Chapter IV: Part 4

Every Saturday evening in the season Lady Palmerston held a reception. In 1858 they left Carlton Gardens for Cambridge House, 94 Piccadilly,[31] and both she and Lord Palmerston took the greatest interest in fitting up and arranging their new abode. At her parties were to be met the best society, consisting almost entirely of distinguished people, for in those days there were not more than about five hundred persons who were what is known as “in Society.” Indeed, Lady Palmerston always wrote the name of the guest on the invitation cards with her own hand, so that she really did know who came to her receptions. Yet, in spite of these precautions, there occasionally appeared a few people who had not been invited. She never betrayed herself, and used to say that, if it amused them to come, they were quite welcome. She was good-natured and patient with bores. But if any member of his own party spoke or voted against Palmerston in the House, he would receive no invitation, and his name would not be replaced on the list until he had thought better of his disloyalty. She could also be very angry with any one who caballed against Lord Palmerston or overstepped the bounds of fair party warfare in attacking him. But even so her anger was shortlived, and she was quick to pardon. Lady Palmerston took much trouble to please the wives of those it was politic to conciliate. Disraeli in _Sybil_ ironically summed up the general rules by which political hostesses were guided when he wrote: “Ask them (_i.e._ Members of Parliament) to a ball, and they will give you their votes; invite them to a dinner, and if necessary they will rescind them; but cultivate them, remember their wives at assemblies, and call their daughters if possible by their right names, and they will not only change their principles or desert the party for you, but subscribe their fortunes, if necessary, and lay down their lives in your service.”

If there happened to be a political crisis the greatest excitement would prevail at these parties. Sometimes the lion of the evening would be a man who was not generally to be met at fashionable gatherings. In 1859 Cobden was present one evening, and the fashionable ladies stared at him through their glasses as if he had been some strange curiosity, and brought up their friends to stare also.

The Palmerstons also gave dinners which were noted for the sumptuousness of the fare and the distinction of the guests. The only drawback was the extraordinary unpunctuality of the host and hostess. It was useless to arrive at the time stated in the invitation; neither would be ready, not even if it was a big diplomatic dinner. How the cook managed to send up an excellent meal all the same seemed a miracle to the waiting and long-suffering guests, but it is to be supposed that Lady Palmerston named one hour to her guests and another to her cook. A guest relates how, on arriving at 8.30 p.m., he found Lord Palmerston just going out for a ride before dinner in Rotten Row. The grey horse that Palmerston always rode was his wife’s despair, for she had four grey carriage horses, and feared lest people should think he rode one of them. Similar unpunctuality was practised by the Palmerstons when they dined out. At a dinner given by Guizot, when he was Ambassador in London, Lady Holland was a guest. It happened that she had had no lunch and was dying with hunger. All the guests were assembled except the Palmerstons. Lady Holland was at first out of temper, then in despair, and lastly subsided into inanition. When at last the defaulters arrived and a move was made, Lady Holland asked Lord Duncannon to take care of her, as she was sure she should not reach the dining-room without fainting.

Perhaps the social side of Lord and Lady Palmerston was seen at its best in the country-house parties at Broadlands. Broadlands is near Romsey in Hampshire. The house is situated in a fine park, and the river Test flows through the grounds, passing near the house, and adding greatly to the charm of the view from the windows. The architecture is Elizabethan, one room still preserving the beautiful oak panelling, but in the eighteenth century the front was cased in classic architecture with huge porticoes. The interior is commodious and comfortable, and the rooms, which are all of a pleasant size and shape, are full of treasures. The present owner, Mr. Wilfrid W. Ashley, M.P., great-grandson of Lady Palmerston, has arranged the library as it was in Lord Palmerston’s day, with the high desk--he always wrote standing up--and other articles by which the great statesman was habitually surrounded. A billiard-room is a feature of the house, for Palmerston was very fond of the game, and liked to win if his wife was looking on.

In the country Lady Palmerston was a perfect hostess. She understood that foreigners expected to be entertained and not to be left more or less to their own devices, as is the English custom, and was always ready to drive or walk with them. The habit of leaving guests in a country house to look after themselves has grown now almost to an abuse, and sometimes, except that there is no bill to settle at the end, it often seems almost as if one had been staying at an hotel where one chanced to know a few of the other visitors. The parties must have been very interesting. Among the guests at different times were all the ambassadors to Great Britain and their wives, members of all the great English families, and writers like Laurence Oliphant, Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton), and Mrs. Augustus Craven, author of _Récit d’une sœur_.

The same unpunctuality, however, prevailed at Broadlands as in London. Dinner was nominally at eight, but was seldom on the table before nine. This indifference to time seems to have been innate in Lady Palmerston’s family, for even at Panshanger in 1841, when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were on a visit there, it is recorded that though there was an agreeable absence of formality, everything was immensely unpunctual, and the poor Queen was made to wait for dinner and drives “till anybody but herself would be furious.”

