Gladstone: A Biography

by Roy Jenkins

  South Lancashire had been divided, and Gladstone had become candidate for the new South-west division, which excluded the Manchester area and, with Warrington (now in Cheshire but historically Lancashire) and Preston added, was not very different from that part of the recent Merseyside Metropolitan County which was north of the estuary. H. R. Grenfell, a brother-in-law of the Earl of Sefton, who was a Liverpool grandee almost on the Derby scale, had been adopted as his running mate. Grenfell himself was a man of substance, later to be Governor of the Bank of England, and was thought greatly to strengthen their joint appeal to the Whig elements in the constituency. Gladstone was even led by the choice of Grenfell to write (on 1 August) of ‘brilliant prospects’ in the constituency.

  What in fact occurred was a brilliant campaign followed by a dismal result, as, except in Midlothian, was frequently Gladstone’s experience. Morley wrote that ‘the breadth, the elevation, the freshness, the power, the measure, the high self-command of these [1868 Lancashire] speeches was never surpassed by any of his performances’.8 Morley supported the claim by reference to Gladstone’s speech at Leigh on 20 October, in which he delivered even-handed blows against both ‘constructive’ radicalism and constitutional conservatism. On the first point ‘he assailed the system of making things pleasant all round, stimulating local cupidity to feed upon the public purse, and scattering grants at the solicitation of individuals and classes’. On the second he responded to the accusation that his Irish proposals would destroy the constitution by mockingly recalling that he had already known it wholly ruined and destroyed seven times, starting in 1828 with the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts and ending (for the moment) with the Russell government’s attempt at suffrage reform. Understandably in the circumstances, he omitted to mention that he had himself been violently opposed to the first three of the seven measures.

  The result was declared on 24 November, and put Gladstone in third place (with only two elected), about 300 behind both R. A. Cross (later Disraeli’s Home Secretary) who headed the poll and Cross’s Conservative colleague. It was not much consolation that Gladstone was 500 votes ahead of Grenfell. It was an extraordinary result. Other party leaders have occasionally lost their own constituencies, Balfour in Manchester in 1906, Asquith in Fife in 1918, MacDonald at Seaham in 1935, but in all these cases it has been when their party was caught in a severe ebb-tide or when the circumstances were otherwise exceptional. But Gladstone in 1868 swept the country. The Liberal expectations, which had been modest in the summer and early autumn, were far exceeded. The conventional figure for the Liberal majority was 112, although there was still room for ambiguity at the edges. Even more striking was the Liberal plurality in votes: 1,355,000 to 883,500. And deeply paradoxical was the fact that the best Conservative performance in the three countries was in Ireland. In Scotland they polled only 16 per cent.

  In the midst of this Conservative massacre there were one or two notable Liberal defeats. John Stuart Mill was beaten in Westminster by the stationer–statesman W. H. Smith. But this was small beer compared with the defeat in Lancashire of the Prime Minister-elect of the new (quasi-) democracy. Palmerston’s 1864 warning that Gladstone might win Lancashire but lose England was shown to be singularly wide of the mark. What Gladstone did was to win England (and Scotland and Wales and even Ireland) for his party but to lose Lancashire for himself.

  This perverse result created remarkably little reaction among the public, and no dismay comparable with that which followed his Oxford defeat in Gladstone himself. The public were used to politicians shuffling constituencies about as quickly as a Mississippi steamboat gambler did a pack of cards and Gladstone had the cushion that, a week before the Lancashire result and almost inadvertently, he had been comfortably but not gloriously elected for Greenwich. It was not glorious because he was 300 votes behind a local alderman, but it was comfortable because he was nearly 2000 ahead of the challenging Tories.

