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III. Disraeli, Derby and Fusion, October 1865 to July 1866

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2010

Maurice Cowling
Maurice Cowling
Affiliation:
Peterhouse, Cambridge
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Extract

The Government which Lord Russell formed on Palmerston's death in October 1865 met Parliament first on 6 February 1866. On 12 March it introduced a Reform Bill, the chief objects of which were to lower the Borough Franchise of 1832 from £10 rental to £7 and the County Franchise from £50 to £14, and to give votes to £50 Savings Bank depositors, £10 lodgers and certain others (enfranchising altogether about 400,000 new voters). On 7 May it introduced a Seats Bill which provided for grouping of boroughs with populations smaller than 8000 and removal of second seats from small towns with two members; and which proposed to distribute the 49 seats thus freed so that Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Salford and London would have 10 new seats between them, Scotland 7, London University and a number of new boroughs 1 each and the English counties 26 in all. These measures were recommended by Gladstone, as Leader of the House of Commons, in the hope, which the Queen shared, that they would put an end to the reform question for a generation. Their authors, Russell and Gladstone, intended them to wind up the line of abortive measures which had been presented to Parliament in the previous seventeen years: they expected, innocently as it turned out, that a degree of enfranchisement which the Cabinet had accepted, however reluctantly, which had been tailored in order to pass through Parliament and ‘which we had so much cut down…from the standard of the Palmerston measure of 1860 would be accepted by the Liberal majority in the House of Commons.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , 1965 , pp. 31 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

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References

1 Gladstone to General Grey, 22 June 1866. R[oyal] A[rchives] C 32/22. This paper is based on study of Gladstone, Bright, Ripon and Iddesleigh MSS. (British Museum); Russell and Granville MSS. (Public Record Office); Clarendon MSS. (in the Bodleian); Disraeli MSS. (Hughenden); Lansdowne MSS. (Bowood); Brand MSS. (in the Journal Office of the House of Commons); Cairns MSS. (in the possession of Lord Cairns); Cranbrook MSS. (in the West Suffolk County Record Office); Grey [of Howick] MSS. (3rd Earl Grey in the Prior's Kitchen, Durham); Wemyss MSS. (Longniddry House, East Lothian); Edward Ellice jun. MSS. (National Library of Scotland); the pipers of the 14th Earl of Derby; and on the Royal Archives at Windsor. There is nothing for these months amongst the Ward Hunt MSS. in Northampton County Record Office, in the papers of the Marquess of Bath at Longleat, or of the Duke of Westminster at Saighton, virtually nothing in the Cardwell, Carnarvon, Halifax and Salisbury MSS.

The author wishes to acknowledge the gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen to make use of material from the Royal Archives. He is grateful to the other owners of manuscripts for granting access to them: to librarians for making them available; to the Earl of Wemyss for hospitality; to Rear-Admiral the Earl Cairns for kindly lending him volumes of his family papers; to the Duke of Westminster for kindly answering inquiries; and to Mr Robert Blake.

2 Memories 1818-1912, by the Earl of March and Wemyss (i.e. Elcho) (Edinburgh, 1912, privately printed), 1, p. 366Google Scholar.

3 Horsman to Elcho, 24 Dec. 1865, Wemyss Letter-Books (1865).

4 Elcho to Stanley of Alderley, i Nov. 1865, Wemyss Letter-Books (1865).

5 Derby to the Queen, 30 May 1866 (copy), Derby MSS. Box 190.

6 Derby to Disraeli, 4 Aug. 1865 (copy), Derby MSS. Box 190.

7 Spofforth to Derby, 2 Aug. 1865, Derby MSS. Box 104.

8 [Gathorne Hardy, 1st Earl of] Cranbrook, Diary, 25 Sept. 1865, Cranbrook MSS.

9 Cf. Diary of Sir Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh, 3 Feb. 1866, Iddesleigh MSS. B.M. Add. MSS. 50063A and Lang, Sir Stafford Northcote (1899), pp. 138-61. ‘Long talk with Dis. this afternoon. He says he communicated with Lord D. after the election, putting before him…the necessity of reconstruction; that he told him that he thought reconstruction could not be carried through without a change of leader in one or the other House, and that he was willing to give up the lead in the Commons in order to facilitate it; that Lord D. rejected that idea, and did not seem to appreciate the alternative….’