Besides managing the household at Broadlands and Cambridge House, Lady Palmerston had her own property to look after: Brocket, left to her by her brother, Lord Melbourne, and her Scottish estates. She saw into everything herself, inspected all the accounts, and never left anything to servants that was not properly within their province. This gave her constant occupation, and the business connected with her possessions was often of an arduous character. In 1860 there was a good deal of correspondence and trouble over the sale of a mill at Brocket, and in 1862 she paid a visit to her “Scotland estates,” which she had not looked over for nine years. She described it as “something like the treadmill,” with the talking, “walking, inspecting farms and fields and mines, making the agreeable, and listening to all the various conflicting reports on the same subject.” Her labours, she declares, were much increased by “all the glorification and popularity of Palmerston, which burst out on every opportunity.”

In 1861 Palmerston was made Warden of the Cinque Ports. Lady Palmerston evidently went to Walmer Castle, the residence belonging to the office, before her husband had seen it, for she wrote to him that the place was splendid, “so large a house and such a quantity of gardens and trees. I am sure you will be delighted with the place, and the sea is covered with shipping and a beautiful setting sun to light them up.” The beauty of the gardens at Walmer Castle is proverbial.

Lady Palmerston was fond of the theatre, and it is interesting to find in 1863 the following impression of a new play that was to have a great vogue:

“Such a good play, written by Tom Taylor, called _The Ticket-of-Leave Man_, so affecting that everybody in the theatre was touched by it, some quite crying.”

In old age the Palmerstons were devoted to each other. To the end of his life Palmerston’s attitude to his wife was that of an ardent lover; he was always full of loving attentions. He had few intimate friends; her close companionship seemed to make it unnecessary, and it is most probable that no other person at any time shared his confidence. His consideration for her was pathetic, and he did all in his power to conceal from her how ill he really was during the months before his death. He always assumed cheerfulness in her presence. He died on 18th October 1865 at Brocket, and was buried in Westminster Abbey near the grave of Pitt.

Lord Palmerston left his property to his wife for her life, and it was then to go to William Cowper. She gave up the house in Piccadilly, and Bulwer Lytton sold her Breadalbane House, 21 Park Lane, where she settled in February 1866. She was now seventy-eight, almost unaltered in appearance, indeed a very handsome old lady, and, though subdued at times, she preserved her cheerful spirits. Age had not dulled her sensibility nor her susceptibility to impressions of more than ordinary keenness. She took the same vivid interest as of old in things and in people. Very rarely did she show any sign of the despondency common to age. In thanking Abraham Hayward for his pamphlet on the Junius Letters, a subject in which she had always taken great interest, she wrote: “There are so many disagreeable things nowadays in every way that it is pleasant to be able to take shelter in the past.”[32] She liked at all times to surround herself with young and pretty people. The very year of her death she would go to her grandson Jocelyn’s room between eleven and twelve at night, taking with her the _Times_ or some other newspaper, and read out to him long speeches without spectacles, with only a couple of candles for light. She was keenly opposed to Gladstone’s Bill for the Disestablishment of the Irish Church,[33] and would talk about it, standing the while, with all the fire and energy of a young girl.

She was saddened by the deaths of her old friends, Lady Jersey in 1867 and Lady Tankerville in 1865, intimates of more than fifty years’ standing, for Lady Palmerston was loyal in her friendships.

She was only ill for a fortnight before her death, which occurred at Brocket on 11th September 1869. She was buried in Westminster Abbey by the side of her husband.

Lady Palmerston affords an example of the influence wielded by a woman of intelligence, beauty, and charm through the first half of the nineteenth century. She had “l’habitude et l’intelligence des grandes affaires” that were openly discussed before her. She was past-mistress in the art of conversation, and thoroughly understood that a good talker must both originate and sympathise, must impart information and elicit it from others. Her tact was perfect. While she had a passionate feeling for her own party, she could be gracious to those opposed to it. Her salon was for a long series of years the pleasantest and most brilliant in London. She had many friends and few enemies. Her influence on society was direct, that on politics indirect, because it worked through her husband. When a woman is already in so high a position that no one can think she is seeking her own advancement, when she is eminently high-minded and warm-hearted, when she is never petty or false or ungenerous or uncharitable, then such an influence as she may exercise either directly or indirectly can only make for good. There is no doubt that Lady Palmerston, by her personal amiability, her vivacity of mind, charm of manner, and experience of the world, helped to strengthen the position of her husband.

V

MRS. DISRAELI

“It is the spirit of man that says, ‘I will be great,’ but it
is the sympathy of woman that usually makes him so.”

The parents of Mary Anne Evans lived at Bramford Speke, near Exeter. Their daughter was probably born at Exeter, where we know she was baptized on 14th November. Her father, John Evans, a lieutenant in the Navy who had worked his way up from the bottom of the Service, died on active service while his daughter was an infant. His wife was Eleanor Viney, a member of a family of good position in the west of England. In fact, Mrs. Disraeli inherited part of her fortune from her uncle, Sir James Viney. The girl was beautiful, and in 1815 married Wyndham Lewis, M.P. for Cardiff, a man of birth and fortune. He owned considerable property in Glamorganshire.

