Winston Churchill [antikvár]

Chapter H The Boy and the Young Man For many years Winston Chirchill's political opponents referred to him as "a young man in a hurry". Thjs applies^ much to his birth as to his style as a politician^and statesman. iTr'was so anxious to be born that he made his appearance two months prematurely, on 30 November 1874. Although premature, the baby had energy to spare. He bawled so furiously, shattering the silence of Blenheim Palace, that the Duchess of Marlborough wás utterly appalled and remarked: "After all, I have myself given life to quite a number of infants. They were all pretty vocal when they arrived. But such an earth-shaking noise as this newborn baby made I have never heard." His hair was auburn-coloured. With his blunt and shghtly turned-up nose, the child resembled his ancestors in the long line of Marlborough. He was christened Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. Winston's fáther, Lord Randolph Churchill, was the third son of the seventh Duke of Marlborough^, Churchill's first definitely established forebear is reckoned to be one John Churchill, who is known to have lived in the 17th century and to have been a Dorsetshire lawyer and an ardent Royalist. John Churchill married Sarah, the daughter of Sir Henry Winston of Gloucestershire. A son, Winston, was born to them in 1620, and at the age of twenty-two he joined the army and later fought on the side of King Charles I during the English bourgeois revolution of the 17th century.