Gladstone: A Biography (121 page)
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Authors: Roy Jenkins
Tags: #History, #Politics, #Non-Fiction, #Biography
125.
He was also elected on the same day and equally unopposed for the separate constituency of Leith. This was a surprising but not
inadvertent development. It was done with Gladstone’s full if sudden concurrence. Suspicion developed that the intended Liberal candidate (Jacks) was lurching towards Unionism. Gladstone
colluded with a few prominent local Liberals to elbow Jacks out of the way by allowing his own name to be put forward. After the election he opted for his normal seat of Midlothian, which led to an
August bye-election in Leith. By that time, however, a satisfactory Home Rule candidate in the shape of Ronald Munro-Ferguson (later Lord Novar) had been procured, so that the manoeuvre served its
purpose.
126.
Lord Randolph Churchill, a master of anti-Gladstone jibes, had in his June 1886 election address bestowed upon him the
unforgettable epithet of ‘an old man in a hurry’.
127.
The starkly memorable phrase is Sir Robin Day’s.
128.
He saw her three times in 1882, and in the subsequent six years wrote her twenty-five letters.
129.
Francis Birrell was the son of Augustine Birrell, the famous wit who was Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1908 to 1916, but whose
bons mots
were inadequate to stop the birth of ‘a terrible beauty’ in the Easter Rebellion.
130.
These defeats (the victors were the candidates put up by Healy and McCarthy as the acting leaders of the majority of the Irish
parliamentary party) accurately presaged the result in Ireland of the 1892 general election, when the anti-Parnellites won seventy-one seats and the supporters of the dead leader only nine.
131.
He had gone there direct from Worksop, accomplishing the whole swing from London via Retford in seven hours, a tribute to the railway
system of 1890 and, for once, his restraint in the length of his speeches.
132.
There was an irony about Clark’s view that Gladstone could not in any event live long which was reminiscent of the macabre joke
about that egregious doctor, Lord Moran, at the time of Churchill’s long-drawn-out death in 1965. Moran was in the habit of appearing outside the house in Hyde Park Gate each morning and
giving lugubrious bulletins on the patient to the waiting press. Simple pleasure was given by the invention that one morning Churchill himself appeared in apparently restored vigour and said:
‘Gentlemen, I have very sad news for you. Lord Moran died during the night.’ Clark died, aged sixty-seven, in the year after he gave his appraisal to Hamilton, whereas Gladstone,
nineteen years his senior, survived for another six.
133.
It was almost as though he had to touch all his possessions in order to assure himself what a favour he would be conferring on a
Liberal government if he agreed to join it. For the facts (not the judgements, with which he would not agree) see Robert Rhodes James,
Rosebery
, pp. 242–5.
134.
The rhyme with ‘embargo’ stressing the silence of the final t and supplemented in subsequent stanzas with
‘cargo’, ‘argot’ (with its French silent
t
) and ‘far go’, recalls the famous exchange many decades later of Lady Oxford (as Margot Tennant had then
become) with the ‘blonde bombshell’ Jean Harlow, who persistently addressed her as ‘Margotte’, until told: ‘The
t
is silent in my name, Miss Harlow, as I
presume in yours.’
135.
See p. 315.
136.
Wolverton also refused the similarly proffered step to a viscountcy, giving the very respectable reason that it would look too much
of a reward for hospitality given to Gladstone, and would bring discredit to both of them.
137.
He did not, however, anticipate the much later attempt of his fellow Carltonian, George Nathaniel Curzon, to get the night chimes of
Big Ben silenced because of their interference with his sleeping.
138.
Explaining the budget of 1853 (his first). See p. 150, above.
139.
Whether it suited the government Whips, who were operating on a fairly small and unstable majority, may have been another matter.
They managed, however, to get him permanently paired with the even older Charles Villiers (b. 1802), who after several decades of never visiting his Wolverhampton constituency had since 1886, when
following a Radical middle age he became a Liberal Unionist, decided rarely to visit Westminster either. Unlike Gladstone, however, he continued after the 1895 election, and was still an MP when he
died aged ninety-six. He also established a record of drawing a ministerial pension for thirty-two years. Appropriately he had been chairman of the Poor Law Board in the long
Palmerston–Russell government and was making sure that he did not swell the numbers of those for whom he had been responsible.
