Winston Churchill

‘Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment.’—Job. xxxii. 9.

1883
Æt. 34

FOR nearly three eventful years Mr. Gladstone’s Administration had held power. In the country the popularity and prestige of the great Minister were still immense. His authority was as unquestioned by the rank and file of his party as on the morrow of the Midlothian triumph. He was still ‘the people’s William’ to the crowd. But in Parliament and in the Cabinet difficulties had arisen which scarcely any other leader could have stemmed. Bradlaugh, Majuba, Kilmainham, were names full of gloomy significance to the Liberal party, that promised renewed vexation and discredit in the future. Colleagues had dropped off one by one. Lord Lansdowne had left the Government as early as the Compensation for Disturbance Bill. The Irish Land Act had cost the Prime Minister the Duke of Argyll. Mr. Forster had fallen rather than consent to the release of Parnell. A new question was at hand, opening a broad indefinite vista of embarrassment and disaster and involving at the outset a far more serious secession.

1882-1883

The gradual withdrawal of European Powers and final retreat of France left Great Britain alone to confront the growing anarchy in Egypt. A medley of conflicting impulses and incidents—moral obligations, material interests, the Suez Canal, the coupons of the Egyptian debt, Arabi’s national movement and the massacre of June—culminated in the bombardment of Alexandria on July 11, 1882, by the British fleet. Mr. Bright resigned from the Cabinet; but the House of Commons broke into general cheering at the news and only eight Radicals testified to their principles by their votes. Large military operations followed. Twenty-five thousand British soldiers descended upon Egypt. Arabi and his national movement were stamped out under the heavy heel of the British Grenadier and England became responsible for the fortunes of the Nile Valley.

Their intervention was to carry the Government further than they expected. The misrule which had produced in Egypt the national movement of Arabi had created the rebellion of the Mahdi in the Soudan. The inhabitants of vast regions were aflame with military fury and religious fervour. Yusef Pasha had been overwhelmed. The army of General Hicks was being collected for its fatal effort. The Khedival garrisons were everywhere cut off and besieged. Khartoum almost alone was accessible from the north. Inch by inch and hour by hour the Liberal Government was dragged deeper and deeper into the horrible perplexities of the Egyptian riddle and the Soudan tragedy. At each detested step they resolved to go no further. Every act of interference was to be their last. Every day they looked forward to an early evacuation. To get out of the country in the shortest possible time and upon any conceivable justification was their constant and controlling desire; and after every struggle to escape they found themselves more hopelessly and inextricably involved.

To Lord Randolph Churchill the whole policy of intervention seemed a flagrant political blunder and a crowning violation of Liberal principles. He had sympathised from the beginning with the revolt of Arabi Pasha. He subscribed fifty pounds to the expenses of his defence before the Egyptian Court Martial. He believed that the popular soldier and Minister had been the head of a real national movement directed against one of the vilest and most worthless Governments in the world. That England should use her power to stamp out that movement, to crush the army which sustained it, to banish the leader on whom all depended and to hand back the wretched Egyptians to the incapacity of Tewfik and the extortions of his creditors, was to him an odious crime. The war was—in his eyes—a wicked war, an unjust war, ‘a bondholders’ war.’ And as he felt, so he spoke. While the fighting was actually in progress criticism was necessarily ineffective; but at the beginning of 1883 the excitement of Tel-el-Kebir and Kassassin had begun to subside and Egyptian affairs became a leading subject of Parliamentary debate.

While these embarrassments preoccupied the Ministry, the Conservative Opposition was disturbed by questions of leadership. Who was to be Lord Beaconsfield’s successor? Sir Stafford Northcote, as the leader in the House of Commons, seemed to have the most natural and formal claims. Lord Salisbury had not then obtained any large measure of public confidence. He was generally regarded as representing a form of Toryism highly orthodox and respectable in principle, but rather too rampant and unyielding for the practical necessities of the political situation. The epigrams and epithets which slipped so easily from his tongue and pen had won him the reputation of being rash and violent by nature. His comparison of Lord Derby to Titus Oates was not soon forgotten; and, for all the respect in which his character was held, Disraeli’s celebrated description of him had gained a very wide acceptance. Even in the House of Lords there had been at first some doubt as to his leadership. Lord Cairns, the Duke of Richmond and the Duke of Marlborough seem all at times to have been considered as safer alternatives. Since his authority had been conceded or asserted in the Upper Chamber some mistakes in tactics had been made, and Lord Salisbury was thought on more than one occasion to have committed his party further in resistance to Liberal legislation than its strength warranted. For two years, however, the leadership of the party as a whole had been in commission. A kind of ‘dual control’ had been jointly exerted by the leaders in both houses. Between Sir Stafford Northcote and Lord Salisbury the most pleasant personal relations prevailed and it will be shown in this account that they behaved to each other, in many difficult and delicate circumstances, with unquestionable loyalty. At the same time the great prize and honour of supreme control, with its almost certain reversion of the Premiership, lay between them, and only one could win it. As very often happens in such circumstances, the good faith and good feeling observed between the principals did not extend to their respective supporters; and Lord Salisbury’s excellent relations with Sir Stafford Northcote did not prevent the growth of two sulky and jealous factions to support their rival claims.

The Fourth Party stood for a long time apart from these activities and were individually divided as to the course to take. Mr. Balfour’s opinion was from the outset clear; and his evident wish that Lord Salisbury, and not Sir Stafford Northcote, should head the Conservative party may have been his chief reason for associating himself with the free-lances below the gangway. Mr. Gorst, on the other hand, was much more friendly to Sir Stafford Northcote. He did not altogether agree with Lord Randolph Churchill in his very adverse estimate of Sir Stafford Northcote’s qualities and capacity as a Parliamentary leader, which is generally reflected in these pages. Between these two choices Lord Randolph seems long to have hung in doubt. He was much disquieted by several of Lord Salisbury’s actions in the House of Lords, which seemed to indicate an attitude of uncompromising resistance to democratic legislation. On the other hand, the Fourth Party came into constant disagreement with Sir Stafford Northcote in the House of Commons, and chafed keenly under his guidance.