_From the painting by A. E. Chalon, R.A., at Hughenden_]

Mrs. Lewis was a great friend of Rosina Wheeler, the wife of Edward Bulwer, and it was at a party at their house, on the evening of 27th April 1832, that Disraeli first met the lady who was ultimately to be his wife. She asked particularly to be introduced to him. Writing next day to his sister he describes her as “a pretty little woman, a flirt, and a rattle.” She told him that she liked silent, melancholy men, and Disraeli, making mental note of her singular volubility, replied that he had no doubt of it. But he went much to her house in London the next year, and became, as time progressed, very friendly with her and her husband. So when, at the election of 1837, a second Conservative candidate was needed for Maidstone--Wyndham Lewis was the other--Disraeli was asked to stand. His success was doubtless in great measure due to his friendship with the Wyndham Lewises. Mrs. Lewis, in a letter to her brother,[34] prophesied that in a few years Disraeli would be one of the greatest men of the day, and observed, “they call him my Parliamentary protégé.”[35] Count D’Orsay offered him the sage advice: “You will not make love! You will not intrigue! You have your seat: do not risk anything! If a widow, then marry!” In August Mrs. Lewis paid a first visit to the Disraelis at Bradenham and was delighted with everything. Another visit was paid at the end of the year. Wyndham Lewis died suddenly of heart disease on 14th March 1838.

There is no doubt that Mrs. Lewis’s affection for Disraeli had been steadily growing. It is said that she told a friend she was sure Disraeli cared for her, because he had made love to her in her husband’s lifetime. Mrs. Bulwer, who never allowed friendship to interfere with her propensity for ill-natured gossip, declared that Disraeli proposed even before the funeral, and that friends calling to condole with her on her husband’s death were asked to congratulate her, for “Disraeli has proposed.” Through April and May he wrote constantly to her, sent her flowers from Bradenham, called himself her faithful friend, ready to give her, if she so willed it, his advice, assistance, and society. He signed his letters, “Your affectionate D.” In July he saw the review in Hyde Park, in celebration of Queen Victoria’s coronation, from Mrs. Wyndham Lewis’s house, 1 Grosvenor Gate.[36] By the end of July he was telling her that she was never a moment absent from his thoughts and how much he loved her. He sometimes accompanied her to the theatre; he presented his Coronation Medal to her.

It is generally assumed that Disraeli did not marry for love. Mrs. Lewis was forty-five, twelve years older than himself; she was also very well off, with an income of £4000 a year and a house in Grosvenor Gate. He had, moreover, declared that he never intended to marry for love, which he felt sure was a guarantee for infelicity, and that the marriages of all his friends who married for love or beauty turned out unhappily. Men often make such statements, and in the end act quite differently. It is certain that when Disraeli made up his mind to win her, his attitude towards her, judging by his acts and his letters, is very much that of a lover, and a sincere one. It was not all quite as fair sailing as the gossips would have us believe. When they were both in London he went to see her every day, and describes her talk as “that bright play of fancy and affection which welcomes me daily with such vivacious sweetness.” He dislikes being separated from her: “My present feelings convince me of what I have ever believed, that there is no hell on earth like separated love.” His idea of love is the perpetual enjoyment of the loved one’s society, and the sharing with her every thought and fancy and care; so long as they are together it does not matter where, “in heaven or on earth, or in the waters under the earth”; and although he declares he is not jealous, he confesses he envies the gentlemen about her--“When the eagle leaves you the vultures return.” His affection grows in intensity, and he is sure that “health, his clear brain, and her love will enable him to conquer the world.” At one period in the courtship, which seems to have lasted practically from the summer of 1838 to the autumn of 1839, there was a serious quarrel, and Mrs. Lewis desired him to quit her house for ever. Later, she seems to have reproached him with interested views, and he enters into a long explanation how, at the first, he had not been influenced by romantic feelings, that he wished for the solace of a home, and was not blind to the worldly advantage of an alliance with her, but all the same, if his heart had not been engaged he would not have proceeded in the matter. She forgave him, said it was all a mistake, that she had never desired him to quit the house or thought a word about money. But Disraeli’s letters to her express real affection, and of her devotion to him there can be no manner of doubt. She used to declare in later days, not quite seriously perhaps, “Dizzy married me for my money, but if he had the chance again he would marry me for love.” Even Mrs. Bulwer, who at the time of the engagement gossiped freely of the kind and cherishing manner in which Dizzy behaved to Mrs. Lewis’s £4000 a year, declared in later years that she had felt all along that Disraeli really cared for his wife, spoke of him as the most devoted husband, and asserted her conviction that had his wife lost all her possessions he would have continued equally kind to her. The wedding was celebrated at St. George’s, Hanover Square, on 28th August 1839.

They went first to Tunbridge Wells and then to Germany. Mrs. Disraeli thought Baden-Baden not much better than Cheltenham, but was delighted with Munich. Even the glories of Paris, which they visited on the return journey, paled before the “features of splendour and tasteful invention” to be seen in Munich. By the end of November they were settled in Grosvenor Gate. The furniture and general arrangement of the house was ugly and bizarre. Mrs. Disraeli lacked taste both in those matters and in her dress, which at all times was odd and strange, out of keeping with her age and the occasion. When she was eighty she would wear a bright crimson velvet tunic high to the throat, Disraeli’s miniature fastened like an order on the left breast; at a great party at Stowe in 1845, when Queen Victoria was present, she wore black velvet, with hanging sleeves looped up with knots of blue and diamond buttons, the head-dress being blue velvet bows and buttons. She evidently had no eye for beauty, for she once said that she did not care in the least for looks in men, and would as soon have married a black man as not. Yet she had taste in landscape gardening, for the laying out of the woodland paths at Hughenden and the aspect of the whole of that portion of the grounds are due to her.

