Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T05:27:24.212Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

W. E. Gladstone and Liberal-Nationalist Movements*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Keith A. P. Sandiford
Get access

Extract

Historians have traditionally emphasized Gladstone's support for liberalnationalist movements, especially in Europe. His great biographer, John Morley, saw him as being captivated by the new doctrine of “nationality” after one of his frequent visits to Italy. Philip Magnus described him as an enthusiastic champion of freedom; and Paul Knaplund made an extraordinary fuss over his gospel of “freedom and voluntaryism.” Even G. E. Buckle, who must be considered a hostile witness, conceded that Gladstone was much more sympathetic to national movements than his famous rival, Disraeli. Gladstone is generally depicted in Victorian historiography as the outstanding champion of liberal and national ideas, especially in Italy, Ireland, Greece, and the Danubian principalities. There survives a vivid picture of the Grand Old Man fighting to the end to save the hapless Armenians from the butchery of the Turks. This image of an unusually devout Christian striving against overwhelming odds to promote the cause of liberty, justice, and humanity is still an integral part of the Victorian mythology.

Yet, as long ago as 1961, Derek Beales did his best to show that Gladstone's approach to the Italian question was, at best, ambivalent. Even before that, S. Gopal had suggested that Gladstone's contribution to Italian unification was inferior to that of Palmerston, Russell or Sir James Hudson. Two Polish sympathizers have drawn attention to Gladstone's failure to promote the Polish cause. A. J. P. Taylor, for all his wit and wisdom, failed to put more than a minor dent in Gladstone's reputation when, in 1957, he dissected that statesman's foreign policy only to find incompatible elements of Cobdenism and Palmerstonianism. Modern scholars, like C. J. Lowe and D. M. Schreuder, have also argued that Gladstone's attitude towards nationalism was suspiciously flexible. But, in curious defiance of all this scholarship, the Gladstonian myth persists. It is the purpose of this article to put this myth to rest by demonstrating that Gladstone was cautiously conservative in his attitude toward nationalist movements and that he put much more store on order and stability than on national liberty.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , Spring 1981 , pp. 27 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article has been made possible by a grant from the Research Board of the University of Manitoba. I must also thank my colleagues, Professors John Finlay and John Kendle, who offered very valuable suggestions.

References

1 Morley, John, Life of Gladstone, 3 vols. (London, 1903), 2:1–17Google Scholar. Magnus, Philip, Gladstone: A Biography (London, 1954), p. xiiGoogle Scholar. Knaplund, Paul, Gladstone and Britain's Imperial Policy (1927/1966, reprint ed., London, 1966), pp. 94–6Google Scholar. Monypenny, W.F. and Buckle, G.E., The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, 6 vols. (London, 1916–1920), 6:10–11.Google Scholar

2 This question of images is also discussed by Blyth, J. A. in “Gladstone and Disraeli: ‘Images’ in Victorian Politics,” Dalhousie Review 49 (Autumn, 1969):388–98.Google Scholar

3 Beales, Derek, England and Italy 1859-60 (London, 1961)Google Scholar. Gopal, S., “Gladstone and the Italian Question,” History 41 (1956):113–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Kutolowski, John F., “Mid-Victorian Public Opinion, Polish Propaganda, and the Uprising of 1863,” Journal of British Studies 8 (May 1969):86–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wereszycki, Henryk, “Great Britain and the Polish Question in 1863,” English Historical Review 50 (January 1935):78–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Taylor, A. J. P., The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy 1792-1939 (London, 1957), pp. 67–94Google Scholar. Lowe, C. J., The Reluctant Imperialists: British Foreign Policy 1878-1902, 2 vols. (London, 1967), 1:27–31Google Scholar; and Schreuder, Deryck M., Gladstone and Kruger: Liberal Government and Colonial Home Rule, 1880-1885 (London, 1969), pp. 48–55.Google Scholar

6 Even historians such as Feuchtwanger, E. J., Gladstone—A Political Biography (London, 1975)Google Scholar and Stansky, Peter, Gladstone: A Progress in Politics (Boston, 1979)Google Scholar, have tended not to place sufficient emphasis on this aspect of Gladstonian politics.

7 Parts of the Aberdeen-Gladstone correspondence on Naples can be seen in the Gladstone Papers, BL, Add. MSS. 43070. Best on his Neapolitan agitation are Beals, , England and Italy, p. 27Google Scholar; Gopal, , “The Italian Question,” p. 115Google Scholar; and especially Schreuder, Deryck M., “Gladstone and Italian Unification, 1848-70: The Making of a Liberal? English Historical Review 85 (July, 1970); 478–82.Google Scholar

8 Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series (4 May 1858), 150:44–66.Google Scholar