The evils of the ‘dual control’ were increasingly displayed as time went by. The Arrears Bill in 1882 ended in the complete collapse of the Opposition in both Houses. Lord Salisbury was for rejecting it in the House of Lords on the second reading and courting a dissolution. In this course he was supported by an enthusiastic meeting of Peers at his house in Arlington Street. The leaders in the Commons dissuaded him from such an extreme measure. It was agreed that the Bill should not be rejected, but materially amended, and that the amendments should be fought for at all risks. Lord Salisbury accordingly amended the Bill in the House of Lords. But Sir Stafford and his friends in the Commons failed to support him with the necessary vigour. A division of opinion grew rapidly in the Conservative ranks. At a time when union and decision were both vital to the success of the operations, neither was to be found. No great effort was made to rally the party in the House of Commons. Grave doubts were expressed as to the wisdom of provoking a conflict between the two Houses. The word ‘dissolution’ seemed full of evil omen. Only 157 Conservatives out of 242 voted in the decisive division for the Lords’ amendments and they were defeated by the crushing majority of 136. The panic spread to the House of Lords. Lord Salisbury, deserted by the Peers, was left in a very ignominious position; and, in spite of the definite arrangement on which he had acted, the party Press resounded with praise of Sir Stafford’s prudence and blame of Lord Salisbury’s rashness. The need of a single supreme leader was, through the occurrence of such incidents, very widely recognised at the beginning of 1883; but whether Lord Salisbury or Sir Stafford Northcote should be chosen was still a matter of doubt and controversy. The prevailing opinion inclined strongly towards Sir Stafford Northcote.

Lord Randolph began the session of 1883 in great activity, and the Fourth Party, with or without the assistance of Mr. Balfour, was prominent, if not predominant, in almost every Parliamentary event. As a leader of free-lances, Lord Randolph was for ever seeking for a chance to drive a wedge into the Ministerial array. To split the Government majority by raising some issue on which conscientious Radicals would be forced to vote against their leaders, or, failing that, by some question on which the Minister concerned would be likely to utter illiberal sentiments, and bound to justify a policy or a system which the Liberal party detested, was his perpetual and almost instinctive endeavour. Such had been his method during the debates on Irish Coercion; it was his plan upon ‘Parliamentary procedure’; it would have been his course, had he not been dissuaded therefrom, in regard to the suppression of the Boer revolt; it was afterwards to be his attitude in much greater degree upon the unending tangles of affairs in Egypt. If the tactics he pursued were adroit, the sentiments he expressed were congenial. Alike from conviction and partisanship he was drawn continually to the more Radical view of political disputes. No one understood better than he the difficulties with which Mr. Gladstone had to contend, or the stresses which paralysed the Cabinet and racked the Liberal party.

‘You are no doubt aware,’ he told a Manchester audience (December 1, 1881), ‘of a curious fact in natural history—that there is an animal more useful than picturesque, generally to be found in our farmyards, which cannot swim. Owing to its ungraceful conformation, whenever it is called upon to swim, it cuts its own throat with its feet; and the spectacle of the Radical party attempting to govern reminds me irresistibly of that animal trying to swim. The Radical party are prevented from governing by what they are pleased to call their principles; and in the act of governing they invariably commit suicide. They are unable to govern Ireland because it was by stimulating disorder that they attained power. They were unable to suppress the revolt of the Boers, because it is their most sacred principle that any portion of the Empire must be sacrificed rather than that they should incur the charge of "blood-guiltiness." They were unable to retain the valuable possession of Candahar, which had been gained at a cost of eighteen millions, because another of their most sacred principles is that we must rely on "moral barriers." Their Government is without an ally in Europe because this is their diplomatic maxim—that foreign policy is nothing more than an alternate succession of insults and apologies. They are unable to conclude a treaty of commerce, vital though it be to this country, because they have gratuitously tied themselves down to the fetish of limiting Customs duties to six articles of foreign import. So you see, gentlemen, that whenever they attempt to move in the ordinary paths of government one of these so-called principles immediately rises up, paralyses their action, and makes them an object either of mockery or of compassion.’

He took a grim delight in compelling the Under Secretary for the Colonies—‘this humanitarian Minister’—and even Mr. Gladstone himself, to defend or palliate the use of dynamite by the Boers in their warfare with the natives. When Mr. Evelyn Ashley was stung by much sarcastic comment into condemning ‘the ill-regulated impulses of humanity’ which appeared to prompt the Opposition attack, Lord Randolph replied that he had passed the gravest censure on the Prime Minister, whose whole career had consisted in giving way to such ‘ill-regulated impulses’ and persuading the nation to agree with him. Now, as always, he was an economist. He subjected the Civil Service Estimates to an unremitting scrutiny. The repair of Royal Palaces, the up-keep of the Royal Mews and Parks, formed the subject of protracted debate. He attacked the Royal Buckhounds—‘’Arry’s Hounds,’ as he called them—and declared that only a Cockney who did not know the difference between a field of oats and a field of wheat, and no true sportsman, would take part in the pursuit of a tame animal kept in captivity for the purpose of being hunted over and over again. Against such criticisms the Liberal Ministers could furnish no reply satisfactory to their own supporters.

Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of ‘Punch.‘ ATHWART THE COURSE. R-nd-lph Ch-rch-ll. (an aggravating Boy): ‘In the way again! ’ooray!!’ Punch, July 7, 1883.
Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of ‘Punch.‘
ATHWART THE COURSE.
R-nd-lph Ch-rch-ll. (an aggravating Boy): ‘In the way again! ’ooray!!’
Punch, July 7, 1883.

Some of Lord Randolph’s maxims in Opposition are well known. He is often credited with, though he cannot rightly claim, the authorship of the phrase, ‘The duty of an Opposition is to oppose.’ Lord Salisbury condemned early in 1883 ‘the temptation, strong to many politicians, to attempt to gain the victory by bringing into the Lobby men whose principles were divergent, and whose combined forces therefore could not lead to any wholesome victory.’ ‘Excellent moralising,’ observed Lord Randolph, ‘very suitable to the digestions of country delegates, but one of those Puritanical theories which party leaders are prone to preach on a platform, which has never guided for any length of time the action of politicians in the House of Commons, and which, whenever apparently put into practice, invariably results in weak and inane proceedings. Discriminations between wholesome and unwholesome victories are idle and impracticable. Obtain the victory, know how to follow it up, and leave the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness to critics.’ His second maxim was as follows: ‘Take office only when it suits you, but put the Government in a minority whenever you decently can’; and his third, ‘Whenever by an unfortunate concurrence of circumstances an Opposition is compelled to support the Government, the support should be given with a kick and not with a caress and should be withdrawn on the first available moment.’

Lord Randolph always declared that in such things he was sustained by the example of Mr. Disraeli. In 1852 Mr. Disraeli put Lord John Russell in a minority by allying himself with Lord Palmerston. In 1857 he put Lord Palmerston in a minority by allying himself with Mr. Gladstone and the Radical party. In 1858 he put Lord Palmerston in a second minority by following the lead of Mr. Milner Gibson and the Radicals. In 1866 Mr. Disraeli, with the assistance of Lord Cranborne, placed Mr. Gladstone in a minority by allying himself with the Whigs. Again, in 1873 Mr. Disraeli placed Mr. Gladstone in a minority by making a temporary alliance with the Radicals and with the Irish. Fortified by these examples, the leader of Tory Democracy pursued his devious and unexpected course, to the bewilderment of his friends and the discomfiture of his foes.