  It was ironical, and perhaps a little chastening, that the greatest platform campaigner of his age should, on the threshold of his first and most powerfully reforming ministry, have been rejected in the constituency in which he had orated mightily and elected in one which he had not visited. South-west Lancashire was not easy territory in which to conduct a campaign centred on Irish religion. There was a substantial ‘orange’ element among those on the electoral register, while the balancing ‘greens’ were mostly excluded from it. But nor did Greenwich, for different reasons, prove to be easy when the next election came, and the Merseyside setback undoubtedly took a little of the gilt off Gladstone’s gingerbread. He had also, as a further mildly exacerbating factor, been defeated for the chancellorship of Edinburgh University three days before.

  His diary entry for the day of the Lancashire defeat read:

  Went in at 10.30 to vote – with Robn. [his brother] and Mr Heywood [his running mate in 1865, and his host for much of this 1868 campaign]. Till midday the case looked well. Then we fell back regularly. . . . Employed myself on Homer at all intervals. Returned to [Heywood’s house] with Robn. Finished [Fanny Burney’s] Evelina.9

  The next day he went off on two short Cheshire country-house visits before returning to Hawarden on Saturday, 28 November. The newly created Lord Halifax (formerly Charles Wood) came for that night at his own request, as an unofficial envoy from Windsor. He was an odd choice for such a role, as he was not particularly close to Gladstone, and, although he had been in Palmerston’s Cabinet, he was originally unwilling to join Gladstone’s, although he came in as Lord Privy Seal in 1870. However, the intelligence which he brought, some of it welcome, some of it less so, was of more than sufficient interest to make up for any inappropriateness as a go-between. He said that Disraeli proposed to resign immediately and not wait to meet Parliament. This was then an unusual course, which made the outgoing Prime Minister wish secrecy maintained until the following Tuesday. Halifax added that the Queen objected to Clarendon as Foreign Secretary and also to one or two possible lords-in-waiting (including one of Gladstone’s Cheshire hosts) who had been in the previous Liberal government.

  Gladstone was not concerned about the lords-in-waiting, but the Clarendon objection was both surprising and serious. It might have been supposed that the urbane old Whig, who had known the Queen throughout her reign and been in Cabinets since Melbourne’s day, would have been very acceptable. However, he was also a mocking old Whig and had taken to referring to the Queen as ‘the Missus’, a nickname which, when it got back to her, was not popular. (As he also habitually referred to Gladstone as ‘Merrypebble’ it might have been thought that the honours were even.) Gladstone was however committed to Clarendon, not emotionally (he would have preferred Granville) but because he had given him an undertaking six months earlier. Perhaps because of this detachment and thanks also to the good offices of General Grey, the Queen’s private secretary, he managed to handle tactfully this first disagreement, and got her to see that Clarendon could be avoided only at the worse price of letting it be known that he was a victim of royal disfavour.

  Grey, who was to be the next significant arrival on the Hawarden stage, carried some embarrassing luggage for his dealings with Disraeli and Gladstone alike. When he had waited upon the former nine months earlier to tell him that he was to be Prime Minister it was thirty-four years since he had beaten him in the High Wycombe election of 1835 (having done so twice before in the two elections of 1832). When he came to Gladstone on the same mission it was thirty-three years since his wife (then Caroline Farquhar) had reacted so dismissively to Gladstone’s presumption as a suitor and his unfortunate manner of carrying a bag across the park at Polesden Lacey. Grey, younger son of the Earl Grey of the first Reform Bill, was, however, a skilled and sensible courtier who surmounted with aplomb these hillocks of difficulty. He telegraphed to Gladstone on Tuesday, 1 December, saying that he had a letter from the Queen and asking where he should personally deliver it. He expected Gladstone to come to London, but Gladstone, entering into the spir
it of secrecy, said it would attract less attention if Grey came to Hawarden. It also gave Gladstone an extra day of recoil before action.

