The film continues to juxtapose father and son. While Jack Kipling is facing humiliation, being denied entry to the navy on account of his very poor eyesight, Rudyard Kipling chats with their King. King George V congratulates Rudyard Kipling “on breaking the three hour barrier in the Bateman’s-Windsor run”. The King then cautions Jack’s father against speaking too strongly about the possibility of war. There had been a write-up in that morning’s Times about a rally of 10,000 people being stirred by Kipling’s description of an England under German rule.
We have no way to know whether the King really consulted a fiction writer about matters of war or the populace, though they were indeed friends; but it’s a fact Kipling served on the War Office Press Bureau and had worked in conjunction with the War Propaganda Bureau. (Caution: links may contain spoilers.) It also can’t escape attention that any King would have been wise to recognise the power with words Kipling possessed, and his sway as a public speaker. Both Kipling’s grandfathers had been successful ministers, and he knew how to give a fiery sermon. In his case, he sought a ‘deeper conversion’ to patriotic defense, not to religion. His speeches played upon fear in order to bolster strength; only a master could attempt something so delicate and achieve it.
As the story continues, we next meet Caroline “Carrie” Kipling, Rudyard’s somewhat controversial American wife. She was a strong-willed, capable woman in an era when women were best regarded as wilting violets. We first see her defending home and hearth in a different way - shielding their home (called Bateman’s) against public intrusion. Two reporters stomp onto the private grounds, and Carrie shoos them off. She’s busy cutting a selection of flowers from the garden and won’t brook the offense. We see her softer side as she enters the Kipling home to arrange the fresh flowers before a portrait of her oldest child. Josephine Kipling, their firstborn, died of pneumonia in 1899 at aged seven, on a family trip abroad. Rudyard also had been stricken with the same illness; Carrie had had to keep their daughter's death from him until he was stronger. At that time her husband was already so famous newspapers worldwide carried the story. Ironically, the same Kaiser Wilhelm II who would later become Britain’s enemy had followed Kipling’s recuperation in the newspapers, and had sent Mrs. Kipling a telegram wishing him well.
It was not uncommon in those days, with rampaging influenza epidemics and without many of today’s medical interventions available, for parents to bury one or more of their children before the child could even reach adulthood. The Kiplings had already weathered such a tragedy. It’s said the death of their firstborn child changed the Kiplings and their marriage. The stoicism of the Edwardian times became a permanent guest in the Kipling household afterward. It was in this atmosphere even greater challenges arrived in what must have been quite the test of their spirit and endurance.
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