The chronic friction between the Front Opposition Bench and the corner seat below the gangway developed in the first few weeks of the session of 1883 a considerable degree of heat. Lord Randolph’s opinion of the worthies at the head of his party was not good, and the efforts which he made to conceal it, were not apparent. They complained of the irritating laugh with which he would sometimes mark his dissent from their tactics. He spoke of them collectively in private as ‘the old gang.’ One by one he fastened upon them nicknames which clung like burrs. Sir Stafford Northcote had always been ‘the Goat.’ Mr. W. H. Smith and Sir R. Cross were described as ‘Marshall and Snelgrove.’ Mr. Gibson was ‘the family solicitor of the Tory party.’ The smoking-room of the House of Commons was always laughing over some new witticism or sharp saying, faithfully carried by mischief-makers from one to another till it reached its final destination and roused the wrath of the potentate concerned. But while in his conversation Lord Randolph was scarcely restrained by the limits of decorum, he remained himself perfectly unapproachable. No man dared to take any liberties with him, and party officials or ex-Ministers who addressed themselves to him found themselves confronted by a suave and formal courtesy through which it was impossible to break.

A sharp and open difference with Sir Stafford Northcote grew early in March out of some small incident of House of Commons tactics:—

Sir Stafford Northcote to Lord Randolph Churchill.

Private.

House of Commons: March 9, 1883.

Dear Lord Randolph,—I understand that a good many of our friends are annoyed at the appearance of a kind of communiquÉ in the morning papers yesterday to the effect that if I were to move the adjournment of the House (as some persons supposed I intended to do) the ‘Fourth Party’ would not support the motion by rising in their places.

You will, I am sure, understand that any steps taken with the apparent purpose of marking out a separate party within the general body of the Conservatives must be prejudicial to the interests of the whole, and I therefore call your attention to the matter in the hope of preventing similar embarrassments in the future.

I remain
Yours very faithfully,
Stafford H. Northcote.

Lord Randolph Churchill to Sir Stafford Northcote.

2 Connaught Place, W.

Dear Sir Stafford Northcote,—In reply to your letter I have to remark that members who sit below the gangway have always acted in the House of Commons with a very considerable degree of independence of the recognised and constituted chiefs of either party, nor can I (who owe nothing to anyone and depend on nobody) in any way or at any time depart from that well-established and highly respectable tradition.

I am not aware of any communiquÉ on the matter about which you write and I must decline to be responsible for the gossip of the Lobby which may find its way into the daily or weekly Press. I would suggest, however, that ‘similar embarrassments’ would be avoided for the future, if the small party of Conservatives who sit below the gangway were to be occasionally informed beforehand of your intentions on any particular matter. They consider that they have, during the whole of this Parliament, worked harder in the House of Commons than any other members of the party, and they know that a very considerable body of public opinion in the country approves entirely of the course of action which they have adopted. There would be less danger of ‘marking out a separate party within the general body of the Conservatives,’ if you would use your influence with some of your late colleagues so as to induce them to abstain from holding my friends and myself up to ridicule and dislike by their speeches in the country, or covertly by inspiring that portion of the daily Press which is notoriously under the influence of the Front Opposition Bench to attack and denounce us, whose only fault is that at all times and by all means we have never ceased from attacking, denouncing, and embarrassing the present Government. I spoke on this point to Mr. Rowland Winn very freely at the end of the autumn session, and I regret to find that my so doing seems rather to have increased than modified the mischief.

I have the honour to remain
Yours very faithfully,
Randolph S. Churchill.

Sir Stafford Northcote to Lord Randolph Churchill.

Private.

30 St. James’s Place, S.W.: March 10, 1883.

Dear Lord Randolph,—I am very sensible of the zeal and ability which you and your immediate friends show in your Parliamentary work. But to turn your work to the best account you really ought to consider the first principles of party action, and, unless you mean absolutely to dissever yourselves from the main body, you ought to act heartily with it except upon occasions when you feel yourselves bound to differ from it; and when those occasions arise, you ought frankly but amicably to tell the leaders what your difficulties and your intentions are. You may be well assured that I am only too glad to confer with all members of the party on these terms, and with yourself as frankly as with anyone. What I must object to is the apparent maintenance of a distinct organisation within the party. It produces infinite soreness and difficulty.

I remain
Faithfully yours,
Stafford H. Northcote.

This correspondence heralded a state of war. The Tory leaders affected to regard Lord Randolph Churchill as a contumacious fellow who represented no one but himself, and pushed inordinate pretension with boundless impudence. They continued wilfully blind to the ever-growing movement in his favour of popular opinion among their own party all over the country. Lord Randolph, on his part, was not slow or reluctant to assert his power. In December 1882 he had been visited by a deputation of the principal Conservatives of Manchester, inviting him to be their candidate for the then undivided representation of that great city. He complained openly to the deputation of the feeble conduct of the Opposition, and these serious gentlemen did not hesitate to greet with unmistakable approbation censures which he passed upon their own leaders.

‘I see no good object,’ he said, ‘to be gained by concealing my opinion that the constitutional function of an Opposition is to oppose and not support the Government, and that this function has during the three sessions of this Parliament been either systematically neglected or defectively carried out. More than once since the present Government came into office legitimate opportunities have arisen for conflict, which ought to have resulted in the overthrow of the Ministry or in great damage thereto; and those opportunities have been allowed to pass by unavailed of. I would venture to lay down with confidence the principle that the healthy vitality of a party is not to be estimated by great speeches in the country, but only by its action in Parliament; and if its action in Parliament is observed to fall considerably below the level of its great speeches in the country, depend upon it there is something or other not altogether satisfactory in its constitution.’

A more decisive declaration was soon to be required. The statue of Lord Beaconsfield was now finished, and April 19, as the anniversary of his death, had been fixed for its unveiling. Towards the end of March the programme of the ceremony was made public and it was found that the principal part of unveiling the statue and pronouncing the eulogy had been assumed by Sir Stafford Northcote, while to Lord Salisbury was relegated the very secondary function of proposing a vote of thanks to Sir Stafford for his speech. The general, if tacit, acquiescence of the Conservative party in these dispositions could only mean that Sir Stafford Northcote was their recognised and adopted leader and would be the head of any Conservative Government which might come into being. Lord Randolph Churchill was so persuaded of the futility of such an arrangement that he determined at any risk to make a protest, which should at least prevent its unanimous acceptance. On March 29 a letter, which was assigned especial prominence and attracted much attention, appeared in the Times, from ‘A Tory,’ complaining that Sir Stafford Northcote was to unveil the statue and denouncing his selection as the triumph of a ‘faction’ over the more numerous adherents of Lord Salisbury. Two days later (April 2) Lord Randolph struck his blow.

