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For two hundred years and more, No. 1O
Downing Street has been the best-known ad-
dress in the world. Even before it became the
official home and general headquarters of
Britain's Prime Ministers, the succession of
occupants at No. 10 proclaimed the changing
tides of history: Charles the First played as a
boy in this house which was later to become
the residence of his arch-enemy, Oliver
Cromwell, and later still, the home of the ille-
gitimate daughter of the reinstated Stuart
king. But in the early eighteenth century came
Sir Robert Walpole, the first "Prime Minister"
of Britain, and No. 1O Downing Street officially
became a house in history.

R. J. Minney, British biographer and novej-
i$tf has now written a genealogy of the prime
ministership, taking No. 1O as the vantage
point from which he views the intriguing pro-
gression of men and events. The story begins
in the days when Whitehall lay in marshy fields
outside London and continues to the formation
of the Macmillan government. He tells of the
construction of the house by Sir George
Downing, a graduate of Harvard College in
1642 who returned to England to become an
unscrupulous agent for both Commonwealth
and Restoration; of the "indispensable"
Walpole and the men who followed: the Pitts,
Wellington, Peel, Melbourne, Disraeli, Glad-
stone, Lloyd George, and Churchill.

No* 1O has seen ministers arrive with high
ambition and leave in tragedy and disgrace,
(Continued on second ftap)

No. 10

DOWNING STREET

A House in History

R. J, Minney

WITH lUUSUATIONS

LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY Boston Toronto

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRO-
DUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE
PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PAS-
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 63-8315
FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

PRINTED IN THE UNITID STATES OF AMERICA

For

ARTHUR BRYANT

Preface

THIS is the history of a house. No. 10 Downing Street, though
few are aware of it, consists in fact of three houses that were joined
together nearly two and a half centuries ago. The oldest of these houses,
of which the Cabinet room forms a part, is three centuries old. Before
it took its present form King Charles the First lived in it as a child, then
his sister Elizabeth, grandmother of George the First, and later on,
Cromwell and his wife. It was reconstructed for Charles the Second's
illegitimate daughter, the Countess of Lichficld, before it was joined
with the other two houses, both on Downing Street, for Sir Robert
Walpole, the first Prime Minister in Britain, in 1735. It was No. 5 at
first and was changed to No. 10 just over a century ago, but I have
kept throughout to the present numbering of the houses in order to be
consistent. I have also, for the same reason, viewed the floors of No. 10
as they appear from Downing Street; it should be remembered, how-
ever, that the ground floor at that end is the first floor on the garden
side, because of the slope of the ground.

I have tried to tell here of its construction by Sir George Downing,
of its many vicissitudes through the years, of the people who lived in

vii

PREFACE

it - not all of them were Prime Ministers - of die deliberations and
decisions, some of them magnificently impressive, others ill-judged
and obstinate, which affected the destiny of Great Britain, leading to
the acquisition of a vast Empire, the loss of America, the building up of
another and vaster Empire and the emergence of the Commonwealth.
There has been repeated rioting in the.street, the windows of the house
have been smashed, Prime Ministers have been set upon by the mob on
their way to Parliament and suffragettes have drained themselves to
the railings at No. 10.

The book is not, however, a history of England, but the trend of
events is traced so that the narrative may the more easily be followed
and one may be able to assess how much of the country's remarkable
history still lurks in every shadow.

It may help readers not familiar with British Parliamentary con-
ventions to know that the sons of peers, even when they bear a cour-
tesy title, are in fact commoners and are eligible for election to the
House of Commons until their succession. Scottish peers, not being
peers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, are without seats in the
Upper House, but select sixteen of their number to represent them
there. Irish peers used also to elect representatives to tie Lords; all
others were and still are eligible for election to the House of Commons,
whereas Scottish peers are not.

Each Minister has at least four secretaries - a Parliamentary Secretary,
who can be a Member of either House and is a junior Minister and the
Minister's deputy in office; a Personal Parliamentary Secretary, who
is a Member of Parliament; a Permanent Secretary, who is a member
of the Civil Service in the department of State under the control of the
Minister; and one or more personal secretaries, the chief of whom is
also a Civil Servant, the others being in the personal employ of the
Minister.

It would have been impossible to write this book without the help
of a great many people. Chief of these have been the officials of the
Ministry of Works responsible for the care of No. 10 Downing Street,
of whom I must name Mr. John Charlton, Inspector of Ancient
Monuments in London, Mr. A. E. Coules and Mr. L. W. Johnson,
With the consent of the Prime Minister, I was allowed to look over
the house before the recent very elaborate reconstruction was begun;
and on its completion I was most generously helped by Mr. Raymond
Erith, the architect responsible, who personally took me round to sec
the changes that had to be made. The Public Record Office has placed

PKEFACE

at my disposal the many documents relating to the house, telling of the
alterations and repairs it underwent through the centuries.

I must also express my deepest gratitude to those who have lived in
the house and have given unsparingly of their time to tell of their own
experiences in it, supplying photographs and plans to guide and assist
me. These cover the years from the time when Asquith became Prime
Minister in 1908 up to the present day: they include Lady Violet
Bonham Carter and her brother the Hon. Anthony Asquith; Lady
Megan Lloyd George and her sister Lady Olwen Carey Evans; Bonar
Law's son Lord Coleraine and his two daughters Lady Sykes and Lady
Archibald; Ramsay MacDonald's daughter Mrs. Ishbcl Peterkin; Mrs
Neville Chamberlain and Miss Marjorie Leaf, who was her secretary;
Mrs. Kathleen Hill, Sir Winston Churchill's personal secretary, and
Mrs. G. E. Landemare, Lady Churchill's cook; Earl Attlee; the
Countess of Avon; Lady Dorothy Macmillan; and Mr. J. R. Colvillc,
who served as secretary to three Prime Ministers - Mr. Neville Cham-
berlain, Sir Winston Churchill and Lord Attlee. In addition I have
been greatly helped by Miss M, E. Stenhouse and Miss Gwen Davies,
both of whom have been associated with the house from 1919 until,
in the former's case, her retirement in 1960.

Photographs and plans of No. 10 Downing Street were very kindly
supplied by the Ministry of Works, the Public Record Office and die
London County Council. For other photographs I have to thank
Viscount Astor, Mrs. Ishbel Peterkin and the British Museum; for
cartoons reproduced here, Sir David Low, Vicky, Mrs. Strube; and
others credited in the List of Illustrations.

R.J. M.

CONTENTS

1 Before Downing Street 1

2 George Downing 7

3 Downing Street 18

4 Number 10 23

5 Early Residents 30

6 Sir Robert Walpole 36

7 Walpole at No. 10 49

8 His Immediate Successors 61

9 Sir Francis Dashwood 66

10 Revolt of the American Colonies 72

11 Lord North and the War of Independence 88

12 The Younger Pitt 113

13 The Napoleonic War 130

14 The Doctor Moves in ... 140

15 The Return of Pitt 147

16 His Two Unworthy Successors 156

17 Spencer Perceval 163

18 The Unremembered Chancellor 172

19 'Prosperity Robinson' 180

20 Canning's Short Reign 186

21 Wellington Moves in 194

22 Grey and the Reform Bill 214

23 Melbourne, then Peel 233

CONTENTS

24 Used only for Offices 251

25 Palmerston's Finest Hours 258

26 Disraeli and Gladstone 266

27 'Jingoism' 279

28 Gladstone's Unhappy Return 290

29 The Home Rule Battle 301

30 W. H. Smith Moves in 308

31 The Boer War 319

32 The Great Liberal Years 328

33 Battle with the Lords 335

34 The Prime Minister's Lodgings 343

35 Lloyd George and the First World War 352

36 The Fall of Lloyd George 360

37 First Labour Government 365

38 The Return of Baldwin 378

39 The National Government 385

40 Baldwin and the Abdication 392

41 Second World War and Churchill 398

42 Attlee's Six Years 413

43 Eden and Suez 419

44 The New No. 10 429

Prime Ministers and Others who have Lived

at No. 10 441

Bibliography and Sources 445

Index 453

ILLUSTRATIONS

following page

Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister
(RTHPL*) 62

Maria Skerrett, Walpole's mistress and later his
second wife (By courtesy of the Marquess of Choi-
mondeley) 62

William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham ( R THPL) 62

Lord North (RTHPL) 62

The Younger Pitt (RTHPL) 62

Lady Hester Stanhope, niece of the younger Pitt
(RTHPL) 62

The Duke of Wellington (RTHPL) 142

Benjamin Disraeli, first Earl of Beaconsfield
(RTHPL) 142

William Ewart Gladstone (RTHPL) 142

Margot Asquith, later the Countess of Oxford and
Asquith (RTHPL) 174

David Lloyd George with Clemenceau and Presi-
dent Wilson (RTHPL) 174

Bonar Law with PoincarS, Mussolini, and M.
Theunis (Central Press Photos Ltd.) 174

* RTHPL - Radio Times Hulton Picture Library.

Crown Copyright material is reproduced by permission of f/ie Controller, H.M". Stationery

Office.

xiii

Ramsay MacDonald with his daughter Ishbel, his

son Malcolm and younger daughter Joan (R THPL) 174

Sir Winston Churchill ( Toni Frissell) 174

Plan of the older section of No. 10 Downing Street,
designed hy Sir Christopher Wren in 1677 (Crown
Copyright) 206

Sir Christopher Wren's note on the plan of 10
Downing Street (Crown Copyright) 206

Ground plan of 10 Downing Street as reconstructed

hy William Kent in 1735 (Crown Copyright) 206

The "house at the back' circa 1677 (By kind
permission of Viscount Astor) 238

No. 10 Downing Street from St. James's Park in
1827 (London County Council) 238

The Downing Street cul-de-sac in 1827 (Crown
Copyright) 238

The famous front door of No. 10 Downing Street
(Crown Copyright) 238

The entrance hall of No. 10 (Crown Copyright) 238

The main stone staircase (Crown Copyright) 270

The ante-room, just outside the Cabinet Room
(Crown Copyright) 270

The Cabinet Room (Crown Copyright) 270

The Prime Minister's section of the Cabinet table
(Crown Copyright) 270

The first of a row of three drawing-rooms on the
first floor (By courtesy of Mrs Ishbel Peterkin) 270

The middle drawing-room (Crown Copyright) 270

The large State Drawing Room (Crown Copyright) 270

XIV

Soane's State Dining Room (Crown Copyright) 270

The walled garden of No. 10 Downing Street
(Crown Copyright) 302

Cartoon of John Wilkes by Hogarth 302

Gillray's cartoon 'Britannia between Death and the
Doctors' 382

John Doyle's cartoon 'Reading The Times' 382

A cartoon from The Gladstone ABC (RTHPL) 382

Sir David Low's cartoon 'The Wolf at the Door'
(London Express News and Feature Services) 382

Strube's cartoon 4The Old Champ' (London Ex-
press News and Feature Services) 382

Vicky's cartoon 'Labour troubles!' (London Ex-
press News and Feature Services) 382

MAPS AND PLANS

page

Before Downing Street; Westminster in 1658
(London Topographical Society and the Guildhall
Library) xx

Westminster in 1955 (Crown Copyright: Reproduced
by permission of the Director-General, Ordnance
Survey) 435

No. 10 Downing Street: Floor plans before the 1960
reconstruction (Crown Copyright: Reproduced by
permission of the Controller, HM. Stationery Office)

Ground Floor, Nos. 10, 11 and 12 438

First Floor, Nos. 10, 11 and 12 439

Second Floor, Nos. 10 and 11 440

XVll

No. 10

DOWNING STREET

-ru L ^r.«- BEFORE DOWNING STREET

(Sec also page 435.)

CHAPTER 1
Before Downing Street

IT would be best to begin by trying to visualize what the setting
was like before Downing built his street. Was there an expanse of open
country, or were there streets and houses between Charing Cross and
Westminster?

There is no need to go back farther than the sixteenth century. A
highway, called The Street, and sometimes written *le Kingstreete',
about a third the present width of Whitehall, ran along what is now
the middle of that roadway. There were houses on both sides.

To the east, the side nearer the river, there was the large and sub-
stantial York Place, the London residence of the Archbishop of York,
with a number of smaller houses behind and beside it for his retinue and
his household staff, as well as a chapel, a counting house, palatial
accommodation for the King and Queen when they came to stay, and
vast gardens sweeping down to the river.

From here, along the river front, stretched the town houses of the
nobility and of certain bishops, forming a continuous line of imposing
town mansions as far as St. Paul's and the City.

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

On the main highway linking Charing Cross with Westminster
stood the massive gateway of York Pkce. When Wolsey was elevated
to the archbishopric of York, he moved into this residence and began
at once to enlarge and extend it. He absorbed the cottages and gardens
and tenements on both flanks, taking in, on the north, land that once
belonged to the Kings of Scotland, known then, as now, as Scotland
Yard. He redecorated and embellished the main residence and built a
great new hall where were held banquets 'set with masks and mum-
meries',3* to which the young King Henry the Eighth came by water
from his Palace at Greenwich, alighting, at times masked, at the Privy
Steps, together with other masked men and women who gave them-
selves out to be strangers coming 'as ambassadors from some foreign
prince', a scene which has been vividly depicted by Shakespeare in
Henry VIIL

On the other, or Downing Street side of the highway, the dwellings
were for the most part humble cottages with small gardens opening on
to narrow lanes, and scattered groups of tenements separated from each
other by alleys. There was also a large manor house called the Mote,
which stood in sixty acres of arable and pasture land. Most of the land
on this side belonged to Westminster Abbey, or more correctly to the
Abbey of St, Peter's, Westminster, which was at one time a collegiate
monastery; some of the land was owned by Eton College, part no
doubt of the endowment assigned when Henry the Sixth established
the college for poor scholars in 1445. Near to the Mote, whose exact
position has not been determined, was a large brewhouse called the Axe,
on the site of and beside which Downing Street was eventually built.
The land on which this brewhouse stood had once belonged to the
Abbot of Abingdon, from whom the Crown acquired it.

There were a great many trees, so that die whole of this section ap-
peared to be almost rural; in the spring and summer the gardens were
filled with snowdrops and daffodils, honeysuckle and roses* But the
smell from the open sewers overwhelmed the scent of the gardens, and
the lanes became soggy when it rained.

Fronting the main highway on this side were two or three residential
inns, such as the Bell and the Rose, all with gardens. There was also a

* Numbered references arc to the Bibliography, p. 445.
2

BEFORE DOWNING STREET

line of small shops. The main road was full of ruts and travellers in
coaches or seated on heaped wagons were jolted uncomfortably. Most
of the gentlemen and ladies rode on horseback, wearing capes over
their smart ruffs, and were greeted deferentially by the ill-dressed and
dirty pedestrians, many of whom begged for money or a crust of
bread.

A ditch separated this conglomeration of cottages and tenements
from an extensive field which is now St. James's Park. From the Abbey
and its adjacent church of St. Margaret's Westminster, there rambled
all the way down to the river the buildings of the old Royal Palace of
Westminster, the principal residence of the Sovereign since the time of
Edward the Confessor, who built the Abbey. Here the principal offices
of the Government, such as the Parliament, the Exchequer, and the
Courts of Law, had special buildings assigned to diem. In the past, as
though forming part of his baggage, these departments of State went
with the King as he moved from one residence to another, allowing
each vacated palace to be aired for a time since sanitation was woefully
inadequate, but they had by now become fixed in the Palace of
Westminster. The House of Commons, meeting originally in the
Chapter House of the Abbey, had lately been moved to St. Stephen's
Chapel, the upper floor of a two-storied chapel,* running from the
western entrance of Westminster Hall to the river. The Speaker's Chair
was placed on the altar steps and the Members ranged themselves on
cither side, the Government facing the Opposition, not yet grouped
rigidly in parties, but so set merely through the accident of architecture.
Across a wide courtyard to the right as one faced the river, was the
House of Lords.

In 1512 a fire destroyed some of the Palace buildings, but enough was
left of the halls, built of white Kentish rag, for much of the business of
State still to be carried on in the original chambers. Westminster Hall
survived undamaged and here the Courts of Law continued to hold
their sessions, with a fairground of stalls within the hall where stationers,
booksellers and general traders served the litigants, offering them books
and shirts and kerchiefs while they waited to attend the Courts of
Chancery, Common Causes or the King's Bench. Henry the Eighth,

* On the lower floor was the chapel of St. Mary.
3

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

but recently come to the throne and now twenty-one years of age,
declined to live amid the charred ruins and moved his court to the
Palace at Greenwich, from where he used to come in his barge to visit
his Lord Chancellor and Chief Minister, the massive, heavy jowled,
puffy-eyed Wolsey, robed always in red 'satin, taffety, damask or
cafe'.*

This proud prelate, the son of an Ipswich butcher who was fined for
selling bad meat and for letting his house to doubtful characters for
illegal purposes, had acquired by his energy and his brilliance, a pre-
dominant influence in the affairs of State, and had adopted a way of life
that far outshone the King's. His retinue numbered many hundreds and
when he set forth as Lord Chancellor for the Courts at Westminster
Hall, he was preceded by men on horseback carrying two enormous
silver crosses and was supported by a great procession, among whom,
with a show of humility, he alone rode on a mule. In fact his hauteur and
his arrogance knew no bounds. He forced his servants to serve him on
their knees, caused bishops to tic his shoe latchets, and dukes to hold
the basins when he washed. For the nobles and for Parliament he had
but scant regard. His morals were lax, his house was filled always with
beautiful, loose women and his many illegitimate children - an example
that the young King was not slow to adopt.

In 1529 when Wolsey was stripped of all authority and Henry the
Eighth became absolute ruler, the King made him vacate his princely
residence and moved into it himself. Improving on its already dazzling
magnificence, Henry converted it into the Palace of Whitehall. The
style of architecture introduced earlier by Wolsey at Hampton Court
was retained and the grounds were enormously extended. Between the
new Palace and the Houses of Parliament stretched the vast Privy
Garden, up to the very verge of Palace Yard. On the other side of the
highway, the King acquired the Mote and many of the cottages and
tenements, inns and shops, which were demolished to provide land for
His Majesty's recreational needs. Four tennis courts were laid out, one
of them a vast open court, two of the others covered. There were also
bowling alleys, a coney yard and a pheasant court; a Cockpit was con-
structed for cock fighting - an octagonal building adorned at the top
with the figure of a lion; next to it was a tilt-yard for jousting, on the
site of the present Horse Guards. A 'sumptuous gallery* was built

BEFORE DOWNING STREET

beside die tilt-yard for 'the Princes with their nobility ... to stand or to
sit, and at Windowes to behold all the triumphant Listings, and other
military exercises/6 The tilt-yard was also used for bear baiting. The
gallery continued westward to a stairway leading down to the fields
beyond, soon to be transformed into St. James's Park. A second gallery
led to the Cockpit, with handsome lodgings alongside, one of them for
the Keeper of the Palace.

Two enormous gates were built across King Street, with arches
through which the traffic passed and overhead galleries as a means of
access from the Palace to the recreation grounds. There were also
lodgings above and beside both gates for members or friends of the
Royal family and for officials. The Holbein Gate (which, though it bore
his name, seems not to have been connected with Holbein unless he
happened to have designed some of the mural decorations) linked the
northern end of the Privy Garden with the tilt-yard, The other, known
as the New Gate, stood nearer the Abbey at the corner of what later
became Downing Street.

On moving into his new Palace the King was appalled to find that the
main highway, skirting the Palace buildings, was used by the public
for funeral processions. Past the windows of the gilded reception rooms,
gay with music and laughter, the royal revellers saw sorrowing
mourners go by with coffins, weeping, lamenting and chanting dirges.
This had to be stopped, but since there was no other road by which the
families living around Charing Cross could take their dead to St.
Margaret's, Westminster, a separate cemetery was constructed for their
use at St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

His Majesty further found most displeasing, both to eye and nose,
the ditch separating his new recreation grounds from the great spread
of fields to the westward, known as St. James's Fields after the hospital
in their midst where fourteen 'maidens that were leprous' resided. He
acquired the land, which like the hospital was owned by Eton College,
and had the whole of it enclosed by a wall of brick. A park was laid out
and the hospital was replaced by St. James's Palace. Thus a sweep of
Royal Parks and residences stretched from the river to where Bucking-
ham Palace now stands, but at that time only an open space with a road
beyond leading to Kensington. The first house on the site of Bucking-
ham Palace, Goring House, was not built until the following century.

