Читать книгу The Pain and the Privilege: The Women in Lloyd George’s Life - Ffion Hague - Страница 9

POLLY SET ABOUT HER CAMPAIGN immediately and with energy by arranging evening singing sessions in chapel for the younger members, social events that the elders could not object to, and inviting her friends to call at Morvin House. It required more planning to extend her brother’s social circle to include girls from other chapels, since there were fewer excuses for getting together outside the chapel walls. Polly therefore arranged trips to local places of interest along the coast, and invited young people from neighbouring chapels to make up the numbers. One such outing took place on 13 July 1885, when she organised a day trip by steamer to Bardsey Island, two miles west of the tip of the Llyŷn Peninsula. Sixteen young men and women left Criccieth that morning in an excitable state, looking forward to spending a day together without the constant, spirit-dampening supervision of the chapel authorities. They were expecting a day of sunshine, picnicking and perhaps some mild flirting, but for two of them at least it was to be a life-changing adventure.

Bardsey was a well-known beauty spot, but local tradition also maintained that 20,000 saints or pilgrims were buried on the island. In the sixth century St Cadfan began to build a monastery there, and the island later hosted an Augustinian abbey whose ruins are still to be seen. Such was Bardsey’s spiritual significance in the early Middle Ages that three pilgrimages to it were the equivalent of one to Rome. Even the most puritanical chapel elders could not object to a day trip to such a holy spot. The Criccieth party left Porthmadoc aboard the steamer Snowdon, and on arrival they soon split up into groups of two or three, clambering up the steep slopes to find sunny spots to eat their picnic lunches. Lloyd George found himself in a group of three with Polly and one of her friends. In his diary entry for the day he records how much he enjoyed the company of a certain Miss Owen: ‘I was with Miss Owen, Mynydd Ednyfed, mostly. MEG (my sister) with us—Enjoyed myself immensely.’¹ Polly had scored a bull’s-eye.

Margaret Owen, known as Maggie, was the only child of Mr and Mrs Owen of Mynydd Ednyfed (Mount Ednyfed) farm. She was eighteen years old, and had returned to Criccieth from Dolgellau, where she had been attending Dr Williams’ boarding school for young ladies. It was highly unusual for a girl to be educated beyond the age of fourteen, and the Owens’ decision to send Maggie away to finish her instruction was a clear signal of their devotion, as well as a sign that they wanted the best in life for her. Lloyd George had noted her in his diary before—he commented on virtually all the girls he bumped into during the course of his day—but not in a way that suggested any particular attraction. In June 1884 he commented that Maggie Owen was ‘a sensible girl without fuss or affectation about her’. The following spring there was another reference: ‘May 1885 [Criccieth Debating Society soir=e] A really 1st class affair—the victualling part as excellent as the entertainment—playing forfeits and the like games until 11.30. About 30 present. Took Maggie Owen home a short way—her mother waiting for her in some house.’²

It was not typical of Lloyd George to take girls home the short way, but Mrs Owen was one step ahead of any glad-eyed youth, and was determined to make sure that her daughter got home promptly. By the time he had encountered Maggie Owen a few more times he noted that she ‘Seems to be a jollier girl as you get on with her.’³

Maggie Owen appeared not really to be the kind of girl to catch Lloyd George’s eye. She was not flirtatious or showy, but she had a grace and a quiet confidence that set her apart. She was pretty, with lively blue eyes, but was not considered a beauty so much as a good catch, and she had at least two other serious suitors in Criccieth. But she had been absent during Lloyd George’s adolescence, and was not as familiar to him as the girls he had grown up with. She now appeared in his life with all the allure of novelty just as he was getting over Lizzie Jones. As they wandered around Bardsey Island together, a mutual attraction grew between them.

On the face of it, there were major obstacles to a match between Lloyd George and Maggie Owen. For a start, she was far from ideal in Uncle Lloyd’s eyes for the simple reason that she was a Calvinistic Methodist. Indeed, Maggie’s family was almost as far removed from the Lloyds socially as was possible within the narrow confines of a small town like Criccieth. For their part, the Owens would have equally strong reasons to rule out Lloyd George as a potential match for their daughter.

Richard Owen, Maggie’s father, was a well-to-do farmer and a pillar of the Calvinistic Methodist community of Capel Mawr (Great Chapel) in Criccieth. As the prosperous proprietor of the hundred-acre Mynydd Ednyfed farm he was wealthy enough to invest some capital in the Porthmadoc fleet, to educate his daughter privately, and on his retirement in 1891 to build a pair of fine semi-detached stone houses looking out over Criccieth bay. He was not a member of the landowning class—he was a nonconformist, and he and his family spoke Welsh as their first language—but he was economically in a different class to the Lloyds, and indeed to most of the inhabitants of Criccieth. When he died he left an estate of £1,558.2s.6d (£131,000 in today’s currency) to his wife. Not without reason, Richard Owen and his wife considered themselves to be a cut above the Lloyds and the Georges.

Richard Owen could trace his ancestry back to Owen, the twelfthcentury Prince of Gwynedd. The power and the land belonging to this class had long since been superseded, but pride remained. Richard Owen might work for a living, but he took his place at the top of Criccieth society, with the natural authority of those born to rule. He was a strong, well-built man even by the standards of the mountain farmers of Llyŷn, and his reputation for physical feats was matched by respect for his sound judgement. He spoke slowly, was not easily roused to anger, and had deep-set eyes in a calm, serene face. His physical courage was legendary: he had once been charged by a bull, but had stopped it in its tracks by grasping it by the horns. This and other examples of his strength had earned him the respect of the whole community. He was often asked to adjudicate in disputes between his neighbours, some of whom had known him for decades yet still addressed him as ‘Mr Owen’. On market days he had his own wooden bench on the green in Criccieth that no one dared sit on unless by his invitation.

Richard’s local status was further enhanced by his election as head deacon of Capel Mawr, where he sat in authority next only to the Rev. Jones. The deacons together with the minister visited the sick, educated the young, and led and encouraged the faithful. They were also responsible for judging and punishing any member who strayed. Their ultimate sanction was to cast out a member from the congregation, and in so doing take away the sinner’s place in society. It followed that deacons were expected to lead exemplary lives themselves, and they carried great moral and social authority. As head deacon of Capel Mawr, Richard Owen would sit in judgement on any member of chapel who married out of the faith. For his own daughter to do so would humiliate him in the most public way possible.