He had prepared his statement with deliberation and he showed it privately to several intimate friends. All, with the single exception of Mr. Chenery, the Editor of the Times, who had a journalist’s eye for ‘copy,’ disapproved of its terms and tone. Some urged him not to publish it. One such appeal lies before me as I write. ‘Let me beseech you to stop your letter. I may be presumptuous; I may be importunate; but I am sincere—so listen to me. Your letter is a libel on your own party; it lacks finish; it will offend the whole party; it will offend the public. You impute as an offence the attention paid to tradesmanlike counsellors. What will the tradesmen think of you? They will be challenged to reject you, inasmuch as you despise them.... You are now a power in the party; you have pressed heavily on the leaders; you do so to-day, and may continue to do so if you will husband your resources. They don’t like it. If they can blow you out of the way they will, and your letter gives them the chance they have been waiting for.... You are attacking them at the wrong moment. Your victim has been ill, sent off to recruit his strength, is back again at his post supported by good wishes and receiving sympathy from all. Are you wanting in generosity? No. I say, "No"; but will the public, will your enemies say "No"?... Such a letter could only be justified by its success. It will be a failure. Your best friends will be unable to prove you right; and when once the tyrant-throne you have raised for yourself, and by yourself, begins to lose the support of the outside public, your enemies within the party will hurry to overwhelm you in its ruins.’

The letter was published forthwith. ‘The position of the Conservative party,’ wrote Lord Randolph,[12] ‘is hopeful and critical. Everything depends upon the Liberals keeping their leader, and upon the Conservatives finding one. An Opposition never wants a policy; but an Opposition, if it is to become a strong Government, must have a leader. The country, though it may be disposed to dispense with Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues, is not likely to exchange them for an arrangement which would practically place the Premiership in commission. The Conservative party must decide at once upon a name. This is more important with the modern electorate than a cry; but at the present moment, when the battle may be joined any day, we have fixed upon neither.’

Yet the Conservative party had an ample choice. ‘Lord Salisbury, Lord Cairns, and Sir Stafford Northcote all possess great and peculiar qualifications. If the electors are in a negative frame of mind they may accept Sir Stafford Northcote; if they are in a cautious frame of mind they may shelter themselves under Lord Cairns; if they are in an English frame of mind they will rally round Lord Salisbury.’ He proceeded to review the conduct of the Opposition during the last three sessions. ‘Such a series of neglected opportunities, pusillanimity, combativeness at wrong moments, vacillation, dread of responsibility, repression and discouragement of hard-working followers, collusions with the Government, hankerings after coalitions, jealousies, commonplaces, want of perception on the part of the former lieutenants of Lord Beaconsfield, no one but he who has watched carefully and intelligently the course of affairs in Parliament, can adequately realise or sufficiently express; and if it be the case that Ministers have lost ground in the country, they have only themselves to blame, nor have they the slightest right to cherish feelings of resentment against the regular and responsible Opposition in the House of Commons.

‘There are many, I know well, among the Conservative party out of the House of Commons who are convinced that if the present opportunities for success are neglected or inadequately turned to account, the days of the Tory party, as we know it, are in all probability numbered; who are convinced, further, that if these opportunities are handled by third-rate statesmen, such as were just good enough to fill subordinate offices while Lord Beaconsfield was alive, they will be neglected or inadequately turned to account. Many of the party in the country are determined that their efforts and their industry shall not result merely in the short-lived triumph and speedy disgrace of bourgeois placemen, "honourable" Tadpoles, hungry Tapers, Irish lawyers. The Conservative party was formed for better ends than these....

’...Lord Salisbury alone among those who have endeavoured to guide the action of the Conservative party, has agitated Scotland and arrested the attention of the Midlands. His name and influence in Lancashire are more than sufficient to counterbalance any advantages which may have accrued to the Liberal party from the adhesion of Lord Derby. Even his opponents admit that he has projected a policy rightly conceiving and eloquently expressing the true principles of popular Toryism. Against him are directed all the malignant efforts of envious mediocrity, and it is essential to the future well-being of the Tory party that these machinations should no longer be permitted to obscure the paramount claims of the one man who is capable, not only of overturning, but also of replacing Mr. Gladstone, and who—partly from a magnanimous trust in the good faith of others, partly from a very high, perhaps an exaggerated, idea of political loyalty—is in danger of being sacrificed to the internecine jealousies of some of the most useless of his former colleagues.’

The publication of this letter excited, as his friends had foreseen, an outburst of indignation against Lord Randolph Churchill. All sections of the Conservative party—including many members who were thoroughly dissatisfied with the conduct of their leaders—united in disowning him and his opinions. When he went down to the House on the morrow of his letter scarcely a member would speak to him, and he sat, alone and abandoned, hunched up in his corner seat. When Sir Stafford Northcote rose to address some questions to Ministers he received a tremendous ovation. Even Mr. Gorst publicly signified his allegiance to him on April 4. On the same day Mr. W. H. Smith denounced Lord Randolph’s letter as an attempt to sow discord in the Conservative ranks and as a foul wrong to both Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote. Mr. Chaplin, Mr. Northcote (speaking with the authority of his father), and Mr. Lowther meted out their heavy and righteous censures. Tory and Liberal newspapers vied with each other in wrathful or derisive comment. Two hundred members of the Conservative party attached their names to a memorial expressing their trust and confidence in Sir Stafford, which memorial was duly presented to him by one of their most valued representatives, Sir John Mowbray. Lord Salisbury preserved a golden silence. Never was politician so utterly isolated, so totally repudiated, so signally rebuked, by all of those persons of influence and position upon whose support he must depend.

But the results were curiously barren. The intense irritation at Westminster and in the Carlton found no encouragement in the constituencies. The vehement attacks to which Lord Randolph was subjected aroused no echo in the great provincial centres. Country newspapers were restrained in their criticism. The Times gave him a cautious, left-handed, but effective support. Manchester showed no wish to withdraw its invitation. The working-class electors declined to have their indignation manufactured from the London clubs and offices; and the conviction steadily gained acceptance and assertion that, whatever might be thought of his methods, on the merits of the case ‘Randy was right.’ So, indeed, he was. In rough but perfectly unmistakable language he had proclaimed a vital truth. He had declared that which most men knew in their hearts, even though they would not or dared not admit it. No amount of memorials or party demonstrations, no loud disclaimers, could prevail against facts which were every day becoming more flagrant.

