The untimely disappearance from the world of a man whose magnetic nature had made him a leader of men and an idol of all classes of society appealed powerfully to public feeling. The tolling of the funeral bell from St. George's, in Hanover Square, a little after noon on the 24th of January, 1895, announced his death.
Though she took no part in the doings of the world for some time after her husband's death, Lady Randolph Churchill did not drop from its memory, nor is she in any degree less interesting to-day than she was as the wife of an eminent statesman. Her musical gifts and tastes gradually drew her from the seclusion of her early widowhood, and she reappeared in public first at concerts and at the opera, still dressing in black.
Her social graces and talents make her the genius of many house-parties, where individual gifts and accomplishments show to best advantage and are most in demand. In the tableaux and burlesque given at Blenheim Palace in January, 1898, to raise money for the Restoration Fund of St. Mary Magdalene's church at Woodstock, she appeared as a lady journalist, portraying the character with a realism that manifested an accurate knowledge of the original. She was also a guest at Chatsworth House during a recent visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales, taking part there in the private theatricals which were part of the entertainment offered to their Royal Highnesses.
To her sons she is a congenial spirit, being interested in the things that interest them, particularly in yachting, horses, and the various racing events of each year. It is owing largely, no doubt, to her love of an active out-of-door life that her figure yet retains much of the slenderness and suppleness of young womanhood. She stands and walks with all the grace of a girl, and is one of the most noted skaters in England.
Not only into their recreations, but into the serious side of her sons' lives, she enters with that earnestness which made her so inseparable a part of her husband's life.
In the summer of 1899 the elder of her sons, Mr. Winston Churchill, made his first effort for a seat in Parliament. Oldham, in Lancashire, the scene of his endeavors, has two Parliamentary seats, which both became vacant at the same time. Though they had been filled by Conservatives, the result of the balloting in 1899 showed that the cotton-spinners, who form a large class of the voters of the borough, were tired of Conservative rule, for both Liberal candidates came in with heavy majorities.
Towards the end of the campaign Lady Randolph Churchill went vigorously and enthusiastically to her son's assistance. "The Liberal candidates being married," she said, "have an advantage." Though she won him many votes and greatly reduced the opposition, as she had done in the days of the Birmingham contest, when her husband attacked Bright's seat, the result was inevitable, and both mother and son accepted it with the grace and spirit of thoroughbred woman- and manhood.
There is an anecdote frequently related of Lady Churchill's ready wit, called forth by a situation which arose during the electioneering campaign, in which she was taking an active interest, of Mr. Burdett-Coutts, husband of the old Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who was at the time over eighty years of age. An old voter upon whom Lady Churchill called, and who seemed ready enough to cast his vote for Mr. Burdett-Coutts, took occasion, however, to relate to her, with much relish, the price which the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire had paid a butcher for his vote in the days of the famous Pitt and Fox contest, permitting him to kiss her lovely cheek. He concluded his narration with a direct intimation that he would consider a similar reward as fair payment for his own vote.
"Very well," replied Lady Churchill, smiling a gracious compliance, "I will book your vote on those terms, but you must remember that I am working for Mr. Burdett-Coutts, and I must, therefore, refer you for payment to the Baroness."
In June, 1899, the first number of Lady Churchill's quarterly, the Anglo-Saxon Review, which had been for several months the subject of much conjecture and speculation, appeared.