Naturally enough, Richard had chosen his own bride from another ancient Welsh family: Mary Jones of Tyddyn Mawr could trace her ancestry to the tenth-century South Welsh King Hywel Dda, whose laws set the pattern of Welsh society for centuries. Mary Jones was typical of the strong-willed Welsh ‘mam’. She was a slightly-built woman whose husband towered over her, but she was as feisty as he was placid, and bustled from one task to the next with indefatigable energy. In her youth she was famous throughout the district as a fine horsewoman, and she was also renowned for her ferocious rages. When she was roused her diminutive frame would shake with anger and her flashing eyes would signal danger as she unleashed a ‘veritable Niagara of indomitable force’, according to her grandson Dick.⁴ Even when she was calm, her pursed lips and sharp gaze warned anyone nearby not to cross her, and she was quick to judge those who failed to live up to her high standards. Mary too was conscious of the natural dignity of her ancestry, and despite the fact that lack of education meant that she was unable to write she was much in demand as chairman and secretary of local societies.

Mynydd Ednyfed occupied a hundred acres of land high on the mountain behind the town of Criccieth, and it was there, on 4 November 1866, that Richard and Mary’s only child was born. Richard was a loving, indulgent father who doted on Maggie from the very first. Mary too demanded only the best for her daughter. Country people know that the most valuable stock comes from pure bloodlines, and Richard and Mary Owen, both proud of their noble ancestry, passed a double dose of pride to their daughter. Indeed, ancestry left its physical mark on Maggie, who was born with ‘bys yr Eifion’ (Eifion’s finger)—a crooked little finger on her right hand that, tradition has it, marks those descended from a fourteenth-century knight called Hywel y Fwyall (Howell of the Axe), whose crooked finger gave him a strong grip which helped to make him the best axeman in Wales. At least one member of each generation of Richard Owen’s family bore the telltale finger, and Maggie delighted in bearing the physical mark of her nobility. She was as Welsh as the hills on which she was born.

Maggie had a happy, easy-going nature. She spent her childhood in and around Criccieth, and occasionally caught sight of the young Lloyd George, dressed in his knickerbockers, walking alongside Betsy and Uncle Lloyd on their frequent journeys to and from Capel Ucha.

Richard Owen, along with most of the Calvinistic Methodists, was a supporter of the Liberal Party, which had succeeded in becoming the party of the Welsh nonconformists in their battle for religious recognition (through disestablishment) and equality. Nonconformists had suffered considerable persecution by agents of Church and state in the previous century, and the widening social gap between rich landowners and struggling tenant farmers and miners increased the alienation between the wealthy English establishment and the Welsh dissenting middle and working classes. The spiritual gulf between Church and Chapel, and the cultural barrier between English—and Welsh-speakers, made any politician who challenged the Tory establishment a natural friend to the nonconformist.

1885 and 1886 were turbulent years politically. In 1885 the Liberal Prime Minister, William Gladstone, resigned after losing a crucial vote in the House of Commons. The Tory Lord Salisbury took over as caretaker PM, but after Parliament rose in August, electioneering began in earnest, and went on until an election was eventually called at the end of November. By then Lloyd George had stepped up his political activities, was becoming a regular speaker at political meetings, was even being hailed by some activists as a future MP. The election in November/December, which resulted in a minority Tory administration led by Salisbury, was followed by a split in the Liberal Party between supporters of Gladstone’s ‘Home Rule’ policy in Ireland and those of Joseph Chamberlain’s New Radical Union with its ‘unauthorised programme’ of federalism as the solution to the Irish problem. Wales remained staunchly behind Gladstone, who with his Welsh wife and family base in Hawarden in North Wales rightly considered the Principality to be a stronghold. Following the defeat of Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill in Parliament in June 1886, a second election followed in July, in which Gladstone won thirty out of the thirtyfour Welsh seats, although elsewhere he did not do so well. With the Liberal Party divided, Salisbury held on to office, shored up by an alliance with Chamberlain and the Irish national MPs. It was to be the beginning of a rift in the Liberal Party between the moderate mainstream and the radicals.

In Wales, moderate men like Richard Owen wanted religious freedom and the right to earn a fair living on the land. He was a mainstream Liberal, naturally conservative, and with no time for those on the more radical fringes of his party who talked of social reform, the separation of the Church in Wales from the state, and even of Home Rule for Wales. David Lloyd George was a natural radical who had expressed admiration for Chamberlain, but the prevailing political wind in Wales carried him into the Gladstonian camp.

Richard and Mary Owen wanted Maggie to marry a Calvinistic Methodist, preferably a Liberal with conventional views, who was well established in life and able to offer her a comfortable future. From the elevated perspective of Mynydd Ednyfed, Lloyd George’s prospects did not look good. Before he had even begun to court Maggie, Mr and Mrs Owen regarded him as socially inferior and wholly unsuitable: he was a Baptist, and a political radical who was not yet firmly established in his profession. Worse still, Mrs Owen had her ears pressed well to the ground and regarded him as ‘fast’, a flirt who ‘walked out’ with too many local girls. To the Owens, Lloyd George seemed neither reliable nor respectable. Maggie could not have chosen anyone from her limited circle of acquaintance more likely to raise objections from her parents, and in the summer of 1885 these seemed insuperable. Nevertheless, with the time-honoured inevitability of such situations, the attraction between Lloyd George and Maggie grew with each meeting.

During the weeks following the Bardsey Island trip, Lloyd George took every opportunity to put himself in front of Maggie and her family. He had few excuses to visit Mynydd Ednyfed, but he made use of what little connection he had with Richard Owen’s political activities. At first, Mr Owen accepted Lloyd George’s sudden interest in establishing a Liberal club in Criccieth at face value, but he was no fool and he soon realised that the young man’s visits had more to do with Maggie than with politics. Lloyd George was promptly banned from Mynydd Ednyfed and told, firmly, to leave Miss Owen alone. This served only to increase his interest, but, temporarily defeated, he retired from the field to consider his tactics.

