CHAPTER IV

[17]These diaries are very fully published in Herbert Du Parcq’s excellentLife of David Lloyd George, London; Caxton Publishing Company Limited, 1912.

[18]A large selection of these articles can be read in the pages of Mr. Du Parcq.

[19]Lord Cromer always called him an adventurer. Mr. Wilfrid Blunt has always regarded him as a great patriot.

[20]From Dr. Johnson’s “Vanity of Human Wishes” (135-138), an early poem, based on Juvenal’s Tenth Satire. The third and fourth lines should run—“Thro’ all his veins the fever of renownBurns from the strong contagion of the gown.”The poem was popular with such different judges as Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Cardinal Newman, and Matthew Arnold.

[20]From Dr. Johnson’s “Vanity of Human Wishes” (135-138), an early poem, based on Juvenal’s Tenth Satire. The third and fourth lines should run—

“Thro’ all his veins the fever of renownBurns from the strong contagion of the gown.”

“Thro’ all his veins the fever of renown

Burns from the strong contagion of the gown.”

The poem was popular with such different judges as Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Cardinal Newman, and Matthew Arnold.

“UNCLE LLOYD”: MR. RICHARD LLOYD,THE UNCLE OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE.

THE SMITHY AT LLANYSTUMDWY:THE OLD “VILLAGE PARLIAMENT.”

CHAPTER IV

“Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise(That last infirmity of Noble Mind)To scorn delights, and live laborious days”Milton’sLycidas.

“Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise

(That last infirmity of Noble Mind)

To scorn delights, and live laborious days”

Milton’sLycidas.

Duringthese years of the early eighties (1880-4) that great Government of Mr. Gladstone’s which opened so triumphantly in 1880 was rapidly drawing towards its downfall. Checked in Ireland and stagnant at home, the Whigs who dominated the Cabinet had been gradually drawn abroad into enterprises for which they lacked both heart and capacity. Mr. Gladstone was losing the middle class, and not winning the manual workers. Meanwhile that astonishing young man from Birmingham, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, had swiftly perceived the decline of the old Liberalism, and was building up a new and daring programme of social and political reform. He was speaking with a new voice. He was uttering his mind in simple language, and calling things by very plain names.

The heart of the young Lloyd George went out to this newcomer with a frank enthusiasm. It is quite clear from his diaries and newspaper-writings during these years that he was at the beginning a vehement supporter of Mr. Chamberlain.

In an article on Mr. Chamberlain written by David Lloyd George for theNorth Wales Observerof October17th, 1884, there is a remarkable passage which is worth while recalling to-day as a flashing revelation of the mind of the young writer:

“Mr. Chamberlain is unquestioningly the future leader of the people. Any one who reads his speeches will know the reason why. . . . He understands the sympathies of his countrymen. It is therefore that he speaks intelligibly and straightforwardly, like a man who is proud of the opinions which he holds. He is a Radical, and doesn’t care who knows it as long as the people do.”

So strongly was he attracted by Mr. Chamberlain’s personality that the young Lloyd George was always inclined to take his side. He supported him, for instance, in that struggle with the Whigs over his Radical Programme which, by the strangest possible twist, led later on to that great misunderstanding over the tactics of Home Rule and ended in splitting the old Liberal party. Mr. Lloyd George had perhaps some temperamental sympathy with that spirit of impatience which made Mr. Chamberlain resent so deeply the snubs and checks he received at the hands of the Whigs.

Although a fervent Nationalist and Home Ruler, Mr. Lloyd George was always inclined to sympathise with Mr. Chamberlain’s methods of approaching the Home Rule problem. Looking at it from the view-point of Wales, he liked Mr. Chamberlain’s feeling for federalism. It is a curious fact that if Mr. Lloyd George had stood for Parliament in 1886, he would probably have been drawn by his sympathy for Mr.Chamberlain into the ranks of that small section of Radical Unionists who followed Mr. Chamberlain in his opposition to Gladstonian Home Rule, but afterwards, recoiling from open reaction, rejoined the Liberal party—men like Sir George Trevelyan and Mr. W. S. Caine, a small, afflicted, but deeply interesting group.