For a week Lord Randolph remained silent and solitary in his corner seat. Then, just as the storm showed signs of abating, just when the worthies were asking themselves whether, after all, they had not been too hard on a young man who could be, if he only chose, a powerful ally, he published his second letter in the Times. In this he described the utter breakdown of ‘the dual control’ by which the Conservative party was afflicted, how Lord Salisbury had been deserted on the Arrears Bill and how Sir Henry Wolff had been actually impeded in his original opposition to Mr. Bradlaugh by Sir Stafford Northcote. ‘The differences of principle which sever the Conservatives from the Radicals are even greater and more vital to the future of the nation than those which agitated the times of Pitt and Fox, or the more recent days of the Duke of Wellington and Lord Grey. The questions of the continuation of the monarchy, the existence of an hereditary legislature, the preservation of a central government for the three kingdoms, the connection between Church and State, are all more or less rapidly coming within the range of practical politics.... On all these and such like questions the Conservative party hold strong opinions, and if these opinions are to prevail it is essential that they should be represented by, and identified with, a statesman who fears not to meet and who knows how to sway immense masses of the working classes and who either by his genius or his eloquence, or by all the varied influences of an ancient name, can "move the hearts of households." Without such a leader the Conservative party is beaten even before the battle is begun....

’ ...I am not in the least alarmed,’ the writer concluded, ‘by the violence of the replies to the letter which you were good enough to insert a week ago. I know well that many of those who are expressing with so much heat and indignation their disagreement with my views have themselves on many occasions during the present Parliament been loud in their condemnation of the apathy and irresolution of the Opposition and of the fatal influence exercised by one or two of those who surround the leader. It is because of my belief that the maintenance of the Constitution and the existence of a strong, resolute, intelligent and active Tory party are inseparably connected with each other that I have referred to the incidents of the past with the object of averting grave disaster in the future. If that object is even approached by my letters to you, I am only too happy to bear the brunt of a little temporary effervescence and to be the scapegoat on which doomed mediocrities may lay the burden of their exposed incapacity....’

Mr. Chenery was very doubtful about this letter and urged Lord Randolph not to publish it. ‘You have produced,’ he wrote, ‘a great effect by the first letter, which this, in my opinion, would only undo.’ But Lord Randolph persisted and the letter was printed. On April 19 Sir Stafford Northcote unveiled the Beaconsfield statue. Lord Randolph wrote for the Fortnightly Review of May a reflective description of this event. He called the article, from which various quotations have already been made, ‘Elijah’s Mantle.’ He cannot claim in any special degree the gift of letters. In private he wrote exactly as he would have spoken to his friends. His public writings were for the most part speeches set forth on paper. But ‘Elijah’s Mantle’ shows a higher degree of literary excellence than any other record he has left behind him. In its picturesque presentment, in its well-chosen words, in the lucidity and force of the argument, it proved not unworthy of the almost universal attention which the personality of the writer drew upon it from the political world.

Lord Randolph described the unveiling of the statue ‘under a murky sky and amidst splashing rain’; the melancholy change which a few years had effected in the position and prospects of the once mighty party Lord Beaconsfield had led; the imposing majority of 1874, now transferred bodily to the Liberal side; and the sudden and stunning nature of the catastrophe of 1880. What a surprise it was to the placemen, the rank and file and ‘the old men who crooned over the fires at the Carlton’! ‘That some malign and venomous genius must suddenly have possessed the mind of the people’ was their only explanation. And on all this Lord Beaconsfield’s death—‘the crowning blow sent by a mischievous and evil-minded fortune.’ While ‘the Chief’ lived, hope had lived too. But from the hour of his death every Tory, in and out of Parliament, high or low, rich or poor, had exclaimed, muttered or thought: ‘Oh, if Lord Beaconsfield were alive!’ That was a monument to the departed leader more enduring than the bronze on the Abbey Green. Was it not also a criticism, pointed and unanswerable, upon the conduct of affairs since his death, which ‘no amount of memorials of confidence, no number of dinners in Pall Mall, no repetitions, however frequent, of gushing embraces between the Lord and the Commoner,’ could gainsay?

Lord Randolph thought that Lord Beaconsfield’s career could be painted in a single sentence: ‘Failure, failure, failure, partial success, renewed failure, ultimate and complete triumph.’ The victory of 1874 had given a golden opportunity to the Tories; but owing to the natural decay of Lord Beaconsfield’s physical vigour, that opportunity had been wasted. Would it return? ‘The Liberals can afford better to sustain great disasters than the Conservatives, for there is a recuperative power innate in Liberal principles—the result of the longing of the human mind for progress and for adventure—which enables them to recover rapidly and unexpectedly from misfortunes which would seem to be fatal. The Tories, though possessing many other advantages, fail in this respect. As time goes on, their successes will be fewer and separated from each other by intervals of growing length; unless, indeed, the policy and the principles of the Tory party should undergo a surprising development; unless the secret of Lord Beaconsfield’s theory of government is appropriated, understood, believed in, sown broadcast amongst the people; unless the mantle of Elijah should fall upon some one who is capable enough and fortunate enough, carrying with him a united party, to bring to perfection those schemes of Imperial rule and of social reform which Lord Beaconsfield had only time to dream of, to hint at, and to sketch.’

Lord Randolph then proceeded to outline for the first time the conception of Tory Democracy which had now possessed his mind.

‘Some of Lord Beaconsfield’s phrases will bear any amount of microscopic examination. Speaking at Manchester in 1871, by the alteration of a letter in a quotation from the Vulgate he revealed the policy which ought to guide Tory leaders at the present tune: "Sanitas sanitatum, omnia sanitas." Such was the quotation, in which a careful mind will discover a scheme of social progress and reform of dimensions so large and wide-spreading that many volumes would not suffice to explain its details. By it is shadowed forth, and in it is embraced, a social revolution which, passing by and diverting attention from wild longings for organic change, commences with the little, peddling Boards of Health which occupy and delight the Local Government Department, comprises Lord Salisbury’s plans for the amelioration of the dwellings of the poor, carries with it Lord Carnarvon’s ideal of compulsory national insurance, includes Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s temperance propaganda, preserves and reclaims commons and open spaces—favoured by Mr. Bryce—constructs people’s parks, collects and opens to the masses museums, libraries, art-galleries, does not disdain the public washhouses of Mr. Jesse Collings. Public and private thrift must animate the whole, for it is from public thrift that the funds for these largesses can be drawn and it is by private thrift alone that their results can be utilised and appreciated. The expression "Tory Democracy" has excited the wonder of some, the alarm of others, and great and bitter ridicule from the Radical party. But the "Tory Democracy" may yet exist; the elements for its composition only require to be collected and the labour may some day possibly be effected by the man, whoever he may be, upon whom the mantle of Elijah has descended.’