10 Disraeli to Derby, 6 Aug. 1865, Derby MSS. Box 146.

11 Derby to Disraeli, 12 Aug. 1865, Hughenden MSS.

12 Disraeli to Derby, 3 Sept. 1865, Derby MSS. Box 146.

13 Derby to Disraeli, 12 Aug. 186s, Hughenden MSS.

14 Clarendon to Granville, 21 Oct. 1865, P.R.O. 30/29/29A.

15 Vincent, J. R., The Formation of the Liberal Party 1857-68 (Cambridge Ph.D. dissertation)Google Scholar. The author is grateful to Mr Vincent both for allowing him to have sight of his analysis of the elements of which the Liberal Party was composed in the 1860's and for general conversation about the Liberal Party.

16 Lord John Manners to Disraeli, 26 Dec. 1865, Hughenden MSS.

17 Robert Lowe to his brother, 26 July 1865; Martin, Patchett, Life and Letters of Viscount Sherbrooke (1594), 11, 241Google Scholar.

18 Quoted in , Masheder, Democracy and Dissent (1865), p. 243Google Scholar.

19 Derby to Disraeli, 4 Aug. 1865 (copy), Derby MSS. Box 190.

20 Naas to Derby, 24 Oct. 1865, Derby MSS. Box 104.

21 Spofforth to Disraeli, 30 Oct. 1865, Hughenden MSS.

22 Earle to Disraeli, 4 Nov. 1865, Hughenden MSS.

23 Disraeli to Derby, 6 Aug. 1865, Derby MSS. Box 146.

24 Spofforth to Disraeli, 2 Nov. 1865, Hughenden MSS.

25 Elcho to Disraeli, 11 May 1865, Hughenden MSS.

26 Disraeli to Derby, 3 Sept. 1865, Derby MSS. Box 146.

27 Disraeli to Derby, 24 Nov. 1865, Derby MSS. Box 146.

28 Granville to Russell, 26 March 1866, P.R.O. 30/29/22A.

29 Sir George Grey to Brand, 1 Nov. 1865, Brand MSS.

30 Who went to the Lords as Lord Halifax in February 1866.

31 Brand to Russell, 3 Feb. 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16.

32 Wolf, L., Life of First Marquess of Ripon (1921), 1, 212–14Google Scholar.

33 Unsigned memorandum, 2 3 Oct. 1865, P.R.O. 30/22/15. Gladstone to Russell, 24 October 1865, P.R.O. 30/22/15.

34 Gladstone to Russell, 27 Oct. 1865 (copy), B.M. Add. MSS. 44292.

35 Bouverie t o Ellice, 26 Oct. 1865, Ellice MSS.

36 Gladstone to Russell, 1 Feb. 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16.

37 Milner Gibso n to Bright, 11 Jan. 1866, B.M. Add. MSS. 44389.

38 Gladstone to Sir George Grey, 6 March 1866 (copy), B.M. Add. MSS. 44162.

39 Spofforth to Disraeli, 9 Dec. 1865, Hughenden MSS. (quoting Knatchbull-Hugessen).

40 Gladstone to Russell, 24 Oct.; Russell to Peel, 16 Nov.; Queen to Russell, 12 Nov.; unsigned memorandum, n.d. [after 12 Nov.], all P.R.O. 30/22/15.

41 Gladstone to Russell, 6 Dec. 1865, P.R.O. 30/22/15.

42 Gladstone to Russell, 8 Dec, and Russell to Granville, 7 Dec. 1865, P.R.O. 30/29/18 and 29A.

43 Stanley to Disraeli, 16 Nov. 1865, Hughenden MSS.

44 Gladstone to Russell, 30 Oct. 1865, P.R.O. 30/22/15.

45 Cf. Queen's conversation with Russell, 29 Oct. 1866: Letters of Queen Victoria 1862-78, I, 281-3.

46 Russell to Gladstone, 9 Dec. 1865; Gladstone to Russell, 11 Dec. 1865 (copy), both B.M. Add. MSS. 44292.

47 Elcho to Stanley of Alderley, 1 Nov. 1865 and to Kinglake, March 1866, Wemyss Letter-Books (1865 and 1866, 1).

48 Russell to Gladstone, n.d., B.M. Add. MSS. 44292. Cf. Unsigned memorandum, 25 Nov. 1865, Russell MSS. P.R.O. 30/22/15-one of a series of memoranda recording Russell's conversation at Pembroke Lodge, and written by one of his staff or family.