In 1884 David Lloyd George went up to London to pass his Final Law Examination in order to enable him to be admitted on to the roll of practising solicitors. His comment in his diary on the admission ceremony shows his growing freshness and independence of outlook. He was not at all cheered by that atmosphere of dusty dullness which envelops the ritual of our law:

“The ceremony disappointed me. The Master of the Rolls, so far from having anything to do with it, was actually listening to some Q.C. at the time, and some fellow of a clerk swore us to a lawyerly demeanour at the back of the court, and off we shambled to the Petty Bag Office to sign the Rolls.”

On the occasion of this visit to London, he again attended the House of Commons, and for the first time listened to a debate. He was fortunate enough to be present at a lively skirmish between Lord Randolph Churchill and Mr. Gladstone. “It was a clever piece of comedy,” he said some years afterwards, recalling the scene. “I thought Churchill an impudent puppy, as every Liberal was bound to do—but I thoroughly enjoyed his speech.” Then, as now, he couldnever sufficiently express his admiration for courage in any field of life and on any side.

He could now (1884) leave the high desk in the square room at the office by the Town Hall. He had served during the past five years (1879-1884) a faithful apprenticeship. He had allowed few diversions to draw him from his work. In those days the Puritan tradition of a little Welsh township held the young people in a fairly tight grip, and there were few light distractions. Portmadoc held no theatre or opera within its boundaries. The “Moving Pictures” had not yet taken Puritanism on the flank. Football was beginning to seize the Celtic fancy; but David had little taste or time for violent sports. In 1882 he became a Volunteer, and went into camp at Conway. But it is not recorded that he secured any promotion, or at any time suffered from the pangs of military ambition. Otherwise his amusements took that sober form of the Portmadoc debating society speeches, or essays for the Eisteddfod, for which the two brothers wrote a discourse on the “Cash and Credit System.” They spoke of credit with a scorn unhappily rare in young men!

He was no longer any master’s man. He could, if he liked, set up for himself. The firm for which he had worked all these years had, indeed, a high opinion of his powers; and they did not wish to lose him wholly. Mr. Breese, the head-partner, “a kind master and a thorough man,” as David described him in his diary, had died in 1881; but the other partners did their best to give him a start. They secured him an offer of a managing clerkship in an old county firm at Dolgelly. It would have been a most attractive opening for a man who wished to follow the safe coursein life. But David Lloyd George was one who preferred risks. He wished to be the ruler of his own fate.

He had now practically no one behind him. The long period of examination and apprenticeship had exhausted the slender stores of his mother and his uncle. He had even to wait for his first cases before he could purchase the robes required of a Welsh solicitor before he could plead in the County Court.

But he still preferred a small independence to a big dependence. Perhaps he was right. Probably he had ideas as to the way of conducting a legal business which would not have always gratified any old-fashioned firm of country solicitors.

The young solicitor started quite simply by putting a brass name-plate on the door of Morvin House, their little dwelling at Criccieth. He then began to practise in his uncle’s back parlour.

It was a daring venture for an unknown village youth; but after a few months he began to get under way. His diaries of 1885 punctuate with thrilling eagerness the opening steps in his professional career—his first case in the Police Court, his first service of an order, his first plea in the County Court. On June 24th he records with glee that he won all his cases. “Never had a more successful field-day.” On July 9th he is attending Penrhyn Sessions for the first time, opposing the transfer of a license. On September 8th he is in the Revision Courts. “Came off better than Liberals ever did.” In fact, he marches in these first skirmishes from victory to victory.

So successful was he, in fact, that in this year (1885) he opened an office in the High Street at Portmadoc, not far from the building in which he had been articled.He began in a very small house, and remained there for some years before moving to the corner house where the legend “Messrs. Lloyd George and George” is still prominent in the window. This corner house was previously a public-house known as “The Fox Inn.” There the brothers—for now William had joined David in practice—took the end of the lease, and finally secured the freehold. There, in that dispossessed hostelry, William George practises to-day (1920).

This year and the years that followed in David’s life were crammed with intense activities. The diaries show that day after day he rose between five and six o’clock. He devoted the cream of his energies to the active pursuit of the law. But he could never be a man of one interest. He was also, during these same months, fiercely energetic both in religion and politics. He was constantly reading sermons and listening to sermons. He often spoke from the pulpit, after that liberal fashion encouraged in the Free Churches.