Disraeli expected great things from the marriage. The union was to seal his career: his wife was to console him in sorrow and disappointment, her “quick and accurate sense” to guide him in prosperity and triumph. All his hopes were fulfilled, in spite of great differences in their characters. Mrs. Disraeli had no ambition, hated politics in themselves, though she devoted herself to her husband’s career. She told Queen Victoria that she neither knew nor wished to know Cabinet secrets. Yet Disraeli liked to consult her, for although she was pleased to call herself a dunce, and never could remember whether the Greeks or Romans came first, and when there had been some talk about Swift was surprised to find she could not ask him to her parties because he had died a hundred years ago, she had great practical ability, good judgment, and quick intuition. Above all, she was always cheerful. She had absolute faith in her husband, and her geniality and warmth of feeling and kindness of heart endeared her to her friends, despite her utter want of tact and her propensity for saying gauche things. Some one once asked Mr. Disraeli if he did not get annoyed by the gauche things his wife so often said. He replied, “Oh no! I am never put out by them.” “Well then,” retorted his interlocutor, “you must be a man of most extraordinary qualities.” “Not at all,” answered Disraeli, “I only possess one quality in which most men are deficient--gratitude.”

Many stories are told of Mrs. Disraeli’s outspokenness and deficiency in tact.

When on a visit to a country house it happened that Lord Hardinge’s room was next to the Disraelis’, and the next morning Mrs. Disraeli said to Lord Hardinge at breakfast, “Oh, Lord Hardinge, I consider myself the most fortunate of women. I said to myself when I woke this morning, ‘What a lucky woman I am! here I have been sleeping between the greatest orator and the greatest warrior of the day!’” Lady Hardinge, it was stated, did not look specially delighted. On the occasion of another visit it so happened that a former occupier of the house having possessed a number of fine paintings of the nude figure, the hostess had carefully removed from the walls all the pictures which she considered of doubtful propriety. One, however, had been overlooked and hung, as it chanced, in the room allotted to the Disraelis. Addressing her hostess, a lady of strictly puritanical views, Mrs. Disraeli said the first morning, “I find your house full of indecent pictures, there’s a horrible one in our room: Disraeli says it is Venus and Adonis; I’ve been awake half the night trying to prevent him looking at it!” Again, when her host apologised for a dish having too much onion in it, she said, “I prefer them raw.” At a concert at Buckingham Palace she sat next to a lady whom she did not know, and talked much of her own married happiness, and then remarked, “But perhaps, my dear, you do not know what it is to have an affectionate husband.”

She had little respect of persons and always spoke her mind. Soon after her marriage, she and Disraeli went to a luncheon-party given by Bulwer at Craven Cottage on the Thames. They arrived late, and found that the party had already gone with their host up the river in a steamer. Another late arrival was Louis Napoleon.[37] He said he would get a boat and row them to meet the others. His rowing, however, turned out to be of an amateurish character, and he only succeeded in rowing them on to a mudbank in the middle of the river. Help was fortunately procured, and a serious mishap narrowly avoided. Mrs. Disraeli rated Louis Napoleon roundly: “You should not undertake things you cannot accomplish,” she told him. “You are always too adventurous.” In 1856, when Mrs. Disraeli was dining at the Tuileries, she reminded the Emperor of the incident, and the Empress Eugénie, who overheard, said, “Just like him.”

Disraeli was now, thanks to his wife, able to give dinner-parties. She understood such matters and took care that they should be brilliant and successful. With her husband she paid many visits to the Maxses at Woolbeding, and the Hopes at Deepdene, where the Christmas of 1840 was spent. Next year he contested Shrewsbury. His wife undoubtedly helped him to win the election, and she became most popular with the electors, who retained their admiration for her; Disraeli used to tell them that she was a perfect wife. She was always, on his visits to his constituents there, the heroine of the occasion, and he informs his sister that “M. A. (Mary Anne) got even more cheering than I did.”

At the end of August 1841 Peel became Prime Minister, and Disraeli was full of hope that he would obtain office. Mrs. Disraeli was a great friend of Peel’s sister, Mrs. George Dawson. But no call came, and on September 4 Mrs. Disraeli, without her husband’s knowledge, wrote to Peel the famous letter in which she told him, “my husband’s political career is for ever crushed if you do not appreciate him.” She pointed out that Disraeli, for Peel’s sake, had made personal enemies of Peel’s opponents, that he had stood four most expensive elections, in two of which he had gained seats from Whigs, and that he had abandoned literature for politics. “Do not destroy all his hopes, and make him feel his life has been a mistake.” She then pointed out her own “humble but enthusiastic exertions” for the party, and how through her influence alone more than £40,000 had been spent at Maidstone. Disraeli also wrote himself appealing for recognition, but neither application was of any avail. After the brief autumn session the Disraelis went to Normandy, making Caen their headquarters. When Parliament met in February, Mrs. Disraeli was at Bradenham, and her husband wrote to her every day, recounting all that was going on.