49 Unsigned memorandum, 23 Oct. 1865, P.R.O. 30/22/15. For confirmation of this view from Forster himself, see Northcote Diary, 14 March 1866.

50 Bright to Gladstone, 10 Feb. 1866, B.M. Add. MSS. 44112.

51 Which was ‘richer and more aristocratic,… ha[d] bee n returned at greater expense… and contained fewer adventurers and more men of substance’ than any other which has preceded it for many years' (Clarendon to Russell, 20 Dec. 1865: The Later Correspondence of Lord John Russell, ed. Gooch, , 1925, pp. 340–1)Google Scholar.

52 Cf. Clarendon to Lady Salisbury: , Maxwell, [Life and Letters of the Fourth Earl of] Clarendon (1913), n. 309Google Scholar.

53 Somerset to Russell, 20, 21 and 23 Oct. 1865, P.R.O. 30/22/15.

54 Wood to Russell, 30 Jan. 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16.

55 For Russell's memorandum, Gladstone's supporting letter and memoranda from members of the Cabinet (dated 6 to 8 March 1866), see P.R.O. 30/22/16.

56 The Duke of Somerset (memorandum No. 4), Ibid.

57 Sir George Grey to Russell, 29 April 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16.

58 Russell to Brand, 28 April 1866, Brand MSS.

59 Sir George Grey to Russell, 6 Jan. 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/15.

60 Villiers to Russell, 23 Dec. 1865, P.R.O. 30/22/15. Cf. Masheder, op. cit. p. 246.

61 Russell to Brand, 27 Oct. 1865, Brand MSS.

62 Cf. Gladstone to Russell, 27 Dec. 1865, B.M. Add. MSS. 44292.

63 Cf. Gladstone to Villiers, 27 Dec. 1865, B.M. Add. MSS. 44408.

64 Halifax to Earl Grey, 5 April 1866, Grey MSS.; Halifax to Russell, 23 March 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16.

65 Cf. Speaker Denison to Sir George Grey: , Morley, Life of Gladstone (1903), 11, 198–9Google Scholar.

66 Unsigned memorandum, n.d. [but c. 12 Nov. 1865], P.R.O. 30/22/15.

67 General Grey's memorandum, 23 March 1866, RA F 14/17.

68 Cf. Gladstone to Russell, 23 Oct. 1865 (Morley, Gladstone, 11, 153); Gladstone to Russell, 1 Jan. 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/15.

69 Unsigned memorandum, 14 Nov. 1865, P.R.O. 30/22/15.

70 Cf. his remarks (when de Grey was offered the India Office instea d of Argyll) on the importance of a regular ladder of promotion (Gladstone to Russell, 1 Feb. 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16).

71 Cf. Bright to Gladstone, 10 Feb. 1866, B.M. Add. MSS. 44112.

72 Cf. General Grey's memorandum, 23 March 1866, RA F 14/16.

73 Spofforth to Disraeli, 5 Jan. 1866, Hughenden MSS.

74 Derby to Pakington, 10 Nov. 1865, Derby MSS. Box 190.

75 Cranbrook Diary, 9 March 1866.

76 Derby to Carnarvon, 7 Nov. 1865, Derby MSS. Box 190; Derby to Malmesbury, 6 Nov. 1865, in , Malmesbury, Memoirs of an Ex-Minister (1884), II, 342–3Google Scholar.

77 Cf. Stanley to Disraeli, 8 Nov. 1865.

78 , Lang, Sir Stafford Northcote (London, 1899), p. 135Google Scholar.