Lord Randolph’s letters had aimed at establishing the leadership of Lord Salisbury and had constituted an appeal to him to come forward and head the ‘New Tories.’ They also intimated with tolerable plainness that if Lord Salisbury were unable or unwilling to don the mantle, there was another who would not hesitate to assume it. References to ‘a statesman who fears not to meet, and who knows how to sway, immense masses of the working classes,’ and who ‘by all the varied influences of an ancient name can move "the hearts of households,"’ although directly applied to Lord Salisbury, were obviously capable of an alternative interpretation. The suggestion was perfectly understood by all and in political circles a hearty, concerted, but deplorably unsuccessful attempt was made to laugh it out of existence.

By the end of April it was evident that the outburst against Lord Randolph Churchill had in no wise injured his position in the country. In order to meet the difficulties of the Bradlaugh case and the repeated explosions of passion to which it gave rise, the Prime Minister had introduced the Affirmation Bill, which would enable persons of no religious belief to affirm, like Quakers, instead of taking the ordinary oath. On this Mr. Gladstone delivered one of his most magnificent orations. When Lord Randolph replied (April 30) he was heard with severe and respectful attention in all parts of the House. He spoke long and thoughtfully, and, although no one could maintain the elevation to which Mr. Gladstone had raised the debate, it was felt that the Minister’s arguments had been not inadequately met.

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Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of ‘Punch,‘ A DREAM OF THE FUTURE. Little Lord R.: ‘Ah! they’ll have to give me a statue—some day!!’ Punch April 28, 1883.
Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of ‘Punch,‘
A DREAM OF THE FUTURE.
Little Lord R.: ‘Ah! they’ll have to give me a statue—some day!!’
Punch April 28, 1883.

‘The present Bill,’ he said, ‘is not for the benefit of the whole nation; it is for the benefit of one man, and it is brought in in deference to clamour and violence. Let us consider for a moment who are the classes outside which are opposed to the representative of atheism. They are the religious, the moral, the law-abiding, and the industrious. Who are the personal supporters of atheism outside this House? For the most part they are the residuum, the rabble, and the scum of the population; the bulk of them are persons to whom all restraint—religious, moral, or legal—is odious and intolerable. Why are we so anxious to give these latter a victory and a triumph over the former?

‘I take this Bill of the Government and I strip it of all those flimsy disguises with which the Prime Minister so ingeniously but so uselessly clothed it and I place it naked before the Parliament and before the country—a Bill for the admission of avowed atheists into the House of Commons—and I say that this is a fundamental change in the Constitution of such vital and momentous importance that the people of this country will not hastily ratify it and that the opinion of the country must be ascertained before the Parliament can assent to it.

‘We must not only think of the relief of Mr. Bradlaugh, or of the relief of this House from a slight difficulty; we must think what would be the effect on the people of this State of a recognition of unlawful doctrines, and of giving place in the immediate governing body to a man who professes and who preaches that the Christian religion, on which our law has been founded, is false, its morality defective, and its promises illusory. Shall we not be giving to those doctrines a tremendous impetus by altering the Constitution of this country, in order that they may be officially represented in our Councils and may influence our decisions? Can we contemplate without alarm the revulsion that such an act might occasion among those masses of the people who, with some hope of a happier state hereafter, are toiling their weary way through the world, content to tolerate for a time their less fortunate lot—the revulsion that would occur if they inferred from the action of the Legislature that it was even possible for their faith to be false? Surely the horrors of the French Revolution should give some idea of the effect on the masses of the State recognition of atheism! It is from disasters such as those that we have been very probably preserved by the Christian characteristics of the community. Let me quote the words of Lord Erskine: "The religious and moral sense of the people of Great Britain is the sheet-anchor which alone can hold the vessel of State amidst the storms that agitate the world."

‘The peculiarity of the English Constitution is that it is founded upon and incorporated with the Christian morality. It is a characteristic which is possessed by no other nation, however free or however great; and does it not occur to you that the extraordinary prosperity and duration and apparent future of our Empire is not, perhaps, unconnected with this famous characteristic?

‘You,’ he concluded, pointing to the Liberal party, ‘proudly claim the task of carrying the cause of religious liberty to its furthest imaginable limits; be it ours, I reply, nor is it less noble, to endeavour to restrain your aspirations within the bounds of reason and of policy.’

The division produced a great excitement. When the numbers were declared it was found that the Affirmation Bill had upon its second reading been cast out by a majority of three (292—289).

The satisfaction of the Tory party and of some of the best and worthiest people in it at this result was enormous. In the House of Commons very largely, and outside in the Press and among the electors almost entirely, the credit of the victory was assigned to Lord Randolph. ‘The best speech he has ever made’ was Sir Henry James’s comment. The Punch cartoon of the week represented him as Ariel urging his hounds to the pursuit and expulsion of Caliban. Once again he was the hero of the hour. One among many letters of approval and congratulation must have given him especial pleasure, and may be quoted here. ‘Though it is years since we met,’ wrote Dr. Creighton (May 1, 1883), ‘and though I only live as a vague memory in your mind, I cannot help writing you a few lines to say how much I admired your speech last night. As an observer of the course of politics who tries to give them an historical value, I watch your career with growing interest. It seems to me that you combine in a remarkable degree the real principles of statesmanship with an attention to the conditions under which our political life has to be carried on. It is easy to be a doctrinaire; it is easy to be a purely party politician; it is not easy to combine the two into a distinct line of policy. I recognise with admiration your increasing success in this direction and your genuine devotion to the serious pursuit of politics.’

‘It is indeed a pleasure to me,’ wrote Lord Randolph in reply, ‘to know that you have not forgotten your former rather unsatisfactory pupil and that you follow, not without interest and perhaps with some hope, a course of which Fate has not yet determined the form or the end.’

The ceremony of April 19, 1883, was the origin of a new idea destined to spread and flourish over an ever-widening area during all the years that have followed. The Fourth Party had grown spontaneously out of the Bradlaugh controversy. The Primrose League sprang from the unveiling of Lord Beaconsfield’s statue. Sir Henry Wolff did not attend in his place to hear Sir Stafford Northcote’s speech and Lord Salisbury’s vote of thanks, and he arrived at the House of Commons late in the afternoon. The well-known superintendent of the members’ cloak-room, Mr. Cove, said to him, ‘You must have a primrose,’ and gave him one. Thus adorned, Sir Henry entered the Chamber and found the whole Conservative party similarly decorated with Lord Beaconsfield’s favourite flower. The fact impressed him vividly and he said to Lord Randolph Churchill as they walked home together, ‘What a show of Primroses! This should be turned to account. Why not start a "Primrose League"?’ Lord Randolph was instantly interested. ‘Draw up a plan,’ he said, ‘to carry out your idea and we will see what can be done.’