From 1842 Disraeli was the recognised leader of the Tory party. In the autumn of 1842 they went to Paris, did some sight-seeing and met all the most distinguished people, French and English, in the capital from Louis-Philippe downwards. The next year in the recess Disraeli had a great reception at what his wife called “a grand literary meeting” at the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, with Charles Dickens in the chair. She accompanied her husband everywhere; when some one asked Disraeli if he were going somewhere alone, that is, without the other Ministers, he replied, “No, Mary Anne is going. I cannot leave her quite in the lurch.” She was always a great admirer of her husband’s speeches and actions. In 1844 Disraeli himself presided at a similar meeting, and when an acquaintance in helping her on with her cloak one evening afterwards remarked on Disraeli’s wonderful reception at Manchester, she began straightway to tell Disraeli’s triumphs as if she were a girl of eighteen. On the visit to the Duke of Buckingham at Stowe in 1845, when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were the honoured guests, Mrs. Disraeli’s greatest delight in the whole affair was that “Her Majesty had pointed Dizzy out, saying, ‘_There’s Mr. Disraeli._’” It was the first time Her Majesty had met Disraeli privately. Both he and his wife were much delighted with the attention they received during the visit.

The autumn holiday of 1845 was spent at Cassel in French Flanders, where they lived a simple rural life, getting up at 5.30 a.m. and going to bed at 9 p.m. Walking was their only exercise and chief amusement. Mrs. Disraeli reckoned that in two months she had walked 300 miles. It was in this year that _Sybil_ was published. Disraeli dedicated the novel to his wife in the following terms:

“I would inscribe this book to one whose noble spirit and gentle nature ever prompt her to sympathise with the suffering; to one whose sweet voice has often encouraged, and whose taste and judgment have ever guided, its pages; the most severe of critics, but--a perfect wife!”

Disraeli liked to consult his wife on points that arose in his work either political or literary, and would send up little notes to her asking her to come to the study and discuss them. He would also draw her into any conversation being carried on when she was present, and expected others to defer to her as he did.

Among her friends was Lady de Rothschild, wife of Sir Anthony de Rothschild, and her letters to Lady de Rothschild, some of which are here printed, well illustrate Mrs. Disraeli’s warmth of heart in relation to her friends and her admiration of and devotion to her husband. It is usual to say that Mrs. Disraeli took no interest in politics. Undoubtedly politics in the abstract bored her, but in the political questions in which her husband was personally concerned she evinced the strongest interest, and, as her letters prove, could comment on them with much shrewdness.

_Mrs. Disraeli to Lady de Rothschild_

“GROSVENOR GATE,
_5th July_ [1845].

“One line, my dear Lady de Rothschild, to congratulate you and
to express my happiness at the glorious result of Thursday’s
debate.[38] I am always wishing that you were here that we
might talk it all over. Have I not for some time past assured
you of all this?

“Yesterday we dined with the family circle[39] in Piccadilly.
Such a happy party. I hear you have been to a gay Ball and
that you are quite well. But your leave of absence must soon
now be over, I hope. I have all sorts of things to tell you
and only you. Parliament will be up the end of this month. The
Thames does not appear to have injured Dizzy or any of the
Members--they look remarkably well.[40]

“You will see much about Lady B. Lytton. Sir Edward told D. he
had just missed a bad house. The abuse of him, we are told, is
dreadful.

“Yesterday we went to Holland House--some new rooms and
furnished beautifully. Numbers of people, but poor Lady
Holland appeared very unwell. I cannot think how she can bear
so much company.”

“GROSVENOR GATE,
_15th January 1847_.

“On our return to Town last week our first visit was to you,
and we were sadly disappointed to find you were not expected
for some time. I hope it is pleasure that detains you, and that
you are quite recovered from your late severe attack.

“Sir Anthony[41] took us all by surprise; no one ever expected
to have seen his name in the _Gazette_. We drank your healths
with the most affectionate pleasure, wishing every happiness to
thee and thine, My Lady dear.

“We remained four months at Bradenham enjoying the most perfect
seclusion and our usual long walks with four or five beautiful
dogs.

“The first proofs of _Tancred_ are now on the table. How much I
wish you may be here when he is presented to the public, for I
am sure you will sympathise with me on my child’s fate. What an
anxious, happy time for poor me the next six months’ situation,
and politics always for and against.

“Ask the Baroness James de Rothschild[42] to think of me, and
kindly, now and then. Is she not the most perfect of women kind?

“How did the fire happen?[43] Do you not observe all the
country houses are burnt down when the families are from
home? I hope none of the beautiful china, etc., was there. My
best love to your mother. I know she cares for thy precious
self more than all the houses in the world, and you are
now got quite well, and happy with the best husband in the
world--except one--Dizzy, who is again to dine at New Court[44]
with his best friend--to-morrow at Lord Stanhope’s--the
Protectionists ‘feed well,’ said Mr. Horace Twiss at Mr.
Quintin Dick’s. Another dinner on Thursday--last.

“It is not thought there will be a war, notwithstanding all the
articles in the _Times_ of yesterday and to-day.

“Lord Lincoln in his speech at Manchester declaring for the
endowment of the Roman Catholics in Ireland, both his friends
and foes say, will lose him his seat at the Election.

“It is thought Lord Dudley Stuart will stand for Westminster.”