79 And whose arrival would, one might add, ruin so many of their political prospects in the Conservative Party.

80 Northcote Diary, 4 Feb. 1866.

81 Taylor to Disraeli, 27 June 1866 (letter 1), Hughenden MSS.; Malmesbury Diary, 11 March 1866: Memoirs, II, 349.

82 Hardy to Cairns, 26 Dec. 1865, Cairns MSS. vol. II.

83 Northcote Diary, 3 Mar. 1866.

84 Northcote Diary, 6 Mar. 1866 (omitted from Lang's reprinting of the diary, Lang, p. 151). Cf. The Times, 28 02 1866Google Scholar(suggesting Somerset as a possible successor if the government was to remain Liberal).

85 Northcote Diary, 7 March 1866.

86 Northcote Diary, 3 Feb. 1866.

87 Derby to Pakington, 10 Nov. 1865, Derby MSS. Box 190.

88 I have found no evidence to suggest tha t they were, or that Gladstone approached or thought of approaching the Conservative leaders for any general political purpose between October 1865 and July 1866. He seems to have asked Northcote to defend the government against attacks on its handling of the Cattle Plague question, but, as Northcote records in his Diary (6 Feb. 1866), ‘I didn't see why I should’.

89 Cf. Bright to Villiers, n.d. (copy), P.R.O. 30/22/15.

90 Quarterly Review, cxix (1866), 268Google Scholar.

91 Northcote Diary, 16 March 1866.

92 Ibid. 22 Feb. 1866.

93 , Hardinge: [Life of H. H. M. Herbert, Fourth Earl of] Carnarvon (1925), 1, 277Google Scholar.

94 Memorandum Brand to Gladstone, 22 March 1866, B.M. Add. MSS. 44193.

95 Halifax to Earl Grey, 5 April 1866, Grey MSS.

96 Hansard, vol. 182, cols. 843-4, 862-3, 1166, March 1866.

97 Cranbrook Diary, 27 April 1866. Cf. Lowe to his brother, 8 April 1866; Patchett Martin, Sherbrooke (1893), II, 277Google Scholar, and Elcho to Ellice, 25 April 1866, Ellice MSS.

98 Cf. the caution (perhaps what Cranborne meant by the ‘dreamy sentimentalism’) of his speech in Glasgow: Parliament ‘will seek… neither to continue, nor to set up, nor in any manner to favour dominion, or the undue influence of one class compared with another but in a fair adjustment of common rights and common interests to make provision for the happiness and for the strength and prosperity of the country’ ( The Times, 2 11 1865)Google Scholar.

99 Derby to Whiteside, 19 Jan. 1866, Derby MSS. Box 190.

100 Disraeli to Derby, n.d., Derby MSS. Box 146. The Russell resignation rumour is almost certainly the same as the rumour reported in The Times on 28 Feb. 1866, which may have arisen either from something the Prince of Wales said to Delane or from the fact that Russell, having said ‘in joke and for chaff’ to the Duke of Somerset after a Cabinet meeting ‘“Oh, I shall have to give up the reins of Government to you”’, inspired the Duke to tell the Duchess in the presence of their daughter Lady Gwendoline Ramsden who ‘ran off at once to tell her husband, who told his connection, Horsman, who ran to Lowe, and Lowe into Delane's arms, and so it was…printed and believed to be true’ (B. and Russell, P. ed., Amberley Papers, I, 476Google Scholar). There is no evidence that Russell offered to resign at any time between October 1865 and June 1866, though it is clear that some Cabinet ministers would have liked him to. For the reliability of the anecdote about Sir Charles Phipps's death, cf. ‘Whilst I was dressing got the fatal telegram from Dr Jenner saying that dear Sir Charles had died at half p. 5 this morning’ (Queen Victoria's Diary, 24 Feb. 1866). I am grateful t o Miss Jane Langton, the Assistant Registrar in the Royal Archives, for kindly supplying this reference. The Queen seems not to have seen Lord Russell that day, part of which she spent in London calling on Lady Phipps.