But gradually in these diaries the political interest begins to loom larger. When the autumn General Election of 1885 comes on, he takes an active part with pen and voice. On October 17th he goes to the Tory member’s meeting, and is with difficulty restrained from taking part. On November 18th he makes an impassioned speech in defence of Mr. Chamberlain, and is tremendously cheered. On November 24th he goes to a Tory meeting and finds that he is the chief butt of their attack. He shows his precocious political shrewdness by the satisfaction he feels in thus drawing the enemy’s fire.

Instead of injuring the practice of his profession bythese public displays of courage, he soon found that he was really attracting to his house and office a new class of client, the discontented farmers of the county. First one and then another began coming to him, at first privily and then confidently. They came on tithes, and on rents, and on rates. He took up some of these cases and scored successes which resounded through the county. The result was that other men came who had never before been to lawyers, and he began to open up a new vein of business. Law, after all, can sometimes pay, even as a remedy for injustice.

He was, indeed, now becoming a very busy solicitor of the kind which in the provinces is not easily distinguished from a barrister. The fact that a solicitor can address a County Court and a Petty Sessional Court gives him, outside the great centres of English life, a practical command of both branches of the law and abolishes that rather absurd pedantry of divided function. This power of speech suited young Lloyd George very well. It gave him a new training in public address, and it provided him with a new weapon for asserting public rights. From the time of that great nation of lawyers—the Romans—the Law Court has always been second only to the Senate House as an instrument of popular power. Mr. Lloyd George showed to the Welsh people that, in the integrity of the British law, they had a new resource for the recovery of their ancient rights.

But never at any time did he allow the call of the law to divert him from politics. Day by day his diaries reflect his passionate interest in the struggle of 1885. When the first results come in he is profoundly disappointed. “There is no cry for the towns,”he writes on November 26th. “Humdrum Liberalism won’t win elections.” Then, on December 4th:

“Great Liberal victories in counties. Very glad of it. Am convinced that this is all due to Chamberlain’s speeches. Gladstone had no programme that would draw at all.”

Throughout we can see his ardour for the forward course and the vigour in attack. “Humdrum Liberalism won’t win elections”—that was to be the gist of his political teaching in later years: it almost summed up his political strategy.

Certainly young Lloyd George was not himself inclined to be “humdrum.” Just at this moment, when the old and the new Liberalism in Wales, as in England, were wrestling for the mastery, he definitely took the forward side. It was significant of this that he first came out as a notable public speaker in a sphere beyond his own district at a great public meeting held at Festiniog on February 12th, 1886, and addressed by the famous Irishman, Michael Davitt.

The Liberal Party was not at that moment fully committed to Home Rule, and among the elder men there had been grave head-shakings over this invitation to Michael Davitt. Rebellion was more seriously regarded in those days; and Michael Davitt had both rebelled and paid the penalty. The law had laid its finger on him and marked him with its broad arrow; and respectable people whispered the word “felon.”

Young Lloyd George was invited to the Davitt meeting. There were grave doubts in the family circle as to whether he ought to go. But he was urged onby one who had already a great and growing influence over him, a certain Maggie Owen living at a farmhouse about a mile from Criccieth and more and more mentioned in the diaries of this time. This young lady already had her definite views, and she had no patience with this attempt to make a pariah of Michael Davitt. “Of course you must go,” she said simply; “why not?” And that seemed to settle the matter.

The difficulty was to persuade any one to move a vote of thanks to Michael Davitt at this meeting; all the prudent people stood aside. But there sat in a chair a brave and stalwart man—Mr. Michael Jones of Bala—and at the last moment he persuaded young Lloyd George to move the vote of thanks. The young David rose, and he instantly made a speech which was largely reported and which electrified North Wales. In this speech there are already some of those daring, flashing phrases with which he afterwards familarised the world. There was already that fearless touch which has since made the speaker a perpetual storm-centre.

Michael Davitt, always a shrewd judge of men, was deeply impressed with the speech. He advised Mr. Lloyd George to think of Parliament, and the other Michael—Jones of Bala—urged the same advice. From that time forward the young man’s thoughts began to turn towards Westminster.