“_23rd March 1847._

“I cannot express to you my disappointment at not finding you
at Baron Lionel’s[45] on Sunday, having fully understood that
you were arrived, or I should not have left home that day. They
assure me that you will be here soon--but when? Do tell me that
you are better--quite well. Your kind letter would have made me
more happy had you given a better account of yourself. With so
much kindness of feeling and being so much appreciated you must
be suffering to remain so many months in retirement.

“I hope you will feel all the affection for our new child that
I have for you. _Tancred_ appears to be a greater favourite
than _Coningsby_. Is not this a great triumph? The orthodox
world have as yet made no hostile sign, but the journals have
declared it brilliant. What will the _Times_ say? I have
suffered much anxiety.”

Until the purchase of Hughenden Manor, which was concluded about this time with Mrs. Disraeli’s money, Bradenham, the house of Disraeli’s father, had been practically their country home. Mrs. Disraeli loved Hughenden; she laid out the grounds herself, and was never tired of making improvements. She made a good many alterations in the interior of the house, and the pretty woodland walks and the terraced gardens are wholly due to her. In 1862 she had twenty navvies working for her, making the terraces.

She made an admirable hostess, even if a somewhat despotic one, and her country-house parties were always greatly enjoyed. She took care that the dinner should be gay, even if she sent everybody to bed at 10.30 p.m. Her kind heart and genial manners made her guests blind to her oddities both of dress and talk.

In 1852 Disraeli became Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Derby. Mrs. Disraeli often drove her husband down to the House, but she would never go in and listen to the debates because she had made a vow that she would not do so until Disraeli was Prime Minister, a circumstance that did not happen until 1868.

She never went to bed until Disraeli returned from the House of Commons, and kept her own house fully lighted up--it was often 3 a.m. before he got home--so that it might present a welcoming appearance, and always took care that a hot supper was ready for him. He realised so well the feeling that prompted her action that after an important division in the House of Commons[46] he refused an invitation to supper at the Carlton in order to carry the good news to his wife without delay. As she put it, “Dizzy came home to me!”

Mrs. Disraeli’s consideration for her husband amounted to heroism. On one occasion, driving down to the House with him when he was going to make an important speech, on closing the door of the brougham when he got out, her hand was crushed in it. She made no sign, suppressing her suffering until Disraeli had disappeared within the doorway, when she called to the footman to release her. She knew how the knowledge that she had been hurt would have distracted his mind from his speech. On another occasion, on her way to Hatfield for a visit, Mrs. Disraeli had a fall and cut her face severely. Her husband was to arrive later, so when she reached the house Mrs. Disraeli told her hostess what had happened, saying, “My husband is preparing a great speech; if he finds out I have had an accident he will be quite upset. I want you to take me straight to my room and say I have a headache. He has lost his eyeglass, and if you put me a long way from him at dinner he will never see what a condition I am in.” This was done, and Disraeli did not find out the state of the case until the day after the next day. But when he did he was so distressed that he asked permission for them to go home at once.

On the other hand, many stories are told of his devotion to her. When he received his D.C.L. at Oxford there was a great ovation. As he returned to his seat, he put up his eyeglass and sought his wife. He dropped it as soon as he saw her, and kissed his hand to her. He always wrote her a set of verses on the anniversary of their wedding day.

Her favourite topic of conversation was her husband, and she would descant on his merits and virtues in and out of season. She considered him handsome, and one evening when in the company of some ladies who began to talk about certain men who had fine figures, Mrs. Disraeli said in a tone of pity for those who could not possibly know what a fine figure of a man really meant, “Oh! you should see my Dizzy in his bath!” On another occasion after a dinner-party, one of the guests present took her to her carriage and said, “Mr. Disraeli spoke most eloquently in the House to-night; how well he is looking.” Mrs. Disraeli, hugely delighted, replied, “Ah! you think he looks well--you think him handsome, yet people call him ugly; but he is not, _he is handsome_; they should see him asleep.”

In 1866 Mrs. Disraeli fell very ill, and her husband was much disturbed about her health. These later years have an element of pathos in them, for she was really suffering from an incurable cancer. She never told her husband, although of course he knew, and he did not let her guess that he knew, and took care throughout to conceal from her his great distress at her condition. In November 1867 she was dangerously ill, and in consequence the Opposition refrained from attacking the Government, and on the 19th Gladstone referred to her illness in the House of Commons. Mrs. Disraeli had a strong personal regard for Gladstone; she could understand his great gifts and qualities.

Mrs. Disraeli was created a peeress in her own right on 30th November 1868. Queen Victoria wished to confer some mark of favour on Disraeli, and offered him a peerage, but he declined because he felt that he ought to remain in the House of Commons. The Queen, knowing his devotion to his wife, suggested that a peerage should be conferred on her instead, a mark of appreciation that delighted Disraeli. Notwithstanding her illness, and at times the suffering was very great, Mrs. Disraeli went on with her usual life. She entertained a small party at Hughenden at the end of November 1872. The guests were Sir William Harcourt, Lord and Lady John Manners, and Lord Ronald Gower. Although she was sadly altered, indeed death was written in her face, and Disraeli was terribly depressed about her, she was gorgeously dressed, and on the Sunday afternoon accompanied the party on a walk, in her pony carriage, talking brightly about her pets--horses and peacocks. The next morning she came down after eleven o’clock, wonderfully brisk and lively after a bad night, and had her breakfast brought to the library where the others were sitting.[47] On 19th December she died at Hughenden, where she was buried.