Sir Henry Wolff set to work at once. He looked for his models to the Orange Society which was influential in his constituency of Portsmouth, and to the numerous benefit societies—Foresters, Oddfellows, Good Templars, and the like—with which he was acquainted. He saw how popular the badges, grades, and honorary distinctions of these bodies were with the working classes who supported them. He resolved that the Primrose League should be inferior to none of these in the variety of its regalia or the magniloquence of its titles. He discussed all this at length with Lord Randolph Churchill from day to day; but it was not until the autumn that anyone else was admitted to their councils. During October and November the first practical steps were taken. Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir John Gorst, Sir Henry Wolff, and Sir Alfred Slade met together to form ‘a new political society which should embrace all classes and all creeds except atheists and enemies of the British nation.’ All four were members of the Council of the National Union. They had exceptional knowledge of the state of Conservative organisations. They saw quite clearly the failure of the existing Conservative and Constitutional Associations to suit the popular taste or to succeed in joining all classes together in defence of the essential doctrines of Toryism. The constitution of the League, its objects and its machinery were settled even in detail at meetings held during these two months. Specimen badges were made. The declaration to be signed by every member of the League was drawn up by Sir John Gorst in the following terms: ‘I declare, on my honour and faith, that I will devote my best ability to the Maintenance of Religion, of the Estates of the Realm and of the Imperial Ascendency of the British Empire, and that, consistently with my allegiance to the Sovereign of these Realms, I will promote with discretion and fidelity the above objects, being those of the Primrose League.’ Finally on November 17, in the card-room of the Carlton Club, these four gentlemen resolved themselves into the Ruling Council of the League with power to add to their number.

The circle was then gradually increased by the addition of Lord Randolph’s closest political allies. Colonel Burnaby, Mr. Percy Mitford, Mr. Dixon Hartland and Sir Algernon Borthwick attended the next few meetings. Great efforts were being made by the leaders of the Conservative party in Birmingham to induce Lord Randolph to stand for that city. Mr. Joseph Rowlands and other prominent Birmingham men were frequently in London on that errand; all were pressed into the League. Lord Randolph Churchill’s numerous relations were enlisted. A Ladies’ Grand Council was formed, of which Lady Randolph and Lady Borthwick were members and the Duchess of Marlborough the President. A humble office was taken on a second floor in Essex Street, Strand, and the first public announcement was made December 18, 1883, in the advertisement columns of the Times and the Morning Post, as follows:—

The new political society was in its beginnings viewed with sour distrust by all Conservatives who were officially orthodox, virtuous and loyal. It was regarded as a dodge of the Fourth Party and a new weapon of schism. The struggle on the council of the National Union during the year 1884, which must soon be described, intensified these feelings. The early Primrose knights and dames wore their badges everywhere in public and faced in consequence the keenest ridicule. The Morning Post was their only substantial ally. The statutes and ordinances of the League excited the derision of almost all of those who, a few years later, were proud to subscribe to them. The idea in itself was vital; but only the personality of Lord Randolph Churchill and the hopes and enthusiasms which he excited, prevented it from being smothered during its first few months of existence. As it was, only 957 members—including, however, many persons of influence—had enrolled themselves by the end of 1884, and 11,366 by the end of 1885. The Home Rule struggle raised these numbers to 237,283 in 1886 and 565,861 in 1887. A million members was reached in 1891 and the League claims at the present time, twenty-one years after its foundation, to have 1,703,708 knights, dames, and associates upon its rolls; and although its merits as a national institution must necessarily be variously appraised, its power and utility as a political engine have never been questioned.

As the session drew on, the warfare in the House of Commons became fiercer. Day after day Lord Randolph and his friends assailed the Government with amazing variety and increasing violence. The Prime Minister was repeatedly forced to defend himself and his colleagues from reproach and his encounters with Lord Randolph Churchill were of almost nightly occurrence. ‘You will kill Mr. Gladstone one of these days,’ said some one to Lord Randolph. ‘Oh, no!’ he rejoined, ‘he will long survive me. I often tell my wife what a beautiful letter he will write her, proposing my burial in Westminster Abbey.’

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Primrose League Diploma of Knighthood certificate

In all this fighting the hostility of the Front Opposition Bench to the Fourth Party was very plainly marked. Sir Stafford Northcote repeatedly dissociated himself from Lord Randolph, repudiated him, rebuked him, and even supported the Government against him. A Treasury minute had been issued forbidding Civil Servants to petition the Government through members of Parliament. Forthwith Lord Randolph announced that on a named day he would present 250 petitions signed by over 2,000 Civil Servants. Although Ministers took no action against the signatories, Lord Randolph raised the whole matter in the House as a question of privilege. In his speech he attacked extravagantly Mr. Algernon West, who, as Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, had signed the offending circular. He condemned the practice of Cabinet Ministers—Sir Stafford Northcote as well as Mr. Gladstone—of appointing their former private secretaries to important posts in the Civil Service. The training of a private secretary—‘among the backstairs intrigues and dirty work of office’—was no fit preparation for departmental employment. An attack on a public servant ‘who cannot defend himself’ is always resented by the supporters of a Government. On this occasion Mr. Gladstone and Sir Stafford Northcote vied with each other in terms of reprobation. Sir Stafford said he had never heard so many misstatements in a single speech. Mr. Gladstone regretted that Lord Randolph should degrade his Parliamentary position by such conduct. The House indulged itself in that pleasant warmth which comes from righteous indignation.

Lord Randolph had persuaded himself, upon a mass of evidence collected for him by Mr. Wilfrid Blunt and others in Egypt, that the Khedive Tewfik was indirectly responsible for the massacre of June 11, 1882, which he believed had been instigated from the palace in order to compass the ruin of Arabi and the national movement, and provoke decisively the intervention of the European Powers. Having adopted this opinion, he held tenaciously to it, and thrust it upon Parliament with earnestness and even with passion. Although in the first instance he had supported the pension to Lord Alcester for his services in bombarding Alexandria, on the ground that it was a reward to the naval profession as a whole, he availed himself of the passage of the necessary Bill (June 8) to bring forward his charges against the Khedive. The House was astonished at his vehemence. The Prime Minister’s reply was, however, curiously guarded. He did not absolutely deny the charge. All he said was that the information in the possession of the Government afforded not the least confirmation of it. It was a ‘tremendous charge,’ and the Government would be glad to examine the evidence on which it was based. Indeed, it was Sir Stafford Northcote who used the hardest language. While admitting that he considered the warlike intervention in Egypt wrong and unjustifiable, he expressed ‘extreme regret’ at Lord Randolph’s attempt to raise such an issue on the vote for a naval reward to a distinguished officer. ‘I decline,’ he said, ‘to be led by the noble lord, and I trust the House will decline to be induced by the noble lord to accept a position which I consider would be degrading to its honour.’ This, as Mr. Gorst said later in the debate, was a statement which would have been better made by the Prime Minister than by the leader of the Opposition, who, however he might view the opinions of Lord Randolph Churchill, should leave it to opponents to attack him.

