But the world did not always smile upon him. It is odd how often persons who in private life, and indeed on all other occasions, are the mildest and kindest of men, develop, when engaged in equestrian sport, an unwonted severity and even roughness of manner. Tom Duffield, the Master of the Old Berkshire Hounds, was, like so many good sportsmen, somewhat addicted to the use of firmer language in the hunting-field than the occasion always required. One day, early in the winter of 1868, when Lord Randolph was nearly twenty years old, he had the misfortune to ride too close to the Old Berkshire Hounds and to incur the displeasure of their Master, who rated him in a very violent fashion before the whole company. Lord Randolph was deeply offended. He went home at once; but, as he said nothing at the moment, the incident was for a while forgotten. Towards the end of the season, however, a hunt dinner was held in Oxford, to which Mr. Duffield and many of the Old Berkshire field were bidden, and at which Lord Randolph was called upon to propose the toast of ‘Fox-hunting.’ He described himself as an enthusiast for all forms of sport. Fox-hunting, he said, in his opinion, ranked first among field sports; but he was himself very fond of hare-hunting too. ‘So keen am I that, if I cannot get fox-hunting and cannot get hare-hunting, I like an afternoon with a terrier hunting a rat in a barn; and if I can’t get that,’ he proceeded, looking round with much deliberation, ‘rather than dawdle indoors, I’d go out with Tom Duffield and the Old Berkshire.’ There was a minute of general consternation, which the orator complacently surveyed. Then the company, overcome by the audacity of the speaker, burst into laughter, led by Mr. Duffield himself. The story has become a local classic, and, surviving the worthy sportsman against whom it was directed, is still preserved among the farmers from Banbury to Bicester.

Lord Randolph & his Father Lord Randolph & his Mother.

For three successive seasons (1867-1869), with unimportant intervals occasionally filled by study, Lord Randolph harried the hares of Blenheim and enjoyed himself hugely. His brother, Lord Blandford, to whom he was much attached, was serving in the Blues. His sisters were growing up, and the eldest three were already ‘out.’ He became the autocrat of the family circle, and, like a wise ruler, took an intense interest in all that concerned his subjects. What balls they had been to, whom they had danced with, and all the similar incidents of a girl’s life were the constant objects of his inquiries; and upon all points he expressed his approval or disapproval in the clearest possible terms. Although the Duke might still assert a disciplinary control, there is no doubt that his younger son was from this time forward increasingly petted and beloved by his mother and sisters, to whom in return he showed all the gay and affectionate sides of his nature. ‘He was,’ wrote his mother, ‘the soul of wit and fun and cheerfulness in those happy days.’ He made some good friends at Merton—not many in number, but staunch and true. His Eton acquaintance with Lord Dalmeny (afterwards Lord Rosebery) ripened at Oxford into a life-long friendship. Dalmeny’s rooms in the Canterbury quadrangle of Christ Church were within a stone’s-throw of Merton. The two young men were close companions in the adventures and vicissitudes of undergraduate life and Lord Randolph used often to bring his friend over to Blenheim. Here they met on many occasions Mr. Disraeli, and the great Minister, who loved young people, would talk and joke with them by the hour together. He seems to have been delighted with both. His regrets were undisguised when, ten years later, Lord Rosebery threw himself into the tides of the Midlothian campaign. ‘I remember,’ wrote the Duchess of Marlborough, ‘that he first told me (in 1869) that it rested with Randolph to become a distinguished man. From that time he was ever friendly to him, and he watched with interest his early efforts in Parliament, and always wrote to congratulate me when he approved them.’

1869
Æt. 20

Besides the harriers, Lord Randolph’s greatest amusement at Oxford was chess; and he soon acquired, for an amateur, more than ordinary skill in the game. In conjunction with several friends he founded the University Chess Club; and on the first visit of Mr. Steinitz, the champion chess-player of the world, he conducted one of the boards at the blindfold exhibition. Although his play necessarily lacked the strength derivable from book knowledge and experience, it is described in this, as in other affairs, as being ‘original, daring, and sometimes brilliant.’ His game with Mr. Steinitz has been recorded; so that competent persons may judge of his quality for themselves:—

