The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

by Erik Larson

He presented his vision of a United States of Europe, with Britain as its architect. He might have been speaking before the House of Commons, rather than to a small group of men fogged by cigars and alcohol in a quiet country house. “We seek no treasure,” Churchill said, “we seek no territorial gains, we seek only the right of man to be free; we seek his right to worship his God, to lead his life in his own way, secure from persecution. As the humble laborer returns from his work when the day is done, and sees the smoke curling upwards from his cottage home in the serene evening sky, we wish him to know that no rat-a-tat-tat”—here Churchill knocked loudly on the table—“of the secret police upon his door will disturb his leisure or interrupt his rest.” He said Britain sought only government by popular consent, freedom to say whatever one wished, and the equality of all people in the eyes of the law. “But war aims other than these we have none.”