The affair proceeded further. One of Arabi’s officers, Suleiman Sami, was brought before a courtmartial on the charge of burning Alexandria. The witnesses demanded by the defence were not allowed to appear; the trial was unexpectedly curtailed; and the prisoner was sentenced to death. Lord Randolph exerted himself to procure at least delay before the sentence was executed, in order that the irregularities at the trial might be exposed. He declared that Suleiman Sami was himself a witness whose death would be ‘a god-send to the Egyptian Government.’ Plied with questions and appeals, the Government undertook to make inquiries; but before any satisfactory information was obtained and while the House was still under the impression that the matter was in suspense, Suleiman Sami was hanged. On this being known the feeling in the Conservative party was so strong that Sir Stafford himself moved the adjournment of the House to discuss the conduct of Ministers in regard to the execution, which Lord Randolph furiously described as ‘the grossest and vilest judicial murder that ever stained the annals of Oriental justice.’ In this attack the Fourth Party were supported by the great mass of Conservative members.

At Mr. Gladstone’s invitation, Lord Randolph laid before him a quantity of evidence which he had obtained in support of his assertions. This evidence was examined by Ministers and officially rejected; but it is remarkable that the Government took no steps, by rebutting it in detail, to discredit their pertinacious assailant. They could not tell how far a fearless and impartial inquiry into the labyrinth of sanguinary intrigue which had cumbered the field of Egyptian politics before the British intervention might carry them. They wrapped themselves in a silence of prudence or disdain, and Lord Randolph continued to repeat his statements with undiminished assurance. He forwarded formally to Sir Stafford Northcote, among others, a copy of the evidence he had sent to the Prime Minister. The style and superscription of the acknowledging letter afford a key to their relations at this period:—

The Bill for the Suppression of Corrupt and Illegal Practices at Parliamentary Elections brought the Fourth Party together almost for the last time. As it passed through the Committee stage in the beginning of July, all the four friends spoke frequently upon it and supported each other. One night, July 3, having dined together at Lord Randolph’s house, they descended upon the House of Commons rather late and, not having heard the early part of the discussion, demanded with perverse audacity that the Chairman should read the clause, as it stood amended, from the Chair. Sir Henry Wolff was the first to make the request and he threatened to move to report progress unless it was granted. Mr. Gladstone—always in attendance on the House—did not deny the right of members to make such a demand; but hoped that an evil precedent would not be established. Lord Randolph appealed to the Chair. The Chairman intimated that, having read the clause twice, he would read it no more. Mr. Balfour then made a conciliatory speech, proposing that as a compromise the Attorney-General, Sir Henry James, should read the clause. Sir Henry James refused. Sir Henry Wolff thereupon moved to report progress. By this time the House was very full. Sir Stafford Northcote supported the Government and urged Sir Henry not to persist. Lord Randolph then, under repeated interruptions from Ministerialists, amid growing excitement, attacked the Government and Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Herbert Gladstone ‘brought in to cheer the Prime Minister’ and all their works; but to Sir Stafford he was very polite and deferential and he expressed in modest language the hope that the leader of the Opposition would, after all, support them in their protest. The appeal was, however, fruitless.

On one occasion about this time Lord Salisbury himself seems to have expostulated with Sir Henry Wolff. But the member for Portsmouth had his own methods of defence. ‘I do not understand,’ said Lord Salisbury as they walked together one day, ‘what your real political position is.’ ‘Oh, I am a "Smithite," Lord Salisbury,’ replied Sir Henry reverentially,—‘a convinced "Smithite" in politics.’ ‘But what is your object?’ inquired the Tory leader. ‘To do good,’ was the bland response,—‘simply to do good’; and the conversation passed on to other topics.

From these contentions Lord Randolph was suddenly withdrawn by a solemn and unexpected event. On June 28 the Duke of Marlborough persuaded the House of Lords to reject by a narrow majority (145—140) the Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill upon its third reading. His speech was perhaps the best he had ever made. It was also his last. On the night of July 4, when he went to bed, he seemed in the best of health and spirits. Early the next morning he was found dead by his servants, struck down by that same swift, unheralded affection of the heart which was a few years later to end the life of his heir. Lord Randolph was profoundly shocked and grieved by his father’s death. He passed many hours reading over his father’s letters, all carefully preserved from his boyhood days. That strong religious strain in his nature to which reference has already been made, afforded him consolation in this season of trouble and, though always a devout man, he became much more regular in devotional exercises than at any other period of his life. He had in his hands the threads of half a dozen political enterprises, for the success of which his constant presence in the House of Commons was necessary. He cast them all away from him and retired at once to Blenheim. Many appeals were made to him to return to the arena, where his absence was instantly felt and regretted even by those in his own party who were antagonistic to him. But nothing would induce him to go near Parliament for the rest of the year. ‘You are very kind,’ he wrote to Wolff, ‘wanting me to come back to the House; but it is quite impossible. I am not up to it physically or mentally, and am longing to get away abroad.... It is very melancholy here—sad recollections at every moment. Nothing can be nicer than Blandford to everyone.’

The two brothers were very closely drawn together by their common mourning, and all bitterness faded at once out of the political world. Sir Stafford Northcote wrote, in the gentle courtesy of his nature, a generous and affectionate letter of sympathy and regret and a private correspondence followed between them which stands in pleasant contrast to the general course of their relations and shows that in modern times personal kindness and good feeling lie never very far below the sullen surface of English politics.

Lord Randolph hurried away with his wife and son to Gastein before the month was out and here his spirits gradually regained their usual buoyancy. His brother joined him late in August and they dawdled home together through Switzerland, visiting its beautiful places, climbing the Rigi ‘like the meanest and commonest of Tow Rows,’ and so back to Blenheim. During the autumn and winter the Duke of Marlborough persuaded Lord Randolph to start again his pack of harriers; and this pursuit—together with the project, about which the new master of Blenheim was keenly excited, of bringing the railway from Oxford to Woodstock—proved so absorbing that politics seem for a time to have been almost abandoned.