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Authors: David Adams Richards
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always would be; there was always a hotel, where he could stay away. He would dress to go out to dine at night, at the gayest spots in town, alone. There were always other women. And he did not chastise himself for this, until it was too late.
Aitken came to England and to the government in a time of real class upheaval. The world was changing. The Conservative (or, as it was also called up until the First World War, the Unionist) Party, ostensibly the party of the upper classes, the party he belonged to, was in disarray; the Irish were pressing for Home Rule; the power of the establishment,in the guise of the fuddy-duddy House of Lords, was being challenged by people like the radical Liberal cabinet minister David Lloyd George; radicalism was sweeping the rank and file of British Labour, too. There were anarchists, nihilists, and Fenians. Women were calling for a voice in decision-making. There were marches and protests in the street. There was also a smell of war on the wind. All of this created divisions and fear and opportunity. Yes, it was the top of the world, and it spun like a top that might tumble on its side.
Max longed to be a player in the Conservative ranks in England. It was part of his nature to want to rule, or at the very least to belong with those who did. The famous picture of him walking side by side with Churchill on the HMS Prince of Wales in 1941 was no accident. Don’t think that, just because he wanted to be there, he was not needed by those he walked beside.
Still, not everyone was at ease with him. There was much talk about and against him by very famous British politicians, who hoped to stop him before he became too powerful. He was often the subject of gossip. His lax moral form was constantly whispered about.
There were flaws in his registry others were straining to see. They were trying to place him—somewhere where he wouldn’t be a threat. Asquith, the British Liberal primeminister, distrusted him immensely, and told Churchill so in 1911, writing, of Max becoming a commissioner of trade, “Aitken is quite impossible, his Canadian record is of the shadiest.” He was a charlatan and an upstart. They hated the idea of his wealth, and how he waded through the scene like a bull in a china shop. He could foresee trouble, he just couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it was. He was also a bounder. A common adulterer.
Still I ask, if he had stayed at Cherkley, had dinner with Gladys, spoken to the nanny about his children, would the world have been the better for it? Could one believe his marriage would have been?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Law Becomes
Conservative Leader
For much of Aitken’s life, he was propelled or driven to succeed on the back of failure. He was also the kind of man who liked to create division. This is why he had in some circles such a bad reputation and was so unpopular. He revelled in division, and some say he revelled in his own bad press. There were probably reasons for this that were caused as much by the forces aligned against him as by something within himself.
In 1912, Arthur Balfour, the ageing leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, found himself head of an Opposition mired in unpopularity. Balfour, another Scotsman, was an intellectual (Eton and Cambridge) and had actually made something of a name for himself with a book of philosophy, Defense of Philosophic Doubt , published in 1889. He was a lifelong bachelor, had come up under former prime minister the Marquis of Salisbury (a man of the nineteenth century),and was now part of the old guard. According to Liberals like Prime Minister Asquith and David Lloyd George, he was relying on the hated aristocratic House of Lords for his main political support. The radical wing of the Liberal Party, headed by Lloyd George, was ostensibly for the common man, and wanted to weaken the power of this same muddling House of Lords once and for all.
When a bill was passed to contravene the power of the Lords, and Balfour, as
Aitken came to England and to the government in a time of real class upheaval. The world was changing. The Conservative (or, as it was also called up until the First World War, the Unionist) Party, ostensibly the party of the upper classes, the party he belonged to, was in disarray; the Irish were pressing for Home Rule; the power of the establishment,in the guise of the fuddy-duddy House of Lords, was being challenged by people like the radical Liberal cabinet minister David Lloyd George; radicalism was sweeping the rank and file of British Labour, too. There were anarchists, nihilists, and Fenians. Women were calling for a voice in decision-making. There were marches and protests in the street. There was also a smell of war on the wind. All of this created divisions and fear and opportunity. Yes, it was the top of the world, and it spun like a top that might tumble on its side.
Max longed to be a player in the Conservative ranks in England. It was part of his nature to want to rule, or at the very least to belong with those who did. The famous picture of him walking side by side with Churchill on the HMS Prince of Wales in 1941 was no accident. Don’t think that, just because he wanted to be there, he was not needed by those he walked beside.
Still, not everyone was at ease with him. There was much talk about and against him by very famous British politicians, who hoped to stop him before he became too powerful. He was often the subject of gossip. His lax moral form was constantly whispered about.
There were flaws in his registry others were straining to see. They were trying to place him—somewhere where he wouldn’t be a threat. Asquith, the British Liberal primeminister, distrusted him immensely, and told Churchill so in 1911, writing, of Max becoming a commissioner of trade, “Aitken is quite impossible, his Canadian record is of the shadiest.” He was a charlatan and an upstart. They hated the idea of his wealth, and how he waded through the scene like a bull in a china shop. He could foresee trouble, he just couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it was. He was also a bounder. A common adulterer.
Still I ask, if he had stayed at Cherkley, had dinner with Gladys, spoken to the nanny about his children, would the world have been the better for it? Could one believe his marriage would have been?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Law Becomes
Conservative Leader
For much of Aitken’s life, he was propelled or driven to succeed on the back of failure. He was also the kind of man who liked to create division. This is why he had in some circles such a bad reputation and was so unpopular. He revelled in division, and some say he revelled in his own bad press. There were probably reasons for this that were caused as much by the forces aligned against him as by something within himself.
In 1912, Arthur Balfour, the ageing leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, found himself head of an Opposition mired in unpopularity. Balfour, another Scotsman, was an intellectual (Eton and Cambridge) and had actually made something of a name for himself with a book of philosophy, Defense of Philosophic Doubt , published in 1889. He was a lifelong bachelor, had come up under former prime minister the Marquis of Salisbury (a man of the nineteenth century),and was now part of the old guard. According to Liberals like Prime Minister Asquith and David Lloyd George, he was relying on the hated aristocratic House of Lords for his main political support. The radical wing of the Liberal Party, headed by Lloyd George, was ostensibly for the common man, and wanted to weaken the power of this same muddling House of Lords once and for all.
When a bill was passed to contravene the power of the Lords, and Balfour, as
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