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

The King's arbitrary indulgence of his whims went unchallenged by
a people grateful and relieved at seeing an end to many years of misery
and anguish in the civil warfare known as the Wars of the Roses, with
the two contending factions united now in the person of Henry the
Eighth, heir of both claimants to the Crown. A century later royal
arbitrariness was no longer tolerable and Charles the First, on becoming
the centre of a further civil war, was made to pay for it with his life.

The revelry Wolscy had brought to this setting was maintained by
Henry the Eighth and after a short intermission was resumed by his
daughter, the pale, indomitable Queen Elizabeth, who had inherited
also her father's acquiline nose and red-gold hair. The coming of the
Stuarts brought a number of changes. Following a fire at the Palace of
Whitehall, James the First had Wolsey's Banqueting Hall rebuilt by
Inigo Jones: it still stands. The plans drawn up by Inigo Jones for the
rebuilding of the rest of the damaged Palace were only partially carried
out: hereafter the Sovereign lived chiefly at St. James's Palace and at
Greenwich.

Across the highway, though untouched by the fire, the changes were
more considerable. The Cockpit ceased to be used for cock-fighting in
1607 and was converted into a handsome new theatre, which still bore
the same name; and much of the recreation ground, including some of
the tennis courts, made way for new houses in which courtiers, friends
and relatives of the King took up their residence.

CHAPTER 2
George Downing

GEORGE DOWNING was born in 1623 of a well-to-do East
Anglian family. His grandfather was a teacher at Ipswich Grammar
School with an interest in education so intense that on the birth of his
son shortly after the founding of Emmanuel College at Cambridge, he
christened the child Emmanuel. George's mother - Emmanuel's second
wife - was Lucy Winthrop, also of East Anglia. The two families knew
each other well. Her brother John Winthrop, like her husband
Emmanuel, was a barrister attached to the Inner Temple; they were all
staunchly Puritan and vehemently resentful of the odious restrictions
constantly imposed on the Puritans by King Charles the First's High
Anglican clerics.

In March 1629, when George was six, his father, writing from Lon-
don to his brother-in-law, informed him of the King's high-handed
dissolution of Parliament because of its blunt protest against these
restrictions. Winthrop, finding that life in England was becoming
intolerable, decided to leave it. He wrote to his wife: 'I am vcryly
persuaded, God will bringe some heavye Affliction upon this lande, and

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

that spccdylye'; and again a few weeks later: 'But where we shall
spende the rest of or short tyrne I know not ... my comfort is that
thou Art willinge to be my companion in what place or conditio
soevere, in weale or in woe/7

In all this he received the wholehearted support of Emmanuel
Downing. Winthrop acted promptly. On 26th August 1629, at a
meeting at Cambridge, he and eight others, all men of substance, drew
up an 'Agreement' and undertook to emigrate to New England with
their families 'Provided always, that ... the whole Government,
together with the patent of the said Plantation, be first, by an order of
Court, legally transferred and established to remain with us and others
who shall inhabit upon the said plantation.' It is clear from this that
the community decided to be self-governing and not, like the other
settlements there, come under the control of the Government in
London.

Shortly afterwards John Winthrop was elected the First Governor of
Massachusetts and on 22nd March of the following year (1630) he set
sailfrom Southampton,* together with James Downing^Himanuel's son
by his first marriage. They were to have been accompanied by ten ships,
taking in all 700 passengers, 240 cows and 60 horses, but there was a delay
and only three of the ships actually left with the Winthrops, the others
following. All the settlers were prepared to work with their hands, build
their own houses, and face the hazards of wolves and Indians.

The journey across the Atlantic took ten weeks. Emmanuel Down-
ing, who had helped his brother-in-law to embark on this adventure,
which was of such tremendous consequence in the founding of a new
nation, planned to follow with his wife and young children. 1 shall
desire to hasten over soe soone as the Lord shall open me the way,
which I hope will be ere long,' he wrote on 8th October 1630. In the
following April he wrote to say that they would be sailing 'next
Spring'; but his wife feared that the dangers of the journey and the
hardships to be faced in the settlement might be too much for the child-
ren, and so their departure was postponed. On 1st March i63S/6t, he

* Winthrop set out ten years after the sailing of Mayflower with the Pilgrim Fathers,
f Until 1752 the legal new year in Britain began on 25th March, though New Year's
Day was popularly reckoned as ist January. It was customary to put for afl dates between
ist January and 25tjx March the two years involved: e.g. jst March i635/<5, that is 1635
legally but popularly and actually 1636.

GEORGE DOWNING

wrote to his nephew, also John Winthrop and later Governor of
Connecticut, saying of his wife: 'She feareth much hardshipp there,
and that we shall spend all, ere wee be setled in a course to subsist even
for foode and rayment1, and urged that his nephew should write and
encourage her to come over.

It was not until March 1637 that Lucy Downing revealed what was
really deterring her. She had set her heart on giving her son George a
university education and had decided to send him to Cambridge. *I am
bould to present this sollissitous suit of myne', she wrote to her brother,
'with all earnestnes to you and my nephew Winthrop, that you will
not condecend to his goeinge over till he hath either attayned to per-
fection in the arts hear, or that theer be sufficient means for to perfect
him theerin with you, wich I should be moste glad to hear of: it would
make me goe far nimbler to New Eng.'

The colony, as it happened, had already decided that a college should
be established at a new town, which was to be named Cambridge, as
about seventy of the leading men in the colony had been educated at
Cambridge. Finance for this was provided 'through the noble bene-
faction of John Harvard', aPuritan minister and graduate of Emmanuel
College, who had bequeathed for the purpose half his estate and his
entire library of three hundred books, and it was after him that the
new college was to be named.

The Downings, on learning of this, at last crossed the Atlantic. The
population of the colony had grown in its eight years to over ten
thousand persons. The Downings set up their home at Salem and were
ardent members of the Puritan church there, George, not quite sixteen,
was among the first students at Harvard and graduated in 1642. Shortly
afterwards he took a job at ^4 a year as a teacher of 'the Junior pupils'
at Harvard.

He was not content to continue for long on that small salary. His
mother noticed his restlessness. 'I am troubled concerning my sonnc
Georg,' she wrote to her brother the Governor. 'I perceive he is strongly
inclined to travill. Eng. is I fear unpeaccablc' - the Civil War had
already broken out - 'and other country es perilous in point of religion
and maners. Besides we have not wcarwith to accomodate him for
such an ocasion: and to goe a servant I think might not be very fit for
him neither, in divers respects/

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Massachusetts was soon hit by an economic crisis, brought on by the
Civil War in England. Trade languished and there was acute distress.
George decided to leave and sailed for the West Indies as an instructor
to the seamen - it is believed in spiritual matters.

He visited a number of islands - the Barbados, Antigua, Nevis, St.
Christopher and Santa Cruce. His letters home show that his aim was
fixed mainly on the opportunities for making money. Writing to his
cousin, the younger John Winthrop, after a visit to the Barbados, he
says: 'I believe they have bought this year no less than a thousand
Negroes, and the more they buie, the better able they are to buye, for
in a yeare and a half they will earne (with God's blessing) as much as they
cost.' This is indicative of the aspiration that was to guide George
Downing's actions to the end of his life.

After a year of roving in and around the Caribbean, Downing, on
learning that the Puritans at home had won many resounding victories
against the King and that a number of settlers had in consequence begun,
to return to the homeland, set sail himself for England, where he
arrived in the summer of 1646. Cromwell's forces had already won the
battles of Marston Moor and Naseby.

Downing became a Puritan preacher and toured the country deliver-
ing sermons. A letter from Maidstone in Kent, written by Mrs. Lydia
Bankes to a friend in New England on 28th August 1646 and more ill-
spelt than others of that period, states: 'Pray let my Inderred respect be
presented to your wife as all so to Mrs. Downind and her hosband
desiring them to rejoyce with me for that the lord is pics to make her
sone a Instrument of praise In the hartes of tose that regoyce to hear the
Sperrit of god poured forth apon our young men according to his word
let her know that he prech In our town of maidston a day or to befor
this letter was wrot to the great soport of our Sperites.'

Before long he was attached as a preacher to Colonel Okey's regi-
ment, which formed part of Fairfax's army. It is important to bear this
appointment in mind in view of Downing's behaviour some years later
when he betrayed Colonel Okey and brought him to the scaffold.

How Downing manoeuvred himself out of his spiritual role and
became Chief of the Intelligence Staff to Cromwell's forces in the
North, is far from clear. All we know is that he attached himself to a
Republican Member of Parliament, Sir Arthur Hasdrig, on the latter

GEORGE DOWNING

taking up his appointment in March 1648 as Governor of Newcastle, in
which area Fairfax's army was operating. The Civil War was by now
practically over and the King was a prisoner in the Isle of Wight.

But during that summer fresh Royalist risings occurred and Crom-
well travelled to the North to suppress them. After routing the Scots
at Preston, Cromwell went on to Edinburgh, attended by Haselrig
and apparently also Downing. That Cromwell came in personal con-
tact with Downing at this time is certain, for a year later, in November
1649, Downing was singled out to take on the role of Chief of the
Intelligence Staff, which at that time bore the title of Scoutmaster-
General and had the equivalent rank to Major-General.

Downing was by now only twenty-six years old. It was his function
to survey and control *le service dcs espions ct des correspondences
secretes', as Pontalis described it.8 He received a salary of ^365 a year
and an expense allowance of ^4 a day, out of which he was expected to
pay his agents or spies. That he contrived to retain a great deal of this
money for himself is indicated in a letter from his mother, who quotes
her brother as saying that 'Georg is the only thriveing man of our
generation. Mr. Winsloe tould him he is a purchaser', by which was
meant a purchaser of land, as is corroborated by George's father, who
wrote: *I heare by divers, of his purchase of 2 or soo/. per annum.1
Hugh Peter, the Puritan divine, estimated that George Downing's
investment in property was bringing him in as much as £500 a year.
Nevertheless he did his work well. 'One of the causes of the success of
Fairfax and Cromwell was the efficiency of their intelligence staff.'"
No records survive of what Downing actually did. This may be due to
his precaution that no record should be kept of his activities; or, as is
equally possible, Downing took care, after die return of King Charles
die Second, to destroy all evidence of die part he had played against
die King's father.

The Calendars of State Papers Domestic cast a light on some of
Downing's activities. On 24th July 1650 the Council of State required
'Mr* Downing to take care that daily notice be given to die Council of
what passes in the army, and to speak to Mr. Attorney, that the posts
may be ready to carry thelettcrs' ; on xoth August 1651, 'The letter read
to be senttodieLord Mayor, witha copy of theletter fromScoutmaster-
General Downing to be published at Paul's this afternoon' - diis letter

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

described the progress of the Scottish campaign; on I4th October 1651
Downing had to attend a Committee of Parliament to confer with the
Deputies from Scotland. In June of the following year (1652) Downing
was authorized by the Council of State 'to obtain gunpowder and round
shot for which need is urgent', and he was given 'power to impress
wagons, etc., for its carriage. All Mayors and Sheriffs to co-operate/
In October 1653 Downing together with others was ordered to sort
the Scottish records in die Tower and report to Cromwell, the
Protector; on 5th December of that year he was appointed by the
Council of State to inquire into certain 'discoveries' and 'to examine*
witnesses.

It is obvious from these entries that the work Downing was engaged
on was of importance and that it brought him in constant contact with
the highest authorities. His reports include a vivid eyewitness account
of the battle of Worcester in I65I.1* How much the secret intelligence
he supplied contributed to this and other of CromwelTs victories
is not known. The outbreak of war with the Dutch in 1652 led to
Downing having to continue his secret service activities until that war
ended two years later.

In 1654 he made a most advantageous marriage. His bride, the daugh-
ter of Sir William Howard and sister of the first Earl of Carlisle, was not
only well connected, but young, beautiful and rich. In that same year
Downing was elected a Member of Parliament for Edinburgh and sat
in the first House of Commons of the Protectorate.

Cromwell obviously thought highly of him, for he sent Downing
abroad on important missions. In 1655, appalled by the massacre of the
Protestant Vaudois by the Duke of Savoy's troops, he dispatched
Downing to convey his indignation not only to the Duke, but to Louis
the Fourteenth in Paris. Downing called on Cardinal Mazarin, at the
time the most powerful man in Europe. Reporting to Thurloe, the
Secretary of State, Downing states that he was received with 'great
civility'. Later that evening, he adds, Mafcarin 'send me his owne supper
with this complement, that it being too late to provide anything, he
had sent what was made ready for himselfe, and would seek a supper
himselfe; he also send his owne plate and servants to wayte, and the
Captain of his guard/1'
A year later Downing was sent by Cromwell to the Hague as

GEORGE DOWNING

Ambassador on a salary of £1,000 a year and a liberal allowance for
expenses.

While in England Downing was an active interventionist in the de-
bates in Parliament. As a rule his line was moderate and he quoted
constantly from the Bible. Once, when the House found itself without
a minister to read the prayers, Downing was told 'that he was a
Minister, and he would have him to perform die work. Mr. Downing
acknowledged that he was once a Minister', but declined to undertake
it and the House began its session without prayers.1*

He was a devoted supporter of Cromwell and in January 1657 he was
the prime mover in the House of Commons to get Cromwell crowned
King. But Cromwell, aware that the very word King was hateful to
his soldiers, by whose support he ruled, declined after some hesitation.

The Dutch, at the time of Downing's arrival as Ambassador, were
Britain's greatest rivals both as a trading nation and as a naval power.
But they were Protestants and Cromwell's main interest was to further
the cause of Protestantism, Into the alliance between the Dutch and the
Swedes, both Protestant nations, Downing was instrumental in insert-
ing Britain. It was Cromwell's purpose to establish a powerful Prot-
estant League against the Catholic alliance formed by the Pope, the
Holy Roman Empire and the King of Spain.

Downing's activities included a considerable amount of spying, for
at the Hague lived the sister of Britain's exiled 'King', Charles the
Second. She had married, at the age often, William, Prince of Orange,
who had been working ceaselessly for the restoration of his brother-in-
law to the English throne, A week after the death of the Prince of
Orange in 1650 his wife, by then nineteen, gave birth to his heir, who
later became William the Third of England. Charles often came to sec
her and the plotting for his return continued. Of this Cromwell was
well aware and instructions were sent to Downing to be ceaselessly
vigilant The Secretary of State Thurloe ordered him to develop a
secret intelligence service in order to keep the Protector fully informed
of all such moves in Holland and elsewhere on the Continent.

With his ample experience, Downing set to work with speed and
skill. At the merest whisper that Charles or his brothers, the Duke of
York (later James the Second) or the Duke of Gloucester, were planning
a visit to the Hague, Downing instantly intervened, A protest to the

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Dutch Council of State led to the Princes being barred. Ho also obtained
an order to stop English ministers in Holland from praying for the
exiled King. Li consequence he was thoroughly detested by Charles and
his court, composed chiefly of men brought to ruin through their
loyalty and ever plotting to regain what had been lost. A letter from
John Lane at the Hague to his friend Sir Edward Nicholas in England
says of Downing: 'He is a fearful gentleman. The day after the Princess
came to town he set 2 of his footmen to stand sentry the whole day,
one on the top of the stairs before the door, the other at the corner of die
house, to watch the back gate, but there has been none since. He has
hired another house. I hope the next remove of him and the rest of his
comrades will be to the gallows, where they may have their due
reward.'1*

More than one attempt was made on Downing's life* 'Indeedc they
are very angry at mee,' he informed Thurloe after one such attempt
when a Dutchman seen leaving his house was set upon by mistake, 'for
that I have by little and little extremely disturbed and spoyled their
kingdome here ; and exceeding angry they are at this last action of mine,
in obteyning, that Charles Stuart should be noe more prayed for
heere.'z6 The letter is undated, but the internal evidence shows that it
must have been written late in July or early in August 1658.

Downing contrived by wile and cunning to get one of Charles's
more trusted courtiers, Sir John Marlow, into his pay and service, and
before long he drew in still another, an even more important member
of the exiled court, Tom Howard, brother of the Earl of Suffolk,
Proudly he revealed to Thurloe that he had got Howard into his clutches
through blackmail. Howard, Downing states, 'had a whoor in this
country, with which he trusted his secrets and papers: these two after-
wards falling out, a person in this town got all die papers from her.'
This gave Downing his chance. 'But if it should be blown/ he adds,
'that I have given you this account he would endeavour to have me
killed.' Downing had with him at the Hague his wife and the two
children, a boy and a girl, born so far of the marriage. The thought
doubdess crossed his mind that their lives too might now be imperilled.

All the papers that came into Downing's possession were copied and
sent on to Thurloe. After Cromwell's death on 3rd September 1658,
he was careful to pass on only some of the information he received,
14

GEORGE DOWNING

for Downing was by now uncertain whether the Protectorate would
endure or the Royalists would succeed in bringing back the King. A like
uncertainty prevailed in England. Cromwell had named his son
Pichard as has successor. But there were signs of trouble from the
outset. It gathered momentum until in May 1659, after only a few
months in the saddle, Richard was forced to abdicate. Generals in
command of sections of Cromwell's vast army had already begun to
manoeuvre in the hope of attaining the chief position for themselves.
A fresh civil war seemed imminent.

Meanwhile Thurloe, concerned as to what moves were being made
across the Channel by Charles, sent Downing on 27th May specific
instructions to forward all information he was able to gather through
his network of spies of a possible Royalist thrust. Downing, however,
felt it prudent to provide himself with a possible line of escape. He got
in touch with Tom Howard and, learning that Charles was planning
to come to the Hague to see his sister, informed Howard that he would
not on this occasion prevent the visit.

While there Charles had an unexpected call from an 'old reverend-
like man with a long beard and ordinary grey clothes/* The old man
fell on his knees, pulled off his beard and revealed that he was Downing.
He begged His Majesty to leave at once, lest he be seized by the States
General and handed over to the authorities in England.

This was one step towards safeguarding his future. He took another
by crossing over to England at the end of 1659 to see for himself how
events were drifting. It had been Downing's aim in life to acquire as
many offices as possible provided each brought him an income; and he
was fortunate, before coining to the Hague as Ambassador, to obtain
the lucrative post as one of the Tellers of the Exchequer, which brought
him in a further ^500 a year. The rooms assigned him for this work
were in Whitehall and he had as his personal clerk there the diarist
Samuel Pepys, whose references to Downing are far from flattering.
The diary describes Downing as 'so stingy a fellow I care not to sec
him'.

During his brief stay in London in that vital winter of 1659, Downing

* From 'a transcript from the handwriting of the famous Mr. Lockhart', who was the
nephew of Downing's contemporary and friend Sir William Lockhart, the English
Ambassador in Paris,

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

sent for Pepys one morning 'and at his bedside he told me, that he had
a kindness for me, and that he thought that he had done me one; and
that was, that he had got me to be one of the Clerks of the Council; at
which I was a little stumbled, and could not tell what to do, whether to
thank him or no; but by and by I did; but not very heartily, for I
feared that his doing of it was but only to ease himself of the salary
which he gives me/3 Pepys' salary was only £50, one tenth of the sum
Downing was receiving while Pepys did his work as a Teller and also
ran errands for him.

Downing returned to The Hague in March 1660, a very few weeks
before the Restoration. But even now he was by no means certain how
things might develop. He wrote to Thurloe: *I should be infinitely
obliged to you, that you would a little let me know what things are
likely to come to.'16

Soon a glimmer of light began to illumine the trend of events.
General Monk, who had served Charles the First and later became one
of Cromwell's leading generals, had so far remained silent but watchful.
Even when he marched with his army from Scotland to London in
February, it was by no means clear which side he would take. The rival
generals waited in anxious uncertainty. But it was to Monk that the
gentry turned, begging him to maintain peace. On the day before
Monk reached London there was a battle in the Strand between the
cavalry and the infantry, and the fleet sailed up the Thames to deal with
the disaffected soldiers. Monk protested his adherence to republican
principles, but a few days later he secretly got in touch with the exiled
King.

On learning of these portentous developments, Downing lost no
time in seeing Tom Howard again and begged him to inform the King
that his sole intention was to serve His Majesty. Writing of the inter-
view to the Marquis of Ormonde, Howard stated that Downing was
'alleging to be engaged in a contrary party by his father who was
banished into New England, where he was brought up and had sucked
in principles that since his reason had made him see were erroneous,
and that he never was in arms but since the King's death, nor had never
taken oath or engagement of any kind' - almost all of which, as the
records show, was untrue.
Downing also showed Howard a confidential letter sent him in

GEORGE DOWNING

cypher by Thurloe. If the King, Downing added, would pardon him
and accept his services, he was ready to work secretly on the Army in
England, with which he had considerable influence.