Mr Owen was seriously alarmed: not only did he and his wife disapprove of Lloyd George, they also had the ideal husband for their beloved child already picked out. His name was John Thomas Jones, and he was a deacon at Capel Mawr. To add to his qualifications the thirty-four-year-old Jones was financially well-off, having made a small fortune in Australian goldmines before returning to his native North Wales. He lived in a newly-built, substantial house overlooking Criccieth, and he was the very opposite of ‘fast’. He was rather uncouth and brusque of manner, but that was a minor disadvantage compared to the facts that he was the right denomination and had excellent prospects. The Owens were delighted when he started courting their daughter, but Maggie was not impressed. She resisted all attempts by her parents to persuade her to accept his proposals, and did not even mention his existence to his younger rival until well into their relationship.

Meanwhile, Lloyd George decided that if he could not court Maggie openly, he would take every opportunity of doing so covertly instead. He wrote to her frequently, and they conspired to meet at local social events. The first note from Lloyd George that Maggie kept is dated 30 December 1885, and was addressed respectfully to ‘Dear Miss Owen’:

I enclose tickets for our Societys entertainment. The meeting commences at 7.30 p.m. punctual.

Young ladies need not arrange for any escort home after the meeting, as the Society provides efficient protection for them in that respect!

Kindly recollect this so as to avoid troubling anyone to wait for you from the meeting.

Yours sincerely

D. Lloyd George⁵

The formal tone of the note was perhaps intended to be proof against prying eyes, and belies the clear understanding between them that security on the way home would be provided by one D. Lloyd George, personally.

A week later, Lloyd George’s diary records that he lay in wait for Maggie, hoping for a private meeting: ‘Very glad I waylaid Maggie Owen; induced her to abstain from going to the Seiat [evening service] by showing her by my erratic watch that she was too late, then for a stroll with her up LÔn Fêl.’⁶

Maggie fell for these none-too-subtle tactics several times over the next few weeks, and in turn her quiet charms grew steadily on him:

4 Feb. At 6 p.m. met Maggie Owen by appointment on the Marine Parade. With her until 7. I am getting to be very fond of the girl. There is a combination of good nature, humour and affection about her.⁷

Three days later, Lloyd George confessed to his brother his growing interest in Maggie, with an acknowledgement of the difficulty of courting a Calvinistic Methodist against the wishes of her parents: ‘After dinner with W.G. along Abereistedd and thence to chapel. Mentioned my predicament with regard to love affairs. He does not disapprove.’⁸

With characteristic speed, Lloyd George was falling in love:

9 Feb. At 5.45 attended Burial Board meeting, thence to an appointed rendezvous by 6.30 at Bryn Hir gate to meet Maggie Owen; took her home by round-about way, enjoyed the stroll immensely and made another appointment. It looks as if I were rapidly placing myself in an irretrievable position. Doesn’t matter. I don’t see that any harm will ensue. Left her at 7.45.⁹

He paused to throw a backward glance at the memory of Lizzie Jones only to reassure himself of the superior qualities of his new love:

15 Feb. (After concert) I then waylaid Maggie Owen to take her home. Never felt more acutely than to-night that I am really in deep love with girl. Felt sorry to have to leave her. I have I know gradually got to like her more and more. There’s another thing I have observed in connection with this, that my intercourse with L. rather tended to demoralize my taste; my fresh acquaintance has an entirely different influence. She firmly checks all ribaldry or tendency thereto on my part.¹⁰

Lloyd George was getting serious. Maggie Owen was in a different class to the girls he had flirted with in the past. It was not only her background—Lizzie, for example, was the daughter of the local fishmonger—but also her character. From the outset Maggie set high standards of behaviour, and without making herself a killjoy, seemed to make him behave better in return. She was not a girl to be toyed with or treated badly. Her natural dignity and fixed moral compass demanded respect. In the young Maggie Owen’s ‘checking’ effect on the flirtatious Lloyd George we see the essence of their mature relationship. It was her strength of character too that was in due course to inspire admiration and love throughout Wales and beyond.

By late spring 1886 Lloyd George was committed, announcing in his diary that he had made his choice, but all the evidence suggests that Maggie felt less sure. While she was happy to slip out from Mynydd Ednyfed to meet him in the early days of their courtship, when he pressed his case in earnest she began to have doubts. He continued to waylay her at every opportunity, but he waited nearly a year after the Bardsey Island trip before daring to use an endearment for the first time:

27 June. After making a feint of running for the train, envelope in hand, started via sea-wall and Turnpike, Criccieth, for the hills. M. expecting me. M. asked me what I would tell them at home if they wanted to know where I’d been. I replied: ‘I’d say I’d been to see my sweetheart.’ This is the second time I’ve called her so. She likes it. I am now quite committed.¹¹

Matters came to a head in July when he confided in Polly: ‘Told my sister M.E.G. to-night about M. She is well-pleased and thinks a lot of her, says I may mention the matter [of marriage] to M. shortly but that it would not do to marry for about five years at least.’¹²

Polly could see that a long engagement was the only sensible way forward, given the fact that Lloyd George was far from established in his career, and that his family could not give him any financial help. She would not have been blind to the other obstacles in the way of the young couple, and her advice was perhaps also coloured by the fact that Lloyd George would have to convince not one but two families to agree to the match.

This raises the question, why did Lloyd George’s devout Baptist siblings approve of the interdenominational match? The answer surely lies in the fact that they could see the advantages to their brother. Polly knew Maggie very well, and respected the strength of her character. Lloyd George would need a strong woman as a wife, both to support his limitless ambitions and to keep him in check, and Maggie appeared more than equal to the task. There were clear social advantages to the match: Lloyd George would benefit from his association with the well-to-do Owen family, which might be useful to him in building his law practice. Politically too, Lloyd George could not make a better match. A Baptist politician lacked a natural power base, since there were comparatively few Baptists in the area. A Baptist with no other recommendation would be seen as an outsider by both the church-going Tory voters and by the dominant nonconformist group, the Calvinistic Methodists. By marrying into a prominent Calvinistic Methodist family like the Owens, Lloyd George the future political candidate would be gaining a significant advantage.