And yet his first approach to Parliament was not easy. Some of the young enthusiasts who now gathered round him wanted him to stand for Merionethshire in the General Election that soon followed in 1886. But here there was another son of young Wales already in the field with stronger local claims. Thiswas none other than the man always known afterwards as “Tom” Ellis, son of a Merionethshire farmer. Ellis was four years older than Lloyd George; and young David readily and instantly stood aside in favour of the elder man. They met soon after; and a great friendship struck up between them which lasted until the premature death of Tom Ellis in 1899. It was a wonderful friendship between two men of common aspirations but utterly different character. Tom Ellis was by no means the “Welsh Parnell”—no description could have been further from the truth. He was a man of high enthusiasms and noble integrity. He was a real Welsh Nationalist. But, by going to Oxford, he had come within the governing English circle; he was touched with that Saxonism which tempers the native zeal of the Celt. He was no longer “racy of the soil.” It was no mere chance that he was afterwards drawn before his due season into the circle of British power, and was fated to stand aloof from his friend when Lloyd George was asserting the rugged and relentless claims of Welsh Nationalism.

Thus David Lloyd George was for the moment delayed in his progress to Parliament. Perhaps this was a fortunate accident, because it gave him a breathing time in which to master the needs of his own people and to train himself more thoroughly for the public stage.

CHAPTER V

“A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!”Shakespeare’sMerchant of Venice, Act I, Sc. iv.

“A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!

O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!”

Shakespeare’sMerchant of Venice, Act I, Sc. iv.

Cutoff from Parliament for the moment (1886) David Lloyd George spent no time in vain regrets. He resumed that life of combined public and private activity which was rapidly becoming his second nature. His diaries during the following years show that he was now absorbed in his growing “practice.” But that did not prevent him from continuing his eager and active interest in public affairs. Then, as ever after, the two interests developed together.

From this time forward he steadily directed his energies to work on behalf of his own beloved little nation. Perhaps never did he quite lose sight of that high ambition to command “listening senates” which had come to him when he first sat in the Gallery at Westminster and looked down on the combats of the great parliamentary gladiators. But for the moment there was urgent work to do nearer to hand; and David Lloyd George knew the wisdom of Carlyle’s great law of conduct—“Do the Duty that lies nearest thee.”[21]

So he plunged into the great work for Wales which was already on foot at his own doors.

In 1886 he joined eagerly in the great Anti-Tithe campaign which was being carried on throughout North Wales by those remarkable men, Mr. Thomas Gee and Mr. John Parry. David Lloyd George became the Secretary of that League in South Carnarvonshire, and he addressed meetings throughout the district. He accompanied Mr. Gee and Mr. Parry on many of their most daring raids. He drove long distances in a small governess cart and addressed meetings in little villages away in remote districts.

It was characteristic of David that he actually provoked and promoted hostility. He would hold his meetings by preference in the neighbourhood of the Parish Church or of the National School. He would regard it as his greatest triumph if he could draw the parson or the curate to come out and meet him in open warfare. One of the visions of him at this period handed down is that of a day in June 1887, when he was seen coatless and in his shirt-sleeves arguing against the curate in the open green at the village fair of Sarn Melltcyrn. He did not shrink from passive sympathy with the mild rioting which began to take place at the tithe sales resulting from the distraints that followed. His whole heart went out in sympathy to Welsh farmers compelled by law to contribute from their pocket to what they regarded as an alien Church.

The “Tithe War” gave David Lloyd George that best of training for a young public speaker—the training of public controversy in the open air. It made him quick and resourceful. Here was the best possible whetstone for his natural gift of courage. These speeches made him already a rising public champion.

This was a new portent for the Welsh farmer—alawyer who was not in league with the rich. It flashed as a shining light on the eyes of a people who had always been used to regard the law as the paid servant of power and property. It brought more of those farmers flocking to his office: and once more it brought him forward as the legal friend of the poor and the oppressed—“the poor man’s lawyer” of Carnarvonshire.

The people gradually learned that here was a man skilled in the law who was ready on their behalf to face the tyrants of the Bench and to challenge their power.

In nothing had this power of the Bench been more ruthlessly exercised than in the matter of fishing. By a curious distortion of public rights, the rivers of this country have been mainly turned into private property. While fishing on the open sea is as free as the air, unlicensed fishing in fresh water in England outside navigable waters is often accounted a crime.[22]

This law of private property in fresh water fishing has fallen with peculiar harshness upon a people like the Welsh, who inherit a great passion for this particular sport. The pressure of the law has been made worse by the fact that the prohibition is perpetually being extended to waters where a customary right of fishing has existed.