In need at this juncture of all the help he could get, the King agreed.
Howard was asked to tell Downing that His Majesty would not
look back on past 'deviations', but would accept 'the overtures he
makes of returning to his duty*. He also assured Downing that all he
did to help would be kept secret.

It is impossible now to discover what exactly Downing did to assist
the Restoration, so skilfully did he contrive to conceal his moves.
What is known, however, is that in no time at all Thurloe himself was
brought in as a supporter of the King; and on 2ist May, a week before
returning to England, Charles the Second rewarded Downing by
knighting him at Breda. Pepys, who had crossed the Channel with the
fleet, travelling with his cousin Admiral Montagu, later the Earl of
Sandwich, records that Downing 'called me to him ... to tell me that
I must write him Sir G. Downing/3

CHAPTER 3
Downing Street

IT was prior to this, while Downing was still in Cromwell's
service and before he left to take up his post at The Hague, that he
acquired an interest in the land that bears his name. It seemed a simple
transaction, but did not prove to be so.

The land was Crown property and, as the sale was made by Crom-
well's Parliamentary Commissioners after its confiscation, the sale
was cancelled at the Restoration and the land was restored to die
Crown.

But Downing was determined to get it back if he could. The land
had first been sold in June 1651, two years after Charles the First's
execution, to Robert Thrope and William Proctor, and Downing had
bought it on the death of the survivor in November 1654* It was,
however, too early, so soon after the Restoration, for him to attempt
an adjustment. He had made his peace with the King, but he had still to
discover what the King's true attitude was towards him.

Downing returned to England with his wife and children in May
1660, a day or two after the Bang, and hung around "Whitehall to

DOWNING STREET

seize any chance that offered. He bustled about, called on the new
Ministers and offered to help in any way he could. His experience in
negotiating trade treaties in Holland was readily recognized and he was
called into consultation by the newly formed Council of Trade, the
precursor of the Board of Trade.

In all Downing spent a year in London. He succeeded in making
some headway, but gained no favour from the King other than the
return of his old job. In June 1661 he was back at the Hague as
Ambassador.

He had now to prove himself anew and soon saw his opportunity
for doing so. It was the King's resolve to punish those who had been
responsible for his father's death. Some of the regicides were seized in
England, but others had fled to the Continent and it became Downing's
purpose to round these up, even if his agents had to search all Europe
for them. It was, he felt, an effective way to earn the King's gratitude
and to obtain further favours.

Downing discussed this with Lord Clarendon, the Lord High
Chancellor and in effect chief Minister, before returning to the Hague,
and on arriving there he received a letter from Clarendon's son,
stating specifically: 'My father is very much troubled to heare of so
great a concourse of disaffected people into those parts, but he desires
you will still have an eye upon what persons doe come over thither';
and again a few days later: 'I am sure I did tell you in one of my letters
that you were to doe all you could to lay hands upon the rogues'*

As a first step, Downing saw De Witt, the head of the Dutch
Government, and persuaded him to insert an additional clause in the
treaty of alliance under negotiation, to provide for the surrender of
any regicides found in the country. One of these he knew was at
Rotterdam; others, including Colonel Okey, in whose regiment
Downing had served as chaplain, were at Strasburg. His next move was
to try somehow to inveigle these others to Holland. He worked
through his network of spies, still spread across Europe, and eventually
found a Dutch businessman named Abraham Kicke, who knew some
of the fugitives. Downing promised to pay Kicke £200 for every man
he was able to hand over, and threatened to ruin him if he failed.

* The italicized words were written in cypher. The letters are quoted from MSS at the
British Museum.

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

The Dutchman set out at once. By the following March he succeeded
in decoying to Holland three of the fugitives - Okey, Barkstead and
Corbet. The ruse he used was revealed by Downing himself in a letter
to Secretary Nichoks dated i7/24th March, 1661/2. The deluded
men told their friends in Delft that they had come 'to that place at
that time to lay out ten thousand pound sterling there for ye setting up
of severall manufactures for ye imployment of yc poor/1?

On learning of their arrival, Downing at once obtained from
De Witt a warrant for their arrest. Then, arming his servants, he went
after them himself. Downing has described what occurred. 'Knocking
at ye doore one of ye house came to see who it was and ye doore being
open, the under Scout and ye whole company rushed immediately into
ye house, and into ye roome where they were sitting by a fyere side
with a pipe of tobacco and a cup of beere, immediately they started up
to have gott out at a back Doore but it was too late, ye Roome was in a
moment fulle. They made many excuses, ye one to have gott liberty to
have fetch1 his coate and another to goe to privy but all in vayne/

A contemporary pamphlet, describing the incident in considerable
detail, states that Colonel Okey had been assured earlier by Downing
that he would be safe if he came to Holland. 'This Generous and Plain-
hearted Colonel,' the pamphlet goes on, ', . , did without the least
Hesitation repose a great deal of Trust and confidence in one whom he
had been instrumental to raise from the dust: little thinking that his
New-England Tottered Chaplain whom he Cloathed and Fed at his
table, and who dipped with him in his own dish, should prove like the
Devil among the twelve to his Lord and Master.'18

Pepys states that 'the Dutch were a good while before they could be
persuaded to let them go*. But in the end Downing prevailed on them
and the three men were taken on board Blackmore at dead of night and
sent across to England. After a brief imprisonment in the Tower, they
were sentenced on i6th April 1662 and executed at Tyburn on the
19th. Of the shameful part Downing played in this, Pepys wrote on
I2th March: 'Sir G. Downing (like a perfidious rogue, though the
action is good and of service to the King, yet he cannot with any good
conscience do it)'; and again, on ipth April: '. . . all the world takes
notice of him for a most ungrateful villain for his pains/3
Evelyn, Pepys* contemporary diarist, dismissed Downing as 'a

DOWNING STREET

pedagogue and fanatic preacher not worth a grote' who 'insinuated*
himself into the King's favour and 'became excessive rich*.

Charles the Second, however, as Downing had expected, was grate-
ful. His father's execution was to him a martyrdom, and so it seemed,
not so much vengeance, but a just retribution that he should punish
those who had sinned. His gratification was shared by Lord Clarendon
and by the Secretary of State, Sir William Morice. The latter wrote to
Downing on behalf of die Government: 'We doe heere al magnify
your diligente and prudente conduct in the seisinge and conveyingc
over of the regicides, and we thinke few others would have used such
dexterity, or would have compassed so difficult a business/*

The King rewarded Downing with a baronetcy. It was a good
moment, Downing felt, to raise the question of the land he had been
forced to give up. He wrote to His Majesty explaining that the land
had come to him in settlement of a debt. He would not, he said, have
entered into the transaction otherwise, but had been forced to do so
because of some money that had been owing to him. This is not sup-
ported by such other evidence as is available. He further reminded
the King of a promise His Majesty had made in Holland that he
'would have a care' of Downing' s estate.

The King granted his plea. On 23rd February 1663/4, Downing
was given a lease of the site and the buildings standing on it - *all that
messuage or house in Westminster, with all the courts, gardens and
orchards thereto, situate between a certain house or mansion called
the Peacock in part and the common sewer in part on the South side
and a gate leading to King Street called the New Gate in part, and an
old passage leading to a court called Pheasant Court in part, and an old
passage leading from the great garden to St. James's Park in part, on
the North side, and abutting on King Street on the East side and upon
the wall of St. James's Park on the West side/

The land was 'to be held by said Downing for 99 years, including
the unexpired portion of the 60 years' term granted in the premises to
Sir Thomas Knevett by King James I'; of this, fourteen years had by
now expired. The rent was to be '£20 per an. payable to the Crown,
and .£4 per an. payable to the Keeper of Whitehall during the said

* British Museum MSS., 22, 919.
21

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

60 years, and .£4 per an. increase during the remainder of said term
of 99 years/

Downing was given liberty to build thereon subject to the super-
vision of the Surveyor General of Crown Lands and with proviso not
to build further than the West part of the house called the Cockpit
was then built* - which means no closer to the Park than where No. 10
now stands.

On this site, together with the Peacock, an inn to the south which
Downing also acquired, he eventually built the street of houses that
bears his name.

CHAPTER 4
Number 10

No. 10 DOWNING STREET consists in the main of two houses.
The one at the back, older and nearly twice as large, was built in 1673
on the site of the Cockpit 'lodgings', which adjoined Henry the Eighth's
famous Cockpit and 'le Tennys Courte'. On the west its garden skirted
St. James's Park; on the south lay Hampden House with its out-
buildings and garden - it was the lease of this latter house that Downing
had acquired.

The Cockpit lodgings, a group of buildings,* formed the residence
of the Keeper of the Palace of Whitehall and must have been built by
1530, for in March of that year Thomas Alvard, the first Keeper of the
Palace, went to live there.

In Elizabeth's reign, Thomas Knyvet, on becoming Keeper, moved
in and it was here, in the reign of her successor James the First,
that Knyvet received a call as Justice of the Peace for Westminster,
'about midnight* of 4th/ 5th November 1605, 'to come with proper

* As the Cockpit was a distinctive building all the houses or 'lodgings* around it bore
its name.

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

attendants' to search the vaults of the House of Lords. Setting out with
an armed guard and attendants carrying lanterns, he found Guy Fawkes
(who came of a good Yorkshire family and was not a ruffian) busily at
work laying faggots and gunpowder. Knyvet seized him and ordered
the guards to take him away. As a reward Knyvet, already a knight,
was made a Privy Councillor and was raised to the peerage, thus having
the right to use the Upper House himself, which he did regularly.
Brought to justice, Fawkes expressed 'his utmost regret' that he had
been prevented from blowing up the place, with the Lords, the
Ministers and the King in it. He was hanged together with three of his
accomplices in Old Palace Yard in front of the Parliament buildings,

A few months earlier Knyvet vacated the largest (the No. 10 part) of
his Cockpit lodgings which was required for the King's son, Prince
Charles, later King Charles the First, who was then only four years old.
As compensation the King gave Knyvet £20 a year for life.

The Prince, however, left the house shortly afterwards and it was
got ready for his sister, Princess Elizabeth. To accommodate the house-
hold of the young Princess, who was eight at the time, the Little Close
Tennis Court alongside was built upon to provide a kitchen and
living quarters for her domestic staff.

The Princess married the Elector Palatine in 1613, when she was
seventeen, and thus became the grandmother of King George the First.
The house then reverted to the use of the Keeper of the Palace, who at
that time was Lord Rochester, later the Earl of Somerset. But his wife
did not like the place 'there being many doors and few keys'.1 * Later,
the Earl of Pembroke, on becoming Keeper, moved in and continued
to live there through the dark and desperate years of the Civil Wars;
and it was through a window of this house in January 1649 that he saw
King Charles the First, whose home it had been for a time, being led
past to his execution outside the Banqueting HaU in Whitehall
Pembroke died in the house exactly a year later.

Oliver Cromwell then moved in and lived there for four years,
leaving it in 1654 to go to the main Palace of Whitehall, where he is
said to have changed his bedroom every night through fear of assassin*
ation. There had been numberless plots against him, for, though he
had raised the status of the country to unprecedented heights in the
esteem of the world, his rule was undisguisedly a military dictatorship,

NUMBER IO

which more and more of the people were learning to loathe. After his
death in September 1658, his widow returned to the house and
remained there until the Restoration.

On the day of King Charles the Second's stirring entry into London,
29th May 1660, General Monk, now created the Duke of Albemarle,
was given this as well as some of the adjoining houses, together with
two large and lovely enclosed gardens, as his London residence and
stayed there throughout the harrowing months of the Great Plague,
although almost all the courtiers and the bulk of London's population
thought it more prudent to flee to the country.

Albemarle died in this house in January 1670/1 and that part of it
nearest to St. James's Park was then largely rebuilt for the Duke of
Buckingham. The accounts for March 1670/1 list the charges for
'pulling downe and Altering severall Roomes at ye Cockepitt for his
Grace the Duke of Buckingham'. A party wall apparently separated
the house from the Cockpit theatre, used in Cromwell's time only for
concerts of 'rare music', but plays were once again presented there
after the Restoration. The records show that by 1673 the workmen
took down sixty feet of boarded partition in the upper gallery and the
boxes of the theatre, put up a boarded partition in a lower room next
to the pit, and took down the roof and ceiling floor of the gallery
between the playhouse and the outer lodgings next to the park, which
implies that a part at least of the theatre was incorporated in the house.

The house as altered for Buckingham was large and spacious. It ran
from north to south, parallel with Whitehall, with the garden on the
east side, the further side from the Park. Its size and outer shape has not
since been changed and can still be discerned in the rear section of No. 10
Downing Street, though the interior has been very greatly altered.

On the southern flank, where Downing Street now runs, there stood
at that time, as it had for a century and a half earlier, an old half-
timbered house, which had once been a brewhouse called the Axe.
Together with its outhouses, cottages and garden, it occupied almost
the entire length of Downing Street, running from the New Gate on
King Street to St. James's Park, The ground had belonged at one time
to the Abbot of Abingdon, who leased it to Nicholas Palle and later to
his widow Elizabeth Palle. This was never incorporated in the Palace,
but the land appears to have been acquired by the Crown during the

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

reign of Henry the Eighth, for we find that the Axe was confined by
now only to that portion of the premises adjoining New Gate on King
Street.

The rest of the premises were let to Everard Everard, a goldsmith,
who both lived and worked here, and afterwards to John Baptist
Castilain, a gentleman of the Privy Chamber, who lived here until
1593. Queen Elizabeth, who was greatly attached to Thomas Knyvct,
made a gift to him of these premises for life, without rent 'in con-
sideration of the expenditure he had incurred on the repairs of the
house',1 James the First extended the lease, making it run for a term of
sixty years after Knyvet's death, so that his heirs might benefit. As far
as is known, Knyvet never himself lived in this section of No. 10
Downing Street, though as we have seen he did live in the back section
for some years as Keeper of the Palace.

On his death in 1622 the premises went to his widow, who died a
few months later. She in turn left it to her niece Mrs, Hampden, who
took in the Axe and adapted and converted the whole of it into a
residence for herself, set in an attractive garden. It thus came to be
known as Hampden House.

Mrs. Hampden was the mother of John Hampden, who won his
place in history by refusing to pay 'ship money* to Charles the First,
and the aunt of Oliver Cromwell as well as of Colonel Edward
Whalley, one of the prime movers in the King's execution. She was
left undisturbed at the Restoration and continued to live in Hampden
House until her death two years later. The lease still had twenty years
to run and she left the property to her four grandsons - Richard Hamp-
den, Sir Robert Pye, Sir John Hobart and Sir John Trevor.

It was a lease of the land on which this house stood that was granted
by Charles the Second to Downing in 1663. Having obtained per-
mission to build, it was his intention to pull down Hampden House
and use the entire site for the building of a row of houses stretching
from Whitehall to the Park. But Mrs. Hampden's grandsons were not
prepared to surrender what remained of their lease and Downing's
endeavours to get possession failed, despite his complaint to the
authorities that 'the houseing ... are in great decay and Will hardly
continue to be habitable to the end*. He had in consequence to wait until
the lease ran out in 1682 before he could build his street.

NUMBER IO

Downing had amassed considerable wealth, by what means is not
known. In January 1661, just before going to Holland as King Charles's
Ambassador, he bought the manor house of East Hatley in Cambridge-
shire, twelve miles from Hitchin, and kept on adding to his estates until
he became the largest landowner in that county.

He had, while Scoutmaster-General, obtained for his father the
position of Clerk of the Council of State in Edinburgh. The old man
was glad to be back from Massachusetts and carried on the work until
his death on the eve of the Restoration. Downing's widowed mother
went shortly afterwards to live at East Hatley, where she looked after
her two small grandchildren during Downing's absence with his wife
on his fresh term as Ambassador at the Hague. Writing to one of her
daughters, Mrs. Downing, now ncaring seventy, often complained of
the hardships she had to endure. Ten years later we find her struggling
on an allowance from her son of only .£23 a year - 'more your brother
Georg will not hear of for me; and that it is oncly covetousnes that
maks me aske for more. He last sumer bought another town, near
Hatley, called Clappam cost him 13 or 14 thousand pound,* and I
really beleeve one of us 2 are indeed covetous.'

Downing stayed at die Hague until the summer of 1665. Not long
after his return he was appointed Secretary to the Treasury and lived,
while in London, in his town house at Stephen's Court, New Palace
Yard, opposite the House of Commons, of which he had remained a
Member all the time he was abroad. He was also near enough to keep
an eye on such other building alterations as were going on near the
land he had acquired off Whitehall.

An interruption came when the King sent him again to The Hague
in 1671. Warned that Downing was hated by the Dutch and that 'the
rabble will tear him to pieces', the King smiled wryly and said: 'Well,
I will venture him.' The forecast proved to be correct, for three months
later, fearing the mounting fury of the mob, Downing suddenly left
the Hague. On arriving in London he was arrested for leaving his post
without leave and was sent to the Tower. He was imprisoned there for
six weeks, then released.

The alterations to the Cockpit lodgings at the back of Hampden

* It is thought that this figure may be exaggerated,

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

House were by now in progress and before long Downing saw the
Duke of Buckingham move in. In 1674, when Buckingham fell from
favour, the house underwent still further and very considerable alter-
ations. It was being prepared as a suitable residence for Lady Charlotte
Fitzroy, the King's illegitimate daughter by Barbara Villiers, Duchess
of Cleveland, who moved in on her marriage to the Earl of Lichfield.
Another storey was added, so that there were now five floors, counting
basement and attic. Still large and square and with a great many
windows on which the tax was specially remitted,* the house stood in
a much enlarged garden and looked out onto St. James's Park, where
deer grazed upon the grass, the trees were tall, the flowering shrubs
abundant and the criss-crossing paths were decorated with sculpture.

Seeing these extensive alterations around the Cockpit, Downing,
with the lease of Hampden House now running out, applied for per-
mission to build further towards die Park, beyond the limit imposed
earlier which forbade him to build farther west than the Cockpit,
'He therefore prays', the appeal stated, 'to have his term made up
again to 99 years at the old and increased rent and with liberty now and
at all times hereafter to build upon any part of the premises: he intend-
ing to erect none that shall have a prospect towards the Park but such
as shall be fit for persons of good quality to inhabit in and be graceful
and ornamental to the said Park/

After an inspection of the site by Sir Christopher Wren, as Surveyor-
General of the Works, this permission was granted on 25th January
1681/2. The Royal Warrant to the Attorney or Solicitor-General
granted 'Sir George Downing Bart, authority to build new and more
houses further westward on the grounds granted him by the patent of
1663/4 Feb. 23.' It added: 'The present grant is by reason that the said
Cockpit or the greater part thereof is since demolished; but is to be
subject to the proviso that it be not built any nearer than 14 feet of the
wall of the said Park at the West end thereof. But with liberty also to
him to build vaults or cellars from the said buildings to the wall of the
said Park & to make a walk thereupon, and also with liberty to him to
cope the wall of the said Park (so far as the same does abutt on the

* The window tax was first levied in 1696. All houses not paying Church and poor rates
were assessed for a special rate according to the number of windows in the house. The
tax was repealed in July 1851.

NUMBER IO

premises) with free stone and set flower pots or statues thereupon for
die beautifying and ornament of the said buildings/

All grants of leases included a clause 'for reassumption by the Crown
upon payment to the lessees of what shall be by them . . . expended in
building.'

The Hampden House lease ended in 1682 and Downing was able at
last to build his row of houses. Fifteen were erected with astonishing
speed. Of these the largest stretched back towards the Countess of
Licbfield's home. Together these two, when eventually joined, though
that was not to be for another fifty years, formed the No. 10 Downing
Street we know.

CHAPTER 5
Early Residents

THE early residents of the two houses must inevitably be dealt
with separately.

The very first resident, living in the house at the back as first sub-
stantially altered and having the shape and outline it has now, was,
as has been noted, the Duke of Buckingham. He was the second Duke,
heir of the tall, handsome, unscrupulous George Villiers, who was a
favourite of James the Fkst and with whom young Prince Charles rode
in disguise all the way to Spain in the hope of making the Infanta Dona
Maria eventual Queen of England. But she threatened to become a
nun if forced to marry a heretic and the Prince of Wales returned
without a bride.

The younger Buckingham was brought up with King Charles's
children and fought for the King during die Civil War. In 1648, when
only twenty years of age, his estates were sequestered by the Crom-
wellians and he fled to Holland; but he returned three years later and
took part in the battle of Worcester.