9 Ibid (8 August 1859), 155:1139-56.

10 Gladstone, W. E., Midlothian Speeches, ed. Foot, M. R. D., (Leicester, 1971).Google Scholar

11 Schreuder, , Gladstone and Kruger, p. 52Google Scholar; also “Gladstone as ‘TroubleMaker’: Liberal Foreign Policy and the German Annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, 1870-1,” Journal of British Studies 17 (Spring 1978):106–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Bassett, A. Tilney, ed., Gladstone to His Wife (London, 1936), p. 79.Google Scholar

13 See “Past and Present Administrations,” Quarterly Review 104 (October, 1858):549–50.Google Scholar

14 Hammond, J. L., Gladstone and the Irish Nation (London, 1938), pp. 49–66.Google Scholar

15 The gradual evolution of Gladstone's “liberalism” in Italy is best discussed by Schreuder, “Gladstone and Italian Unification,” pp. 475–501Google Scholar. See also Gopal, , “The Italian Question,” pp. 113–21Google Scholar; and Beales, England and Italy.

16 Cecil, Algernon, Queen Victoria and Her Prime Ministers (London, 1953), p. 250.Google Scholar

17 Eyck, Eric, Gladstone (London, 1938), pp. 109–10.Google Scholar

18 See “War in Italy,” Quarterly Review 105 (April, 1859):537–53.Google Scholar

19 This point is well made by Beales, Gopal, and Schreuder.

20 Hansard (20 July 1866) 184:1241–2.Google Scholar

21 Beales, , England and Italy, p. 96.Google Scholar

22 Hammond, , Gladstone and the Irish Nation, pp. 67–8.Google Scholar

23 Bryce, James, Studies in Contemporary Biography (London, 1904), p. 448.Google Scholar

24 See “The Peace to Come,” The Nineteenth Century 3 (February, 1878):209–26.Google Scholar

25 Gladstone to Granville, 12 July 1880, in Ramm, Agatha, ed., The Political Correspondence of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville, 1876-86, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1962), 1:145Google Scholar. See also Knaplund, Paul, Gladstone's Foreign Policy (1935; reprint ed., London, 1970), pp. 149–50.Google Scholar

26 Gladstone to Granville, 22 September 1885, in Ramm, , Gladstone and Granville, 2:398.Google Scholar

27 The same to the same, 13 October 1883, in ibid., p. 100.

28 See his “Hellenic Factor in the Eastern Problem,” Contemporary Review 29 (December, 1876):1–27.Google Scholar

29 This is a point repeatedly made by Gladstone in his parliamentary speeches and public addresses during the late 1870s; but see also his “Past and Present Administrations,” pp. 551-5; and his speech in the House of Commons on 15 February 1867, Hansard, 185:441–5.Google Scholar

30 This is made clear by a number of his letters to Granville, in Ramm, Gladstone and Granville, but see especially Gladstone to Mme. Novikoff, 2 January 1877, Gladstone Papers, Add. MSS. 44268, fol. 119; and Gladstone to Argyll, 26 October 1880, ibid, 44544, fol. 83.

31 Gladstone to Argyll, 16 December 1862, ibid, 44533, fols. 64-5; Gladstone to Mrs. Gladstone, 2 January 1863, in Bassett, , Gladstone to His Wife, p. 143.Google Scholar

32 Morley, , Life of Gladstone, 1:618–9Google Scholar; Magnus, , Gladstone, pp. 135–8Google Scholar; Gladstone to Argyll, 16 December 1862, Gladstone Papers, Add. MSS. 44533, fols. 64-5.

33 Robson, Maureen M., “Lord Clarendon and the Cretan Question, 1868-9,” Historical Journal 3 (1960):38–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Gladstone to Clarendon, 21 December 1868, Gladstone Papers, Add. MSS. 44133, fol. 149.

34 See e. g. Gladstone, , “The Peace to Come,” pp. 209–26.Google Scholar

35 Series of warlike letters to Granville, August/September 1880, in Ramm, , Gladstone and Granville, 1:158–91Google Scholar, especially his suggestion on 27 September that Britain might sink a couple of Turkish ships to demonstrate her seriousness in this matter (p. 186).

36 Gladstone to Russell, 16 November 1859, Russell Papers, PRO 30/22/19; and his speech in the House of Commons, 9 March 1860, Hansard, 157:309–26Google Scholar; see also Gladstone to Mrs. Gladstone, 11 January 1860, in Bassett, , Gladstone to His Wife, p. 128.Google Scholar

37 Among the Gladstone Papers, the three most helpful volumes on the Ionian missions are in Add. MSS. 44748, 44550, and 44551. His position is stated in a series of letters to Lytton and Newcastle in December 1858.