Here has been a cause of perpetual conflict between the law and the public—a conflict in which the bias of the law has been mainly against the public.

Such a case occurred in North Wales in May 1889, when four quarrymen were prosecuted for fishing in asmall mountain quarry lake.[23]The aim of the prosecution was to bring the lake within the definition of the word “river” in the Act of Parliament. It soon became quite clear from the proceedings that the bias of the Court was against the quarrymen. Mr. Lloyd George rapidly determined to bring this out in the most vivid manner possible. So when the chairman—a great local potentate and sportsman—gruffly interrupted his legal argument by saying that the legal point must be tried in a higher Court, Mr. Lloyd George swiftly replied:

“Yes, sir, and in a perfectly just and unbiassed Court too.”

The result of this remark was precisely what Mr. Lloyd George expected. The chairman rather unwisely asked Mr. Lloyd George to what magistrate he was referring. To this the young advocate immediately replied:

“I refer to you in particular, sir.”

Whereupon the chairman immediately rose with great pomp and dignity and left the court.

The other magistrates now felt that it laid with them to take some action. A second magistrate, allied to sport, protested. A third, noddingly acquainted, declined to proceed with the case: whereupon Mr. Lloyd George calmly remarked, “I am glad to hear it.” A fourth rose and left the court. One of the few left asked Mr. Lloyd George for an apology, whereupon he replied:

“I shall not withdraw anything, because every word I have spoken is true.”

The result was that all the magistrates left the court, and Mr. Lloyd George’s purpose was fully achieved.

Here was an incident by no means the result of mere thoughtless impertinence on the part of a young lawyer. Mr. Lloyd George has always regarded this as one of the proudest incidents of his life. He is still of opinion that it came at a critical moment to shake the petty tyranny of the local Bench, and he still quotes it as a good example of one of his favourite methods of public action.

A short time afterwards David Lloyd George was the chief actor in another famous case which showed the people of Wales that the spirit of British justice, if boldly challenged, was capable of maintaining their cause. This was a case arising from that incredible ecclesiastical inhumanity which consisted in attempting to visit ignominy upon a man of another faith even after he had passed through the gates of death. Nothing did more to shatter the power of the Established Church of Wales than the refusal of the parsons to bury the dead of other sects within the walls of the old parish burial-grounds. Those parish “God’s acres” had been in the possession of the people before the Reformation, and it was only by a chance turn of English history that they passed away from them.

The growth of the great Free Churches resulting from the immense religious revival of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries made this an acute matter. The hostility of the Established Church to this revival led to a new use of the power of exclusion from the burial-grounds. Terrible memories have centred round that struggle. The late President of the English Divorce Court, Sir Samuel Evans, oncetold me that he had to carry by stealth the coffin of his first wife into his parish cemetery before he could obtain burial for her in Christian ground. The Established Church in Wales has had to pay heavily for the luxury of such adherence to a narrow and inhuman practice.

In 1880 the Welsh members returned to Parliament since the Liberal Revival of 1868 had succeeded in passing that famous Burial Act which now enables a British Nonconformist to be buried in a parish burial-ground according to the rites of his own religion as long as due notice is given to the parish priest. In most of the parishes in Wales this Act was accepted by decent parsons as a satisfactory settlement of a prolonged dispute.

But in the little village of Llanfrothen, at the very foot of Snowdon, there was a rector whose fanatical religious instinct led him to make one last daring effort to cheat his parishioners out of their rights of decent Christian burial. In 1888, an old quarryman died at Llanfrothen. He left it as his last wish that he should be buried by the side of his daughter. Now, this daughter had been buried in a piece of land which had been added to the churchyard as far back as 1864 by a certain Mrs. Owen of Dolgelly. The new piece of land had been enclosed by a wall built out of their own money by the parishioners. This “acre” had been recognised up to that time as part of the burial-ground. But the Rev. Richard Jones cared nothing for walls and little for precedents. This “churlish priest” raked up the old records and found that Mrs. Owen had made no legal conveyance of the land. In 1881, the year after the new Burial Act had passed into law, hepersuaded that good lady to make a new conveyance, with a trust which confined it to those parishioners who used the rites of the Church of England.