Buckingham managed to escape again to die Continent, but to

EABLY RESIDENTS

Cromwell's great indignation returned to England in 1657 and married
Mary, only daughter of Lord Fairfax. Cromwell had him arrested and
sent to the Tower. On the return of Charles the Second he was given
many offices of importance and, after the fall of Clarendon in 1667,
became one of the most influential men in England.

It seems probable1 that, before its conversion, this house was occu-
pied for a few months by the young Prince of Orange (later King
William the Third) when he came on a visit to his uncle King Charles
the Second in October i670,x for Albemarle had but recently died and
the reference to the Prince of Orange living in a house with the brick
wall 'next yc parkc' as well as other identifying allusions appear to
confirm this. The Prince would thus appear to have been the kst
occupant of the house before its conversion.

Buckingham lived here for three years, from July 1673 to March or
April 1676, when, following his fall from favour, he retired to the
country.

The King's daughter and son-in-law, the Earl and Countess of
Lichfield, were the next residents. She was only twelve years old when
they moved in, her husband not yet twenty-one. She is described as
having been 'celebrated for her "blameless" beauty and her numerous
issue'.177 She had eighteen children.

It is puzzling why this house, so recently adapted and decorated for
Buckingham, should within three years have had to be largely rebuilt
for the Lichfields. There is no record of a fire, but the soil in this
neighbourhood is very treacherous and, since houses were not at that
time built on deep foundations, as was to be shown recurrently in the
case of No. 10 Downing Street, this may have been a cause. The
garden of the house appears to have been considerably widened, for
it is now described as a 'great garden'.

When Downing began to build his row of houses in 1682, the
Lichfields were gravely disturbed by their nearness. The Countess
promptly wrote to her father about the loss of privacy. The King
replied: 'I think it a very reasonable thing that other houses should not
look into your house without your permission, and this note will be
sufficient for Mr- Surveyor to build up your wall as high as you
please, the only caution I give you is not to prejudice the corner
house, which you know your sister Sussex is to have, and the building

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

up the wall there will signify nothing to you, only inconvenience
her.'

'Your sister Sussex was the King's elder daughter Anne, also by
Barbara Villiers. Older by two years than her sister Charlotte, she had
married Lord Dacre, later the Earl of Sussex. The 'corner house' in
which the Sussexes were to live was apparently the large house on the
site of the present No. 12 Downing Street.

A near neighbour of the Lichfields on the other side, by the old
Cockpit, was Princess Anne, the King's niece. She lived here from
1684 until 26th November 1688. Her father, the Duke of York, who
ascended the throne in 1685 as James the Second, was faced by ever
increasing hostility because of his ardent support of Catholicism and
his endeavours to resume the arbitrary powers of which an angry
nation had stripped his father. Anne, aware that her husband, Prince
George of Denmark, did not approve of the King's resolve, had a secret
back staircase built off her bedroom, and on her husband coming out
openly against her father, she made her escape by night down this
stairway. Later that year, after her father had fled the country, she
returned to the house and it was here that the new King, William the
Third, who was married to her sister Mary, called to see her.

The Lichfields left their house at about the same time, for they were
closely attached to the fugitive King James the Second, whom the
Earl had been serving as Master of the Horse.

Some months later, Lady Lichfield sold the remainder of her lease
'to Mr. d'Auverquerque', one of the Dutch courtiers of the new King.
D'Auverquerque, a younger son of the Count of Nassau, came to
England with William the Third and replaced Lichfield as Master of
the Horse. On becoming naturalized, he received an English peerage
and anglicized his name to Lord Overkirk. He and his wife, Frances
D' Arson de Sommerdick, who was naturalized some years later, lived
together in this house for eighteen years until his death in 1708. The
house was referred in that year as being 'situate in Downing Str*
Westminster',33 which strictly speaking it was not.

Lady Overkirk stayed on until her own death in January 1720, when
the house was 'resumed' by the Crown and an order was given Tor
repairing and fitting it up in the best and most substantiall manner* at
a cost of .£2,522.

EARLY RESIDENTS

Even before the repairs and decorations were completed a new tenant
moved in. The house was now assigned to Count Bothmar, a German
nobleman, who had come to England ten years earlier as the accredited
representative of the Elector of Hanover, the heir presumptive to
the English throne. By that date, 1710, all Queen Anne's children
having died, it was clear that the Elector, descended from Princess
Elizabeth, sister of King Charles the First, would be her successor. As
has already been noted both the Princess and her brother Charles had
once lived in this house.

During the last four years of Queen Anne's reign Bothmar was
regarded by many as 'the virtual ruler'3* of England, and he main-
tained his supremacy as the most influential of the new King's advisers
when the Elector, who knew hardly any English, ascended the throne
as King George the First.

To Bothmar the house was a constant source of irritation, for he
complained ceaselessly of 'the ruinous Condition of the Premises'. He
had 'a Double Wall' built 'to form an Entry to the said House from the
North side', that is to say where the Horse Guards Parade is now, and
a double stairway, which still stands, was provided to lead from the
terrace to the garden on the Park side; a french window opens onto
the terrace from the Cabinet room. In July 1730 still further repairs
were undertaken, but since these cost only £280, it would seem that
the house was not as dilapidated as Bothmar made out.

Bothmar died here in 1732 and the ratebook shows that Sir Robert
Walpole, who had been Prime Minister for eleven years - six of them
to George the First and five to his son George the Second - took the
house over. But he did not move in until three years later, for the
alterations he required were extensive. He called in William Kent,
who had been working on his magnificent country house at Houghton
in Norfolk, and got him to reconstruct the interior and to design a set
of handsome new rooms and a new staircase. At the same time, in
order to enlarge the place, Walpole told him to take in the adjacent
house in Downing Street, the lease of which was obtained for him by
the King. The entrance to the big house from the Park was closed and
a fresh entrance was provided on Downing Street, almost as it is today.
The two houses have been one ever since.

The house in Downing Street had, until now, few distinguished

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

residents. For a short time (1688 to 1689) the Countess of Yarmouth
lived there, Lord Lansdowne for four years from 1692 to 1696, and
the Earl of Grantham from 1699 to 1703.

In 1720 Downing Street was described as 'a pretty open Place,
especially at the upper End, where are four or five very large and well-
built Houses, fit for Persons of Honour and Quality; each House
having a pleasant Prospect into St. James's Park, with a Tarras
Walk.'*

From time to time a number of Downing's houses remained un-
tenanted, for an advertisement in The Daily Courant, dated 26th
February 1722, announced: 'To be Lett together or apart, by Lease,
from Lady Day next - Four large Houses, with Coach-houses and
Stables, at the upper end of Downing Street, Westminster, the Back
fronts to St. James's Park, with a large Tarras Walk before them next
the Park. Enquire of Charles Downing, Esq., Red-Lyon Square.' In
the ratebook for 1731, No. 10 and the small house alongside are shown
as being in the occupation of John Scroop and Mr, Chicken respec-
tively. Four years later Walpole, wanting to extend the house as far
as the passage on the east (now known as the Treasury Passage) which
led to the stables and coach houses at the back, persuaded Chicken to
move to another of Downing's houses a few doors nearer Whitehall,
and this small house was added to the other two, thus making No. 10
three houses in one.

Beyond these, towards the Park, the row of Downing's houses
continued, ending in the corner house, once occupied by King Charles
the Second's daughter Anne, Countess of Sussex. In front of it, against
the Park wall and jutting out towards the present Foreign Office
building, was the fifteenth of Downing's houses, which formed the
end of the cul-de-sac: the open space in front of it was known at the
time as Downing Square.

Downing, as fir as can be ascertained, never lived in this street
himself, for he died in July 1684, not long after it was completed. He
had eight children, three sons and five daughters. His eldest son, also
named George, married Lady Katherine Cecil, daughter of the Earl of
Salisbury. By his will, dated 20th August 1683, Downing left the
Downing Street portion of his estate in trust for his youngest son
Charles. As trustees he nominated his son-in-law Sir Henry Pickering,

EARLY RESIDENTS

Bart., and Lord Morpeth.* The Charles Downing referred to in the
Daily Courant advertisement was Downing's grandson. His elder
brother, Sir George Downing, the third baronet, left no heir and used
a part of his inheritance to found and endow Downing College at
Cambridge, the university to which old Emmanuel Downing and his
wife Lucy had been so greatly attached.

* Downing's nephew. Viscount Morpeth was the heir of Lady Downing's brother,
the Earl ofCarlisle,

CHAPTER 6
Sir Robert Walpole

WALPOLE was the son of a well-to-do Norfolk farmer. One
of nineteen children, he was born in 1676 and was thus nine years old
at the death of Charles the Second. The family was able to trace its
descent in a direct line from an ancestor who came over with William
the Conqueror. Edward Walpole, grandfather of Sir Robert, sat in the
Parliament of 1660 and voted for the restoration of the monarchy. His
convivial son Robert, in Parliament until his death in 1700, played an
active part in politics as a Whig, and, despite his addiction to ale,
won a high reputation for his prudence and his skilful handling
of money, a talent which his famous son was fortunate enough to
inherit.

Unexpectedly, following the death of his two elder brothers, young
Robert Walpole, who had been brought up to manage the farms and
attend the cattle markets, became heir to the family fortune, which
provided him with an income of ^2,000 a year. This he greatly
enlarged by a fortunate marriage to Catherine Shorter, the grand-
daughter of a former Lord Mayor of London. Not many months after

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE

this, in January 1701, Walpole, not yet twenty-five, entered Parlia-
ment, representing Castle Rising, the constituency vacated by his
father's death; but a year later, for the General Election, he went to
King's Lynn, a much more important borough, where the Walpoles
also had influence, and remained its Member until he went to the House
of Lords forty years later as the Earl of Orford.

It was not until he was almost sixty* and had been Prime Minister
for fourteen years that Walpole moved into No. 10 Downing Street.
His climb began early and was quite rapid. This was all the more
remarkable at a time when political power was controlled by wealth
and birth, for he had not much wealth and, belonging merely to the
country gentry, no family connections of any consequence to assist
his advancement, but had to rely on his exceptional ability and his
untiring capacity for work. In London he joined the right clubs so as
to meet influential people and went out of his way to cultivate those
who could be useful. Abandoning his father's rigid frugality, he
borrowed money and spent it lavishly. Soon he was heavily in debt,
but his geniality and his eager participation in the social round brought
him considerable attention, and his skill as a debater in the House of
Commons led even his opponents to admit that he was as good as half
his party put together.**

The party system began to take shape early in the reign of Charles
the Second. The political grouping was based broadly on the religious
division prevailing in the country, the Tories being for the King and
the established church, the Whigs for Parliamentary supremacy, free-
dom of conscience and religious toleration for the Dissenters: in
consequence the Tories came to be regarded as the reactionary party,
the Whigs as progressive. Even at the end of Queen Anne's reign, when
the two parties had been in existence for half a century, they were by
no means organized and disciplined as political parties came to be
later; each consisted of little groups often divided one from the other:
only an identity of aim and interest led to some of these groups work-
ing together. The Tories in general had supported King James the
Second, the Whigs had been responsible for his replacement by
William the Third. Similarly in the closing years of Anne's reign it

* Kent's alterations took three years,
37

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

was die Whigs who were intent on the Protestant succession by
bringing in King George the First from Hanover, while the Tories
still favoured the legitimate line of the Stuarts. Both parties had at
their head wealthy and influential families who had acquired a vast
number of pocket boroughs, one of which, Old Sarum, had not a
single house in which to lodge a voter. The distribution of Parliamen-
tary seats was stardingly uneven: as many as 142 Members, almost a
quarter of the total in the House, came from the five counties in the
south-west corner of England, stretching from Cornwall to Wiltshire.
Many of the boroughs could be bought and sold, and often were just
before an election. Cromwell introduced a measure of reform by
redistributing some of these seats and enfranchising growing towns
like Manchester and Leeds, which had been completely without any
Parliamentary representation; but Charles the Second cancelled all his
changes. The Duke of Newcasde, with immense estates in diirteen
counties, owned or controlled a large number of the Whig family
boroughs, others were under the influence of such powerful Whigs as
the Devonshires, die Townshends and the Bedfords. By intermarriage,
by entering into business and odier alliances with the more powerful
merchants and bankers, by securing the support of the Crown and by
exercising Parliamentary control for so many years, the Whigs had
established themselves in an almost impregnable position.

During the reign of George the Second the Crown too acquired a
great many boroughs, to which George die Third was to add many
more. Thus in the hands of the King and his chosen Ministers lay almost
complete control of the House of Commons. The counties, returning
two members each, also came under diis influence, for their repre-
sentatives were drawn generally from the families of the largest land-
lords in the area. A few boroughs such as Westminster, Coventry and
Preston, and of the counties Middlesex, had an independent electorate,
and it was these seats, together with the boroughs owned by wealthy
merchants lately returned from India, or by West Indian planters and
rich slave traders, that led from time to time to an unpredictable vari-
ation in die votes in die House. The life of a Parliament was limited to
three years: diere were dius frequent elections. It should be remem-
bered too that the population of England and Scotland, joined by the
Act of Union in 1707, totalled barely eight millions, less than a sixth

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE

of what it is now; but only an infinitesimal proportion, a hundred
families or so, formed the effective ruling class by controlling or
influencing the elections.

After the flight of James the Second the Whigs, having been respon-
sible for it, inevitably came into power. But the pattern changed when
Queen Anne came to the throne. Like her father and her uncle Charles
the Second, she insisted on exercising the Sovereign's right to select
Ministers and dismiss them whether they had the support of Parliament
or not. She even attended all Cabinet meetings and the more important
discussions in the House of Lords. While he enjoyed the Queen's
friendship and support, Marlborough, a Tory by disposition, was
able to play a leading part in politics, but the hostility of that party to
the continuation of the war with France after his triumph at Blenheim,
caused him to turn away from them and to support the Whigs,
retaining in the Government through his overwhelming influence,
only such moderate Tories as Harley and St. John.

Walpole established himself as the leader of the younger Whigs in
his very first years in the Commons. His consistent support of Marl-
borough and the war led to his displacing St. John in the important
office of Secretary at War early in 1708. It was a notable triumph, as
St. John had been his keenest rival at Eton, where Walpole had gone
on a grant after his tight-fisted father had falsified his age. Lord
Godolphin, whose heir married Marlborough's daughter, replaced
Harley as Lord Treasurer, as the head of the Government was then
called*

Walpole rose magnificently to his opportunity. He worked untir-
ingly for the army, kept in constant touch with Marlborough, the
Commander-in-Chief in the field, and, though not himself in the
Cabinet, was brought into the very hub of events. The Government,
however, was doomed to a brief existence. The Queen, weary of the
ill-tempered, domineering Duchess of Marlborough, resolved to get
rid of the Duke and was greatly aided by the country's revulsion at the
terrible slaughter at Malplaquet. St. John, harnessing the bitter irony
of Swift, reviled Marlborough, who was accused of greed, cruelty and
corruption in a succession of pamphlets which the public read avidly.

* In time the Lord Treasurer became the First Lord of the Treasury.
39

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

Squires and tradesmen resented the ever-mounting taxation; the poor
blamed the bad harvests on the war; and on 5th November of that
year (1709), a notable anniversary observed annually because of the
deliverance of James the Fkst and his Ministers from the gunpowder
plot and because it marked also the happy arrival of William the Third
in the country, Dr. Henry Sacheverell, an outspoken and fiery preacher,
used the occasion for delivering a violent sermon at St. Paul's, deeply
critical of the Government. The references to Godolphin, only thinly
veiled, were offensive, and the Government decided on SachevereJTs
impeachment, a course which neither Marlborough nor Walpole
favoured. The trial stirred the country to intense anger. Cheering
crowds followed Sacheverell down the Strand to the court at West-
minster Hall. Though found guilty, his sentence was light: he was
merely prevented from preaching for three years and his sermon was
publicly burnt. Nevertheless the country rejoiced. Bonfires were
lighted everywhere. So great was the. unpopularity of the Whigs that
at the General Election, too dangerously near, the voters, egged on by
the clergy, confirmed the Queen's dismissal of the Whigs. The Tories
were triumphant and Harley came back to office as Lord Treasurer.

Strenuous efforts were made by Harley to retain Walpole, though a
Whig, in the new Government, but Walpole refused to serve. The
tables were thereupon viciously turned upon him. Walpole was sent
to the Tower, accused of comiptly receiving ^1,000 on a contract for
forage while he was Secretary at War. It was eventually established
that he had not received a penny of this money. Meanwhile, he was
expelled from Parliament, was re-elected by the voters and was once
again expelled. His prison cell became the meeting place of the aristo-
cratic Whigs. His praise was sung in ballads in the street. In the end he
was completely exonerated and on his release resumed his place in the
House with his reputation very greatly enhanced.

The closing year of Queen Anne's reign, bringing acutely to the
forefront the question of the succession, was marked by a widespread
intrigue for the restoration of her Catholic brother the Pretender,
calling himself King James the Third, an absurd, paralytic figure
dressed generally in a velvet greatcoat, a cocked hat and the Garter,
who had his exiled court at Saint-Germain just outside Paris. The
tension both in England and Scotland was extremely acute. Plans

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE

were in hand for open rebellion, in which many Tories were impli-
cated. Risings in support of the Pretender were organized to take place
in London and elsewhere. Civil War was expected. Meanwhile Marl-
borough, who had taken refuge in Holland after his fall, was trying
with the full support of the Whigs to persuade the Dutch to send over
ships and troops to assist the cause of the Hanoverians. The aged and
ailing Queen's sympathies were clearly with her brother, but she dicxl
halfway through the year and speedily James the First's great-grand-
son was brought over from Hanover and placed on the English throne
as King George the First.*

The new King, fat, stupid and fifty-four, arrived with a retinue of
more than three hundred Germans, among them a Lutheran clergyman,
a score of physicians, surgeons and apothecaries, cooks, housemaids,
and trumpeters, and in addition, three Turkish servants. In selecting
his Government, not unnaturally, he turned exclusively to the Whigs,
and before long Walpole became Chancellor of the Exchequer and
in effect head of the Government, with his brother-in-law, Lord
Townshend,| as Secretary of State. The country was not wholly pre-
pared to accept the new King. Rioting occurred in some places. In many
churches there was outspoken opposition to the new monarch. But
the Whigs took the strongest precautions to prevent their opponents
bringing in French assistance in support of the Pretender. Louis the
Fourteenth being now old and his country impoverished by war, they
got none. The crisis passed and the new dynasty was established, though
in the succeeding thirty years recurrent efforts were made to unseat it.

The first of these assaults was made in the following year, 1715.
There was a rising in Scotland on behalf of the Pretender and an army
marched south to restore the Stuarts to the throne. But not three
hundred men in England were prepared to assist them and they
surrendered when they got as far as Preston. Among their supporters
were many highly placed Tories and with these Walpole decided to
deal with the utmost severity. Normally a man of moderate temper,
he exercised his clemency only towards the rank and file. The pleas

* Had Anne died two months earlier, her successor would have been George the Pint's
mother, the Electress Sophia.

t Lord Townshend, a neighbour in Norfolk and a dose friend of the family, married
Walpolc's sister Dorothy in 17x3.

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

of die rebel Tory peers he dismissed without mercy. He had been
offered, he revealed to the House of Commons, as much as ^60,000
to spare the life of the Earl of Derwentwater, but contemptuously he
rejected the offer.

George the First, delighted though he was at his elevation from a
modest German principality to the throne of one of the most important
kingdoms in Europe, was distressed at discovering that he possessed
far less authority than he had in Hanover. He knew hardly any
English, and despite the regular flow of reports from Count Bothmar,
he was unfamiliar with political procedure and public feeling in
England and was wholly dependent on his Whig Ministers. He had
brought with him his two old and ugly mistresses and a swarm of
avaricious German courtiers, all eager to secure as their rightful spoils
the most highly paid sinecures. Walpole's resolve to resist this brought
upon him their united hostility. The intrigues against him were led by
Bothmar, who was then still in residence in the house that was to form
a substantial part of No. 10 Downing Street. The mistresses whispered
maliciously in the King's ear. One of them, the Countess of Schulen-
berg, now transformed into the Duchess of Kendal, Walpole was
convinced would readily have sold the King's honour for a shilling
advance on the highest bidder.** The intriguers were joined by a group
of covetous Whigs, and together they prevailed on the King. Walpole
left the Government in disgust.

