The Churchill Series – Jan. 24, 2007

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

First, a message to series reader Corwin: Yes, I believe it was you who put me on to the “glowworm” incident which I’ll post on in a day or two. Thank you.

Today is the 43rd anniversary of Churchill’s death at his London home following a stroke two weeks before. He was age 90.

The following is part of the tribute Cambridge historian David Reynolds paid Churchill at the close of his In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War. Churchill’s physician, Lord Charles Moran, is the source of the quote Reynolds used:

Three days lying in state in Westminister Hall, as thousands queued across Lambeth Bridge to pay their respects. The coffin drawn on a gun carriage to St. Paul’s, where the monarch – against all protocol – awaited her subject. And the final journey by rail to Bladon, where, “in a country churchyard, in the stillness of a winter evening, in the presence of his family and a few friends, Winston Churchill was committed to English earth, which in his finest hour he had held inviolate.” (p. 531)