The new grave had actually been dug for the poor old quarryman to rest by the side of his daughter. A notice under the new Act was served upon the rector. Then began the struggle. The rector filled in the grave and pointed out another spot for the burial of the old quarryman—a spot far from his daughter, “bleak and sinister,” in the words of Mr. Lloyd George—a place reserved for shipwrecked sailors and suicides.

It was at that moment in the struggle that the relatives of the quarryman went to consult young David Lloyd George.

Without any hesitation Mr. Lloyd George advised them to act on their rights. Following his daring counsel, they entered the graveyard and reopened the filled-in grave. Then they made a pathetic appeal to the rector. He still forbade them to act. Then they made a demand on the rector. He still refused. Meanwhile young David had spent a night in foraging and rummaging through the church records, and he had discovered that in 1864 the rector had allowed the public to enclose the piece of ground without any conditions. He advised the relatives to go on. Let them, if necessary, break into the churchyard.

They went on. They broke into the churchyard. They borrowed a bier from the church. They gave the old man a Christian burial by his daughter. The Calvinist minister spoke the service, and the relatives went home happier—contented with the feeling that they had buried the old man where he had wished to lie.

Infuriated by their defiance, the stubborn rector sued the relatives for damages in Portmadoc County Court. Mr. Lloyd George took up the defence and asked for a jury. The jury decided that his facts were correct. The County Court Judge decided against him on the point of law. Fortunately for Mr. Lloyd George, the Judge made an incorrect record of the jury’s verdict and refused to correct it. David Lloyd George appealed to the Divisional Court. He was heard by Lord Chief Justice Coleridge and Justice Manisty. In the middle of the case Lord Chief Justice Coleridge discovered the incorrect record by the County Court Judge. Result—fury of the Lord Chief Justice, anger of the Court, and, finally, a verdict in favour of the quarryman.

So that poor old quarryman of Llanfrothen was after all laid to rest in peace in that little burial-ground beneath the mighty precipices of Snowdon; and the fame of Mr. Lloyd George spread wider and wider throughout North Wales. It was felt that here at last the people had a man who had the courage to support them in their struggles against the powers in high places.

He now began to act as a popular pleader in cases of social injustice before the Petty Courts of the Principality.

It was during this period of dawning thoughts and powers that David Lloyd George wooed and won the woman who became his wife. The young man was at that time a keen-eyed, attractive youth; and the silver tongue which he was already using in Court and on the platform was also very social in private life. He wasfrom the beginning a sociable, conservative man. Dowered with welded gifts of wit and wisdom, he had already the makings of a good talker. Above all, he had that gift of sympathy with the views of others which is more popular with women than with men. So it was that the cottage-born boy of Llanystumdwy, the promising son of Morvin House, was a prime favourite with the girls of Criccieth—and with one girl in particular who lived just outside Criccieth.

For about a mile inland from the sea, on a hundred-acre farm called Mynydd Ednyfed, there lived a farming family of old lineage and high standing possessing the proud, historic Welsh name of Owen. They claimed descent from Owen Glyndwr, and they faced life with that simple Homeric pride which lends dignity to worthy living. The yeomen farmers of Wales, like the “statesmen” of the Cumberland Dales, inherit the pride of landed men; and the Owens were no exception to this rule.

The Owens of Ednyfed had a daughter—Maggie by name—whom they loved passing well. She was the apple of her father’s eye; and no man who sought her hand was likely to have an easy time. That, of course, was likely to make Maggie not less, but more desirable to David Lloyd George.

Maggie went to chapel at Criccieth, and the young people met in that simple but thrilling way—when the heart is at its best and highest—as they went to and from their little chapels. They did not worship together; for the Owens were Methodists. But love has leapt higher barriers than that between Baptists and Methodists.

Then there came those entries in the diaries—innocent,human entries—how David took Maggie home from meetings—how, later on, he began to go to the farm and talk. Little is said; but we see the old, old story developing along its ancient trodden paths. The son of the land is going back to the land for his wooing.

Then came those stones in the path without which the truth of love never was and never shall be proved. It was after 1885 that the young man began to go frequently to the farmhouse—solely, of course, to obtain sound political advice and counsel from a very wise young lady. Fathers have strange illusions, and at first Mr. Owen thought that David came to talk to him. Many fathers have often thought the same.

