The marriage, 1890–95

Cecil John Rhodes’s assumption of the premiership of the Cape Colony in mid-July 1890 was the culmination of long political courting by him, which had been eliciting an increasingly enthusiastic response from the Afrikaner Bond. The dramatic way in which the marriage broke up, in the wake of the Jameson raid, did not reflect on its soundness. There was nothing in the apparent bilateral relations between the two which could either explain or justify the raid. On the surface the alliance was stable and the Rhodes government enjoyed the firm support of the Bond leadership and MPs. It had the makings of at least a stable and solid political marriage. For Rhodes, the cultivation of the Bond’s support for his government was very important.