He was not out of office for very long. The brilliance he had dis-
played in disentangling the complexities of the nation's financial
problems led to his return in 1720. Harley, who had succeeded him at
the Exchequer, had striven to ease the burden of debt left by the war
by arranging for a private trading concern, the South Sea Company,
to take over £30 million of the National Debt, in return for a com-
plete monopoly of the trade with South America. The opportunities
seemed so vastly promising that there was a rush to purchase the
Company's shares. Not only speculators but men and women of slen-
der means joined in avidly. Walpole, when the proposal was initially
debated in the House of Commons, pointed out the 'dangerous lure
for decoying the unwary to their ruin by a false prospect of gain'. The
House nevertheless approved it. Having given his warning, Walpole
retired to Houghton, his home in Norfolk.

SIR ROBERT WALPOIE

For some months the Company's shares rose rapidly. 'South Sea is
all the talk and fashion; the ladys sell their Jewells to buye.'* Then
quite suddenly the shares began to fall. When the crash came panic
set in. In die calamity the Government were directly implicated and
every eye turned now to Walpolc. He returned in triumph. A grateful
Sovereign rewarded him eventually with the Garter.

Walpole's rise to the supreme office followed not long afterwards,
in April 1721. That he was able to achieve this by the time he was
forty-five despite his modest beginnings and while he was still heavily
burdened by debt was due to his unique qualities - his intense applica-
tion to work, his unflagging energy, and above all to his understand-
ing and skill in handling people, both in Parliament and outside it. His
manipulation of the finances of the country amounted almost to
wizardry and brought immense benefits to the traders and lasting
prosperity to the nation. The factions that divided the Whigs were
resolved by his shrewdness or by death's fortunate intervention; and
he was well set for his long term as Prime Minister, f which spanned
more than twenty uninterrupted years and is the longest in the history
of the country. But it was impossible to foresee this when it began.
Walpole knew that the King did not like him: the whispers of his
German courtiers still buzzed faintly in his ears; and Walpole knew
too that when the King's son succeeded (and His Majesty was already
in his sixty-seventh year), his dismissal must follow; for the son hated
his father and had gathered about him the chief opponents of his
father's Government, all of them Walpole's bitterest enemies. The
hatred was generated by his father's vile treatment of his mother, who
had been incarcerated in a desolate castle in Hanover and left to die
there: and for this Walpolc realized he and his Government would
soon have to pay.

The death of George the First occurred in June 1727. He died in a
carriage on his way to Hanover. Walpole, on learning the news, drove
to Richmond Lodge and aroused the new King from his afternoon
nap. *I have the honour,' Walpolc began, 'to announce to your Majesty,
that your royal father, King George the First, died at Osnaburgh
on Saturday the loth instant.' His Majesty, dishevelled and not

* Mrs. James Wiudham.

t Walpolc was the first to be referred to as 'Prime Minister*.

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

quite awake, became angry and roared inexplicably: 'Dat is one big
He!'

Walpole awaited his dismissal, but it did not come. Boorish and
ill-tempered though George the Second was, he was only too well
aware of his limitations and relied almost entirely on his wife Queen
Caroline to guide him. She was intelligent and, liking gossip and gaiety
was drawn to Walpole because of his sparkle and vivacity; not only
was he allowed to remain as Prime Minister, but soon his friends
became friends of the King and Queen.

Walpole directed his energy to providing stability. He was aided in
the latter by the abolition of the three-year Parliament, introduced
in the reign of William the Third, and the lengthening of its term to
seven years by the Septennial Act of 1716. This removed the fluctu-
ations and constant upheavals caused by too frequent elections. Having
secured, with the help of the Duke of Newcastle and other powerful
manipulators of the ballot, the majority he needed in the Commons,
and with the use also of the boroughs in the control of die Crown,
he was assured of support for long enough to carry out his plans. That
he succeeded in maintaining his control of the House for twenty-one
consecutive years is generally attributed to the adroit use of bribery.
It would be more exact to describe it as a calculated and adept dis-
tribution of patronage, for there were an enormous number of archaic
offices, many of them mere sinecures, as well as exorbitant pensions,
all of them in the gift of the Crown, which the chief Minister was in a
position to confer in exchange for support in the House by die grateful
recipients or their relatives. In many instances such public money was
paid without requiring any service in return, as in the case of the
Sweeper of the Mall or the Clerk of the Pipe; in others which carried
certain duties a humble clerk was often employed at a small fee to
fulfil them, as had happened in the case of Pepys and Downing. That
such a wide distribution of emoluments would be regarded by present
standards as corruption is undeniable. But it is at the same time argu-
able that Walpole did not so much corrupt the age as that he was
forced to operate in an age already corrupt. Convinced that the
measures he wanted to get through the House were advantageous to
the nation, he found himself unable to attain this end by any other
course. What he aimed at was to avoid getting entangled in war, to

SIR ROBERT WALPOUE

set the finances of the country on a sound footing, and to ensure con-
ditions in which trade could flourish. All this he achieved. He also
strove to ensure that the Government of the country should not be
at the mercy of a monarch's whim, but should be made independent
of him, in short that in future the House of Commons and the Cabinet
should govern the country. He was able to attain this through the
detachment, often the indifference, of the King who, like his father, was
absent in Hanover for long periods, leaving England in the care of
Walpole and the Whigs. Thus the royal prerogative in the selection of
Ministers was in the course of time reduced to the formal fiction that
endures to this day.

Until he moved into No. 10 Downing Street in 1735, Walpole
lived in St. James's Square, going at weekends to Richmond where he
hunted with the harriers and to his estate at Houghton, in Norfolk, for
Christmas and the long summer recess - Parliament met for only four
months or so in the year. At each of these places he entertained muni-
ficently but was inclined to be parsimonious over little things: he
insisted, for example, on getting twopence back on every empty
bottle and, though Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as First Lord
of die Treasury, he was not above employing a smuggler, as many
others did at that time, to evade the excise and customs duties. The
annual salary from his two offices, totalling £7,400, together with
certain perquisites, made it possible not only for him to pay off his
enormous debts, but provide himself with estates of great magnifi-
cence. It was an age of luxurious country houses and extensive parks,
beautified by lakes, Grecian temples and mock ruins, with occasionally
a hired hermit to give it colour. Every nobleman, every merchant as
he acquired wealth, built grandly and spent prodigious sums on
furniture and pictures, combing the Continent for its treasures.
Walpole began to emulate them while his means were still slender. On
moving in 1714 into a little house behind Chelsea Hospital, he set about
its embellishment and called in die aid of John Vanbrugh. A terrace
was built with an octagonal summer house; then an orangery; then
an aviary filled with rare singing birds. He loved the house and it
was here diat some of his Cabinet meetings were held until he
moved to No. 10. He next turned his attention to the rebuilding
and decoration of Houghton, calling in William Kent to evolve

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

the improvements and fill it with elegant furniture, while his am-
bassadors scoured the capitals of Europe for pictures.

Before moving into Downing Street he sent Kent to look over the
old Cockpit lodgings, once occupied by King Charles the Second's
daughter, the Countess of Lichfield, and more recently by Count
Bothmar. The house was Crown property and King George the
Second, appreciative of all Walpole had done for the Hanoverian
dynasty and the country, offered it to him as a personal gift. But
Walpole declined it, saying that 'he would only accept it for his Office
of the First Lord of die Treasury, to which post he got it annexed for
ever/* The King also acquired the lease of the two houses in Downing
Street to which it was joined, as well as some stables alongside, and
Kent, engaged then in building the Treasury oil the site of the Cockpit
and adjacent to one of Henry the Eighth's tennis courts, effected die
fusion with admirable skill. The work was extensive. Part of the in-
terior was gutted. The houses were linked by a long room on die
Whitehall side with corresponding rooms above. The remainder of
the space between the two main houses was left as an open courtyard.
Drawings of what was done are preserved in a scrapbook in the Metro-
politan Museum of Art in New York. The numerous staircases that
cluttered the three houses were ripped out and a handsome new stone
staircase was inserted, rising from the garden floor (joined now to the
basement on the Downing Street end) to the first floor: its iron balus-
trade was embellished with a lovely scroll design and a mahogany
handrail. This staircase still stands. The house at the back, left with
three floors as before, had its central section surmounted with a pedi-
ment. A portion of the Horse Guards Parade had been enclosed with
a wall in Bothmar's time, with a gate opening onto the Parade. But
it was not converted into a garden until Walpole moved in. It was
then laid out and developed at the expense of the State. Letters patent
issued by the Lords of the Treasury on N$th April 1736^ state that 'a
piece of garden ground scituate in his Majesty's park of S<- James's,

& belonging & adjoining to the house now inhabited by the Right
Honourable die Chancellor of His Majestys Exchequer, hath been
lately made & fitted up at the Charge . . . of the Crown', and that the

* Horace Walpole, Aedes
f Public Record Office.

SIR ROBERT WALPOUB

said house and garden were 'meant to be annexed & united to the
Office of his Majesty's Treasury & to be & to remain for the Use &
Habitation of the first Commissioner of his Majesty's Treasury for
the time being.' As it was necessary 'that some Skilfull person should
be appointed to look after ... the said piece of ground', they selected
Samuel Milward for the post at a salary of £40 a year.1

Kent's sketches show the interior elevations of seven main rooms on
the ground floor and the first floor all facing die garden or the park:
these he decorated sumptuously - the sketches indicate the pictures
hanging on the walls together with the names of the artists. Many of
the marble mantelpieces he put in still survive. But the pictures on the
walls were Walpole's personal property and were taken away by him
when he left.

The largest room on the ground floor (at the back in the Cockpit
section of the house)* was made into a levee room and study for Wai-
pole (it measures forty feet by twenty), and it was here that the Cabinet
met and still meets. It was made magnificently impressive, with
enormous windows looking out onto the garden and the Horse Guards
Parade beyond, and opening through a french window onto Bothmar's
terrace, from which a double flight of stairs leads down to the garden.
Alongside it was Walpole's dressing-room and beside it the Parlour.

The bedrooms were on the floor above. Lady Walpole's was on the
Whitehall side with a dining-room beside it. The corner room, over-
looking both St. James's Park and the Horse Guards Parade, was the
drawing-room. The walls of these rooms were covered with brocade,
as at Walpole's house at Houghton.

Money had been spent lavishly. The work was well done, A delight-
ful home, spacious and decorated with taste, had been provided for
the King's first minister. But neither Kent nor Downing had given
much thought to the foundations: both adhered to the practice of their
time. The foundations, at a depth of no more than six feet in certain
parts, rested on timber sills or beams laid loosely on the treacherous
soil, into which the river's silt oozed at intervals, even as far in as this.
It was inevitable that the timber would rot and that the house should
be in need of constant and costly attention.

* The first floor if looked at from the garden side.
47

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

But it still stands - a part of it nearly three centuries old. That part,
the old house in which King Charles the First had lived as a child and
Cromwell after him, had lost its identity: it was no longer a noble
edifice on St. James's Park, but a house in a narrow cul-de-sac called
Downing Street. It gazed onto a similar row of houses, not built by
Downing, standing where the Foreign Office is now. Most of these
houses took in lodgers: M.P.s from the provinces and especially Scot-
land used to stay here for the Parliamentary session. The writer Tobias
Smollet had rooms in one of them when he practised as a surgeon;
Boswell, Johnson's biographer, rented rooms in another almost facing
No. 10. At the Whitehall corner, on that side, stood an inn, called tie
Rose and Crown, from which, as the placards announced, 'Louis
Barbay, successor to the kte Mrs. Maria Wickstead, Being the only
Person that has possession of her Secret for Curing Sore Throats and
Wens, though of ever so large a Size', sold lozenges and powders,
together with 'Directions how to take them*.

But despite all this the rear section of No. 10 has lost neither its
character nor its atmosphere, for it is that part of the house that all who
have lived in it love best and it is there that in every shadow there seems
to lurk something of the country's great history.

CHAPTER 7

Walpole at No. 10

WALPOLE was sixty when he moved into No. 10. For some
years he and his wife had been living separate, independent lives, but
they kept up the fiction of still being together and she moved into the
house with him. At first, after their marriage, their attachment was
warm and passionate, as Hs letters to her show. She had a child, or
a miscarriage, almost every year. He indulged her every whim, and,
though his financial difficulties in those years were crippling, he
pandered to her extravagance and his own by getting deeper and
deeper into debt. She was restless and sought continual distraction in
social gaiety - the opera, costly dresses, jewels, even the card-table. It
was whispered that she was wanton, but of this there is no reliable
evidence, though the birth of her youngest son, the famous letter
writer Horace Walpole, after a gap of eleven years, gave some
substance to these rumours, for Walpole was scarcely ever with her at
the time of the conception. Nevertheless he acknowledged the child,
but left him completely to his mother. She was rarely at No. 10 and
hardly ever accompanied Walpole on his visits to Houghton, but lived

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

mainly by herself in their home in Chelsea, went to Bath for the
season and did not bother to visit her husband even when he was ill,
as he often was, at times gravely ill.

Short in stature, of great bulk and with a multiplicity of chins, he
was far from attractive physically. Yet in every gathering he was the
centre of interest even before he attained the heights. Boisterously
hearty, he danced, drank and hunted, as untiring in his play as at his
work. In manner he was courteous, but his conversation was often
coarse and he was apt to forget that ladies were present, a forgetful-
ness at times apparent even in the presence of the Queen. Though calm
and unruffled as a rule, when he did lose his temper, he would rise
abruptly from the Cabinet table and break up the meeting, saying
'nobody was fit for business once they had lost control*. It was his
conviction that difficulties should be avoided not provoked: 'Let
sleeping dogs lie1, he would say. No detail escaped his attention.
Every letter was written in his own hand, instead of being dictated to
a clerk, and he wrote thousands of letters in the course of his official
business, He even transcribed personally the letters he received, jotted
down extracts from dispatches and added to each his own memoranda.
The historic beginning of the Prime Minister's move into his official
residence was recorded in the London Daily Post of 23rd September
1735 in a single brief sentence: 'Yesterday the Right Hon. Sir Robert
Walpole, with his Lady and Family, removed from their House in
St. James's Square, to his new House, adjoining to the Treasury in St.
James's Park/

A week later his first important reception in this house, a breakfast
party, was announced in die same newspaper: 'This morning about
9, the Queen, the Duke, and the Princesses, attended by the Principal
Officers and Ladies of the Court, intend to come from Kensington and
Breakfast with Sir Robert Walpole, at his new House near the Treasury
in St. James's Park. Some choice Fruits, Sweetmeats and Wines, with
Tea, Chocolate, etc., have been sent in for the Entertainment of the
Royal and Illustrious Company. Sir Robert Walpole continues to
Lodge at his House at Chelsea, till the Meeting of Parliament, when he
will, with his family move to that in St. James's Park.'

And two days later: 'When her Majesty Breakfasted with Sir Robert
Walpole on Wednesday last, at his House in St. James's Park, the Right

WALPOLE AT NO. 10

Hon. the Lord Walpole,* Edward Walpole, Esq., and Horace
Walpole, Esq., Sir Robert's three Sons, waited at Table on her Majesty
and the Royal Family. The Earl of Grantham, by her Majesty's Order,
left a handsome Sum to be distributed among the Servants/

Walpole sought solace for his domestic infelicity from a number of
mistresses. Because he acted with the utmost discretion in an age when
discretion was disregarded, it was thought that his earlier affairs at any
rate were casual and unimportant, though one of these mistresses
presented him with a daughter named Catherine Daye. But in 1725
when Maria Skerrett came into his life, all discretion was abandoned.
They had met at the house of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu at
Twickenham and the wooing is said to have taken him a full year.
They began to go about together quite openly and she often stayed
with him at No. 10 Downing Street, even when his children were
there; of these his eldest, Lord Walpole, was in his thirties, whereas
Horace had just left Eton and was about to go on to King's College,
Cambridge. Maria's portraits show her to have been a tall, thin and
rather plain young woman: her contemporaries do not speak of her
as being attractive in appearance. But her wit, charm and her uncom-
mon commonscnse came in for a great deal of praise. Walpole was
certainly deeply in love and his devotion ksted until the end of her
life. Some months after the death of his wife in 1737 (she was buried at
Westminster Abbey with an eulogistic epitaph composed by her son
Horace) Walpole married Maria - or Molly, as he called her. The
marriage took place in March 1738.

Walpole's younger brother Horatio, writing of this to a friend, said:
'My brother brought home this lady on Sunday last; who is indeed a
very sensible, well behaved modest woman, appears not at all ekted
with her new situation and I daresay will be generally esteemed/
Another caller at No. 10, Sir Thomas Robinson, later Lord Grantham,
wrote of her to Lord Carlisle: 'All the well wishers to Sir Robert
Walpole have been to wish him and his lady joy. I did it to both with
great sincerity. Everybody gives her a very good character, both as to
her understanding and good nature/

Most distressingly, their happiness ended a few weeks later. On 6th

* Sir Robert Walpole's eldest son was made a peer in 1723,
51

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

June the new Lady Walpole died through a miscarriage. Horatio
wrote of his 'inexpressible concern for poor Lady Walpole's death on
her own account, but more particularly by reason of the deplorable
and comfortless condition in which it has flung my brother, who had
his happiness, and indeed very deservedly, wrapt up in her/

By her Walpole had two illegitimate daughters, of whom only one,
Mary, survived. She later married Colonel Charles Churchill, an
illegitimate son of General Charles Churchill and Anne Oldfield. For
many years she was a housekeeper at Windsor Castle and lived on
until the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Walpole had been at pains to make ample provision in case Maria
Skerrett should survive him, and characteristically (since he had
already done the same for his children) all the provision was made out
of public funds. He began these arrangements even before their
marriage, by which time she was already assured ^400 a year for life.
To this he added £200 a year from the office of Inspector and Exam-
iner of Books of Patent. She was next assigned £500 a year from the
office of the Comptroller-General of Accounts of His Majesty's
Customs - in all a total of ^1,100 a year.

Though inconsolable, Walpole found fresh sokce less than a
year later. Lord Egmont noted in his diary on nth April 1739: 'Sir
Robert Walpole being a widower has youth enough about him, not-
withstanding the age of 64, to take a new mistress, the sister of Mr.
Glenn, the new Governor of Carolina, which Mr. Glenn married a
natural daughter of my Lord Wilmington/

Walpole was greatly attached to his brother Horatio and did all he
could to further his career. He began as a lawyer but became a diplo-
matist in 1706 and was appointed by Walpole as secretary to General
James Stanhope at Barcelona. He was already a Member of Parliament
and, despite his many ambassadorial missions abroad, remained in
Parliament for an unbroken period of fifty-four years. When Walpole
became First Lord of the Treasury Horatio was made Secretary to the
Treasury. As early as 1717 Walpole appointed him for life Surveyor
and Auditor-General of the Plantation (American) Revenues of the
Crown. This brought Horatio a substantial income as well as an office
almost alongside No. 10 Downing Street. Here he took up his residence
in 1723. The house, which adjoined the old Cockpit, had once belonged

WALPOLE AT NO. 10

to Lord Clarendon. Horatio soon found he required more space for
the ledgers dealing with the revenues from America, and petitioned for
the lease of premises abutting on one side onto the houses in Downing
Street and on the other on to the stables of Count Bothmar, at that
time in residence in the back section of No. 10. He asked for a lease of
fifty years to be granted to him personally. This was agreed to. He
also purchased a portion of the Downing Estate for the small sum of
.£185 and annexed it to these premises. Thus for some years the
brothers were next door neighbours and Horatio and his wife came
constantly to No. 10. Walpole's other visitors did not take at all kindly
to them. Horatio was coarse-featured, his speech was marked by a
Norfolk accent and his clothes were far from elegant, indeed they were
often dirty. Lord Hervey has left an unflattering picture of him and his
wife. Horatio he describes as 'a very disagreeable man in company,
noisy, overbearing, affecting to be always jocose ... as unbred in his
dialect as in his apparel, and as ill bred in his discourse as in his be-
haviour; with no more the look than the habits of a gentleman/ Of
his wife *Pug', he is still more unkind: 'A tailor's daughter whom he
had married for interest, with a form scarce human, as offensive to the
nose as to the eye.'28 But Walpole was fond of them both and had
them always with him.

