Faithful but Unfortunate

The family motto -- Fiel Pero Desdichado -- is still used by descendants. It was coined by the impoverished cavalry captain Winston Churchill, who paid a huge fine -- £500 was big money in those days -- for backing the losing Royalists in the English Civil War. But he soon (1650) sired the second of nine children John Churchill, who had the good sense to switch to the winning side in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, went on to the Captain-Generalcy of all British forces, and won the Battle of Blenheim (1704). Queen Anne and the grateful nation granted him the Manor of Woodstock, the funds to build Blenheim Palace, and the title Duke of Marlborough.





I decided two Saturdays ago (while Ellie was nursing along her thesis) to take a lovely summer day and see some of the environs. (Not Blenheim itself, as that is a day trip we'll take together.) My first goal was to see the Combe Mill: the original ‘power house’ of the old Blenheim Palace Estate timber mill and workshops.





The Mill has an original 1852 "beam" engine and the even older water wheel, plus a lot of neat museum stuff focusing on old technology. I visited on one of the few days they crank up the old steam power; the place is full of older gentlemen volunteers eager to share their stories of the old days and the old tools. The thing I enjoy most about this is meeting older folks who really have a passion and a history, whether it be for steam engines, clocks or old cars.






Nigel started with a 17th century village clockworks, ended with Big Ben, and told me more about the huge leaps in horology than I ever thought possible.

Old Jack as had his vintage roadster for nearly forty years, and was here for a rally of old time MGs.









Tying all this together (for me, at least, on a glorious summer afternoon) was a five-mile run through the countryside around Blenheim. Park in a country church-yard, jump into running shorts and shoes, jog up the farm lane and out onto the stoney road leading up the ridge, and catch the view across Oxfordshire. Sometimes along the edges of fields, sometimes through the wheat-stalks or forests; but I stop at a stoney house.



Greeted by a pack of curious house dogs and their peg-legged master, I learn that yon hedgerow, which my trail will follow, is the medieval path north from Oxford to Bladon. And this was the path taken by the aforementioned Royalist army in June 1646, retreating from Oxford to Bladon, led by Charles, the king whose career was cut short by a severe neck injury. Local legend has it that in this house (well, the oldest stone portion) the King spent the night, but I will take the trail upon which that elder Churchill doubtless followed his master, for I am to pay my respects to The Great Man.

Sir Winston Churchill was born at Blenheim in 1874, and for all his life frequented Bladon, the town just outside the estate. Many Churchills are buried in the yard of the 12th century church, and so -- after a State Funeral in London in 1965 -- was he.

But I still have two miles back to the car, up lanes, across stoney fields, dodging horse pies and nettles.

"The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read." -- Winston Churchill