101 Northcote Diary, 28 Feb. 1866.

102 Ibid. 19 Feb. 1866.

103 Cf. Elcho to Grosvenor, 8 May 1866, Wemyss Letter-Books (1866, 1).

104 Hansard, vol. 182, col. 1156.

105 Northcote Diary, 24 March 1866.

106 Bouverie to Ellice, 25 Oct. and 1 Nov. 1865, Ellice MSS.

107 Bouverie to Ellice, 24 Jan. and 14 March 1866, Ellice MSS.

108 Bouverie to Ellice, 14 March 1866, Ellice MSS.

109 Spofforth to Disraeli, 9 Dec. 1865, 9 Jan. an d 5 April 1866, Hughenden MSS.

110 Taylor to Derby, 6 Dec. 1865, Derby MSS. Box 104.

111 Cf. Russell to Sir George Grey, 10 Dec. 1865 (copy), P.R.O. 30/22/15.

112 See Russell's memorandum to Cabinet, 12 Feb. 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16.

113 Russell to Sir George Grey, 10 Dec. 1865, P.R.O. 30/22/15. Cf. Brand to Gladstone, 15 Jan. 1866, B.M. Add. MSS. 44193.

114 Sir George Grey to Russell, 6 Jan. 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16.

115 Russell to Sir George Grey, 7 Jan. 1866; in Gooch, 11, 343.

116 Brand to Gladstone, 15 Jan. 1866, B.M. Add. MSS. 44193. For the Cabinet division on the question, see Gladstone's Cabinet note of 29 Jan. 1866 ‘Shall there be any redistribution of seats? Aye, Somerset, Cardwell. Postpone, Wood, Goschen, de Grey, Villiers. No, Chancellor, Grey, Gladstone, Russell, Clarendon, Argyll, Gibson, Stanley [of Alderley]’ (B.M. Add. MSS. 44636).

117 Cf. Gladstone to Russell, 22 March 1866; Brand to Russell, 29 March 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16; Granville to Russell, 26 March 1866, P.R.O. 30/29/22 A.

118 Sir George Grey to Russell, 29 April 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16.

119 Accepted by the Cabinet on 2 May: Russell to Queen, 3 May 1866 (copy), P.R.O. 30/22/16.

120 Brand to Russell, 1 April 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16.

121 Lord E. Bruce to Gladstone, 25 April 1866, B.M. Add. MSS. 44410; Clarendon to Granville, n.d. [but beginning of April]; , Maxwell, Clarendon, 11, p. 313Google Scholar.

122 Speeches ofJohn Bright, ed. Rogers, Thorold (1869), II, 155–6Google Scholar. For the effect of Bright's support see Granville to Russell, 26 March 1866, P.R.O. 30/29/29A; Brand to Clarendon, 21 April 1866: , Maxwell, Clarendon, II, 314Google Scholar; Lord E.Bruce to Gladstone, 25 April 1866, B.M. Add. MSS. 44410.

123 Cf. General Grey's desire in Oct. 1865 to see Lowe Chancellor of the Duchy as a makeweight to Amberley's influence on Russell (General Grey to Earl Grey, 20 Oct. 1865, Grey MSS.).

124 Cf. ‘I believe that we shall never be safe until some patriotic individual burns down Pembroke Lodge’ (de Grey to Wood, n Jan. 1866: Maxwell, Clarendon, II, 306); and ‘I hear Brand don't at all like holding his conferences with Lady Russell one of the party’ (Bouverie to Ellice, 4 Feb. 1866, Ellice MSS.).

125 Northcote Diary, 3 March 1866.

126 Bouverie to Ellice, 16 Jan. 1866, Ellice MSS.

127 Ibid. 1 April 1866.

128 Elcho to Grosvenor, 8 May 1866, Wemyss MSS.: Letter-Books (1866), 1.

129 Elcho to Grosvenor, n.d. [1866], Ibid.

130 Elcho to Ellice, 25 April 1866, Ellice MSS.

131 Bouverie to Ellice, 4 April 1866, Ellice MSS.

132 Northcote Diary, 16 March 1866.

133 Cf. Granville to Gladstone, 24 April and 4 July 1866, B.M. Add. MSS. 44165.

134 Amberley Papers, I, 485.

135 Ibid. p. 486.

136 Cf. Bouverie to Ellice, 10 April 1866, Ellice MSS.

137 General Grey's memorandum, 20 April 1866, RA F 14/44. Cf. General Grey to Earl Grey, 30 April 1866, Grey MSS.

138 Halifax to General Grey, 21 June 1866, RA C 32/23.

139 Sir George Grey to General Grey, 21 June 1866. RA C 32/21.

140 Elcho to Disraeli, 2 June 1866, Hughenden MSS. recording Delane's account of conversation with Halifax.

141 Clarendon to Russell, 23 June 1866 (copy), Clarendon MSS. dep. c. 104.

142 Brand to Russell, 23 June 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16.

143 General Grey's memorandum, 24 April 1866; Granville to Grey, 24 April 1866; the Queen to Russell (draft and letter), RA F 14/33, /35, /37 and RA C 15/51.