Young Horace Walpole often stayed at No. 10 and had a stream of
his own visitors. Amongst his closer friends was Thomas Gray, the
poet, who had been at Eton with him, and later they set out together
on a long Continental tour. Walpole himself, being fond of company,
also did a great deal of entertaining here. He used to hold a levee in the
drawing-room on the first floor to which his political admirers, as well
as his opponents, came. One can visualize the throng of bewigged
gentlemen in their long velvet coats, some of bright scarlet, others of
cerulean blue, trimmed with gold or silver lace, mounting the stone
stairs in their buckled shoes. The most prominent men in his Govern-
ment would have come constantly and the younger men, destined one
day themselves to be prominent, would have regarded it as a privilege
to be of the company. Of these the most famous was certainly William
Pitt the elder, later Lord Chatham. Born in 1708, he was singled out
early as a politician of outstanding quality. From his letters, written in
1734 when he was in his twenties, one gets the impression that he was

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

a supporter of Walpole's. But two years later, after Pitt was elected to
Parliament, a certain petulance became noticeable in Walpole's
manner towards him and in Pitt there developed a fierce hostility.
Among other notable men who came to No. 10 were the great Lord
Chesterfield, the essayists Addison and Steele, the Duke of Newcastle,
most powerful Whig of the day, the Earl of Halifax and even Lord
Bolingbroke. Dr. Johnson, a year younger than Pitt, always held
Walpole in high esteem. 'He was the best minister this country ever
had,* Johnson said of him some years later, Tor if we would have let
him be, he would have kept it in perpetual peace/

That Walpole had been able to maintain peace for a whole gener-
ation was not achieved without difficulty and the exercise of constant
vigilance. To begin with he had to reverse the earlier policy of the
Whigs, who had ardently supported Marlborough's wars and had
readily placed all the resources of England at his disposal. The adjust-
ment was by no means easy and it took time. Europe was in a continu-
ous ferment because of the dynastic ambitions, the incessant plots and
counterplots of its more unscrupulous rulers. From these it was not
always possible to remain detached, since the plots, affecting as they
did the flow of trade, threatened the prosperity of England. Only with
ingenuity and tact was Walpole able to avoid embroilment in Europe's
wars and to keep open the vital channels of trade. The filing's Hano-
verian dominions, affected as they constantly were by the ambitious
designs of others, made it essential for Walpole to placate His Majesty
and also, by a judicious distribution of patronage and preferment,
ensure the support of his own plans in the House of Commons. By
delaying tactics, by last-minute compromises and by skilful adjust-
ments through his brother and his other agents, he succeeded in
evading involvement for a whole generation. He was faced from time
to time with having to explain to the King why British troops could
not be used in his German quarrels. One morning, not many months
before moving into No. 10 Downing Street, he said to the Queen
with considerable satisfaction: 'Madam, there are fifty thousand men
slain this year in Europe, and not one Englishman/

His difficulties had begun to multiply before he moved into Down-
ing Street. While he was still poring over Kent's plans for recon-
struction, examining designs for his new furniture, and going through

WALPOLE AT NO. IO

the costs which as Chancellor of the Exchequer he would have to
authorize the Treasury to meet, trouble arose over his plan to intro-
duce fresh excise duties. Taxation he had consistently reduced: it was his
intention now to reduce the land tax and counterbalance it by extend-
ing the existing duties on tea, coffee and chocolate to tobacco and wine.
That it would have been of advantage to the country was undisputed,
but a clamour was raised against it in 1733 and Walpole gave way.
True he still had control of the Commons, and in the Lords the Whig
majority was maintained by a careful selection of Bishops.* Never-
theless discontent, prompted by ambition, was discernible even among
his followers, especially among the younger men of whom William
Pitt, still in his twenties, was one of the most active and outspoken.
When Walpole yielded to their assault on the home front they quickly
switched the attack to foreign affairs, for die situation had become
much more critical on the Continent. But Walpole was still able to
show that he had lost none of his old flair. He had to apply persuasion
and pressure in turn on the Holy Roman Emperor, on Cardinal
Fleury of France, on the Queen of Spain, and, when these failed, he
had to offer bribes in the form of territorial or dynastic concessions
which one or other of them coveted. His opponents, attributing his
achievements to luck and eager themselves for office after twenty years
of waiting, gathered in force to get him out. He was ageing. Ministers
he had sacked, reluctant before to defy him, showed signs now of
doing so. There were clashes with Newcastle, a powerful and much
younger Minister, who began to turn his thoughts to his own future.
With him were other members of the Cabinet - Lords Hardwicke
and Harrington. They did not find it easy. As Pope, an intimate of
Walpole's most formidable enemies Bolingbroke (formerly St.
John) and Swift, expressed it:

Seen him I have; but ia his happier hour
Of social pleasure ill-exchanged for power:
Seen him uncumbcred with the venal tribe,
Smile without effort and win without a bribe.

* Catholics were still excluded from both Houses and were to remain so for many
more years.

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

After Queen Caroline's death his position became weaker. The
King's heir, Frederick, Prince of Wales, having quarrelled with his
father, set up a separate court in a rented house in Leicester Square and
gathered about him a rival Government that was ready to take over:
it was the second time this had happened during Walpole's long rule.

In 1738, shortly after his marriage to Maria Skerrett and her untimely
death, he faced his most turbulent storm. France's prestige and power,
so low a generation before, had increased greatly, largely because of
Walpole's detachment from Europe. An alliance formed between that
country and Spain was regarded with the utmost suspicion by the
great commercial organizations in England, who felt that their own
opportunities of trading with the Spanish countries across the Atlantic
would be gravely endangered. They worked themselves into a frenzy
and were supported by Walpole's opponents, who saw in this an
opportunity of driving him out of office, since it was quite unlikely
that he would go to war. Pitt, in a rousing speech, proclaimed: 'When
trade is at stake it is your kst retrenchment: you must defend it or
perish.' Half-forgotten atrocities committed some years before by
Spain against British buccaneers were recalled and the entire country
clamoured for a war of vengeance. They were backed by Parliament
and even by some of Walpole's colleagues in the Cabinet. Known now
as the Patriots, they took as their symbol Captain Jenkins' ear, cut off
as long as seven years before. Jenkins was called to the bar of the House,
made to produce the severed ear and to describe how it had been
sliced off to an accompaniment of jeers at the English King. National
pride was roused, mingled with which was the hope of increased com-
mercial gain in the South American trade routes controlled by Spain.
Walpole assured the nation that redress for past outrages as well as
security for the future could much more easily be obtained by peaceable
negotiation. To make war on a nation whose trade routes were of vital
importance to Britain, would, he argued, do more harm than good. But
the country would not be soothed. The Spanish, it was insisted, must
abandon their right to search British ships. This the Spaniards refused
to concede, nor after nine years of war were they compelled to concede
it.

The war, forced on Walpole in 1739, was received by the public with
frenzied enthusiasm. Walpole said: 'They now ring the bells, but they

WALPOLE AT NO. 10

will soon wring their hands/ He immediately offered his resignation,
but the King refused to accept it. Pressed further, he still refused. 'Will
you desert me in my greatest difficulties?' cried His Majesty pitifully.

In the Cabinet of six, most of them peers, dissension, already acute,
became critical. On not more than three of his colleagues could Walpole
any longer rely. The King's efforts to draw them together were without
avail. Violent altercations took place every day. In 1740 when Walpole
decided to make Lord Hervey the new Lord Privy Seal, the Duke of
Newcastle put forward the name of Carteret, to whom he had secretly
offered it. 'Oh,' exclaimed Walpole, *I always suspected that you had
been dabbling there, and now I know it. But if you make such bargains,
I don't think myself obliged to keep them.' The office was thereupon
given to Hervey,

Hervey did not stand by Walpole in his hour of crisis. He described
later another clash in the Cabinet room between Walpole and the Duke
of Newcastle:

'Just as Sir Robert Walpole was upon his legs to go away, the Duke
of Newcastle said, "If you please, I would speak one word to you before
you go"; to which Sir Robert Walpole replied, "I do not please, my
Lord: but if you will, you must." - "Sir, I shall not trouble you long."
- "Well, my lord, that's something; but I had rather not be troubled at
all. Won't it keep cold till tomorrow?" - "Perhaps not, sir." - "Well,
come then, let's have it"; upon which they retired to a corner of the
room/ where his Grace whispered very softly, and Sir Robert answered
nothing but aloud, and said nothing aloud but every now and then,
"Pooh! Pshaw! O Lord! O Lord! pray be quiet. My God, can't you
see it is over?" '

The most critical attacks upon Walpole in Parliament were based on
the accusation that during his years of office he had usurped the sole
power of directing all public affairs, of making appointments to all
public posts, recommending all honours - in fact of doing everything
that the Prime Minister does today.

Samuel Sandys, who was to succeed Walpole as Chancellor of the
Exchequer and to move into No. 10, led the attack in the House of
Commons, declaring that 'According to our constitution we can have
no sole and prime minister: we ought always to have several prime
ministers or officers of state; every such officer has his own proper

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

department; and no officer ought to meddle in the affairs belonging to
the department of another/

The attack, made and supported in both Houses, was defeated in both
Houses. But a minority in the Lords insisted: 'We are persuaded that a
sole, or even a First Minister, is an officer uiJoiown to the law of
Britain, inconsistent with the constitution of this country, and destruc-
tive of liberty in any government whatsoever.'

Neither Walpole not his supporters denied this principle, they merely
rejected the facts. Walpole, insisting that he had never usurped the
authority of First Minister, said: 'As one of His Majesty's council I have
only one voice.'

Despite his disclaimer, Walpole was in fact Prime Minister and was
the first to be called that. There had generally been a 'prime' Minister:
in Queen Elizabeth the First's time the custom was to call him 'Mr.
Secretary' since the Sovereign had the ultimate authority and her
Secretary did no more than act on her dictation: the word survives to
this day in 'Secretary of State'. Later, when more Ministers were
needed, the Sovereign remained the prime selector and arbiter and each
Minister was responsible only to the Crown. With the coming of the
Hanoverians it was inevitable that one of these Ministers should exer-
cize this authority in the name of the King. He and his colleagues were
still liable to be brought to account separately by impeachment, since
the Crown was above the law. The acceptance later of collective re-
sponsibility by the Cabinet freed the Prime Minister and his colleagues
from being blamed individually for measures agreed by them all, then
approved by Parliament, and ultimately endorsed by the King.

At the General Election in the summer of 1741 great exertions were
made to defeat Walpole. It was argued that, since he never wanted the
war, he could hardly be more than half-hearted in conducting it. In
Scotland only six of the forty-five constituencies were for his party;
the twenty-one boroughs of Cornwall were almost all opposed to him.
None the less Walpole's friends were confident of having a majority
of at least forty in the new House.

At this anxious time Walpole must have paced his bedroom at No.
10 restlessly through the night. His son Horace, who was then living in
the house, noted on I9th October 1741 : 'He who was asleep as soon as
his head touched the pillow, for I have frequently known him snore

WALPOLB AT NO. 10

ere they had drawn his curtains, now never sleeps above an hour
without waking; and he, who at dinner always forgot he was minister,
and was more gay and thoughtless than all his company, now sits
without speaking, and with his eyes fixed for an hour together.'32

The battles in the House went on day after day. There were endless
divisions. Over the election of the Chairman of Committees Walpole's
opponents threw out his nominee by a majority of four. At this
a great shout went up, loud, exultant and sustained. In the succeeding
days Walpole managed to scrape through with narrow majorities. The
debates went on through the night, and night after night, in order to
tax and wear down his strength. He was forced on one occasion to wait
until four in the morning before being allowed to rise and speak. His
opponents even insisted on the House sitting on Saturdays, so as to keep
him from having his customary relaxation with the harriers at Rich-
mond. His sons begged him to give it up, arguing that after gaining
one success with a worthwhile majority, he should retire. Leaning
across the supper table, Walpole laughed at the suggestion. Though
now sixty-five, he informed them proudly that he was younger than
any of them. And certainly his vigour, his endurance and his spirits
seemed undimmed.

Horace, however, realized that the end could not now be very far.
On 1 7th December he wrote: 'Trust me, if we fall, all the grandeur, all
the envied grandeur of our house, will not cost me a sigh: it has given
me no pleasure while we have it, and will give me no pain when we
part with it. My liberty, my ease, and choice of my own friends and
company, will sufficiently counterbalance the crowds of Downing-
street. I am so sick of it all, that if we are victorious or not, I propose
leaving England in the Spring.'

After the Christmas recess the battles became even fiercer. The sick
and the bedridden, the lame and even the blind were dragged or carried
to the House to record their vote. Walpole's eldest son who, as auditor
of the Exchequer, had a residence that communicated with the House,
arranged that some of the invalids supporting his father should wait in
comfort in his quarters until the division. The Opposition learned of
this and stuffed die keyhole with dirt and sand; thus when the division
was called it took too long to unlock the door and they were prevented
from voting.

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

No fewer than 503 Members, the greatest number known, took
part in the division. Walpole secured a majority, but it was no more than
three and it was evident, even to him now, that he would have to go.

A few days after this, on the evening of 2nd February 1742, in a still
further division, Walpole was defeated by sixteen votes and he walked
out of the chamber for the last time, after having dominated it for forty
years. At St. James's Palace the King, deeply moved, fell on his neck,
wept and kissed him, and begged Walpole to come and see him
frequently,*

Walpole accepted a peerage and went to the House of Lords as the
Earl of Orford, He continued to live at No, 10 for some months. On
30th June Horace, changing his mind about their Downing Street resi-
dence, wrote: *I am willing to enjoy this sweet corner while I may, for
we are soon to quit it/ His father, he added, was moving *into a small
house of his own in Arlington Street, opposite to where we formerly
lived. He is for my living with him; but then I shall be cooped/

For some days a London mob carried Walpole's effigy in procession
through the streets, making their way each day to the Tower. Horace
ran after them to look at the other effigy they bore and found it to be
of a female attended by three footmen and labelled 'Lady Mary*. It was
meant to represent Walpole's illegitimate daughter by Maria Skerrett,
born before their marriage, but given by the King the status of an Earl's
daughter. The mob eventually tired of it and a year after his fall, in the
coffee-houses and the dubs of London, men began to raise their glasses
to drink Walpole's health and to demand that he should be asked to go
back to the Treasury, where he had rendered such admirable service
for so long. His advice was constantly sought by his successors. But
his health had begun to fail and in March 1745 he died.

* Horace Walpole's letter to Horace Mann, 4th February 1742.**
60

CHAPTER 8

His Immediate Successors

WALPOIE was succeeded as First Lord of the Treasury by the
Earl of Wilmington. As one of the leading members of the political
group around George the Second when he was Prince of Wales,
Wilmington, then Sir Spencer Compton, was expected to become
Prime Minister the moment George the First died. That he did not was
ascribed by contemporary gossips to an incident a few days after the
new King's accession. Queen Caroline, concerned as to what allowance
she would receive if she survived her husband, was told by Spencer
Compton: 'As much, Madam, as any Queen of England ever had,
which is £50,000 a year/ Hearing of this, Walpole astutely doubled
the figure. He informed one of the Queen's courtiers that if Her
Majesty had 'referred the matter to him he should have named
£100,000', This, it is said, won him the support of Queen Caroline,
who remained staunchly loyal to him through the years.* Whatever
the basis of this gossip, Walpole did something that was operative

* As it turned out the Queen died in 1737, twenty-three years before the Kong.
61

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

immediately. With the Civil List and control of the Commons still in his
hands until a new Government displaced him, he set the Queen down
for an allowance of £100,000 a year for life, the payments to begin at
once. It may well have heen contributory to his remaining on as Prime
Minister while Compton, Speaker of the House of Commons at the
time, was compensated with a peerage and became Lord Wilmington,
but had to wait fifteen years for the chief ministerial office. By then he
was in his seventieth year.

Horace Walpole described Wilmington as a 'solemn debauchee';
Lord Hervey said he was fond only of money and of eating. Most
Members of Parliament referred to him as 'The Old Woman* - 'the
mosthonourabletidelhaveheard given him/ said Walpole in aletter to
the Duke of Dorset. Lord Rosebery, calling him the favourite nonentity
of King George the Second, added that his choice as Prime Minister had
its advantages, 'for, always incapable, he was now moribund. ... So Wil-
mington reigned, and Carteret governed for awhile in Walpole's stead/*4
Having a fine town house of his own at the corner of St. James's
Square and Pall Mall, Wilmington preferred not to live at No. 10
himself, but passed it on to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who pre-
sumably, as second Lord at the Treasury, had the next daim. The
Chancellor was Samuel Sandys - Walpole's most consistent opponent.
Of his abilities also his contemporaries had an unflattering opinion.
Writing of this unexpected tenant at Downing Street, Horace Walpole
said: 'Mrs. Sandys came yesterday [apth June 1742] to give us warning;
Lord Wilmington has lent it to them.' The Walpoles were forced to
move out in a hurry for, writing of it again some years later,* Horace
Walpole added: 'Four years ago I was mightily at my ease in Downing
Street, and then the good woman, Sandys, took my lodgings over my
head, and was in such a great hurry to junket her neighbours, that I had
scarce time allowed me to wrap up my old china in a little hay.'

It was not only Horace Walpole's china that was moved. Everything
was taken out. All the furniture, the pictures, the crockery, the linen,
the silver, the cutlery, every vase, every ornament, the carpets and
curtains, being the personal property of Walpole, were removed. The
next occupant, like his successors for a century and a half afterwards,

* In 1745.
62

Sir Robert Walpole, the fir:
Prime Minister, who by join
ing three houses togethe
created No. 10 Downiii
Street. The portrait, painte<
by J. van Loo in 1740, hang
above the mantelpiece in th
Cabinet Room.

Maria Skerrett, Walpole's mis
tress and later his second wife
She lived with him at No. ic

William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, from a painting by Brampton. Though not Prime
Minister at the time, his vigorous leadership during the Seven Years War won Britain a
vast Empire. He never lived at No. 10.

Lord North, from a painting
by Nathaniel Dance. His
twelve years at No. 10
Downing Street as Prime
Minister (1770-82) were
shadowed by the stress and
anxieties of the American
War of Independence.

The Younger Pitt, Chatham's
second son, Prime Minister for
a total of twenty years. From
a painting by J. Hoppucr.

Lady Hester Stanhope, niece
of the younger Pitt and for a
time his hostess at No. 10
Downing Street. The portrait,
from a lithograph by R. J.
Hamcrton, shows her in the
dress she wore while living
with the Druses on Mount
Lebanon in Syria for nearly
thirty years.

HIS IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS

came to a completely empty house, which he had to furnish and equip
himself. The State provided nothing, save the tables and chairs for
the offices.

The Sandys, who had ten children, the eldest not yet twenty, must
have been faced with some discomfort in accommodating so large a
family as well as a host of servants in a house by no means big and
where rooms had also to be found for secretaries' offices and for waiting
Ministers and callers. At any rate they insisted that there were 'several
Repairs necessary',* and these were carried out while they still lived
there. Sandys, however, did not enjoy the tenancy for long, for in
December of the following year (1743) he ceased to be Chancellor of
the Exchequer and was given a peerage; but, though expected to vacate
the premises, appears to have been in less of a hurry than when he came
in and stayed on at No. 10 for some months until 1744.

His successor at the Exchequer, Henry Pelham, who had become
First Lord of the Treasury on Wilmington's death in July 1743, pre-
ferred, like Wilmington, to live in his own house and lent No. 10, not
to another member of his Government, but to his elder daughter,
Catherine, for her to Kve in after her marriage to his nephew the Earl
of Lincoln. The young couple were in their early twenties and Lincoln
was not even remotely interested in politics. Thus in less than ten
years No. 10 ceased to be the official residence of the Prime Minister
and became the private home of his rektives. Lincoln's only known
excursion into politics occurred when he acted as mediator, possibly at
No. 10, between his two uncles Henry Pelham, the placid Prime
Minister, and his blustering, bad tempered elder brother, the powerful
Duke of Newcastle, who had married a granddaughter of the great
Duke of Marlborough and had been in the Government as a Secretary
of State for twenty years.

The quarrel between the brothers had produced a crisis. Pelham had
viewed with alarm the possibility of a coalition between Pitt and
Newcastle. Lincoln stepped in to heal the breach and drew up a treaty
of peace, which he persuaded the brothers to sign.

The Lincolns lived at No. 10 for eight years (until 1753) and, when
they left, Pelham lent the house to another of his daughters, who had

* Public Record Office: note dated 3rd August 1742.

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

just married Lewis Watson. So once again it was the home of another
young bride, but this time not for long, for the Prime Minister died in
the following year, 1754, and his younger daughter and her husband
were asked to leave by the new Prime Minister, their uncle the Duke of
Newcastle.