Maggie was the catch of the district, and Lloyd George always deserved—and got—the best. It was true that there were issues to resolve before the marriage could take place, but Polly knew her brother supremely well, and never underestimated his determination to get what he wanted. She gently supported his campaign, speaking well of Maggie to those whose objections needed neutralising, encouraging Lloyd George to think of marriage, and keeping Uncle Lloyd out of his way. On the Owens’ side, however, there were no apparent advantages to a relationship between their daughter and Lloyd George. He was not marriage material in their eyes, and they doubted his ability either to support Maggie or to make her happy. On both counts they were eventually to be proved right.

Despite the dark stormclouds on the horizon, Lloyd George felt that all was well as he prepared to take a short trip to London over the August bank holiday weekend in 1886. His absence gave Maggie time to think, and she confided to a friend that she feared Lloyd George would let her down if she gave him her heart, although she confessed that she was very fond of him.¹³ With typical self-confidence, when this reached his ears Lloyd George rejoiced in the second admission without dwelling too much on the first. He regarded Maggie’s fears as a challenge, and he was sure enough of her affection to take the next step, and to propose to her.

Lloyd George chose his moment with care. Maggie had relatives living at Bodfan in Llanwnda, fourteen miles from Criccieth, and at the end of August she went to stay there for a few days. Lloyd George guessed that this would be his best chance of catching her alone, away from the baleful influence of her mother, and he followed with his plan of action worked out. His diary gives the story in detail:

25 Aug. Left Caernarfon per 4.40 train—dropped down at Llanwnda. Wrote at the Inn at Llanwnda a note for her…marched right up to the door [where she was staying], asked if Miss Owen was in, told the girl at the door that I was desired by her father Richard Owen to give her a note in passing! Eventually I saw her. It appears Miss Jones had read the note, M. being too excited to open it. She had to go to a party that evening, but promised to try and return by 8, and to meet me by the gate; I gave her a bouquet I had brought with me…I returned at 8 to Bodfan—but had to wait until 9.45 until the girls returned.

We can imagine his agony of suspense as he waited an hour and three quarters for his sweetheart to appear, but Maggie did finally arrive: ‘M came with me for a long drive in carriage (I had brought from Llanwnda). Here I proposed to her. She wanted time to consider, but admitted her regard for me. Although, when I write this, I have not been formally accepted, I am positive that everything is all right so far as the girl is concerned. I left her about mid-night. M. has some of the “coquette” about her—she did not like to appear to jump at my offer.’¹⁴

His confidence in Maggie’s regard was unshakeable, but he was mistaken in interpreting her genuine hesitation as mere coquetry. The truth was that she was disturbed by the gossip her mother and friends had passed on to her about Lloyd George’s reputation as a ladies’ man, and was not about to jump into a hasty engagement. She was also close to her parents, and was reluctant to go against their wishes.

Lloyd George knew when to press his advantage, and followed his appearance at Llanwnda with a letter on 28 August. ‘…Write me your answer to the question I gave you on Wednesday evening (or Thursday morning—I am not sure which it was!). Do, that’s a good girl. I want to get your own decision up on the matter. The reason I have already given you. I wish the choice you make—whatever it be—to be really yours & not anyone else’s.’¹⁵

Maggie’s religion had been the subject of gentle teasing between the lovers from the beginning, with Lloyd George trying to distract her from her regular attendances at Capel Mawr and avoiding his own duties at Capel Ucha as often as possible. The fact that Maggie did not object, and in fact seems to have enjoyed the fun as much as he, strongly belies the theory put forward by William George in later life that her hesitation was due to the religious difference between them. In October, after keeping Lloyd George waiting nearly six weeks for an answer, Maggie finally explained why she continued to hold back. He recorded the conversation in his diary:

1 Oct. To Mynydd Ednyfed & Mr and Mrs Owen having gone to Ty Mawr. I remained until 1 a.m. I pressed M. to come to a point as to what I had been speaking to her about [his proposal of marriage]. She at last admitted that her hesitation was entirely due to her not being able implicitly to trust me. She then asked me solemnly whether I was really in earnest—I assured her with equal solemnity that I was as there is a God in Heaven. ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘if you will be as true and faithful to me as I am to you, it will be allright.’ She said nothing about her Mother’s frivolous objection to my being a Baptist nor as to her own objection to my sceptical vagaries—for I told her emphatically the other day that I could not even to win her give them up & I would not pretend I had—they were my firm convictions.¹⁶

It seems that their different denominations were not an insurmountable difficulty for Maggie. Neither did she mind Lloyd George’s ‘sceptical vagaries’, his radical political convictions—in which case she would have done well to note that his courageous defence of them contained a warning: he would not give up his beliefs—or his political ambitions—for her or for anyone else. In this, he was to remain constant until the day he died.

While Maggie was considering whether or not to accept Lloyd George as a husband, her doubts with regard to his fidelity cropped up repeatedly, but she had no doubts at all about his professional success. Lloyd George was a man who would ‘get on’. What was not specifically discussed between them though was the future career he had in mind. Lloyd George was beginning to make a name for himself locally as a promising young lawyer, but he was also getting more and more involved in politics.

The swift changes of government in 1885-86 made for exciting times for the political activist in Morvin House. Most Liberals in Caernarvon Boroughs were Gladstonians. There is some evidence that Lloyd George’s natural political sympathy lay with Chamberlain, and but for a mixup with the dates of a crucial meeting in Birmingham he might have openly declared his support for Gladstone’s rival. It was politically canny, though, given the views of Welsh Liberals, for him to present himself as a Gladstonian, which is what he did.