144 RA C 32/11, 14, 15, 23.

145 Russell to Brand, 29 April 1866, Brand MSS.

146 Russell to the Queen, 1 June 1866, RA F 14/63.

147 Ibid. 9 June 1866, RA F 14/69.

148 General Grey's memorandum, 10 June 1866, RA F 14/70.

149 Gladstone to Russell, 20 June 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16.

150 Speech at Liverpool, 5 April 1866, The Times, 6 04 1866Google Scholar.

151 Gladstone to Russell, 20 June 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16.

152 Loc. cit.

153 Clarendon to Russell, 25 June 1866: , Maxwell, Clarendon, 11, 317Google Scholar.

154 Bright to Gladstone, 24 June 1866, B.M. Add. MSS. 44412.

155 Gladstone to President and Secretary of London Working Men's Association, 2 July 1866 (press cutting), B.M. Add. MSS. 44755.

156 Elcho to Disraeli, 21 June 1866, Hughenden MSS.

157 Cranbrook Diary, 21 June 1866.

158 Derby to the Queen, 28 June 1866, RA C 32/50; Northcote Diary, 28 June; Cran-brook Diary, 29 June 1866.

159 There is no direct evidence of this: there are only clues. There is his reluctance to accept the Foreign Office in 1865: the fact that he was mentioned by Conservatives as one whom the Adullamites would accept as leader: there are Russell's complaints that ‘Lord Clarendon is mixed up in these intrigues… [which] had been going on among Lord Elcho and tha t party who wished to induce Lor d Derby, if the Government should fall, to refuse to form a government in order that the Queen might send for the Horsman and Lowe party’ (unsigned memorandum, 24 March 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16). There is Clarendon's attempt to open the Queen's mind to the possibility that, if the Russell Government wer e defeated, Derby might refuse to form a government (General Grey's memorandum, 23 March 1866, RA F 14/16). There is the judgement of Lord Cowley, the ambassador to Paris, in a letter to Lady Salisbury: ‘It is a great pity that Lord Derby cannot be persuaded to retire… he will not be able… to form a strong government but I do not see why Lord Stanley should not… Clarendon must bitterly repent having had anything to do with the Russell Cabinet. What a position he would have had at this moment had he kept away from that dangerous source of mischief’ (Cowley to Lady Salisbury, 29 June 1866: A Great Lady's Friendships, 1933, p. 74)Google Scholar.

160 Somerset to Derby, 29 June 1866, Derby MSS. Box 114; Derby to General Grey, 29 June 1866 (copy), Derby MSS. Box 190.

161 Disraeli to Derby, 27 June 1866, Derby MSS. Box 146; Hodder, , Shaftesbury, in, 211Google Scholar.

162 Shaftesbury to Derby, 29 June 1866 (two letters), and 30 June 1866, Derby MSS. Box 114. For Shaftesbury's ‘shrinking from office’, see Shaftesbury to Robert Baxter (who acted as intermediary for Disraeli and Derby), and Baxter to Disraeli, Hughenden MSS. B/XXI/B/183 and 184.

163 Derby to the Queen and to General Grey, 23 July 1866, Derby MSS. Box 190. Cf. Taylor to Disraeli, 28 July [1866], Hughenden MSS.

164 Disraeli to Derby, Tuesday morning [3 July] 1866, Derby MSS. Box 146.

165 Disraeli to Derby, Tuesday morning 6 a.m. [July 1866], Derb y MSS. Box 146.

166 Grosvenor to Lansdowne, 30 June 1866, Lansdowne MSS.

167 Derby, memorandum in Derby to Disraeli, n.d. [30 June 1866], Hughende n MSS. B/XX/5/349.

168 W. H. Gregory to Derby, 30 June 1866, Derby MSS. Box m. For Lansdowne's pledge of support for Derby's government ‘if, as I hope and believe, it is established upon principles which will admit of the co-operation of moderate and constitutional Whigs’, see Lansdowne (who died a week later) to Derby, 30 June 1866, Derby MSS. Box 112.