Game No. 1 (published in the Chess Players' Quarterly Chronicle, vol. ii., p. 110).
Allgaier Gambit.
White. Black. White. Black.
Mr. Steinitz.
(blindfold)		Lord Randolph
Churchill		 Mr. Steinitz.Lord Randolph
Churchill
1.P—K 4 P—K 418.B × R Kt × B
2.P—K B 4 P × P19.R—K sq P—Q Kt 3 [d]
3.Kt—K B 3 P—K Kt 420.R × P (ch) K—Q sq
4.P—K R 4 P—K Kt 521.B—Q B 4 B—Q Kt 2
5.Kt—K 5 Q—K 2 [a]22.R—Kt 4 Kt—K Kt 3
6.P—Q 4 P—Q 323.P—R 5 Kt—K 2
7.Kt × Kt P Q × P (ch)24.R—K sq Q Kt—Q B 3
8.Q—K 2 P—Q 425.P—Q 5 Kt—Q Kt 5 [e]
9.Kt—K 5 Kt—K R 3 26.P—Q B 6 B—Q B sq
10.Kt—Q B 3 B—Q Kt 527.R—K Kt 7 Kt—Q B 3
11.Q × Q P × Q28.P × Kt Kt × P
12.B × P Kt—K B 429.B—Q Kt 5 B—Q Kt 2
13.Castles B × Kt30.R—Q sq (ch) K—K sq
14.P X B Kt—Q 331.R × Q B P K—B sq
15.P—Q B 4 [c] P—K B 332.R—K B sq (ch) K—Kt sq
16.P—Q B 5 P × Kt33.B—Q B 4 (ch), and mates in a few moves.
17.B × P Kt—K B 2

[a] This was once a common defence to the Allgaier opening, but it seemsto entail the loss of the gambit pawn.

B—R 3 would not have done, for White would then have exchangedqueens, and played B—Q B 4, &c.

[c] This move loses White a piece, but he obtains for it a fullequivalent.

[d] Black should have lost no time here in getting his pieces out; B—K3, followed by K—Q 2 seems the best play.

[e] Kt—Q R 4 would be, perhaps, better; but in any case he must havethe worst of it.

It is not worth while to dwell on college scrapes, though of these some, at any rate, have been recorded. Thus we learn that Lord Randolph Churchill was fined ten shillings for the offence of smoking in his cap and gown; that he broke the windows of the Randolph hotel; that he was taken into custody by the police, with the rest of a noisy supper party, and charged with being drunk; that, infuriated by such an accusation, which was not sustained in court, he brought an action for perjury against the police witness; that the college authorities appealed to the Duke of Marlborough to stop the legal proceedings; that the Duke of Marlborough replied that, on the contrary, they had his entire concurrence; that learned counsel were brought by both parties from London; but that in the end the summons was dismissed and the officer exonerated of any wilful intention to deceive. We are also told that one day he was sent for by the Warden to be rebuked for some delinquency. It was winter, and the interview began with the Warden standing before the fireplace and the undergraduate in the middle of the room. By the time the next culprit arrived Lord Randolph was explaining his conduct with his back to the fire and the Warden was a somewhat embarrassed listener in a chilly corner. Such are the tales.

Until he was in his twentieth year Lord Randolph’s studies seem to have been fitful. He had, indeed, enjoyed the ordinary education of an English gentleman. He had consumed a vast number of hours at Eton and elsewhere in making those intricate combinations of Latin words and syllables which are perhaps as useful or as harmless a form of mental training as youth can receive. He had—in addition to any acquaintance with classical learning which these exercises may be supposed to impart, and the wide but discursive reading of history and poetry that his tastes had prompted—a peculiar, exact, and intimate knowledge (made effective by an exceptional memory) of the Bible, Gibbon, and ‘Jorrocks.’ From these books—not so ill-assorted as they sound—he could recite in an extraordinary manner whole pages at a time. In the strong, simple, homely words and phrases, sonorous sentences, and veins of rough spontaneous mirth which characterise the style and language of his rhetoric and writings, the influence of these three varied fountains, quaintly, yet not incongruously, intermingled, can be plainly seen.

Although it is much better for the brain, and for the practical purposes of life, to know and understand one book than to have read a hundred, such an educational outfit was no title to academic distinction; and after he had been three years at Merton Lord Randolph determined to work seriously for an honours degree in history and law. He forthwith proceeded to put away his ‘toys,’ as he called them; and the Blenheim Harriers were given up without delay. The county gentlemen and farmers who had followed their fortunes with pleasure, if not with profit, determined to mark their appreciation of the pack and its youthful Master by the customary British ceremony of a dinner. A banquet was accordingly held at the Bear hotel in Woodstock at which Lord Randolph was hospitably entertained and generally praised. He replied to the toast of his health simply and briefly, as one speaking in his own place to his friends and neighbours.