Disraeli’s grief was profound. He declared there never was a better wife. “She believed in me when men despised me. She relieved my wants when I was poor and persecuted by the world.” In his reply to Gladstone’s note of sympathy, he said, “Marriage is the greatest earthly happiness when founded on complete sympathy; that hallowed lot was mine for a moiety of existence.”[48] He used to say how in thirty-three years of married life she had never given him a dull moment. To Gathorne Hardy he wrote: “To lose such a friend is to lose half one’s existence.”[49] The marriage had been the making of Disraeli, and he fully recognised the fact. Replying in 1867 to the toast of his wife’s health, he had said:

“I do owe to that lady all, I think, that I have ever accomplished, because she has supported me by her counsel, and consoled me by the sweetness of her mind and disposition.”

Another time he said of her:

“There was no care which she could not mitigate, and no difficulty which she could not face. She was the most cheerful and the most courageous woman I ever knew.”

She brought Disraeli unclouded domestic happiness. She loved him and believed in him. Her oddities were more superficial than people thought, for although she was so voluble and so indiscreet a talker, and absolutely in her husband’s confidence, she never betrayed it. She was no social leader as Lady Palmerston was; what influence she had was passive rather than active, yet without her single-minded devotion, it is doubtful if Disraeli would have had so great a career. To paraphrase his own words in _Coningsby_ on marriage, he found in her one who gave him perfect and profound sympathy, could share his joys and often his sorrows, aid him in his projects, respond to his fancies, counsel him in his cares and support him in dangers, and “make life charming by her charms, interesting by her intelligence, and sweet by the vigilant variety of her tenderness.”

Mrs. Dawson, wife of the Right Hon. George Dawson and sister of Sir Robert Peel, was one of Mrs. Disraeli’s greatest friends. George Dawson wrote the following lines to accompany a reproduction of Mrs. Disraeli’s portrait by A. E. Chalon, published in Heath’s _Book of Beauty_ (1841). They probably reflect what those who knew Mrs. Disraeli best felt with regard to her:

“The choice unfetter’d fondly turns to thee:
Still to thee turns, all-confident to find
The features but the index of the mind,
Glowing with truth, sincerity, and ease,
Stamp’d with the surest attributes to please.
Intelligent and gay, the joyous smile
Speaking a bosom free from art or guile,
Pure as the consciousness of well-spent life,
Perfect as friend, as daughter, sister, wife.”

VI

MRS. GLADSTONE

“Fate grants not passionless repose
To her who weds a glorious name.”

I

Catherine, elder daughter and third child of Sir Stephen Glynne, eighth Baronet, by his wife, Mary Neville, daughter of the second Lord Braybrooke, was born at Hawarden Castle, Flintshire, on 6th January 1812. Lady Glynne was a granddaughter of George Grenville--Sir Richard Grenville of the _Revenge_ was a member of this family--the Minister whose Government was responsible for the “Stamp Act” (1763), which led to the loss of the American Colonies, and niece of Lord Grenville, Prime Minister in 1806-7, and head of the Cabinet of “All the talents,” which abolished the Slave Trade. His only sister became the wife of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, and the mother of William Pitt, the Younger. Thus Catherine Glynne was related by birth with four famous Prime Ministers of England, and was destined to become the wife of a fifth.

The families of both parents were of great antiquity, and directly descended from Crusaders; the names of Sir Stephen and Lady Glynne are on the Plantagenet Roll. Ancestors had been settled at Glynllifon, Carnarvonshire, in very ancient times. The founder of the Hawarden branch of the family, Sir John Glyn (1603-66), won distinction as a lawyer both under Cromwell--he was Lord Chief Justice from 1655 to 1659--and Charles II. Notwithstanding his support of the Parliamentary party, he seems to have been a Monarchist at heart and to have urged Cromwell to take the title of King; and we know that he served quite happily as King’s Serjeant under Charles II., even acting for the Crown in the prosecution of Sir Henry Vane for high treason in 1662. It was through him that Hawarden came into the Glynne family, for he purchased it at a nominal sum when it was sequestered in the Civil Wars. The castle itself was nearly in ruins and was never rebuilt. In 1752 Sir John Glynne, Mrs. Gladstone’s great-grandfather, acquired through marriage the adjoining property of Broad Lane, and the house belonging to it, with much rebuilding and various additions, became the Hawarden Castle with which the name of Gladstone is always associated. The ruins of the old original castle still exist and form a picturesque object in the grounds.

Sir Stephen Glynne died in 1815, and the care of the four children, two boys and two girls, all under six years old, devolved on the mother. She returned to her father, and she and the children lived with him in Berkeley Square, at Audley End, and at Billingbere. It was only after his death that she resided at Hawarden, where she was assisted in the duties connected with the estate by her brother, the Rev. the Hon. George Neville, to whom her husband, shortly before his death, had presented the living of Hawarden.

A journal is still in existence in which Lady Glynne made notes about her children during the years 1815-20. She describes Catherine as beautiful, high-spirited, and strong-willed.

