[36] In 1900 they shifted to 63, Queen Victoria Street, E.C., which is now the office of the firm of Rhyn Roberts & Co., as it has been called since Mr. Lloyd George severed his connection with it after taking Government office. CHAPTER VIII PITCHED BATTLES “Though it appear a little out of fashion, There is much care and valour in this Welshman.” SHAKESPEARE’S _Henry V_, Act I, Sc. iv. DAVID LLOYD GEORGE had gone to Parliament as a Welsh Nationalist; and, as the months passed, it became clear that the task of moulding and defending the new national cause in Wales would absorb his main energies. It was not a popular task at Westminster, where it cut right across the party divisions. It was not even yet wholly an easy task in Wales, where the old spirit of feudalism had many strongholds and was still “an unconscionable time in dying.” Throughout the following years (1892-7) David Lloyd George had to fight a double battle—at Westminster and in Wales. At Westminster he took the lead of a small group of Welsh members—often only four—who greatly dared to put the cause of Wales before the cause of party—never an easy task in a House where the party system is the very oxygen of the political atmosphere. On all great public questions that arose in those years—tithes, free schooling, local option, clergy discipline—he steadily and daringly pursued the national course and built up a national policy. The influence that kept him straight on this course came ever from his own native soil. For he was in daily touch with that faithful little family group—those four loyal souls—his uncle, his brother, his sister, and his mother—who kept for him, while he battled in London, the fires burning on the home hearth, helped his wife by looking after the children in moments of stress, and steadily aided him with counsel and inspiration. David wrote to that little family party a daily record of his doings; and day by day Uncle Lloyd wrote to his “_Di_” long letters, partly in Welsh, partly in English, advising him on every question that arose, always taking the bold side, always bringing his nephew back to the goals of his pilgrimage—faith and fatherland. “Land of our Fathers” was the key-phrase in Uncle Lloyd’s politics; and, amid the stress and distraction of Westminster, his boy was never allowed, for a single day, to miss hearing that clear call from the Eagle mountains. Here was the source of his strength in the struggles that now lay before him, calling for the utmost exercise of will and decision. For, if the Welsh cause was to be kept to the front, it was necessary to fight continually against the submerging influence of the party machines.