  Grey accordingly took the 9.45 morning train from Windsor (Slough?) ‘direct to Chester’. It took until 4.15 to get there, thereby illustrating the pre-1890s joke that GWR stood for ‘Great Way Round’. The arrival both of his telegram and of himself led to dramatic legends. Evelyn Ashley, the then thirty-two-year-old younger son of Lord Shaftesbury, formerly private secretary to Palmerston and later his biographer, was staying at Hawarden and was watching Gladstone tree-felling in the park when the telegram was brought out. According to an account which Ashley published in a magazine article thirty years later, Gladstone opened the little buff envelope himself, read the telegram, handed it to Ashley (no excessive secrecy there), saying only ‘Very significant’ and continued to attack the tree. After a few more blows he rested on his axe and said, ‘My mission is to pacify Ireland.’ Then he continued his onslaught until the tree was down, after which he went into the house and sent Grey a reply ensuring that the mountain came to Mahomet.10

  The account of Grey’s arrival was provided by the General himself. To his surprise he was met at Chester station by Mrs Gladstone, who insisted that he stayed the night at Hawarden, whereas he had intended to return by the 2.15 a.m. Irish Mail train. At the castle he was ‘taken at once by Mrs Gladstone into an almost dark room – the only light being the fire, and the two candles by which Mr Gladstone was working’. He further commented that he ‘was received with the most open, frank and cordial manner by Mr G’.11 He made just as good an impression on Gladstone. ‘He [Grey] was very kind and true,’ the new Prime Minister wrote.12 In this mood of mutual respect they travelled together from Chester to Slough on the following day. During the journey they established a modus vivendi on Irish Church matters. The Queen would not like disestablishment, but Grey accepted that Gladstone was committed. The Prime Minister would however endeavour to massage her susceptibilities. On the specific issue the limited accord held well.

  When the train was specially stopped at Slough (Grey had telegraphed to the station master) Gladstone walked to Eton, saw his son Harry (where was Herbert?) and then continued across the river and up to the Castle, thereby missing a crowd which had assembled to greet him at Windsor station. By then the Queen had returned from her afternoon drive, and he had a full audience of discussion and not merely a formal session of appointment. Indeed he had to ask her whether he ought not to kiss hands: ‘she said yes & it was done’.13 She was mainly concerned with matters of personnel (what she called Lord Clarendon’s ‘indelicacy’ – although this matter was well on the way to resolution – the importance, if Lord Hartington became Viceroy of Ireland, of the Duchess of Manchester, whom he subsequently married, but not until 1892, ‘not do[ing] the honours’), and the Irish Church came up only when ‘the time for the train was fast approaching’. Altogether it was a signal-box-dominated approach to the premiership.

  All went well for the moment. He found the Queen ‘kind, cheerful, even playful’.14 By 6.00 he was formally Prime Minister. By 7.00 he was at Carlton House Terrace and engaged on Cabinet-making. He was a month short of fifty-nine years of age, a member of Parliament of thirty-six years’ standing (with a short break) who had been a Cabinet minister (mostly as Chancellor of the Exchequer) for twelve years. Rivalled in previous ministerial service by the heterogeneous mixture of Palmerston, Russell (on his return to Downing Street), Lloyd George (because of the length of his Treasury tenure), Churchill and Callaghan (because of the width of his departmental spread), he was on balance ahead of them all, the most ministerially experienced man ever to become Prime Minister. But there was nothing réchauffé about him. In the context of 1868 he was a new man, full of elemental and even dangerous force. He had four premierships of varying success ahead of him. He also had behind him nearly six decades of unusual interest and achievement.

  Robert Rhodes James has written a persuasive thesis that Churchill would have been little more than a footnote to history had he died on the threshold of his premiership, when he was sixty-four. This would certainly have been so of Salisbury had he gone in 1886 at the age of fifty-six, or of Macmillan had he done so in 1956 when he was sixty-two. But such obscurity would emphatically not have been the fate of Gladstone had he died instead of becoming Prime Minister in 1868. He would still have been a major nineteenth-century figure. The country would, however, have been deprived of its most quintessential Prime Minister. He was this because he was the one who most dominated the busy junction where executive power, parliamentary command and democratic validity jostle together. His executive power, which he exercised with gusto, was modified by respect for and conflict with the whims of the Sovereign. His parliamentary command was accompanied by endemic revolts against his driving force. His democratic validity also had elements of paradox in that it was based on his ability to rivet great audiences who were held by his flashing eyes while hardly understanding the convolutions of his interminable sentences. No one else however has so mingled the three sources of constitutional power. Lloyd George rivalled his spell-binding oratory, but lacked his personal parliamentary authority. Churchill could not match the spontaneous popular oratory as opposed to the parliamentary setpieces.

