Winston and Clemintine: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Churchills

They were arguably the most triumphant couple of the twentieth century. Britain's great, irrepressible statesman and his beautiful, stalwart wife. Together they rode through crisis after crisis to command center stage in their country's finest hour during World War II. Now, in WINSTON AND CLEMENTINE, historian Richard Hough tells the remarkable story of this celebrated couple and their loyal but embattled relationship in an unstinting portrait of one of history's most momentous marriages. It was a union of two survivors of painful childhoods. Winston Spencer Churchill, descendant of the first Duke of Marlborough, was the accident-prone, wayward son of parents whom he worshiped but seldom saw. His mother, the famous Jennie Jerome, immersed herself in hunts, parties, and society scandals. His father, Lord Randolph, sank from a brilliant political career into alcoholism, mental depression, and early death. Clementine Hozier was the impoverished daughter of Scottish aristocracy, whose unconventional mother "borrowed" her sister's husband to sire her four children --- including Clementine. Winston and Clementine fell in love and married in 1908 when Winston was a rising young political star; and their marriage survived many storms --- from Winston's disastrous Dardanelles campaign to his political "exile" in the 1930s to the darkest days of World War II and his subsequent rejection by British voters. Their early lives ran the gamut from glittering parties at opulent Blenheim Palace to the hurly-burly of London's political arena, from Winston's first heroic military adventures in Egypt and the Boer War to Clementine's schooling at Berkhamsted and her support of women's suffrage. Their intense and impetuous relationship would make tabloid headlines, but what the public didn't see were the conflicts and clashes of two strong-willed, stubborn individualists. Yet their marriage would endure, without scandal, and without real estrangement, from 1908 until Churchill's death in 1965. WINSTON AND CLEMENTINE is the intimate portrait of the epic achievement and unshakeable values of two fascinating people whose love withstood the tests of war and family tragedy --- and whose fierce, irreconcilable differences were essential to their triumph.