Lloyd George’s political reputation had grown so rapidly by 1886 that he was shortlisted as the Liberal candidate for that year’s general election in the neighbouring constituency of Merioneth, but he soon regretted his candidacy. He withdrew, ostensibly to allow his friend T.E. Ellis to gain the Liberal nomination, but his diary reveals that he had been carried away by the enthusiasm of his supporters, and soon realised that he had neither the financial means nor the political experience to make a success of becoming an MP at such an early age: ‘When alone and calculating the possible consequences…I would not be in nearly as good a position as regards pecuniary, oratorical or intellectual capacity to go to Parliament now as in say 5 years hence. Now I would put myself in endless pecuniary difficulties—an object of contempt in a House of snobs.’¹⁷

During the election the Liberal candidate in Caernarvon Boroughs, Love Jones-Parry, made a mess of his campaign, first alienating his supporters by denouncing Home Rule, and then having a last-minute change of mind. He was defeated by his Conservative rival Edmund Swetenham. Nationally, support for Gladstone was not as strong as it was in Wales, and Salisbury returned to power with a majority of over a hundred seats.

Lloyd George was heavily involved in the local campaign despite the fact that he had decided not to stand for Parliament himself. His political activities could not have escaped the notice of his sweetheart. Indeed, it was during the years of their courtship that he became seriously committed to a political career and began to plan his way out of the law. His attitude towards his profession changed subtly: what was previously a source of pride became more a means to an end, a way of earning a living while developing his reputation as a political activist and speaker.

As Maggie wondered whether she could trust her young lover, did she fully understand what future life he was offering? Lloyd George’s diary records that their conversations were mainly about things they had in common: chapel, Criccieth society, her family’s disapproval, his legal clients. He did not seem to talk to her much about politics: she was not interested in the subject at this stage of her life, and he possibly regarded it as his own domain, and not a subject for feminine conversation. He would also have wanted to emphasise his professional successes to Maggie and her family, to prove that he could support a wife and family. His involvement in local politics would not necessarily have signalled his wider ambitions to Maggie. After all, her father was a leading local Liberal too, but he did not have any ambitions to enter politics professionally. Also, while with hindsight Lloyd George’s progress in politics seems the most significant development during this period, at the time much more attention was paid to his growing reputation as a lawyer. This may explain why Maggie was able later to claim that she did not regard his political career as a certainty when she was considering whether to marry him, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Throughout the rest of 1886, Maggie was losing her heart, if not her head, to her insistent suitor, and on 11 November Lloyd George triumphantly records: ‘Never on better terms. First time she ever gave me a kiss. She gave it in exchange for a story I promised to tell her.’¹⁸ Lloyd George and Maggie had been courting for over a year, and had been discussing marriage since August, but Maggie had been brought up as a respectable chapel girl, and did not even kiss her lover until November. The increased intimacy was cautiously acknowledged by Lloyd George as he addressed letters thereafter to ‘My dearest Miss Owen’, rather than the simple ‘My dear Miss Owen’ he had previously been using. He did not yet dare use her Christian name.

Maggie’s reluctance to commit herself was understandable, for the rumours of Lloyd George’s flirting were not all in the past. Only two days after their kiss, he records in his diary: ‘Rather strong rebuke from M. for having condescended to gabble at all with Plas Wilbraham girls. I foolishly let out somehow that I had done so—she let me off—dismissed me—in disgrace.’¹⁹

Given her mother’s views, Maggie was very sensitive to suggestions that Lloyd George was flirting with other girls, and he would have been well advised to steer clear of any potential or former girlfriends while he was waiting for her answer. This was to prove quite beyond him, and he saw no reason to mend his ways either before or after his engagement, trusting in his wits and in the strength of Maggie’s feelings to get him out of trouble. Both were to be tested to breaking point in the weeks leading up to their engagement as his old flame Lizzie Jones made her final destructive appearance in his life, and his determination to ignore the local rumour mill very nearly derailed his new relationship.

Regarding himself as engaged—unofficially at least—Lloyd George had been pressing Maggie to face up to her parents. They were still so opposed to the relationship that the lovers had to communicate secretly, leaving letters in a niche in the stone wall on the lane near Mynydd Ednyfed, which they referred to as ‘the post office’. They met behind the Owens’ back whenever Maggie could sneak away, but Lloyd George upbraided Maggie constantly in his letters for keeping him waiting, or for letting him down. He had obviously reached the end of his tether by November 1886. On Friday the nineteenth, he signed his letter to Maggie ‘Yours (hyd y ffrae nesa’ ac wedyn) D Lloyd George’ [Yours (until the next quarrel, and beyond) D Lloyd George]²⁰—and four days later he wrote an angry missive in a furious scrawl following yet another disappointment:

Wednesday morning,

Thanks for another sell—with regard to what you suggest about this evening I am not inclined to abandon my work at Porthmadoc any more upon the mere chance (as you term it) of your being able successfully to cheat your mother. You failed to do so last night & you may fail tonight. Letting alone every question of candour & duty it would be far more expedient in my humble opinion to tell your mother where you want to go. You have more than once vetoed the project of my discussing matters with her. However one of us will have to do it. As I told you before I disdain the idea of lurking like a burglar about premises when I merely seek to obtain an honest interview with my sweetheart & I have the same contempt for myself when I have been kicking my heels on the highway & lying in ambuscade like a footpad for half an hour more or less vainly expecting the performance of a definite promise of a stroll with my girl.

If you can meet me for a certainty at the usual time & place on Thursday evening (5.30 by Parkia Gate) kindly drop me a note at the post office today so that I may get it tomorrow. But should you propose making your promise contingent upon your mother’s passing humour then the project had better be deferred until you have been more thoroughly steeled.²¹

He had made his point, and Maggie wrote immediately to soothe him with the promise of a meeting by Criccieth cemetery, a secluded spot on the lane between Criccieth and Mynydd Ednyfed:

Dearest Lloyd George,

I will be by the cemetery this evening at 7 p.m. without fail.

Yours with love,

Maggie²²

More significant than the message was the way in which she signed her Christian name and wrote her love. It was a capitulation.

The following month, Lloyd George persuaded Maggie to confront her mother over her continuing refusal to allow him to visit Mynydd Ednyfed, and followed up his argument with a letter:

I trust you will have something to report to me tomorrow of the result of an interview with your mother. As I have already intimated to you it is but of trivial consequence to me what your mother’s views of me may be—so long of course as they do not affect yours. All I wish for is a clear understanding so that we may afterwards see for ourselves how we stand.

