An Archbishop’s Remarkable Paternity

Surely the BBC is already producing a new post Downton Abby miniseries based on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s fantastic discovery that his biological father is actually a former secretary to Winston Churchill with whom his mother trysted shortly before marrying the man all believed to be the father.

Archbishop Justin Welby’s 86 year old mother, Lady Williams of Elvel (her second husband ascended to the House of Lords), herself a former Churchill secretary, released her own astonishing statement prompted by a DNA test that was “an unbelievable shock,” though surely not as much as to her son.  She explained:

My ex-husband, was a very strong, possessive character. At the end of March 1955 he was bullying me to leave my job as personal secretary to the Prime Minister and run away with him and marry him in the US where his divorce was being finalised. At the age of 25, as I was, the pressure became too great and I found myself unable to resist.

The ex-husband, Gavin Welby, son of a German Jew, and a social adventurer, before marrying the Archbishop’s mother, romanced JFK’s sister Pat before her own marriage to actor Peter Lawford.  JFK called him “cold, frozen.”  As an aspiring but failed politician, he met his second wife through her uncle, famed Conservative Party statesman and Churchill associate Rab Butler.  (Lady Williams’ other uncle was Marshal of the Royal Air Force Charles Portal, hero of the Battle of Britain, and portrayed by Laurence Olivier in the famous film.)  Her family disapproved of Welby, but Uncle Rab hosted a reception next to the Prime Minister’s residence.  After the Archbishop’s mother divorced him for adultery during their short marriage, Welby romanced a much younger Vanessa Redgrave, whose parents successfully warned her not to marry a “rotten piece of work.”

Lady Williams continued:

Although my recollection of events is patchy, I now recognise that during the days leading up to my very sudden marriage, and fuelled by a large amount of alcohol on both sides, I went to bed with Anthony Montague Browne. It appears that the precautions taken at the time didn’t work and my wonderful son was conceived as a result of this liaison. I didn’t see Anthony again for a long time. After Gavin and I broke up in 1958, Anthony and I met occasionally, but although he may have asked how Justin was, there was nothing that gave me any hint that he might have thought he was Justin’s father.

She concluded:

My beloved husband, Charles Williams, and I have enjoyed a loving and stable marriage from 1975 to the present day. With that stability and love I have been able to blossom as never before.  I have served on the Parole Board, as a magistrate and as a deputy lieutenant for Greater London. Even at the age of 86 I lead an active life both in support of my husband and in my own right. Furthermore, I have watched Justin, from an almost impossible childhood, grow into what he is today, marry his beautiful wife, Caroline, and see his children and now grandchildren grow up. As a family we are truly blessed.But none of this would have been possible without our firm Christian faith and a determination never to relinquish hope. God has given us so much and my gratitude knows no bounds.

Justin Welby has often spoken of the difficulties of growing up with divorced, alcoholic parents. While his mother gained sobriety decades ago, his presumed father drank himself to death in the 1970s. Welby’s biological father, Anthony Montague Browne, before dying in 2013 told his stepson he believed the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury was his son and hoped to meet but died before the meeting could happen. A journalist, who knew Browne’s second wife, herself a former secretary to Mrs. Winston Churchill, recognized the strong physical similarity between Browne and Welby and pursued the story with a cooperative Welby, who readily agreed to a DNA test. His response to the results have seemed serene: “There is no existential crisis, and no resentment against anyone. My identity is founded in who I am in Christ.” He added: “In Christ, nothing changes. Genetics don’t make any difference to this.”

Welby says disappointments as a youth with his self-destructing drunken presumed father had nudged him to Christian faith: “Finding in the midst of looking after my father that here was a Father who was perfectly dependable and utterly true and who knew me deeply and loved me much more certainly, was a surprise beyond belief, wonderful.” After the revelation of his paternity, Welby says his only regret is that he is not after all the first Archbishop of Canterbury with Jewish ancestry.

The Archbishop’s serenity contrasts with a similar story with a less happy ending. Several years ago the son of Washington, DC socialite Mary Susan Alsop penned a vengeful memoir revealing his alcoholic mother’s startling end of life confession that his biological father was not her first husband, an American diplomat, but British statesman Duff Cooper, friend to Churchill, and only member of Neville Chamberlain’s cabinet to resign over Munich. Mary Susan’s second husband was famed columnist and JFK buddy Joseph Alsop. Her son’s memoir was called My Three Fathers And the Elegant Deceptions of My Mother, Mary Susan Alsop. The son, like Welby, turned to religion, becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister, but he, unlike Welby, does not seem at peace.

Maybe the Alsop saga can form a subplot in whatever the BBC eventually must do with Archbishop Welby’s remarkable story.