The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire (25 page)

In 1774, in the midst of depression, a severe cold, and recurrent, debilitating stomach pain, he died—though whether of apoplexy, or from an accidental overdose of laudanum, or of a pen knife stabbed into his throat (either by himself or by someone else) is unclear. He was forty-nine and was buried in an unmarked grave in an English church in the small village of Moreton Saye, near where he was born and near to Market Drayton, to whose shopkeepers he and his small gang of child ruffians had threatened broken windows. If the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, the Battle of Plassey was won on the streets of Market Drayton. Clive had, at last, truly returned home.

“My name is George Nathaniel Curzon,
I am a most superior person,
My cheek is pink, my hair is sleek,
I dine at Blenheim once a week.”

 

T
he four lines above are the most quoted lines about Lord Curzon. He was indeed a most superior person, addressing his fellow members of Parliament as “a divinity addressing black beetles.”
²
He was perhaps the most widely traveled man of his day: through Europe, the Levant, Central Asia, and the Far and Near East most especially (writing massive volumes on Russia and Central Asia, the Near East, and the Far East). His father, in fact, once asked him, “Why don't you stay at home and be quiet?”
³
That had been the Curzon way for centuries, a noble family without ambition. But George Curzon, while a conservative in politics (and in many of his tastes; he was a great conservator, for instance, in matters architectural), could restrain neither his ambition, nor his self-improving travels, nor his eager and witty tongue. Arrogant, he was nevertheless charming. He cut a swath through women, though never violating his gentleman's code of not behaving like a bounder, never despoiling a maiden, and restricting himself, more or less, to the aristocratic wives of complaisant husbands (as was the case with one of the great loves of Curzon's life, Sibell, Lady Grosvenor, whose husband Lord Grosvenor was “a fragile epileptic whose chief passion was steam engines”
⁴
rather than his wife).

His arrogance had been with him since his schooldays (at Eton and before), in which he was often contemptuous of his instructors, preferring to teach himself—and then humiliating his ignored tutors by scooping up all the academic prizes. He could, from this description, easily be seen as a snooty, sophisticated, rank (albeit high-rank) bastard that women might love (because they do rather like that kind) but that men despise. Yet that would be to take away the wrong impression. No one ever doubted Curzon's self-regard—but they also didn't doubt his talent, or his industry, or, for that matter, his creativity, his wit, and his loyalty in friendship. He was never short of sincere and devoted friends.

Though born to wealth and position at Kedleston Hall, he was raised by sadistic governesses and a father more famous for removing unnecessary coal from fires than for any warm paternal affection. Though energetic, Curzon lived in pain all his adult life because of a riding injury that forced him to wear a metal back brace. The greatest shock of his young life was not that injury, but instead taking a second-class rather than a first-class degree in the second half of his classics course at Oxford (divided into “Mods” and “Greats”; he had taken a first in “Mods”)—a shortfall he redressed by setting himself to win two prestigious academic prizes, which he did, and a fellowship to All Souls.

His ultimate goal was not academic, but political. In 1885 he became private secretary to the prime minister, Lord Salisbury, leader of the Conservative Party. In 1886, he entered Parliament himself, though he seemed far less interested in constituency matters than in his global travels. In 1895, he married an American, Mary Leiter, heiress to a department store fortune;
their engagement was kept secret for two years, during which time she rarely saw him or heard from him, so that he could undertake dangerous travels in the East. He then settled into work in the new Conservative government as the parliamentary under-secretary for foreign affairs. In 1898, the thirty-nine-year-old Curzon became viceroy of India.

Curzon, whose global travels put him in a position to make apt comparisons, judged the British Empire “under Providence, the greatest instrument for good that the world has seen.”
⁵
In India, he set about immediately to make sure that such a judgment could be main- tained. He reformed and improved the already high standards of the Indian Civil Service; created an imperial cadet corps to provide military training and special commissions for Indian princes; and worked assiduously to reconcile the tribes of the northwest frontier and block Russian penetration into British areas of influence. An ardent imperialist in foreign policy, he was a paternalist in domestic policy and saw his role as helping to improve the lot of the Indians. He also devoted himself to his architectural passion, most especially the restoration of the Taj Mahal, which he adored.

Aristocrat that he was, he felt a kinship with the poor (
noblesse oblige
) and with the native aristocracy, but disdain for the Indian commercial classes and most especially the Babus, the educated Indians of Bengal, who were full of fruity, overblown rhetoric and personal and nationalistic aspirations that he opposed. Still, he was India's defender, both in his relations
with the British government and in his belief in the value of its ancient civilization. If the British position was to be justified, Britons in India had to behave with honesty and justice; if they didn't they would be punished; and Curzon made no exceptions for British merchants, planters, or soldiers. Like many Englishmen, he respected Islam, though he was less certain of Hinduism. He was an opponent of Christian missionaries, thinking them meddlesome and unhelpful to the Empire. Macaulay had wanted to create a class of Indian Englishmen. Curzon wanted to leave Indian civilization alone and govern through the British Raj and the native aristocracy. In this, he felt, there was stability, order, and a hope for continuity and permanence in maintaining British India.

He built more railroads than any other governor-general (or viceroy) in India. He advanced agrarian reforms to help Indian peasants maintain their land. He promoted massive new irrigation projects, hoping to prevent a replay of the horrific famine that followed the drought of 1899. He toured every hospital he could find, generally pleased at the efforts of British doctors and civil servants and unimpressed by the fatalistic attitude of the native Indian officials.

It became his habit to work himself into a state of physical collapse—in part because he thought he could do everyone's job better himself, and proceeded to do so; in part because of his physical disabilities, most particularly his bad back, which suffered from the overwork and lack of exercise; and in part because when he was bedridden he could accomplish even more, writing letters, dispatches, and reports, so collapse could be considered a positive good to a man who wanted to be judged by what he had achieved for the Indians. He meant to achieve a lot—so much, in fact, that when his name was bruited about as a potential foreign secretary or even prime minister, he poohed-poohed the suggestion. His path to achievement was as viceroy of India.