Catherine Glynne was not highly educated in the sense in which that phrase is now understood. As a girl, she lived more out of doors than indoors, became a good horsewoman and proficient in all the athletic exercises, archery among them, then permitted to girls. She was not a great reader then nor later, but contact with the life of the village, the witnessing and even assisting in the schemes of improvement of her mother and uncle in regard to the cottagers and the education of their children, added to intercourse with people of intelligence in her own rank of life, taught her valuable lessons. Her training helped to lay the foundation of the excellent philanthropic work she accomplished on her own account after her marriage, and to develop the qualities which made her so admirable a companion for a great statesman. She could scarcely be called intellectual, but she possessed a natural intuition that never failed her, an equally natural shrewdness, and a keen sense of humour. Another quality that stood her in good stead was a capacity for making friends. One winter was spent at Hastings, and next door were staying Prince George of Cambridge and his cousin Prince George of Hanover. The young people speedily made acquaintance, and to the end of her life Mrs. Gladstone had no warmer friend and admirer than the Duke of Cambridge.

In 1829, when her daughters were about fifteen or sixteen, Lady Glynne took them to Paris for educational purposes, and, among other advantages, they enjoyed pianoforte lessons from Liszt. The sisters were girls of singular beauty, and attracted much admiration. Lord Douglas was so impressed that he induced his mother, the Duchess of Hamilton, to call on Lady Glynne, and persuade her to let the girls go to two or three balls at the Tuileries, the British Embassy, and the Duchess of Hamilton’s. Lady Glynne yielded, and the girls had a very enjoyable time.

Their brother Stephen, the head of the family, sat in the House of Commons as Liberal Member for Flint Burghs, and afterwards for Flintshire, from 1832 to 1847; his interests and tastes, however, lay rather in archæology than in politics. He was a man of great refinement and remarkable modesty, but he lacked the business capacity, as will be seen later, needed for managing landed estates. Among his friends at Oxford was W. E. Gladstone. The Glynnes, after the girls grew up, often went abroad, and once when Catherine was with her brother in Florence, they passed a gentleman who raised his hat. She asked Stephen who the handsome young man was. “Don’t you know him?” he replied. “That is young Gladstone, the Member for Newark, and the man who everybody says will one day be Prime Minister of England.” Catherine was first introduced to Gladstone at the house of Mr. Milnes Gaskell in London, and then they used to meet at Lady Theresa Lister’s musical parties and elsewhere. The two sisters were known as “the twin flowers of North Wales,” were greatly admired in London society, and received numerous proposals of marriage. They were, however, bound up in each other, and were determined that one could not be engaged or married without the other. Gladstone admired Catherine in silence, scarcely dreaming that he dared aspire to her hand. In 1835 he was invited by Glynne to pay a visit to Hawarden. But still he did not venture to speak. In the winter of 1838-39 he was suffering from overwork, and was ordered abroad. He had been a junior Lord of the Treasury, and also Under-Secretary for War under Sir Robert Peel, and had published his book on Church and State, and so was not without claims to distinction. In Rome in December he met Stephen Glynne and his sisters, and there found courage to propose to Catherine one moonlight night in the Coliseum. He had repeated to her Byron’s lines from “Manfred” beginning:

“I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering,--upon such a night
I stood within the Coliseum’s wall--”

Notwithstanding his eloquent appeal Miss Glynne refused him, and it was not until the following June at Lady Shelley’s garden party that she accepted him. About the same time her sister Mary became engaged to the fourth Lord Lyttelton.

When the two bridegrooms arrived at Hawarden for the wedding, they walked down the village street, “Gladstone, tall and upright in figure, pale and strong in face, with dark flashing eyes like an eagle’s; Lord Lyttelton, something of a rough and awkward youth of twenty-one, with rugged features, massive head, and intellectual brow; some one said, gazing at Gladstone, ‘Isn’t it easy to see which is the lord?’”

The double wedding took place on 25th July 1839, at Hawarden Parish Church, and was made the occasion for much festivity and rejoicing on the part of the family and their friends, and of the humble inhabitants of the district. Sir Francis Doyle was Gladstone’s best man, and he wrote a poem for the occasion entitled “To Two Sister Brides,” of which the following stanzas refer to Catherine:

“High hopes are thine, oh! eldest flower;
Great duties to be greatly done;
To soothe, in many a toil-worn hour,
The noble heart which thou hast won.

Covet not then the rest of those
Who sleep through life unknown to fame;
Fate grants not passionless repose
To her who weds a glorious name.

He presses on through calm and storm
Unshaken, let what will betide;
Thou hast an office to perform,
To be his answering spirit bride.

The path appointed for his feet
Through desert wilds and rocks may go,
Where the eye looks in vain to greet
The gales that from the waters blow.

Be thou a balmy breeze to him,
A fountain singing at his side;
A star, whose light is never dim,
A pillar, through the waste to guide.”

Immediately after the ceremony Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone drove to Norton Priory, Cheshire, the seat of Sir Richard Brooke, whose daughter, Lady Brabazon, was the bride’s best friend, where the honeymoon was spent.

Neither sister had been specially accustomed to the society of highly intellectual or bookish men, and during the engagement neither Gladstone nor Lord Lyttelton, as ardent lovers, had felt the necessity of resorting to the classics when in the company of their fiancées. The young brides, when comparing notes after the honeymoon, confided to one another their dismay that at odd spare moments both husbands produced pocket editions of Horace or Sophocles (or some other classical poet), and filled the minutes by reading in them.