In the ratebook for that year Watson's name was crossed out and a
new name was entered. It was put down as 'Henry Legg', but, more
accurately, it should have been Henry Bilson-Legge. He was a younger
son of the Earl of Dartmouth and knew the house well, for he had lived
there for some years while private secretary to Walpole. Now, at the
age of forty-six, he returned in the exalted position of Chancellor of the
Exchequer. The Duke of Newcastle preferred to remain in his own
house, which was far more luxurious, and possibly also because he did
not wish to face the upheaval of moving his furniture and his pictures.

Legge had learned much from Walpole and had already won a great
reputation as a financier. His chief 's opinion of him was that he had
Very little rubbish in his head* ; but later, angered by his 'endeavouring
to steal'* his daughter Maria, Walpole refused to accept him as a
son-in-law and told Legge to leave No. 10. In his twenties at the time
and well connected, Legge decided to take up a political career. He was
elected to Parliament in 1740 and within eight years, with Pitt as his
patron, rose to be a Lord of the Admiralty and a Lord of the Treasury.
He was then sent as Envoy-Extraordinary to Frederick the Great, a first
cousin of King George the Second. The King felt he mishandled the
mission and ever afterwards referred to Legge as a fool. It was only with
difficulty that he was persuaded now to accept him as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, but imposed the strict condition that Legge 'should never
enter his closet'. Horace Walpole, who had lived at No. 10 with
him, described him as having *a creepy, underhand nature', a mean
appearance and an uncouth dialect, adding that he 'aspired to the lion's
share by the manoeuvre of the mole'. Though inclined to be deferential,
Legge was undoubtedly artful.

In 1755 he further angered the King by refusing to sign the Treasury
warrants to pay mercenaries for defending the King's Hanoverian
possessions. 'We ought to have done buying up every man's quarrel

* Horace Walpole.

HIS IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS

on the Continent,' Legge said. For this he was dismissed, after holding
the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer for little more than a year, but
he stayed on at No. 10, which was as well, for he was reappointed
Chancellor after a brief interval and remained in that office as well as at
No. 10 until 1761.

The Seven Years War (1756-1763), in which Britain fought on the
side of Frederick the Great chiefly against France, led, through the
victories of Clive in India and of Wolfe in Canada, to the acquisition
of a vast Empire. Soon after its outbreak the Duke of Devonshire
succeeded Newcastle as Prime Minister, but Newcastle resumed the
chief office a few months later. Nevertheless it was Pitt who, having
begun life as a soldier and served for some years in the 1st Dragoon
Guards, now as Secretary of State inspired and roused the nation.
Though not in fact Prime Minister, he was at the helm through these
memorable and triumphant years, fulfilling what he had asserted at the
outset: 'I know that I can save the country and that I alone can/ Pitt's
background was not aristocratic, nor did he belong to the landed gentry.
His grandfather Thomas Pitt was a merchant who made a great fortune
by fighting the monopoly of the East India Company and filching their
trade. Pitt had in consequence an understanding of the aspirations and
needs of the great commercial organizations and saw the immense
advantage these brought to the country. Hence the aggressiveness of
his policy (the reverse of Walpole's) to neglect no opportunity, even if
it involved war, of seizing the trade routes and centres and protecting
them by establishing supremacy at sea. Newcastle, content to have the
conduct of domestic policy, allowed him to dominate the Cabinet, to
stir the country with die passion of his oratory, to attend to the prosecu-
tion of the war, to plan the campaigns and to choose the commanders.

Pitt never lived at No. 10 Downing Street, nor did either of the two
Dukes. Thus the memorable events, the anxious planning and the criti-
cal study of the stirring activities half across the world, were neither
considered nor debated in this house, as it is by no means certain that
Cabinet meetings continued to be held there. For most of those
historic years Legge was resident here and in the final months, while
peace was being discussed, there was at No. 10 quite the most preposter-
ous man ever to occupy the high office of Chancellor of the Exchequer
or to live at No. 10 Downing Street.

CHAPTER 9

Sir Francis Dashwood

IN 1760 George the Second died at the age of seventy-seven,
after a reign of thirty-three years. The Hanoverian dynasty had ruled
for dose on half a century. There followed now a grandson, George
the Third, who was only just twenty-one. His father, Frederick Prince
of Wales, had died nine years earlier, in 1751, and the education of his
heir, then aged twelve, was left to his mother and the courtiers around
her. With the immense advantage of having been born an Englishman,
who could speak English fluently and was able to identify himself with
the people, he had been brought up to assert himself and recover the
traditional rights of the Sovereign, usurped by the Ministers in the two
preceding reigns.

As always the Opposition had cast hopeful eyes towards the heir.
They had been disappointed when George the Second succeeded and
were cheated of their hopes at the death of Frederick Prince of Wales.
Were they to be ignored again now by his son? They soon saw that they
were not. Their time had come at last, for George the Third lost no
time in asserting himself. When Newcastle, greatest and most powerful

SIR FRANCIS DASHWOOD

of the Whigs, called at St. James's Palace as Prime Minister, with a draft
of die new King's Speech,* he was told to see a Tory member of the
Household, the Earl of Bute. Newcastle was astounded, but neverthe-
less he did as he was told.

Bute was a Scot and his coming into English political life caused both
surprise and annoyance. He was completely unknown in politics : he had
indeed been engaged for the bulk of his life in agricultural and botanical
pursuits in Scotland. A chance downpour of rain, it is said, was respon-
sible for his emergence from obscurity. While in England shortly after
the Jacobite rising of 1745, he had gone to a race meeting at Egham,
where the Prince of Wales, prevented by the rain from leaving, asked
him to join in a game of whist. Out of this casual meeting there
developed a friendship and Bute was appointed a Lord of the Prince's
Bedchamber, He was tall, handsome, ambitious, but vain and shallow.
His intimacy with the Princess after the Prince's death led to a scandal
which was given wide circuktion in scurrilous lampoons. But he
remained in the Household and his influence grew. He became the
companion and confidant of young Prince George and it was not sur-
prising that on ascending the throne the new King turned to him
instead of the rightful Ministers. Within two days of the King's
accession Bute was made a Privy Councillor. Five months later he
entered the Cabinet as a Secretary of State. There he intrigued inces-
santly. In May 1761 he was elected to the House of Lords as a Scottish
representative peer, and early the following year he replaced Newcastle
as Prime Minister.

This marked a break in the long run of Whig influence which had
lasted for close on half a century. Not since the closing years of Queen
Anne's reign had any Tory been given office. Regarded as the enemies
of the reigning house, the Tories had been excluded from all lists of new
peerages. None of them was even made a baronet, a Deputy Lieutenant
or a Justice of the Peace: for not until the final defeat of the Young
Pretender, James the Second's grandson, in the rising of 1745 had the
House of Hanover felt secure. Now, fifteen years later, with Bute, a
Tory and a Scot, they returned to power.

Their attitude to the Seven. Years War with its magnificent conquests

* Though read by the Sovereign, the Speech is prepared by the Prime Minister and sets
out the Government's policy for the coming session.

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

across the Atlantic and in India, was precisely what the Tory attitude
was to Marlborough's war. They wanted it brought to an end at all
costs, and in this they were supported by the young King, who had a
contempt for Hanover and its Continental entanglements and spoke of
his ancestral heritage as 'that horrid Electorate which has always lived
upon the very vitals of this poor country'. The war was by no means
unpopular with the merchants and traders who were acquiring brisk
fortunes. Nevertheless peace negotiations were begun. The treaty
obligations with Frederick the Great, the uncle of George the Third,
were shamelessly abandoned. Pitt, who had warned that Spain was
about to enter the war in support of France, was treated with indiffer-
ence and resigned in disgust. As he drove through the streets of London,
his carriage was stopped by cheering crowds, who clung to the wheels of
his coach, hugged his footmen and kissed his horses. *This is worth two
victories to us/ declared the French on learning of his departure. Spain
came into the war, as Pitt had warned. Peace was eventually attained
in 1763. Britain gave up a number of her conquests but retained her
gains in India and Canada.

The hostility towards Bute was widespread and overwhelming. The
great Whig families hated him because of his harsh measures against
them: he stripped many of them of their Lord-Lieutenancies and had
even inflicted his hostility on their retainers, such as housekeepers and
messengers, who were hounded out of their jobs. He was hated also
because he was a Scot, for the Scots were generally regarded as disloyal
and treacherous because they had twice in thirty years, in 1715 and in
1745, risen to support the cause of the Stuarts. But Bute's crowning
offence in the eyes of the people was his responsibility for the resigna-
tion of Pitt, the idol of the nation, and Bute soon found it impossible to
appear in the streets without a bodyguard of prize-fighters to protect
him from the fury of the mob. His coach was smashed while he was
driving to the Guildhall At the banquet itself he was treated with
coldness.

In May 1762 he made the astonishing choice of Sir Francis Dashwood
as his Chancellor of the Exchequer. Dashwood, born to wealth and a
baronetcy, was fifty-four at the time he moved into No. 10. Most
of his life had been spent in profligacy. During the customary
Grand Tour on the Continent, he had called on the Young Pretender at

SIR FRANCIS DASHWOOD

his exiled court in the Muti Palace in Florence, and for some years
afterwards Dashwood's favourite toast was 'The Kong over the water !'
On entering Parliament, he attached himself to the feather-brained and
immoral Frederick Prince of Wales. He thus became a member of the
circle to which Bute belonged and they got on extremely well together :
on no other grounds can his selection for the exalted office of Chancellor
of the Exchequer be explained, for he could not undertake even a simple
addition in arithmetic. Of far more absorbing interest to him was
lechery. He formed exotic clubs such as the Divan, where he and his
rakish friends dressed in Turkish robes of green and crimson, wore pale
blue turbans and drank toasts to 'The Harem!' and the infamous
brotherhood of Franciscans (which derived its name from his) who met
as members of the 'Hell Fire Club' in the ruins of the Cistercian Abbey
at Medmenham near Dashwood's home in Buckinghamshire Tor all
the purposes of lasciviousness and profanity', according to a contem-
porary observer.

The 'friars' were twelve in number. The walls of the room in which
they performed their horrid rites were painted with gross indecencies.
Dashwood, the most profane, we are told, of that blasphemous crew,
'acted as a sort of high priest, and used a communion cup to pour out
libations to heathen deities'. In their burlesquing of hallowed religious
rites they even went so far as to bring in a baboon to partake of the
Sacrament.

This orgiastic club was started in 1745 and Dashwood was still a
member of it when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer. His heavy
face, his voluptuous lips, the dull vacant look in his eyes bore the
imprints of a life spent in heavy drinking and sensual dissipation. No
desire of his appetite was ever denied the fullest indulgence. His ap-
pointment as Chancellor was met with guffaws of laughter. Ridicule
was heaped upon him by the wits of the day, for all who knew him
were aware that in mind and behaviour he was no more than an
adolescent.

During the eleven months he spent at No. 10 Downing Street, the
house was not much affected by his mania for fanciful and extravagant
redecoration. On his country house he had spent a fortune on new Pal-
ladian facades, on building temples buried in groves, on cascades,
thickets, wooded knolls and a profusion of sculpture displaying

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

nymphs and satyrs in libidinous or obscene poses. He doubtless re-
quired a greater spaciousness than No. 10 afforded, nor was he there
long enough to leave his mark. The house was, of course, filled with
beaux and rakes. There was much noisy drinking and a certain amount
of lecherous indulgence, save possibly when his wife Sarah, 'a poor
forlorn Presbyterian prude', as Horace Walpole called her, happened
to be there.

Few frolics of ingenuousness could have surpassed the folly of
appointing Dashwood to the Exchequer at such a critical juncture. The
Seven Years War was still in progress and, even though Bute was
striving to bring it to an end, its heavy cost had to be met.

In 1763, shortly after the treaty of peace was signed, Sir Francis
Dashwood introduced his first Budget to a scoffing House of Commons.
Such of his depraved friends as were in the Government, like the Earl
of Sandwich who was First Lord of the Admiralty, listened with
patience. But others, even those who had participated in the unholy
rites at Medmenham, such as John Wilkes and the poet Charles
Churchill, greeted his attempts at handling the finances of the nation
with the utmost contempt. 'His Budget speech', states William Lecky,
'was so confused and incapable that it was received with shouts of
laughter.' Among the taxes he imposed, was, surprisingly from one
who drank so heavily, one on cider and perry, which led to a great
deal of rioting in the fruit-growing counties, for the public regarded it
as an extension of the detested system of excise and an infringement of
popular liberties.

In the public gallery on that day was James Boswdl, Dr. Johnson's
biographer. He listened to Dashwood, but does not even refer to him
in describing his visit.50 Boswell happened to be a neighbour of
Dashwood's in Downing Street at the time. Since Downing had built
his row of houses eighty years had elapsed. In one of the row of houses
facing it, indeed in the house exactly opposite No. 10, Boswell had
rented some rooms for the period of his stay in London. His rooms were
up two flights of stairs and he had, he tells us, 'the use of a handsome
parlour in the forenoon' and was able to dine with the landlord and his
family 'at a shilling a time'. To him Downing Street appeared to be
*genteel'. But with many of the houses letting rooms to lodgers, there
is no doubt that it had lost some of the gloss it had in Downing's day.

SIR FRANCIS DASHWOOD

Bute, obtuse and stubborn, declined to be influenced by the general
contempt for Dashwood; the latter, however, in time came to realize
that he was being pointed at in the street as the worst Chancellor of the
Exchequer in the history of England. He might indeed have remained
in this office and at No. 10 had Bute not lost his position as Prime
Minister. This occurred shortly after Dashwood's deplorable Budget
speech. An attack on Bute by Wilkes in the North Briton led to Bute's
sudden resignation on 8th April 1763 and equally abruptly Dashwood
had to move.

He had used the house not so much for political gatherings and
discussions as for convivial carousing with his disreputable friends.
Dashwood was rewarded for his incapacity with a peerage. The title
he took, Lord Le Despencer, was an old one once held by a kinsman.
Revived now, it made him the premier Baron of England.

Boswell also moved, shortly after Dashwood. He found his Downing
Street landlord *a very rude, unmannerly fellow, in whose house no
gentleman could be safe in staying', and went to other lodgings in the
Temple.

CHAPTER 10

Revolt of the American Colonies

BUTE was glad to go. Though covetous of power and adroit in
his intrigue to obtain it, he confessed that 'fifty pounds a year and bread
and water were luxury compared with what I suffer/

He advised the King to appoint George Grenville as his successor,
despite the fact that Grenville was a Whig. Grenville, Pitt's brother-in-
law, had been in Newcastle's Government when Bute joined it as Sec-
retary of State. Finding that they worked well together, Bute kept him
on when he took over the office of Prime Minister and also made him
Leader of the House of Commons. Bute had always regarded Grenville
as able and ambitious but easy to manage, and it was his intention now
to use Grenville as a cloak while he himself continued to govern from
behind.

Grenville, who was fifty, became both First Lord of the Treasury and
Chancellor of the Exchequer. The rate book records that in the summer
of 1763 'the Honble George GrenwelT moved into No. 10 Downing
Street. The spelling of the name is of course inaccurate, but with his
move into No. 10 the house became once again the residence of the

REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES

Prime Minister after a gap of twenty-one years; Grenville was in fact
the second Prime Minister to live here.

With him unfortunately there emanated from this house the first of
the high-handed and obstinate impositions that led eventually to the
loss of the American colonies. Grenville and his successors, in the course
of the next two decades, contrived by their folly to enrage and rouse
the colonists until war finally severed the link with the mother country.

Grenville belonged to a rich family which had intermarried with the
even richer Temples. Together they mustered a number of peerages
and exercised a considerable influence. His first year in the House of
Commons coincided with Walpole's last and, in combination with his
cousins and their more brilliant friends at Eton, the Lyttletons and the
Pitts, they formed the group of 'Boy Patriots' who were in relentless
opposition to Walpole. After Walpole fell Grenville received office,
first at the Board of Admiralty, then in 1747 as Junior Lord of the Trea-
sury. Thus, quite early in life, he became a constant visitor to No. 10.
Pitt and he, together in Newcastle's Government in 1754, worked in
the closest co-operation. Their harmonious relationship was drawn even
closer after Pitt's marriage to his sister, Lady Hester Grenville, but
degenerated, under Bute's recent baleful influence, to a bitter hostility.

On discovering that Bute intended, after his resignation, to use him
as a cloak, Grenville made it dear at once that he had no intention of
undertaking such a role and insisted on not allowing anyone to come
between him and the King. He pointed out that Bute had resigned
because of his unpopularity, and it was his resolve for that very reason
not to consult him. The King demurred. To get rid of Grenville, Bute
tried to persuade Pitt to take on the supreme office. But the attempt
failed and Grenville, secure now in the saddle, induced His Majesty
not only to deny Bute access to the Court, but to debar him from even
living in any part of London.

Grenville was regarded by his contemporaries as an 'industrious,
careful and capable official', but, soon after moving into No. 10, he
earned the less flattering reputation of being 'arrogant, didactic and
tiresome'. It was said that he had an overweening self-esteem, that he
was crippled by his stubborn hatreds. Horace Walpole, waspish yet
often penetrating in his judgement, says of him: 'Scarce any man ever
wore in his face such outward and visible marks of the hollow, cruel

NO. 10 DOWNING STBEET

and rotten heart within/ He nevertheless conceded that Grenville had
great abilities.

Lti appearance Grenville was thin and colourless, in manner finicky
and tedious. He had married in 1749 the sister of the Earl of Egremont
- *a strong-minded and ambitious woman* who 'was believed to
exercise great influence over her husband's conduct'.* They had a
large family of young children when they moved into No. 10, the
eldest of them only just thirteen. A younger son, William, only three
at the time, was destined to return to the house as Prime Minister forty
years later. The second son George eventually became the Marquess of
Buckingham. Grenville's domestic life was extremely correct. No
liaisons were ever imputed to him. He was uninterested even in harm-
less diversions and was seen neither at White's nor at Newmarket
races. His entire time was spent on work. 'He took public business',
states Burke, 'not as a duty which he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he
was! to enjoy.'*0 As a consequence, living detached and aloo£ it could
hardly be expected that he was popular. It was agreed, however, that
he was scrupulously honest, which is doubtless why, when Leader of
the Commons under Bute, he left the bribing of its Members to Bute,
who opened an office for the purpose in Westminster and is said to
have paid as much as £25,000 in a single morning out of the secret
service funds in order to secure a majority in support of one of his
measures.

In the two years Grenville was at No. 10 he did much that was
harmful. The Seven Years War had saddled England with a heavy
debt, and it was Grenville's resolve that, as the American colonies had
to be defended during the war, a part at least of the burden should be
borne by them. Indeed they had benefited greatly from the outcome.
The French had been driven out of both Canada and Louisiana, and
the line of forts between those two regions, set up arrogantly to
assert that all the land westward as far as the Pacific was French, had
been seized and destroyed. The largest of them, Fort Duquesne, had
been renamed Pittsburg after the architect of the conquest. Thus not
only security but immense opportunities for expansion had been given
to the British settlers in America. Accordingly in Grenville's very first

* Lord Russell
74

REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES

Budget, on 9th March 1764, he imposed taxes on imports into North
America which the colonists as well as many in England regarded as
severe.

Forty years earlier Walpole had set an example that was much more
intelligent and fair. He repealed the duties on all timber and hemp sent
to England from the American colonies and allowed the colony of
Carolina to carry its rice direct (provided a British ship was used) to
any port south of Cape Finisterre without landing first in England as
had previously been required. This concession Walpole extended later
to Georgia. 'The consequences of both which well-judged laws has
been that our own plantation rice has been preferred to the rice of
Verona and Egypt.'6* It was regarded as a far-reaching change in
Britain's policy and as the beginning of the emancipation of the
colonies from commercial subservience to the mother country.