38 Hansard, (7 May 1861), 162:1682.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., cols. 1677-96. Also Gladstone to Argyll, 16 December 1862, Gladstone Papers, Add. MSS. 44533, fol. 119. Even on 12 May 1863, he was still complaining about the “spirit of deceit” which “prevailed among the upper classes of the Islanders,” Hansard, 170:1605.Google Scholar

40 Bassett, Tilney, Gladstone to His Wife, p. 142.Google Scholar

41 In the House of Commons, Hansard, (4 May 1858), 150:44–66Google Scholar; Seton-Watson, R. W., Britain in Europe, 1789-1914 (Cambridge, 1955), p. 366.Google Scholar

42 Gladstone to Clarendon, 5 March 1866, Gladstone Papers, Add. MSS. 44133, fol. 57. See also Mosse, Werner E., The Rise and Fall of the Crimean System, 1815-71 (London, 1963), p. 137.Google Scholar

43 See his articles: “The Peace to Come,” pp. 209-26; and “Liberty in the East and West,” The Nineteenth Century 3 (June 1878):1171–4Google Scholar. Also Seton-Watson, Robert W., Disraeli, Gladstone and the Eastern Question (1935, reprinted ed.; London, 1962).Google Scholar

44 Gladstone, , “Montenegro: A Sketch,” The Nineteenth Century 1 (May, 1877), pp. 360–79.Google Scholar

45 Gladstone to Mrs. Gladstone, 10 November 1880, in Bassett, , Gladstone to His Wife, p. 233.Google Scholar

46 Gladstone, , “The Peace to Come,” p. 213Google Scholar, and “Liberty in the East and West,” p. 1174.

47 Bryce, , Studies in Contemporary Biography, p. 446.Google Scholar

48 Gladstone to Granville, 5 November 1883, in Ramm, , Gladstone and Granville, 2:112.Google Scholar

49 House of Commons, Hansard, (31 July 1876), 231:201.Google Scholar

50 Gossman, Norbert J., “British Aid to Polish, Italian and Hungarian Exiles 1830-70,” South Atlantic Quarterly 68 (Spring, 1969):231–45.Google Scholar

51 Ibid. Also Kutolowski, , “Mid-Vitorian Public Opinion,” pp. 86–110.Google Scholar

52 Mosse, W. E., “England and the Polish Insurrrection of 1863,” English Historical Review 71 (January 1956):28–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wereszycki, , “Great Britain and the Polish Question in 1863,” pp. 78–108.Google Scholar

53 Hansard, 172:1058–1105.Google Scholar

54 Shannon, Richard T., Gladstone and the Bulgarian Agitation, 1876 (London, 1963), p. 99Google Scholar. Much of their correspondence is preserved in the Gladstone Papers, Add. MSS. 44268.

55 Beales, , England and Italy, pp. 169–73.Google Scholar

56 Douglas, Roy, “Britain and the Armenian Question, 1894-7,” Historical Journal 19 (1976):128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57 Gladstone, , “The Hellenic Factor in the Eastern Problem,” p. 22.Google Scholar

58 Douglas, , “Britain and the Armenian Question,” pp. 113–33Google Scholar; Marsh, Peter, “Lord Salisbury and the Ottoman Massacres,” Journal of British Studies 11 (May 1972):63–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 See e. g., Gladstone to Granville, 14 July 1880, in Ramm, , Gladstone and Granville, 1:146.Google Scholar

60 Countless exchanges on the question of estimates and fortifications appear in the Gladstone, Russell and Palmerston Papers. This controversy, which also preoccupied the minds of Herbert and Somerset as well as DeGrey, was particularly bitter during the period of British Francophobia (1859-60) which followed the Treaty of Villafranca.

61 As late as 6 January 1884, Gladstone was reminding Granville that the Paris treaty had left Egypt as part of the Ottoman Empire and Britain should not undermine European law, ibid, 2:145. See also 1:448.

62 Lowe, , Reluctant Imperialists, 1:45Google Scholar. See also Spinner, Thomas J., George Joachim Goschen: The Transformation of a Victorian Liberal (Cambridge, 1973), p. 90.Google Scholar

63 Ramm, , Gladstone and Granville, 1:429–30, 440–1, 452–3Google Scholar; Spinner, , Goschen, p. 90Google Scholar; Feuchtwanger, , Gladstone, p. 213Google Scholar; also Farwell, Byron, Queen Victoria's Little Wars (Newton Abbot, 1974), pp. 254–5.Google Scholar

64 Gladstone to Granville, 4 January 1882, in Ramm, , Gladstone and Granville, 1:327.Google Scholar

65 Gladstone, , “Aggression on Egypt and Freedom in the East,” The Nineteenth Century 1 (August 1877), p. 153.Google Scholar

66 Ibid, pp. 149-66. In addition to his Midlothian, speeches, see his “England's Mission,” The Nineteenth Century 3 (September 1878), pp. 560–84.Google Scholar

67 Stansky, , Gladstone, p. 80.Google Scholar

68 Gladstone, , “War in Italy,” p. 528.Google Scholar

69 Knaplund, , Gladstone's Foreign Policy, p. 126.Google Scholar

70 Schreuder, Gladstone and Kruger.

71 Stansky, , Gladstone, p. 32.Google Scholar