Younger son of the Duke of Marlborough and father of Winston Churchill, he was elected as Conservative MP in 1874. He became prominent in the 1880–85 Parliament, when he and a group of young Tories became known in opposition to the Liberals as ‘the Fourth Party’. A gifted rhetorician, his comment in 1886 that ‘Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right’ became a slogan for those resisting Home Rule for Ireland.