You will appreciate my anxiety to bring the matter to an issue with your mother. I somehow feel deeply that it is unmanly to take by stealth & fraud what I am honestly entitled to. It has a tinge of the ridiculous in it, moreover.

This being done, you will not be troubled with any more lectures & I am confident I shall be thereby encouraged to act in such a way as will ensure your requited Confidence.

Yours in good faith,

D Lloyd-George²³

The pattern of their relationship was set: Lloyd George would coax, persuade and tease Maggie to take the next step along the road to marriage. She would resist, caught between the twin forces of her mother and her suitor until he lost his temper. Forced to choose, she would give in, and so their relationship progressed, step by step. Lloyd George’s next goal was to become officially engaged, which meant getting Maggie to accept a ring. As she hesitated, unable to conquer her misgivings about his fidelity, matters took a turn for the worse.

By the start of 1887, despite Maggie’s parents’ opposition and Lloyd George’s mother and uncle’s ignorance of the situation, the couple were acknowledged sweethearts, even if they could not yet be openly betrothed. Maggie was still conscious of her lover’s bad reputation, and acutely aware of the damage a scandal could cause. In other words, this was not a good time for Lloyd George to be associating publicly with Criccieth girls who had caused tongues to wag in the past, since it would only reinforce Mrs Owen’s objections. He, as usual, felt immune from danger. As 1886 drew to a close, he was asked to act in a professional capacity in a breach of promise case. These suits, usually brought by a jilted fiancêe whose reputation had been compromised by her lover’s change of heart, were commonplace, and Lloyd George had already handled several. This time, though, the parties were known to him, for the claimant was Ann Jones, sister of his former girlfriend Lizzie.

As fellow members of Capel Ucha, it was natural for Ann and Lizzie to turn to Lloyd George when Ann sued her former fiancé, John Jones of Caerdyni Farm—or it would have been, if Jones was not Lloyd George’s friend and first cousin.* Given the delicate condition of his courtship of Maggie Owen, not to mention the family relationship involved, it would have been prudent for Lloyd George to refuse the case, but he did no such thing. Perhaps he preferred to face down his critics, or perhaps it went against the grain to refuse any case when his family needed the money so badly.

Oblivious to danger, Lloyd George seemed sure that his engagement was imminent, writing confidently to Mr R. Bonner Thomas, a Porthmadoc jeweller, on 26 January 1887 to order a ring for Maggie:

I enclose your finger card—the size of the rings I require is no. 7 on the card—I have matched it—send off for a few today without fail—I want them by Friday.

The prices might range between 7 & 15 guineas—get one or two with emeralds in as well as diamonds—but the majority I would prefer to be with diamonds alone.²⁴

Yet Maggie was not ready to accept his ring in defiance of her parents’ wishes, emeralds and diamonds notwithstanding. A quarrel followed, and Lloyd George’s next letter to her refers to ‘the heat of last night’s rancoure [sic]’, and is signed rather brusquely, ‘Yours D Ll G’, with a curt postscript: ‘It is time you should cast off your swaddling clothes.’²⁵

A second remonstration proved necessary as Maggie continued to prevaricate and to cancel meetings. This second letter is an extraordinary testament to his view of the world, and shows how clearly Lloyd George saw the path ahead, even at the age of twenty-four. Using all his powers of advocacy, he expresses his impatience with the slow progress of their courtship, and spells out the priority his work has in his life and will always have in future. He begins by berating her for keeping him waiting in vain—not because he missed her company, but because it inconvenienced him in his business dealings:

My dearest Miss Owen,

Without any preamble or beating about the bush, let’s straight to the topic. Here I am under the very disagreeable necessity—through no fault of my own you must admit—of addressing you for the hundredth time during a not very protracted courtship in a remonstrative spirit. Appealing to the love I have for you or that you have professed for me seems to be but vanity itself in your sight. I am now going to appeal to your sense of fairness & commiseration. I have repeatedly told you how I am steeped to the lips in an accumulation of work—that I am quite entangled & confounded by my office arrears—that I have to work late every evening & then get up early the following morning to effect some measure of disentanglement. You know how important it is for a young fellow starting in business that he should do his work not only efficiently but promptly. Another thing you have been told is that clients from Criccieth & the surrounding districts can only see me in the evenings & that they generally ask me to make appointments with them beforehand. And yet notwithstanding that you have been fully & emphatically acquainted with all these considerations the only assistance you give me is this—that in the course of a week’s time you have disappointed in three appointments made by you, that at the last moment, when my business arrangements had been made to suit those appointments, that moreover you kept me on Friday evening to loiter about for about 30 minutes before you even took the trouble to acquaint me with your intention to make a fool of me at your mother’s nod. Now letting love stand aside for the nonce—even a general sense of philanthropy might dictate to you that such conduct is scarcely kind on your part. I am sure you will recognise that it is not in keeping with your usual kindliness of spirit. I must really ask you for a little sympathy in my struggles to get on.

It becomes clear that his vanity has also been wounded:

Another thing—you well know how you lecture me about my lack of self respect. Well how is it you conduce to this quality to me? By showing me the utmost disrespect. You stick me for half an hour in a conspicuous spot to wait for you & having made an exhibition to all passers by, you coolly send word that it is your mother’s pleasure I should go home to avoid another disappointment.

Having engaged her sympathy and made her feel that she is in the wrong, he turns up the heat and forces her to make a decision:

Now once for ever let us have an end of this long standing wrangle. It comes to this. My supreme idea is to get on. To this idea I shall sacrifice everything—except I trust honesty. I am prepared to thrust even love itself under the wheels of my Juggernaut, if it obstructs the way, that is if love is so much trumpery child’s play as your mother deems courtship to be. I have told you over and over that I consider you to be my good angel—my guiding star. Do you not really desire my success? If you do, will you suggest some course least objectionable to you out of our difficulty? I am prepared to do anything reasonable & fair you may require of me. I can not—earnestly—carry on as present. Believe me—& may Heaven attest the truth of my statement—my love for you is sincere & strong. In this I never waver. But I must not forget that I have a purpose in life. And however painful the sacrifice I may have to make to attain this ambition I must not flinch—otherwise success will be remote indeed…

Write me your views candidly & in as good & honest a spirit as I impart mine to you.

