Lloyd George did not neglect Maggie, though, and together they made the most of the opportunities London offered, seeing a varied selection of the theatrical entertainment on offer—Hamlet, Puss in Boots and Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore. The only incident that marred an otherwise happy time was an altercation between Lloyd George and a cab driver over a fare. The two nearly came to blows, but Maggie intervened.
Mr and Mrs David Lloyd George arrived safely back in Criccieth on 3 February to an enthusiastic welcome from a crowd of well-wishers. Mr Owen’s carriage was waiting at the station, and in a scene that would have been unimaginable only a few months previously, Lloyd George was borne back to Mynydd Ednyfed—where it had been decided that the couple would live at first—not as a guest, but as a member of the family. The disputes that had threatened the engagement were put aside, and Lloyd George’s diary entry for the night of their return shows his relief at the warm reception he received: ‘Mrs Owen very pleased to see us. Felt very awkward this first night at Mynydd Ednyfed. Both Mr. and Mrs. O were however very kind and assisted us to feel as homely as possible.’2
For Maggie, this arrangement was ideal. She was able to resume life with her beloved parents and almost-as-beloved maid, Margiad. She lived, as before, in her childhood home, but with the welcome addition of her handsome husband. Her parents made every effort to get on with the new member of the family, and having forgiven him for winning their daughter’s hand, quickly came to appreciate the qualities that appealed to her so strongly. Whenever Maggie was with Lloyd George in London over the following years, Richard Owen wrote a weekly letter with all the news from Mynydd Ednyfed, addressed affectionately to ‘Annwyl Blant’ (Dear Children), and at home he worked hard to promote his son-in-law’s political career. Had he realised how quickly Lloyd George would put aside his marriage vows, and how soon his political activities would give him the opportunity to stray, perhaps the welcome would not have been so warm.
The first months of marriage were golden for Maggie. She was a good-humoured young woman, naturally disposed to be happy, and had been very distressed by the endless quarrels of the previous months. Now she could live again as the pampered daughter of Mynydd Ednyfed while at the same time enjoying married life. To add to her happiness, she took pride in the professional success of her new husband. Each time he won a case or achieved public praise for his oratory she would carefully cut out the press reports and paste them in a scrapbook. A letter she wrote to him soon after the wedding is full of affection and contentment:
My dearest Die,
…I was very glad to hear that the case was partly heard yesterday &I fully trust that you will be able to return home Sunday morning. I will stop at home to expect you, so come up straight, will you?…Mother &I were at Morvin House last night, we had a cup of coffee before going home. You didn’t relish the going away without a few minutes with your Mag, so I was told. Well neither did I. If it had been possible I would have been at the station in no time, but there was no chance.3
Living with her parents may have appealed strongly to Maggie at the time, but it was probably not the wisest start to the young couple’s married life. A more definitive separation from her family might have given Maggie a better chance of learning about being a wife. At Mynydd Ednyfed, Mary Owen ran the household. Maggie was allowed to avoid all but the tasks she truly enjoyed: mainly gardening, which was a lifelong passion. She had never embraced the traditionally feminine skills: her school reports confirm that although she was a very good student in all other subjects, she was only ‘fair’ when it came to domestic science and simple sewing.4 She was neglectful of the more mundane aspects of housekeeping, and never seemed to get the hang of daily tasks such as lighting fires. This did not matter at Mynydd Ednyfed, where Mary and the servants attended to such things, but it became a bigger issue between Maggie and her husband later on.
Lloyd George was as fond of his creature comforts as Maggie was careless of them. He had been raised by extremely capable women whose first priority had been his comfort and welfare. Lloyd George and Maggie were raised in an age when it was considered a wife’s first duty to care for her husband and children. Maggie would prove to be superb at the latter, but she did not always attend as assiduously to the former. Lloyd George upbraided her from time to time for her lack of expertise in sewing and cooking, and they would often quarrel if he came home to an unlit hearth or an empty larder. But in the early days of their marriage it was not a cold hearth that awaited Lloyd George at the end of the day. His diary records his contentment when he returned home late one night to find that ‘Maggie was lying on the hearth waiting for me,’5 and in the summer following their wedding, Maggie found that she was expecting their first child.
The whole family rejoiced at the news, and Maggie was happy and contented during her pregnancy, which passed without complication. Her husband was working hard, and her letters to him while he was away on business or speaking at political gatherings are full of love:
Your letter to hand this morning &many thanks to you for writing, as I did not expect a letter this morning till tomorrow &it was all the sweeter for that reason.
I am afraid you won’t come home till Thursday, will you? Unless Mr Meek says you must which would be a good thing from my point of view…
I have no more to tell you, only that we are all alive and kicking here all of us mind you, hoping your cold is better. Let me know when to expect my sweetheart home, will you?
Best love
From your loving child* [&] wife
Maggie
Maggie did not have to wait long for her faith in Lloyd George’s ability to be justified. Only weeks after their wedding he took on a legal case that would put him on the first rung of the political ladder and make his name famous throughout Wales. He was asked to act in it partly because of his growing reputation for impressive performances in court, and partly because it coincided neatly with his political views, which were also becoming well known. The case concerned a prime example of the discrimination and injustice suffered by Welsh nonconformists at the hands of the English establishment; Lloyd George could not have devised a more appropriate peg on which to hang his political career.
The story began in 1864 when the parish church of Llanfrothen, a village eight miles east of Criccieth, received the gift from a Mr and Mrs Owen of a small adjoining strip of land to be an extension of the graveyard. It was walled in, consecrated and used for burials over the following years. At the time all burials on church ground had to be held according to Anglican rites, a rule that was bitterly resented by nonconformists. In 1880, after a decade of fruitless attempts, the Liberal MP for Denbighshire, George Osborne Morgan, succeeded in passing an Act to allow nonconformists to conduct funerals in parish churchyards according to their own rites. The law was changed, but the Church of England was not going to give up its monopoly on burials without a fight.
The vicar of Llanfrothen was Rev. Richard Jones, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative who deeply resented the new Act and was determined to prevent its implementation, in his churchyard at least. Rev. Jones examined the paperwork closely, decided that the Owens’ land had not been properly transferred in 1864, and persuaded Mrs Owen to re-convey her gift to the Church, specifying that only Anglican burials were to be permitted in it. This meant that nonconformists in the parish either had to submit to being buried according to Church rites or be buried in a scrap of land used for the graves of suicides and other undesirables.
The situation came to an explosive head in April 1888, when Robert Roberts, an old quarryman and a nonconformist, died. He had specified in his will that he wished to be buried next