But the day came to Mr. Owen, as it comes to all parents, when the veil was torn asunder. It became only too obvious that this young man did not toil out so often to Ednyfed solely in order to enjoy the society of Mr. Owen—or even of Mrs. Owen.

Then Mr. Owen became less friendly. It is not Polonius only who thought himself wiser than youth; and in this case Mr. Owen brought Mrs. Owen over to his side.

Ah! If this young David could look forward to the secure tenancy of a good solid farmhouse and a rich, broad-acred farm, how different it would be! But there he was, a struggling limb of the law, scarcely emerged from articles, given to outrageous public forays, still under his uncle’s roof! Farmers rarely love lawyers.

Happily the Owen parents had friends and relations, who took a sounder and longer view. Maggie had one of those friendly aunts who are the best counsellors ofour youth. That good lady now urged Maggie to stick to the young man. “Mark you,” she would say, “that young man has a great future. Don’t give him up.” Maggie was perhaps like any other young girl, at first a little divided and disturbed—distracted between the calls of love and filial duty. But in the end she did the sound, straight thing—she stuck to her man and won.

Once the victory was established, and bold heart had won fair lady, then the parental entrenchments surrendered. The white flag became the flag of loyalty; and Mr. and Mrs. Owen, once won over, became the devoted friends and worshippers of their son-in-law up to the close of their lives. I saw something of them in their home at a later time; and among all those humble folk who have helped David Lloyd George to achieve, those two wise elders, Mr. and Mrs. 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 littlechapel 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 theCarnarvon Heraldthat 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. SoDavid 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

“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 noblestsons of the Young Welsh movement—David Lloyd George founded at Pwllheli in 1888 a paper calledThe 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 not this the bootmaker’s boy?” There was the man who had known “David” with the curls down his back—who had kept a record of his youthful pranks. Then there was “the County”—that fine essence of squiredom which had always regarded “the seat” as one of its own possessions. Above all, there were the little borough circles—the elders in the chapels, the grey-beardsin the seats of the saints. There were some such seniors who shook their heads gravely at such madness. The boy must bide his time. Who was he to rule over them? For when David, the shepherd’s youngest son, came up to face the Philistine champion, it was not only the Philistine enemy, but also his own elder brothers who scoffed and doubted.

Against all these doubts and envies only one thing could prevail. It was the new wave of Nationalism which was sweeping over the younger generation throughout Wales, and especially North Wales. Wales was tired of those respectable professional members who were so easily captured by the political machines at Westminster. They wanted some one endowed with the courage to revolt; and already they had a perception that David Lloyd George was such a man. He had shown this in his defence of the fishermen of Nantlle, and in his championship of that poor old quarryman of Llanfrothen. In both cases he had defied authority; and in both cases he had won. He had been the first to break the tradition of fear which brooded over the Welsh people.

He had already roused a new spirit of hope in the younger generation: and they were determined that he should carry their banner forward.

At first his candidature progressed very slowly. It was true that the constituency had fared badly of recent years. In 1886, when Tom Ellis was sweeping all before him in Merionethshire, the Carnarvon Boroughs had put forward an old-fashioned Liberal who had lost the seat to an able Tory.

At this time it was still in the possession of that Tory member—Mr. Swetenham, Q.C. HumdrumLiberalism, as David Lloyd George had already prophesied, had not proved a winning card in the Boroughs. But such an experience does not always remove prejudice. There were those who argued that a Q.C. could only be defeated by another Q.C.—or say, a professor; or perhaps, even better, a millionaire, if he could be obtained. We all know these dreams that haunt the minds of local committee-men in difficult and doubtful constituencies.

The first step towards achievement was taken in the spring of 1888 when he was adopted as candidate by the Liberals in the Borough of Carnarvon.[25]But for some months the other four Boroughs held aloof, and it was not until later in the year that he was selected as candidate by the Liberals of Nevin, Pwllheli, and Criccieth. For several months longer there was a hesitation among the respectabilities of that eminent cathedral city of Bangor, where even Liberalism has a tinge of blue. But on December 20th Bangor surrendered, and he was chosen as Liberal candidate for the whole constituency.

It is clear from the letters and diaries of the time that these months marked a period of great stress in his life. When he was selected at Bangor he wrote to his family one of those passionate youthful assertions of “will to win” characteristic of power in the bud:

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