With fondest love

From your sweetheart D. Ll.G.²⁶

This is an extraordinary letter, and is highly revealing as to the psychology of both author and recipient. It is a lawyer’s, not a lover’s letter. Love is secondary to business—no suitor ever made that clearer. Lloyd George will ‘thrust even love itself under the wheels of [his] Juggernaut’ if necessary to advance his career. It is in order to ‘get on’ that he needs Maggie by his side, and yet even in this frank letter he refrains from spelling out for her that he is referring to his political ambitions, not simply to his career as a rural attorney. Although the language he uses betrays the scale of his ambition, he draws back from telling her directly that he intends to make his mark on the national stage: that would have to wait until she was fully committed. His career would always come first, but he softens the blow a little by calling her his ‘guiding angel’. She is necessary to him, if only to achieve his ambitions.

There is no doubt that Lloyd George wrote sincerely and from the heart, but the letter is also a clever attempt to bend Maggie to his will. He appeals to her deep-rooted sense of duty, and the work ethic that was both a feature of her faith and a strong characteristic of her family. Maggie was raised to believe in hard work and obligation. Lloyd George knew this well, since it was her unyielding sense of duty to her parents that had frustrated him for so long. Appealing to her emotions would be like trying to persuade a river to leave its course: she would always place her duty first. In writing this letter he showed how well he understood her character, and how readily he would use that knowledge to manipulate her. His skill was to make it seem as if she had an equal duty to help him in his career. It was his strongest card, and he played it supremely well.

The letter must have given Maggie considerable food for thought, and while she was digesting it her concerns about his breach of promise case grew stronger. Unable to persuade him to drop the case, she wrote to him to air her views—it is one of the first letters from her that he kept.

My dear Mr George,

I have begged them to let me come to Portmadoc this evening, but father has utterly refused to let me go. I am sure I don’t know why, therefore I must submit to his will and stay at home…I am returning you the girl’s letter. After reflecting upon what you told me yesterday I must tell you that I should much prefer your leaving it to some one else to take up; not because of your relationship to the man nor to let him go unpunished by any means for he really deserves it, but for your own sake. All the old stories will be renewed again. I know there are relatives of mine at Criccieth, and other people as well, who will be glad to have anything more to say to my people about you, to set them against you and that will put me in an awkward position. I know this much, I shall not be at my ease while the thing is on, if you will be taking it up. If she were a stranger to you, and you took her case, people would wonder why on earth you took it against your cousin, knowing that your relations were against your doing so; but now they will draw different conclusions—that you are on friendly terms with these people while your duty is to do all that is in your power to make them forget that you ever were on friendly terms with them & taking up this case will not help you in the least to do it.

Let some one else do it. You can get plenty of excuses; one that your people are against you doing it and recommend some other lawyer. Should your reputation depend on it, as you said, that would only be from a professional point of view, not from any other point of view, I can assure you.

Yours faithfully,

M. Owen.²⁷

The formal way in which she addresses him and the plaintive tone of the letter betray her anguish at the thought of the renewed contact between Lloyd George and Lizzie Jones. But even faced with this highly convincing case, Lloyd George bafflingly dug in his heels, choosing to face the opposition of his family and his sweetheart and to risk his personal reputation by prosecuting his cousin on behalf of his former love’s sister. He does not explain his reasons in his diary, nor in any letter that survives, but financial considerations must have been among them, as well as sheer stubbornness and perhaps a desire not to allow Maggie to dictate to him which cases he should take and which drop.

When Maggie tried again to persuade him not to take the case, with a threat to end their engagement, he came out fighting. He wrote her a second carefully crafted letter designed to make her accept him on his own terms, using every means at his disposal to end her indecision once and for all:

My dearest Maggie,

Your ultimatum to hand & here I launch my protocol in reply.

What I wish to make clear is this. That whatever course you may think fit in your unfettered discretion to adopt has not been necessitated or even occasioned by any dishonourable or disgraceful proceeding on my part.

What is the gravamen of your charge? Simply this—that I have deigned to permit myself to be entertained with a little harmless music by a couple of girls whom a bevy of dried-up dessicated [sic] & blighted old maids object to. I am not sure whether their objection is not a recommendation. And can you give me anyone whom they don’t object to? Miss R: Bronygadair objected even to you. I might plead guilty if I only knew the charge. My calls upon the girl were of a purely professional character—as witness the fact that prior to this breach of promise affair I was not on speaking letting alone visiting terms with her.

Again, his tone is legal: he is writing a protocol, an early version of a treaty between them. In other words, he is setting out his terms, which Maggie must accept or reject him altogether. He knew that he was on firm ground, since Maggie had given away the fact that she was jealous of the time he spent with his former girlfriend. Knowing that her love for him was strong, he chose not to promise an end to such behaviour. Instead, he decided again to appeal to her sense of duty by arguing, not entirely successfully, that his professional duty required him to socialise with clients:

—Now I could give you good reasons for my not objecting to a little music to finish up the consultation. I aim to please all my clients & thus make them as much as possible personal friends & were an Italian organ grinder to put anything in my way I would probably endeavour to please him at the risk of a little personal discomfort by asking him to display the musical qualities of his infernal machine. Now Miss Jones is to me a really good client—for if her case is fought out as it may (& as it would but for my regard to your anxiety for a settlement) my bill of costs would be a matter of between £50 and £100. There is moreover the notoriety of advertisement involved in the case which is in actual fact more valuable to me. Well such a client, to begin with, is worth trying to please. Moreover whilst music is as innocent a recreation as you could possibly indulge in it always affords me unlimited pleasure.

Then, with breathtaking nerve, he justifies his behaviour on religious grounds, and accuses Maggie of snobbery in her disapproval of the Jones sisters:

Furthermore the girls are members of the same chapel as I am and one of the few religious dogmas of our creed I believe in is—fraternity with which you may couple equality. My God never decreed that farmers & their race should be esteemed beyond the progeny of a fishmonger & strange to say Christ—the founder of our creed—selected the missionaries of his noble teaching from amongst fishmongers. Do you really think that the Christ who honoured & made friendship with Zebedee the fishmonger’s son would disdain the acquaintance of a poor toiling fishmonger’s daughter…To tell you plain truth I thought there was more humanity in you than to be led away by such silly notions.

