Antoine,
Robert Fisk, in his article in the Independent on Obama’s Cairo speech,
gives only a partial Churchill quotation. It is possible that Fisk did not
look up the primary source. If he had, he would have understood the context.
Churchill is comparing Lord Macaulay as a scribbler to the Duke of
Marlborough as a man of action.
The primary source is in Churchill’s Marlborough: His Life and Times.
Churchill refers to Macaulay’s “historical malversations” (a splendid
phrase) when writing about the Duke of Marlborough in his History of
England:
His [Lord Macaulay’s] literary descendant, Professor Trevelyan, whose
faithful, fair, and deeply informed writings are establishing a new view of
these times and the men who made them, has offered the best defence in his
power for the historical malversations of his great-uncle. He says (in
effect) that Macaulay, with his sense of the dramatic, vilified Marlborough’s
early life in order by contrast to make the glories of his great period
stand out more vividly. He had completed the black background, but died
before he could paint upon it “the scarlet coat and flashing eye of the
victor of Blenheim.” We need not reject this apologia nor the confession
which it implies. But what a way to write history! On this showing—the best
that can be provided—Lord Macaulay stands convicted of deliberately
falsifying facts and making the most revolting accusations upon evidence
which he knew, and in other connexions even admitted, was worthless, for
the purpose of bringing more startling contrasts and colour into his
imaginative picture and of making the crowds gape at it. Macaulay’s
life-work lay in the region of words, and few have been finer word-spinners.
Marlborough’s life is only known by his deeds. The comparison is unequal,
because words are easy and many, while great deeds are difficult and rare.
But there is no treachery or misconduct of which Macaulay’s malice has
accused Marlborough in the field of action which is not equalled, were it
true, by his own behaviour in this domain of history and letters over which
he has sought to reign.
Winston S. Churchill Marlborough, His Life and Times
(George G. Harrap & Co. London, 1933) Volume I, pp 144-45)
Volume I, pp 131-32 in the 2-vol Harrap edition published in 1947.
The abridged ‘Marlborough’ by Henry Steele Commager does not include this
text.
Churchill’s defense of his famous ancestor did not stop with his own
‘Marlborough’. His introduction to the Haworth Press 1934 edition of John
Paget’s The New Examen (first published in 1861) is definitely worth
reading, as also is Paget’s critical review of Lord Macaulay in his article
‘The Duke of Marlborough’ (pp 1-31 in the Haworth Press edition).
Jim Lancaster
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