  In 1868 Gladstone could be held to epitomize the words of Browning’s Rabbi Ben Ezra:

  Grow old along with me!

  The best is yet to be.

  But he also had more pre–Prime Ministerial achievement and interest behind him than any except one of his fellow Prime Ministers, and that one, Wellington, did not achieve much in 10, Downing Street.

  A COMMANDING PRIME MINISTER

  THE EARLY PART OF Gladstone’s first government was as enjoyable for its participants as office can ever be expected to be. The Prime Minister afterwards spoke of that administration as ‘one of the best instruments for government that ever was constructed’, and did so in a way which made the statement a nostalgic lament rather than a boast of his own skill at Cabinet-making. Of the fourteen gentlemen whom he so assembled, six were peers (then a low proportion), only one a duke (although another was a duke’s heir), and of the twelve who survived until 1886 no more than four supported Gladstone in the great Home Rule split of that year. But for the moment there was harmony. Gladstone’s diaries for the last weeks of 1868 and the session of 1869 give an impression of contentment, confidence and tolerance, with bursts of almost boyish good humour.

  At the two turn-of-the-year milestones, his birthday and New Year’s Eve, he wrote with an enthusiasm which nearly suppressed his usual breast-beating. On 29 December: ‘This birthday opens my 60th year. I descend the hill of life. It would be a truer figure to say I ascend a steepening path with a burden ever gathering weight. The Almighty seems to sustain and spare me for some purpose of His own deeply unworthy as I know myself to be. Glory be to his name.’1

  On 31 December his satisfaction was still more evident:

  This month of December has been notable in my life, as follows.

  Dec 1809. Born

  1827. Left Eton

  1831. [First] Classes at Oxford

  1832. Elected to Parliament

  1838. Work on Ch. & State Published

  1844. Took office: Lord of the Treasury

  1846. Sec. of State.

  1853. Chancr. of Exr.

  1868. First Lord.

  He then added a perceptive comment on the restricted and often too reactive life of a minister: ‘Swimming for his life, a man does not see much of the country through which the river winds, and I probably know little of these years through which I busily work and live, beyond this, how sin and frailty deface them, and how mercy crowns them.’ He ended almost on an exultant note: ‘Farewell great year of opening, not of alarming, change: and welcome new year laden with promise and with care.’2

  Apart from a bizarre expedition to Hatfield in the second week of December, he had exceptionally remained in London over Christmas and
until he went to Hagley on 29 December and then to Hawarden. The Hatfield stay, which no doubt fulfilled a prior commitment to the thirty-eight-year-old and recently succeeded Salisbury extended across four days, interrupted by an excursion to Windsor. It was bizarre because it was an uncompromising Tory house from which to complete the making of a Liberal government. It also foreshadowed almost exactly similar behaviour by Asquith thirty-seven years later during the making of the next major reforming government.70

  Gladstone spent the first three weeks of 1869 at Hawarden. It was inevitably a working holiday with his attention mainly on preparation for the Irish Church Bill. He had visits from three of his colleagues: Granville (but more as leader of the House of Lords and an easy companion than as Colonial Secretary), Spencer as Irish Viceroy, and Sullivan as Irish Attorney-General. He also entertained an Irish ecclesiastical go-between, Archdeacon Stafford of Meath, and Sir John Acton, on the threshold of ennoblement but sufficiently unworried by his famous aphorism about the corruption of power to be eager to attend upon the new Prime Minister. (Gladstone never gave fashionable general house parties of the sort in which he frequently participated at ducal and other great houses, but he liked visitors, was always willing to have people from Cobden to Parnell for a specific purpose, and often mingled them with young family friends.)