169 Derby to Disraeli, n.d. [St James's Square 7.20p.m. 22 June or 23 June]: Buckle, iv, 439-40.

170 Elcho to Disraeli, 21 June 1866, Hughenden MSS.

171 Elcho to Earle, 26 June 1866, Wemyss MSS. Letter-Books (1866), 11.

172 Disraeli to Derby, 23 June 1866, Derby MSS. Box 146.

173 Buckle, IV, 439.

174 Elcho to Lansdowne, 19 June 1866, Lansdowne MSS.

175 Lord Colvill e to Derby, Thursda y 2 p.m. 28 June 1866 (Derby MSS. Box no), reporting a visit from Gilbert Heathcote ‘as an ambassador from the Adullamite Camp’ to say that ‘various Adullamites’ on comparing notes ‘at the Ball last night’ found that ‘no overtures had been made to any of them or to Lord Lansdowne’ and adding that an overture ‘had been, and is expected by them’. Cf. Elcho to Cairns, 28 June, for Elcho trying to induce Cairns to advocate coalition (Wemyss Letter-Books, 1866, II).

176 Unsigned memorandum, 24 March 1866, MSS. P.R.O. 30/22/16.

177 Disraeli to Derby, 25 June 1866, Derby MSS. Box 146.

178 Elcho to Horsman, 15 Jan. 1866, Wemyss Letter-Book s (1866), 1.

179 Elcho to W. H. Gregory, 19 May 1866, loc. cit.

180 Earle to Disraeli, n.d., Hughenden MSS. B/XX/E/379.

181 Ibid.

182 Cf. Lowe to Lansdowne, 16 [?] Jan. 1866, Lansdowne MSS.

183 Cf. H. A. Bruce to de Grey, 25 Oct. 1865, B.M. Add. MSS.

184 Cf. Grosvenor to Lansdowne, 30 June 1866, Lansdowne MSS.

185 Horsman to Elcho, 17 Dec. 1865, Wemyss Letter-Books (1865); Horsman to Lans-downe, 30 June 1866, Lansdowne MSS.

186 Lytton to Forster, John, Personal and Literary Letters of the Earl of Lytton (1906), I, 214Google Scholar.

187 Northcote Diary, 23 March 1866.

188 Unsigned memorandum, 24 March 1866 (reporting Queen's conversation with Russell), P.R.O. 30/22/16.

189 Northcote Diary, 22 Feb. and 23 Mar. 1866.

190 Qf ‘Gladstone's failure as a leader become s mor e manifest every day: but they have taken a long tim e to discover it’ (Lowe to his brother, 20 Feb. 1866: Martin, Patchett, op. cit. II, 268)Google Scholar. Cf. also Lowe to Mrs Billiard of Sydney, Ibid. p. 279: it would be interesting to know what is omitted from Martin's rendering (11, 294) of Lowe's letter of 24 May 1866 to Mrs Billiard: ‘I have reached a position I never expected in my wildest dream s to attain… [Martin's omission ] You know I never was very ambitiou s and always cared more for the fight than for the prize.’

191 Clarendon to Russell, 30 June [1866], P.R.O. 30/22/16.

192 It was, for example, Granville who carried the Cabinet's conciliator y messag e to Lowe in December 1865, though cf. Granville to Russell, 26 March 1866 (P.R.O. 30/29/22A), for Granville's irritation.

193 Northcote Diary, 22 Feb. 1866.

194 General Grey's memorandum, 22 June 1866, RA C 32/16.

195 Which Clarendon thought Disraeli particularly wanted, and Derby particularly wanted him not to have (Clarendon to Russell, 29 June 1866, P.R.O. 30/22/16).

196 Northcote Diary, 2 March 1866.

197 Taylor to Disraeli, 27 June 1866, Hughenden MSS.

198 o Knightley to Derby, 3 July 1866, Derby MSS. Box 112.

