John Owen performed the simple ceremony; and there were present only relations and a few friends. But it was recorded in the Carnarvon Herald that flags were to be seen everywhere in Criccieth, and in the evening, after the young couple had left for London, the people defied the drizzling rain with a bonfire and fireworks. Already the people knew their friend.
Twenty-nine years later (1917) a daughter of these simple spousals was married with the same simplicity in a little Baptist chapel in London. Only the welling, pressing crowd outside the chapel showed that the man who stood by the pulpit giving away his daughter was Prime Minister of England. One wedding was as simple as the other.
When they returned to Criccieth from their brief honeymoon, Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd George settled down at first at Mynydd Ednyfed, in the farmhouse of the Owens, and there they spent a few happy years under her parents’ roof. There the elder children were born.
It was soon clear that the marriage was not going to bring any abatement of courageous action on the part of the young husband. Mrs. Lloyd George was not the sort of wife who encourages her husband to uxorious ease. She was, and always has been, on the side of daring. She faces danger with a simplicity which is disarming.
One night, for instance, there was to be held at Criccieth a meeting of the kind known as “Church Defence”; a species of gathering not free from offence to the people of Wales. David was suffering from a mild attack of tonsillitis. There seemed every reason why he should not go to the meeting.
But the people of Carnarvonshire had had to stand a good deal of this sort of thing; and David’s blood was up. He wanted to go. Would his young wife mind? She? “Why not go?” she said.
So he went off, closely muffled up by a wife who was tender as well as brave.
He stepped into the meeting with one definite object. It was his deliberate intention to stop a practice that was growing into a scandal. It had become a habit in these gatherings to fend off the eager questionings of militant Nonconformity by disingenuous postponement. It is a method well known to the tricksters of public life. “Questions? Oh! yes, as many as you like! Only it is more convenient to answer them at the close of the meeting!” Then at the close—“So sorry! But our friend here has to catch a train—his invaluable time—” We all know this sort of thing.
But at the opening of this particular meeting—an important meeting, to be addressed by a very special Church advocate—there arose the young David Lloyd George, muffled but insistent. Yes, he wanted to ask some questions. No, he would rather ask them now. In fact, he intended to ask them now. So he stood, pale to the lips, but unyielding.
The audience, taking courage, began to clap and cheer. “To the platform!” shouted some one. So David quite deliberately stepped up to the platform, mounted it, and began to address the meeting.
In vain did the righteous rage. The chairman ordered David down. He held his ground. Nay, he began to address the people, simply, incisively, thrillingly. The chairman was forgotten. David had become the speaker of the hour.
Then a curious thing happened. Warming to the task, David began to take off his mufflers. He unwound them and cast them aside. His hoarse voice became clear and ringing. The sick throat was forgotten.
He captured the meeting. The platform was silenced. It was he who made the speech of the evening; and at the end the enthusiastic Free Churchmen in the audience took up the young man and carried him from the hall on their shoulders.
No, certainly, marriage had not pinioned the wings of this young stormy petrel.
[21] Sartor Resartus, Book II., chapter ix.
[22] In countries like Japan all fishing is free; and public fishing, of course, can be “preserved” as easily as private.
[23] The lower Nantlle lake.
[24] He was born on January 17th, 1863.
CHAPTER VI
ENTERS PARLIAMENT
“The day of the cottage-bred man has at last dawned.”—Lloyd George.
Now (1888) happily married and well started on his legal career, Mr. Lloyd George was able to return to his larger ambition of sitting in Parliament. From this time forward he definitely aspired to sit at Westminister as the representative of his own native constituency, the Carnarvon Boroughs. The achievement was not to be easy. There were many lions in the path.
During the last few years, indeed, he had immensely increased his reputation. He had travelled through many parts of Wales and visited many courts, fighting the cause of the “under-dog.” The tenants of Wales, harried and evicted after 1868 and 1880, had begun to hold up their heads again. They felt that they had a new champion on their side.
But the old habit of sending to Westminster only the powerful and wealthy was not yet dead. Feudalism always dies slowly. It was a very sudden change indeed to pass from the squire and the manufacturer to the cottage-bred lad of Llanystumdwy.
David Lloyd George, indeed, neglected no opportunities. Besides being a lawyer and a public speaker, he was now an active journalist. Working with that fine spirit, Mr. D. R. Daniel—then one of the noblest sons of the Young Welsh movement—David Lloyd George founded at Pwllheli in 1888 a paper called The Trumpet of Freedom—a name which certainly did not lack sound and vigour.
Then, a few months after his marriage, with the consent and support of his fearless wife, he allowed his name first to be put forward as possible Liberal candidate for the Carnarvon Boroughs.
Then followed one of those personal struggles which test and try a man.
It is right that all claim to rise above our fellows should be narrowly scrutinised. There is even in jealousy some element of that instinct for equality which gives dignity to the meanest man. Here is a factor that takes multitudinous forms, varying from fair judgment to sheer malice. The strongest man will wince under the scorpions of spite; but he will accept the verdict of a fair jury of his peers. It was to such a jury that young David Lloyd George now fearlessly appealed.
Certainly it was scarcely to be expected that his claims to the seat should pass unchallenged. He was still (1888) only twenty-five years old. He was appealing to his own countryside; and a prophet is recorded to have authority anywhere but there. There was the inevitable question of envious neighbors—“Is