Chapter I: Front Matter

THE LIFE OF

WILLIAM EWART

GLADSTONE

BY

JOHN MORLEY

_IN THREE VOLUMES--VOL. I_

(_1809-1859_)

TORONTO
GEORGE N. MORANG & COMPANY, LIMITED
1903

COPYRIGHT, 1903,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up, electrotyped, and published October, 1903. Reprinted
October, November, 1903.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

TO THE

ELECTORS OF THE MONTROSE BURGHS

I BEG LEAVE TO

INSCRIBE THIS BOOK

IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION

OF

THE CONFIDENCE AND FRIENDSHIP

WITH WHICH

THEY HAVE HONOURED ME

NOTE

The material on which this biography is founded consists mainly, of course, of the papers collected at Hawarden. Besides that vast accumulation, I have been favoured with several thousands of other pieces from the legion of Mr. Gladstone's correspondents. Between two and three hundred thousand written papers of one sort or another must have passed under my view. To some important journals and papers from other sources I have enjoyed free access, and my warm thanks are due to those who have generously lent me this valuable aid. I am especially indebted to the King for the liberality with which his Majesty has been graciously pleased to sanction the use of certain documents, in cases where the permission of the Sovereign was required.

When I submitted an application for the same purpose to Queen Victoria, in readily promising her favourable consideration, the Queen added a message strongly impressing on me that the work I was about to undertake should not be handled in the narrow way of party. This injunction represents my own clear view of the spirit in which the history of a career so memorable as Mr. Gladstone's should be composed. That, to be sure, is not at all inconsistent with our regarding party feeling in its honourable sense, as entirely the reverse of an infirmity.

The diaries from which I have often quoted consist of forty little books in double columns, intended to do little more than record persons seen, or books read, or letters written as the days passed by. From these diaries come several of the mottoes prefixed to our chapters; such mottoes are marked by an asterisk.

The trustees and other members of Mr. Gladstone's family have extended to me a uniform kindness and consideration and an absolutely unstinted confidence, for which I can never cease to owe them my heartiest acknowledgment. They left with the writer an unqualified and undivided responsibility for these pages, and for the use of the material that they entrusted to him. Whatever may prove to be amiss, whether in leaving out or putting in or putting wrong, the blame is wholly mine.

J. M.

1903.

CONTENTS

_BOOK I_

(_1809-1831_)

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTORY 1

I. CHILDHOOD 7

II. ETON 26

III. OXFORD 48

_BOOK II_

(_1832-1846_)

I. ENTERS PARLIAMENT. 86

II. THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND OFFICE 116

III. PROGRESS IN PUBLIC LIFE. 131

IV. THE CHURCH 152

V. HIS FIRST BOOK 169

VI. CHARACTERISTICS 184

VII. CLOSE OF APPRENTICESHIP 219

VIII. PEEL'S GOVERNMENT 247

IX. MAYNOOTH 270

X. TRIUMPH OF POLICY AND FALL OF THE MINISTER 282

XI. THE TRACTARIAN CATASTROPHE 303

_BOOK III_

(_1847-1852_)

CHAPTER PAGE

I. MEMBER FOR OXFORD 327

II. THE HAWARDEN ESTATE 337

III. PARTY EVOLUTION--NEW COLONIAL POLICY 350

IV. DEATH OF SIR ROBERT PEEL 366

V. GORHAM CASE--SECESSION OF FRIENDS 375

VI. NAPLES 389

VII. RELIGIOUS TORNADO--PEELITE DIFFICULTIES 405

VIII. END OF PROTECTION 425

_BOOK IV_

(_1853-1859_)

I. THE COALITION 443

II. THE TRIUMPH OF 1853 457

III. THE CRIMEAN WAR 476

IV. OXFORD REFORM--OPEN CIVIL SERVICE 496

V. WAR FINANCE--TAX OR LOAN 513

VI. CRISIS OF 1855 AND BREAK-UP OF THE PEELITES 521

VII. POLITICAL ISOLATION 544

VIII. GENERAL ELECTION--NEW MARRIAGE LAW 558

IX. THE SECOND DERBY GOVERNMENT 574

X. THE IONIAN ISLANDS 594

XI. JUNCTION WITH THE LIBERALS 621

APPENDIX 635

CHRONOLOGY 654

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

SIR JOHN GLADSTONE _Frontispiece._

_From a painting by William Bradley._

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE _to face page_ 86

_From a painting by William Bradley._

CATHERINE GLADSTONE " 223

_From a painting._

HAWARDEN CASTLE " 337