140.
Windsor Castle, 3rd March 1894
Though the Queen has already accepted Mr Gladstone’s resignation and has taken leave of him, she does not like to leave his letter tendering his resignation unanswered. She therefore
writes these few lines to say that she thinks, after so many years of arduous labour and responsibility, he is right in wishing to be relieved at his age of these arduous duties, and she trusts [he
will] be able to enjoy peace and quiet, with his excellent and devoted wife, in health and happiness, and that his eyesight may improve.
The Queen would gladly have offered a peerage to Mr Gladstone, but she knows that he would not accept it. (
Letters of Queen Victoria
, 3rd series, II, pp. 372–3).
141.
‘There was the fact staring me in the face, I could not get up the smallest shred of feeling for the brute, I could neither
love nor like it.’ (Memorandum written on 20 March 1894 and published in
Diaries
, XIII, p. 403.)
142.
It could be said that by that stage he had no need for such tours, except that the pleasure of movement and sightseeing is not in
general marred by having been there before. Gladstone knew Britain (excluding Ireland) exceptionally well. There was no English county that he had not visited, although his two Cornish visits came
late in life, and were both, the one in 1880 and the other in 1889, in the form of landings from a cruise ship. His ubiquity was almost equally true of the Scottish counties. He may have missed
Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire in the hidden south-west corner, but nowhere else. Nor is it easy to think of an old cathedral which might have eluded him. Ripon is a possible gap, and Llandaff
a probable one, the latter not entirely by accident, for of all the economically important areas of Britain the South Wales coalfield was the only one which he never visited. In 1825 he went into
the eastern edge of Monmouthshire. In 1852 he went to Pembrokeshire by boat from Bristol and then, fringing the valleys, to Brecon and rural mid-Wales. And in 1887 he made a major political visit
to Swansea and delivered ‘whistle-stop’ speeches in Cardiff and Newport on the way back. But he never went to the Rhondda or Merthyr Tydfil or Aberdare. Those close-packed Glamorgan
valleys already contained about half the population of Wales, but it was not untypically North Walian that they were almost the only enclave of Britain to which he never penetrated.
143.
See pp. 610–11, above.
S
ELECT
B
IBLIOGRAPHY
B
OOKS BY
G
LADSTONE
The Gladstone Diaries
, 14 vols, ed. M. R. D. Foot (vols 1 and 2), ed. M. R. D. Foot andH. C. G. Matthew (vols 3 and 4), ed. H. C. G. Matthew (vols 5–14)
The State in its Relations with the Church
, 2 vols (1838)
Church Principles Considered in their Results
(1840)
Translation of Farini’s
Lo Stato Romano
, 4 vols (1852)
On the Place of Homer in Classical Education and in Historical Inquiry
, an Oxford Essay, (1857)
A Chapter of Autobiography
(1868)
Juventus Mundi: The Gods and Men of the Heroic Age of Homer
(1876)
The Church of England and Ritualism
(1875)
Homeric Synchronism: An Enquiry into the Time and Place of Homer
(1869)
Gleanings of Past Years 1844–78
, 8 vols (1879)
Landmarks of Homeric Study
(1890)
The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture
(1890)
The Odes of Horace
(1896)
The Works of Joseph Butler
(ed.) (1896)
Studies Subsidiary to the Works of Bishop Butler
(1896)
Later Gleanings
(1897)
Together with innumerable long magazine articles in,
inter alia
, the
Edinburgh Review
, the
Quarterly Review
, the
Nineteenth
Century
, the
North American Review
, on literary, religious, political and historical subjects, a few of which were published in
Gleanings
.