My preference for you rather than for those girls arises not from any social distinctions—these I have the utmost contempt for—but it arises entirely from your superiority in many endearing qualities.

He goes on to criticise her debating tactics, demolishing her arguments as if he was facing a particularly inept prosecutor in court:

And now, honestly, don’t you think you have chosen the most inopportune moment for your outburst…even if it were a very improper &wicked thing to listen to the song of a fishmonger’s daughter—it is now about a month since I heard the chime of her voice—except in chapel. You are like Blucher of Waterloo—you only appear on the field when the enemy has fled…I will admit your letter is a clever piece of special pleading. You have picked up disjointed tit-bits from one story and shown that in conjunction with a rag from another story it bears such &such a colour. You have been mixing colours &then accuse me with being responsible for the hideousness of the resulting picture. Very clever you know but scarcely candid.

Then comes the most crucial passage in all the letters of Lloyd George and Maggie’s long courtship. He lays out in an entirely unambiguous way what he expects of her as his wife, the terms on which their future lives are to be lived, and his ambition as both lawyer and politician:

You very fiercely suggest that possibly I have committed a blunder in my selection. Well, I do make mistakes often, but as a rule it does not take me two years to find them out. And besides…my ideas as to the qualifications of a wife do not coincide with yours. You seem to think that the supreme function of a wife is to amuse her husband—to be to him a kind of toy or plaything to enable him to while away with enjoyment his leisure hour. Frankly, that is simply prostituting marriage. My ideas are very different—if not superior—to yours. I am of opinion that woman’s function is to soothe &sympathise &not to amuse. Men’s lives are a perpetual conflict. The life I have mapped out will be so especially—as lawyer &politician. Woman’s function is to pour oil on the wounds—to heal bruises of spirit received in past conflicts &to stimulate to renewed exertion. Am I not right? If I am then you are pre-eminently the girl for me. I have a thorough belief in your kindliness and affection.

With stunning clarity and disarming honesty, Lloyd George outlines his firm, lifelong philosophy for Maggie to accept or reject: her role would be to ‘soothe and sympathise’, to be the companion of his hearth and to heal his wounds after each battle. She need not worry about amusing him: his words contain just a hint of a suggestion that he could—and would—find his playthings elsewhere.

With all the facts laid out, he challenges Maggie to make her decision:

As to setting you free, that is a matter for your choice &not mine. I have many times impressed upon you that the only bond by which I have any desire to hold you is that of love. If that be lost then I would snap any other bond with my own hand. Hitherto my feelings are those of unflinching love for you &that feeling is a growing one.

You ask me to choose—I have made my choice deliberately &solemnly. I must now ask you to make your choice. I know my slanderers—those whom you allow to poison your mind against me. Choose between them &me—there can be no other alternative.

He concludes his case with the confidence of an advocate whose victory is assured, but his anxiety as to her answer shows, if only in the pleading postscript:

May I see you at 7 tomorrow? Drop me a note will you. I would like to have a thorough talk with you. We must settle this miserable squabble once &for all.²⁸

This time, after deploying all his courtroom eloquence, the field was his, and Maggie finally accepted a diamond cluster ring as a formal token of their betrothal.

When she allowed Lloyd George to place the ring upon her finger she accepted more than just his word that he was faithful to her: she accepted his definition of her role as his wife. This was to be a defining moment in Maggie’s life, but it is far from clear how well she understood the deal she was accepting. She can have been in no doubt as to the strength of Lloyd George’s ambition, for he literally spelled it out for her, but even so, did she really understand how far he wanted to go, and in which direction? In later life she was to acknowledge her naïvety in this respect in an interview: ‘I thought I was marrying a Caernarvonshire lawyer. Some people even then said he was sure to get on, but it was success as a lawyer that they had in mind. I am sure neither of us guessed then what lay before us.’²⁹

Most commentators have interpreted her words as retrospective selfjustification for her refusal to leave Criccieth for London—if she did not know at the outset that he was set on becoming a politician, she could not be accused of subsequent unreasonableness or lack of support for her husband. But in view of the rift that beset their marriage later, it is worth pausing to consider exactly what future Maggie thought she was accepting.

Maggie must have known of Lloyd George’s ambition to become a Member of Parliament, for as we have seen, he briefly considered becoming a candidate in the 1886 election. This does not necessarily mean, though, that she understood what being the wife of an MP involved. Maggie Owen led a sheltered life at Mynydd Ednyfed, and her knowledge of politics was filtered through either her father or her fiancé, neither of whom was very keen to talk to her about such matters. She could not have known much about what being married to an MP was like. Furthermore, the nature of the job itself was changing at that very point in history, with MPs who regarded their parliamentary roles as status-enhancing, albeit unpaid, sinecures giving way to a more professional political class.

In 1887 that change was only beginning to show in North Wales, and local MPs had hitherto managed to keep a fairly constant presence in Caernarvonshire as well as to carry out their parliamentary duties. Surely it was reasonable for Maggie Owen to assume that she would continue to live in Criccieth while her husband pursued his ambition and ‘got on’ in Westminster? There is no evidence in their letters that they ever discussed the details of their future life, or that she ever gave him an undertaking that she would leave Criccieth for London. Also, if Maggie failed to anticipate how high her husband would climb, she was not alone, since his eventual success was unprecedented. If in the full flush of her first serious love affair she chose not to look too far ahead, and to take the future on trust, how far is she to be blamed?

From her rare public comments, it seems that Maggie never envisaged leaving her beloved Criccieth for good. It would have been entirely out of character for her to do so, and would make her later behaviour inexplicable. But she did accept the wifely role that her future husband described. She would help him through the ‘perpetual conflict’ of his life. It was an essentially submissive role: she was to be the companion of his hearth, the comfort to which he returned each night. For better or worse, she would be Mrs Lloyd George.

*John Jones was the son of Elin, Betsy George’s sister.