199 Cf. Lecky, W. E. H., prefatory memoir to Speeches and Addresses of Edward Henry, XVth Earl of Derby (1894), I, ix–xlivGoogle Scholar.

200 Earle to Disraeli, 4 Nov. 1865, Hughenden MSS.

201 Though not at the end of February, cf. Northcote Diary, 28 Feb. 1866.

202 Northcote Diary, 28 June 1866.

203 , Selborne, Memorials Personal and Political, 1865-95, 1, 62Google Scholar.

204 D. Robertson, M.P., to Gladstone, 30 June 1866, B.M. Add. MSS. 44411.

205 Malmesbury's Diary, 22 and 27 June 1866: Memoirs, I, 356-7.

206 Spofforth to Disraeli, 4 Nov. 1865, Hughenden MSS.

207 Cf. General Grey's memorandum, conversation wit h Derby, 30 June 1866, RA C 32/65.

208 Derby to Adderley, 10 May 1866, Derby MSS. Box 190.

209 Northcote Diary, 22 Feb. 1866, reporting Northcote's conversation with Jolliffe.

210 General Grey's memorandum, conversation with Derby, 29 June 1866, RA C 32/48.

211 General Grey's memorandum, conversation with Derby, 30 June 1866, RA C 32/65.

212 Horsman to Lansdowne, Lansdowne to Horsman (copy), Grosvenor to Lansdowne, all 30 June 1866, Lansdowne MSS.

213 Northcote Diary, 28 June 1866.

214 Taylor to Disraeli [27 June 1866], Hughenden MSB.

215 Northcote Diary, 28 June 1866.

216 Disraeli to Derby, 25 June 1866 (letter 1), Derby MSS. Box 146.

217 Northcote Diary, 29 June 1866.

218 Cf. Milner Gibson to Bright, 30 June 1866; B.M. Add. MSS. 43389 (reporting conversation with Northcote).

219 Disraeli to Derby, 25 June 1866 (letter 2), Derby MSS. Box 146.

220 Derby to General Grey, 29 June, 10 p.m., Derby MSS. Box 190. Cf. Derby to Disraeh, Wednesday, n.d., Hughenden MSS. B/XX/S/347 (in relation to Shaftesbury).

221 Disraeli to Derby, 25 June 1866, Derby MSS. Box 146.

222 Cf. Gladstone, W. E., Gleanings, 1, 126Google Scholar.

223 Northcote Diary, 28 June 1866.

224 Cf. Derby to General Grey, 2 July 1866, Derby MSS. Box 190 (‘must ask you to prepare Her Majesty's mind for my possible failure ultimately to construct a government’).

225 Earle to Disraeli, n.d., Hughenden MSS. B”XX”E”376.

226 Cranbrook Diary, 20 and 21 June 1866 (including Carnarvon's approval of Lansdowne).

227 Cf. ‘They seem to have given up the idea of Lord Derby making way to Lord Granville and concentrate their efforts upon the plan of inducing you to go to the House of Lords. Horsman thinks he can lead the House of Commons!!!’ (Earle to Disraeli, n.d. [but during the last week of June], Hughenden MSS. B/XX/E/409).

228 E.g. Somerset who, despite his ‘cold manner’ was less of a ‘party man’ than Granville and therefore, perhaps, more acceptable to ‘moderate Conservatives’ (General Grey's memorandum, 28 June 1866, RA C 32/49).

229 Ibid.

230 Northcote Diary, 5 Feb., 8 and 25 March 1866.

231 Malmesbury to Derby, 8 Nov. 1865, Derby MSS. Box 146. Cf. Derby's early brake on the distribution of peerages, etc., in July/August 1866, in face of the flood of applications. For the fears felt by potential Conservative Ministers of the effect of fusion on their own prospects, see Northcote Diary, 25 March 1866.

232 Disraeli to Derby, 2 July 1866, Derby MSS. Box 146.

233 Derby to Disraeli, 12 Aug. 1865, Hughenden MSS. These paragraphs are not quoted in Buckle, IV, 418, though most of the rest of the letter is.

234 Disraeli to his wife, n.d. [June], Hughenden MSS. A/I/A324.