B
OOKS
D
IRECTLY
A
BOUT
G
LADSTONE
Major works
John Morley:
Life of Gladstone
, 3 vols (1903)
Philip Magnus:
Gladstone
(1954)
Richard Shannon:
Gladstone
I:
1809–1865
(1982)
H. C. G. Matthew:
Gladstone 1809–1874
(1986
H. C. G. Matthew:
Gladstone 1875–1898
(1995)
J. L. Hammond:
Gladstone and the Irish Nation
(1938)
S. G. Checkland:
The Gladstones 1764–1851
(1971) [a history of the family with much about W.E.G.’s father, Sir John Gladstone]
Collections of letters or speeches
Philip Guedalla (ed.):
Gladstone and Palmerston
(1928) [mainly letters]
Philip Guedalla (ed.):
The Queen and Mr Gladstone
, 2 vols (1933) [mainly letters]
A. Tilney Bassett (ed.):
Gladstone’s Speeches
(1916)
A. Tilney Bassett (ed.):
Gladstone to His Wife
(1936) [letters]
Agatha Ramm (ed.):
Political Correspondence of Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville
, 4 vols (1952–62)
D. C. Lathbury:
Letters on Church and Religion of William Ewart Gladstone
, 2 vols (1910)
Biographical essays or studies of Gladstone from particular angles
G. W . E. Russell:
William Ewart Gladstone
The Queen’s Prime Ministers Series (1891)
G. W . E. Russell:
Mr Gladstone’s Religious Development
(1899)
C. R. L. Fletcher:
Mr Gladstone at Oxford, 1890
(1908)
F. W. Hirst:
Gladstone as Financier and Economist
(1931)
Mary Drew (née Gladstone):
Acton, Gladstone and Others
(1924)
Mary Drew:
Diaries and Letters
(1930)
Viscount (Herbert) Gladstone: A
fter Thirty Years
(1928) [his father seen in retrospect]
G. T. Garrett:
The Two Mr Gladstones
(1936)
Francis Birrell:
Gladstone
, Great Lives Series (1933)
E. J. Feuchtwanger:
Gladstone
(1975)
Penelope Gladstone:
The Gladstones: Portrait of a Family 1839–1889
(1989)
Peter J. Jagger:
Gladstone: The Making of a Christian Politician
(1991)
Goldwin Smith:
My Memory of Gladstone
G
ENERAL
Henry Adams: Charles Francis Adams
Evelyn Ashley:
Henry John Temple: Life of Viscount Palmerston
, 2 vols (1879)
H. H. Asquith:
Fifty Years of Parliament
, 2 vols (1925)
Walter Bagehot:
Biographical Studies
W . R. Bahlmann (ed.):
The Diary of Sir Edward Walter Hamilton 1880–1885
, 2 vols (1972)
W . R. Bahlmann (ed.):
The Diary of Sir Edward Walter Hamilton 1885–1906
(1993)
John Bailey (ed.),
The Diary of Lady Frederick Cavendish
, 2 vols (1927)
A. J. Balfour:
Chapters of Autobiography
(1930)
Georgina Battiscombe:
Mrs Gladstone
(1956)
Robert Blake:
Disraeli
(1960)
John Brooke and Mary Sorenson (eds):
The Prime Ministers’ Papers: W. E. Gladstone
, vols I and II (1971 and 1972)
Frank Callanan:
The Parnell Split 1890–91
(1992)
Lady Gwendoline Cecil:
Life of Robert Marquess of Salisbury
, 4 vols (1921–32)
Owen Chadwick:
The Victorian Church
, 2 vols (1966 and 1971)
Owen Chadwick:
Acton and Gladstone
(1976)
Owen Chadwick:
Newman
(1983)
Winston Spencer Churchill:
Lord Randolph Churchill
, 2 vols (1906)
Marquess of Crewe:
Lord Rosebery
, 2 vols (1931)
Randall Davidson:
Life of Archbishop Tait
, 2 vols (1891)
Blanche Dugdale:
Arthur James Balfour
, 2 vols (1936)
Max Egremont:
Balfour
(1980)
Geoffrey Faber:
The Oxford Apostles
(1933)
Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice:
