CHAPTER VI ENTERS PARLIAMENT “The day of the cottage-bred man has at last dawned.”—=Lloyd George.= NOW (1888) happily married and well started on his legal career, Mr. Lloyd George was able to return to his larger ambition of sitting in Parliament. From this time forward he definitely aspired to sit at Westminister as the representative of his own native constituency, the Carnarvon Boroughs. The achievement was not to be easy. There were many lions in the path. During the last few years, indeed, he had immensely increased his reputation. He had travelled through many parts of Wales and visited many courts, fighting the cause of the “under-dog.” The tenants of Wales, harried and evicted after 1868 and 1880, had begun to hold up their heads again. They felt that they had a new champion on their side. But the old habit of sending to Westminster only the powerful and wealthy was not yet dead. Feudalism always dies slowly. It was a very sudden change indeed to pass from the squire and the manufacturer to the cottage-bred lad of Llanystumdwy. David Lloyd George, indeed, neglected no opportunities. Besides being a lawyer and a public speaker, he was now an active journalist. Working with that fine spirit, Mr. D. R. Daniel—then one of the noblest sons of the Young Welsh movement—David Lloyd George founded at Pwllheli in 1888 a paper called _The Trumpet of Freedom_—a name which certainly did not lack sound and vigour. Then, a few months after his marriage, with the consent and support of his fearless wife, he allowed his name first to be put forward as possible Liberal candidate for the Carnarvon Boroughs. Then followed one of those personal struggles which test and try a man. It is right that all claim to rise above our fellows should be narrowly scrutinised. There is even in jealousy some element of that instinct for equality which gives dignity to the meanest man. Here is a factor that takes multitudinous forms, varying from fair judgment to sheer malice. The strongest man will wince under the scorpions of spite; but he will accept the verdict of a fair jury of his peers. It was to such a jury that young David Lloyd George now fearlessly appealed.