Life of Earl Granville
, 2 vols (1905)
R. F. Foster:
Lord Randolph Churchill: A Political Life
(1981)
R. F. Foster:
Charles Stewart Parnell: The Man and His Family
(1976)
R. F. Foster (ed.):
Modern Ireland 1600–1972
(1988)
R. F. Foster:
Paddy and Mr Punch
(1993)
A. G. Gardiner:
The Life of SirWilliamHarcourt
, 2 vols (1923)
J. L. Garvin and Julian Amery:
Life of Joseph Chamberlain
, 3 vols by Garvin (1932–4), 2 vols by Amery (1969)
Norman Gash:
Sir Robert Peel after 1830
(1972)
Arthur Gordon:
The Earl of Aberdeen
, The Queen’s Prime Ministers Series (1893)
Lord Stanmore (Arthur Gordon):
Sidney Herbert: A Memoir
, 2 vols (1906)
Charles Greville:
Diaries
, 3rd series, 2 vols (1887)
Philip Guedalla:
Palmerston
(1926)
Stephen Gwynn and Gertrude Tuckwell:
Life of Sir Charles Dilke
, 2 vols (1917)
Kenneth Harris:
Attlee
(1982)
Henry Harrison:
Parnell Vindicated: The Lifting of the Veil
(1931)
T. M. Healy:
Letters and Leaders of My Day
, 2 vols (1928)
Wendy Hinde:
George Canning
(1973)
Wendy Hinde:
Richard Cobden
(1987)
Bernard Holland:
Life of the [8th] Duke of Devonshire
, 2 vols (1911)
Patrick Jackson:
The Last of the Whigs: A Political Biography of Lord Hartington
(1994)
Robert Rhodes James:
Rosebery
(1963)
Robert Rhodes James:
Lord Randolph Churchill
(1959)
Roy Jenkins:
Asquith
(1964)
Roy Jenkins:
Sir Charles Dilke: A Victorian Tragedy
(1958)
T. A. Jenkins:
Gladstone,Whiggery and the Liberal Party 1874–86
(1988)
Robert Kee:
The Laurel and the Ivy
(1993)
A. L. Kennedy:
Salisbury
(1953)
Ian Ker:
John Henry Newman
(1988)
Sidney Lee:
King Edward VII: A Biography
, 2 vols (1925 and 1927)
Elizabeth Longford:
Victoria R.I.
(1964)
Elizabeth Longford:
Wellington: Pillar of State
(1972)
Elizabeth Longford:
A Pilgrimage of Passion: Life ofWilfred Scawen Blunt
(1979)
F. S. L. Lyons:
Charles Stewart Parnell
(1977)
Philip Magnus:
King Edward the Seventh
(1964)
P. T. Marsh:
Joseph Chamberlain
(1994)
Robert Bernard Martin:
Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart
(1980)
Herbert Maxwell:
Life of Clarendon
, 2 vols (1913)
W . F. Monypenny and G. E. Buckle:
Life of Disraeli
(Earl of Beaconsfield), 6 vols (1910–20)
John Morley:
Recollections
, 2 vols (1917)
David Newsome:
The Convert Cardinals: Newman and Manning
(1993)
Conor Cruise O’Brien:
Parnell and His Party 1880–90
(1957)
R. Barry O’Brien:
Charles Stewart Parnell
, 2 vols (1898)
S. L. Ollard:
A Short History of the Oxford Movement
(1915)
C. S. Parker:
Sir Robert Peel from His Private Papers
, 3 vols (1891–9)
C. S. Parker:
Life and Letters of Sir James Graham
(1906)
Jonathan Parry:
The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain
(1993)
John Pollock:
Gordon: The Man Behind the Legend
(1993)
Arthur Ponsonby:
Henry Ponsonby: His Life from His Letters
(1942)
John Prest:
Lord John Russell
(1972)
R. E. Protheroe:
Life of A. P. Stanley
(1893)
E. S. Purcell:
Life of Cardinal Manning
, 2 vols (1896)
T. Wemyss Reid:
Life of W. E. Forster
(1888)
T. Wemyss Reid:
Life of Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Lord Houghton
(1891)
Jane Ridley:
The Young Disraeli
(1994)