Grenville unfortunately did not avail himself of this admirable
example. His policy indeed went entirely the other way. His Sugar
Act, imposed in 1764, was intended to regulate the import by
America of foreign molasses, the staple ingredient required for the
manufacture of rum. There was an outcry in the colonies against this.
The aid of the Navy was required to enforce it and garrisons of regular
troops, numbering several thousand, were stationed in various parts
of the country in case they should be needed to suppress disorder.
Next Grenville's Currency Act denied to the colonists the right to
issue their own bills of credit. But the most fiercely resented of all his
measures was the infamous Stamp Act: it was to prove the starting
point of the American War of Independence. This Act imposed on
22nd March 1765, extended the British system of Stamp duties to the
colonies. Stamps were required on every deed, licence, newspaper and
advertisement. It was expected to raise .£100,000, a third of the cost
of the troops stationed in America. Introducing it in the House of
Commons, Grenville referred to the Americans as 'children of our own,
planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence'. To which the
intrepid Colonel Isaac Barr6, who had fought with Wolfe in Canada,
retorted: 'Children planted by your care? No! Your oppression

planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny They grew

by your neglect of them They have nobly taken up arms in your

defence' - in the recent war when the colonists fought the French in

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

North America. 'The same spirit', he added, 'which actuated that
people at first, will continue with them still/

Apart from this rebuke there was, it must be confessed, hardly a
murmur in Parliament against the Stamp Act. Opposition to it in
America, however, was vigorously voiced the moment news of it
reached that country. It was apparent to the colonists that, together
with the Sugar Act and other earlier duties, this was a still further
assertion of the British Parliament's resolve to impose taxation without
even a pretence of representation. Never before in the century and a
half of American colonial history had this been so emphatically
asserted - and the colonists decided 'to resist it. Protests were made in
some of the local legislatures and recorded in angry resolutions. At
the prompting of Massachusetts, where Downing had spent so many
of his growing years, a Congress assembled in New York and was
attended by delegates from nine of the colonies. Violent demonstra-
tions occurred in that city. The newly formed Sons of Liberty, sup-
ported by a furious mob, broke into the Lieutenant-Governor's house:
he managed, however, to escape and took refuge in Fort George
behind an augmented garrison. The mob thereupon burned him in
effigy, set fire to his coach and threatened to storm the fort. There was
a skirmish with the English soldiers, resulting in the death of one
colonist and the wounding of several others: this was the first blood
shed in the struggle for American Independence. In Boston too there
were scenes of mob violence. The house of the Chief Justice was
wrecked and the Stamp Distributor was forced to resign. Similar dis-
turbances occurred in other States, stamps were burned, revenue
officers were tarred and feathered. Trade between the colonies and
England was seriously interrupted. Many firms in England, especially
in Liverpool and Bristol, were faced with bankruptcy, and unemploy-
ment spread all over the country. Rioting seemed imminent in Britain
too, and there was the further risk that the French and the Spaniards,
having but recently lost most of their overseas possessions, would
seize the opportunity of embarrassing the British by aiding the colon-
ists, in the hope of recovering something in the process. By the follow-
ing March the Stamp Act had raised a mere £4,000 instead of the
expected £100,000.

Earlier, soon after he became Prime Minister, Grenville was involved

REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES

in another struggle, no less important in its consequences, for it led to
the gaining of a series of liberties, including eventually the freedom of
the Press. These flowed from his prosecution of John Wilkes, whose
attacks in the North Briton had brought about the fall of Bute. Wilkes
was not of heroic stature, but events singled him out for that role. The
son of a well-to-do London distiller, whose ambition was that his
son should be a gentleman, young Wilkes was given a good education
and sent to Leyden University in Holland, where he acquired polish
and manners and formed friendships with young Englishmen in a
position to get him into society. He developed into a brilliant talker
and seemed not to be unduly handicapped by his hideous, lop-sided
face and disfiguring squint. It takes me only half an hour to talk my
face away,' he used to say. For many years his closest companion was
Thomas Potter, die son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who drew
him into a dissolute life and was responsible for his becoming one of
Dashwood's fraternity at the Hell Fire Club at Medmenham. Potter
befriended him more advantageously by giving up his Parliamentary
seat at Aylesbury. By paying ^7,000 for it, Wilkes was able to get into
the House of Commons in 1757 at the age of thirty. Potter also intro-
duced him to the influential Grenville family, with the head of which,
Lord Temple, Wilkes early established a close relationship. It was
Temple who helped Wilkes in June 1762 to launch the North Briton,
which carried on week after week a relentless attack on Lord Bute.
'Every person', Wilkes wrote, 'brought in by the Whigs has lost his
post - except the King.' Temple's connection with the publication did
not deter his brother George Grenville* from prosecuting Wilkes, for
the persistence of the attacks, the most virulent of which appeared in
the famous No. 45 of 23rd April 1763, made it dear that, despite the
change in Government, Grenville was not going to be spared. Indeed
Wilkes stated quite bluntly that Grenville's Ministry was nothing more
than the shadow of Lord Bute.

In spite of their decision, Grenville and his Cabinet were uneasy
about arresting Wilkes. After a week's hesitation and discussion, they
finally decided to issue not a specific but a general warrant against 'the
authors, printers, and publishers of the North Briton No. 45.' Wilkes

* Lord Temple inherited his title through his mother.
77

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

was not named. As many as forty-eight persons were seized (some of
them were dragged out of their beds) before any move was made
against "Wilkes. When they arrived at last to take him, Wilkes asked
why the warrant should be served on him rather than on the Lord
Chancellor, or on Bute, 'or my next door neighbour'. They came
back, however, in considerable force, seized him and took him off to
the Tower. A writ of habeas corpus, which he had taken the precaution
to apply for, led to his immediate release.

Wilkes thus won the first round and there were celebrations at his
release. By his action he had rendered a lasting benefit to every citizen,
for no general warrants have been issued since. All the others arrested
under this warrant were also freed and a total of some thousands of
pounds was paid to them in compensation.

It was not, however, the end of the affair. The Government, with the
King most vigorously behind Grenville, were determined to deal with
Wilkes. But they decided to move cautiously. The issue of a general
warrant had been condemned, but the attack in the North Briton could
still be dealt with. First the House of Commons was induced to
denounce the paper as a 'false, scandalous, and seditious libel', then
Wilkes was expelled from the House. This deprived him of his
Parliamentary privilege, behind which he had until now been shelter-
ing. Next, by a despicable trick, with the aid of spies and the adminis-
tration of bribes, they contrived to get hold of some sheets of an
indecent poem called 'An Essay on Woman', which had been printed
for Wilkes but not published. It was obvious that it was never Wilkes'
intention to publish it, since only thirteen copies had been printed,
apparently only for private circulation among friends. The evidence
indeed suggests that the poem was not written by him but by Potter,
who was by now dead.

Two of Wilkes' earlier Hell Fire friends, the Earl of Sandwich, now
a Secretary of State, and Sir Francis Dashwood, now Lord Le Despencer,
took an active and eager part in the moves against him. For his services
Dashwood was soon rewarded by Grenville. He removed his brother
Lord Temple from the Lord Lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire and
conferred that honour on Dashwood. Against Sandwich, Wilkes was
able to make a neat and witty thrust. 'Pon my soul, Wilkes,' Sandwich
had said, 'I don't know whether you'll die upon the gallows or of the

REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES

pox; to which Wilkes replied: 'That depends, my Lord, whether I
first embrace your lordship's principles or your lordship's mistress/

Sandwich was responsible for bringing the 'Essay on Woman*
before the House of Lords. Wilkes' prosecution was ordered by both
Houses and he was found guilty in the King's Bench on both charges.
He had in the meantime been challenged to a duel by a fellow M.P.
named Samuel Martin and was severely wounded. He left for Paris and,
on failing to return for the court's sentence, he was outlawed.

Grenville, flushed by his triumph, instantly issued two hundred
injunctions against various journals. This, as well as the arbitrary
action of the two Houses against Wilkes, roused the indignation of the
country. There were cries of 'Wilkes and Liberty' in every street. That
the Press should have the right to criticize the decisions and actions of
Ministers, and of the Sovereign himself if need be, was asserted and in
time won.

The King, though in complete sympathy with Grenville's ill-judged
and harsh handling of both the American and the Wilkes crises, had
developed a strong personal dislike of him. Because of his own large
family (there were eventually as many as fifteen children) the King
had moved from St. James's Palace to the more spacious Bucking-
ham House, and had asked Grenville to buy some fields to the west so
that the gardens might be made worthy of a royal palace. But Gren-
ville, as frugal with public money as with his own, refused to spend the
few thousand pounds this would involve. 'In consequence of this
refusal/ Macaulay records, 'the fields were soon covered with buildings,
and the King and Queen were overlooked in their most private walks
by the upper windows of a hundred houses/ His Majesty was also
weary of Grenville's arrogant, dogmatic and patronizing attitude and
declared that he would much rather give an audience to the devil than
to the Prime Minister. Grenville lectured His Majesty interminably.
The King complained: 'When Mr. Grenville has wearied me for two
hours, he looks at his watch to see if he may tire me for an hour more/
Secretly His Majesty tried again and again to replace Grenville and
even approached Pitt, whom he did not like either, but Pitt refused to
serve unless he was given a free hand in the selection of his Ministers.

Grenville had begun to weary the House too, loyal and supine
though it was in his support. During one of the debates on the

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

unpopular cider tax introduced by Sir Francis Dashwood when he
was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Grenville in a long, rambling speech
kept asking where else they could get the money. 'Tell me where?' he
repeated several times. Pitt, who was seated opposite, delighted the
House, but infuriated his brother-in-law, by humming the well-
known tune of 'Gentle Shepherd, tell me where'. For the rest of his
life Grenville was known as 'The Gentle Shepherd'.

It is arguable that the first symptoms of George the Third's madness
were produced by the constant irritations he suffered from Grenville.
Often the King was seen to be choking with rage while the Prime
Minister went on with one of his prolonged harangues. His Majesty
kept gesturing to indicate that he wanted to be left alone, but Grenville
could not be stopped. The King fell seriously ill early in 1765 after
enduring two years of this. Arrangements were made for the appoint-
ment of a Regent, and His Majesty was greatly offended when he
found that his mother was not to be on the Council. This was too much
for him. He instantly dismissed Grenville. To the end of his life, which
was not to be for a further fifty-five years, whenever the King's mind
was disturbed, his thoughts went back to his agonizing interviews with
Grenville. They haunted him to the end.

Realizing that Pitt could not be persuaded to succeed, the King
turned in despair to the Marquess of Rockingham, a man of honour,
dignity and great ability. He was at this time only thirty-five years old,
but had the supreme advantage of belonging to one of the wealthiest
Whig families, with vast estates in Yorkshire. His father, Mr. Thomas
Watson-Wentworth, ever greedy for honours, had risen rapidly first
to be a Knight of the Bath, then a baron, next an earl and then a
marquess; and it was said of him by Sir Robert Walpole: 'I suppose
we shall soon see our friend Malton* in Opposition, for he has had no
promotion in the peerage for the last fortnight.' His son, when only
fifteen, had fought with the Duke of Cumberland's forces against the
Young Pretender in 1745. He succeeded to the tide at the age of
twenty and shortly afterwards was appointed a Lord of the Bedchamber
to the King, but when Bute began his persecution of the Whigs and
the Duke of Devonshire was removed from the Privy Council, young

* He was Lord Malton at the time.
80

REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES

Rockingham had the courage to resign his office at Court. That
occurred as recently as three years before his selection by the King to
be Prime Minister.

Those three years were spent in Opposition to Bute and to GrenviUe.
The Whigs were by now divided. They had been greatly weakened
by the death of the Duke of Devonshire, the senility of die Duke of
Newcastle and the immaturity of the Duke of Portland. In June 1765
the Old Whigs section elected Rockingham as their leader and, though
the King felt he 'had not two men in my bedchamber of less parts than
Lord Rockingham/ he had no alternative now but to give him the
chief office. Rockingham tried to induce Pitt and Lord Shdburne to
join his Government, but both refused. Rockingham's ministry was all
the weaker for this and lasted only a year and a few days. He did not
himself move into No. 10; the house was once again occupied by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Dowdeswell.

Dowdeswell, some years older than the Prime Minister, was just
forty-four. He had been at Leyden with Wilkes and had got into
Parliament as the Member for the family borough of Tewkesbury.
Though in the House of Commons for nearly twenty years, he had in
no way distinguished himself. According to* Horace Walpole he was
'heavy, slow, methodical without clearness, a butt for ridicule, and a
stranger to men and courts', but Walpole conceded that he was
'esteemed by the few to whom he was personally known'.

He was in straitened circumstances and had a 'numerous family',
which had somehow to be crammed into the restricted space at No. 10
for apart from the kitchen with its quarters for the menservants and
the second floor (as seen from the Downing Street end) which was for
the housemaids who also occupied the tiny attic floor of six rooms
above it, the family had only the ground floor, half of which at that
time was taken up by offices and the one floor above that, both look-
ing on to an enclosed courtyard.

Not much entertaining appears to have been done here during
DowdesweU's stay, but among the regular visitors to the house was
Edmund Burke, the brilliant young Irishman, who was Rockingham's
private secretary. Burke was elected to Parliament later that year (1765)
and his very first speech in the House, in January 1766, marked him out
as a man of remarkable eloquence.

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Burke stoutly defended the ministerial policy towards the American
colonies. Nevertheless Dowdeswell, a sound financier, in his only
Budget repealed the odious Stamp Act which had so incensed the
Americans. He was not content, however, with just righting a wrong.
In order that his action should not be regarded by the colonists as a
weakness, he introduced at the same time a Bill insisting on England's
right to tax her colonies and asserting in the most vehement terms that
'all votes, resolutions or orders, which had been passed by any of the
general assemblies in America, by which they assumed to themselves
the sole and exclusive right of taxing his Majesty's subjects in the
colonies, were annulled and declared contrary to law, derogatory to
the legislative authority of Parliament, and inconsistent with their
dependency upon the Crown/*

Insistence on this principle was DowdeswelTs contribution to the
worsening of Britain's relations with America. "When the repeal of the
Stamp Act was debated Pitt fought strenuously against the inclusion
of these insulting clauses. Ill though he was, he made the long and
exhausting journey from Bath, where he had been taking the waters,
and spoke with outraged ardour in the House against the assertion of
a principle which he recognized would greatly incense the Americans.
'It is not repealing a piece of parchment that caa restore America,' he
said, 'you must repeal her fears and her resentments/ He applauded the
resistance of Massachusetts and Virginia. The British Parliament, he
declared, had no right to tax the colonies. It was Pitt's last speech in the
House of Commons. Grenville, in defence of the imposition, for which
he had been responsible the year before, rose angrily and denounced
the colonists as traitors, adding that those who defended them were
no better. On Pitt's side were ranged the commercial and manufac-
turing interests of the country.

On the night of the final debate the public gallery, the lobby, even
the staircases were crowded with anxious men, most of them mer-
chants. Others waited in the street all night to learn the outcome of the
vote. The repeal was finally agreed to by an immense majority. When
the doors of the House were thrown open, the Members, making
their way to their chairs through the dim February dawn, heard a

* Annual Register for 1766.
82

REVOLT OP THE AMERICAN COLONIES

great roar of cheering and saw hats flung into the air as the crowd
learned the news. GrenviUe was greeted with a storm of hissing.

The general feeling throughout the country was that Pitt should
be asked to take over the Government. Pitt was ill, yet he responded
to this further appeal from the King. His aim was to bring together all
parties. Rockingham refused to serve under him, but most of the
Cabinet agreed to stay on. To these he added his own dose supporters.
Minor offices were given to some of the gentlemen at Court, which
greatly pleased the King. It was regarded as being all in all a makeshift
administration, consisting of 'patriots, courtiers, King's friends and
republicans',* but hopes nevertheless rose high. Declining the office of
First Lord of the Treasury, Pitt took for himself the Privy Seal. Con-
stantly indisposed, a chronic victim to gout since he was at Eton, he
felt he could not take on the burden of leading the House of Commons
and accepted a peerage. He thus moved out of the scene which he had
so long dominated as 'The Great Commoner* and became the Earl of
Chatham. The Duke of Grafton, a descendant of King Charles the
Second from one of his mistresses, was appointed First Lord of the
Treasury. But neither he nor Pitt moved into No. 10. The house was
occupied instead by the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles
Townshend, who had a link with Sir Robert Walpole through his
grandfather Viscount Townshend' s subsequent marriage to Walpole's
sister Dorothy.

Before moving in he pointed out that the house was in a dreadfully
dilapidated state and needed a great deal of repair. Ten days later, on
I2th August 1766, the Treasury was informed that at the 'desire of the
Rt. Honourable the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we have caused the
House in Downing Street belonging to the Treasury to be surveyed,
& find the Walls of the old part of the said House next the street to be
much decayed, the Floors & Chimneys much sunk from the levell &
no party Wall between the House adjoyning on the Westside. We are
of Opinion that to repair the present Walls, Chimneys & Floors next
the street will not be for His Majesty's service: We have therefore made
a plan & Estimate for taking down the Front next the street & also the
East Flank Wall of the Hall, to build a party Wall on the Westside to

* Burke.

NO. 10 DOWNING STHBET

prevent the danger of Fire, to repair the remaining part of the Old
Building & to Erect an additional Building adjoyning thereto. All
which Works besides employing such of the Old Materials that are
sound & good will Amount to the sum of Nine hundred & Fifty
pounds/

As only thirty years had passed since the three houses forming
No. 10 were completely reconstructed and lavishly redecorated for Sir
Robert Walpole, it is surprising that such extensive repairs, and even
reconstruction, should have been required again so soon. The recon-
struction, it will be noticed, was to be done to the house in front, that
is to say the house built by Downing, which was by this time over
eighty years old. It was now that the present Downing Street fafade
was provided - a modest brick frontage with a small six-panelled oak
door, adorned with an attractive semicircular fanlight and a double
swirl of ironwork which holds up an iron lamp surmounted by a
crown. The entrance hall with its black-and-white marble squares,
still in use, was also put in then. The work was carried out by the
architect Kenton Couse, who also added the large bow front to the
small house on the Whitehall side, incorporated in Walpole's time.

How long the work took is not clear, but the Townshends seem to
have moved in and must have suffered considerable discomfort from
dust and noise as they tried to sleep and eat and entertain in the un-
shrouded sections of the house. It is possible that the work was spread
out over some years, in which case Lord North, who moved in with
his family eight months after the Townshends, would have had to
put up with it too.

Townshend was a younger son of the third Viscount Townshend.
He has been described by Macaulay as 'the most versatile of mankind*
and indeed had many gifts. Burke called him a 'prodigy*. His sparkling
wit dazzled every company. But he had also unfortunately a great many
failings: he was neither sincere nor reliable, but veered in his opinions
like a weathercock. Tall and handsome, with a loud voice and a louder
kugh, he too had been at Leyden with Wilkes, whom he alternately
defended and criticized in the House. Dowdeswell, his predecessor as
Chancellor of the Exchequer, was often the butt of his vehemence.
In Parliament since he was twenty-two, Townshend had served in a
number of administrations. By his marriage to Caroline, the wealthy

REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES

daughter of the Duke of Argyll and widow of the Earl of Dalkeith, he
became the stepfather and guardian of die young Duke of Buccleuch,
and a cousin by marriage to Lord Bute. This and his own personal
connections helped greatly in his advancement, but his light-hearted
flippancy even on the most serious subjects came in for much criticism.
According to Horace Walpole he did not care whether he or others
were in the right: his only object in speaking was to show how well he
could adorn a bad cause or demolish a good one.

His hauteur and arrogance estranged many. He treated his colleagues
in the recent Rockingham administration (in which he was Paymaster-
General) with undisguised contempt and described that Government,
although a member of it, as a 'lute string administration fit only for
summer wear'. Ostentatiously he abstained from defending its
measures.40

Pitt had at first a high opinion of Townshend and was particularly
impressed by his skill as a debater. As early as 1758 he declared that
Townshend's abilities were such as had not appeared since the House
was a House. But in the succeeding years he modified this opinion anil
was only with reluctance persuaded now by Grafton to make him
Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Learning of this in advance, Townshend informed Lord Rocking-
ham privately that nothing would induce him to accept it. For one
thing his salary as Paymaster-General was £7,000 a year, whereas the
Chancellor of the Exchequer got only £2,700. But when Pitt's offer
was made Townshend asked for time to think it over. Pitt gave him
twelve hours to make up his mind. Townshend sat up all night in his
nightshirt with a group of friends, seeking their advice. He also wrote
to the Duke of Grafton, and kept running to the window every time
a coach passed in case it brought the Duke's answer. In the morning,
before it reached him, he had to deal with Pitt's offer. He accepted, but
a moment kter regretted his decision and begged Pitt to be allowed to
change his mind. Pitt agreed; then two days later Townshend changed
his mind again. Pitt was furious. Grafton pleaded with Pitt and the
appointment was gazetted before Townshend could change his mind
again. It is recorded that on this being settled he hurried off to Sir
Joshua Reynolds to have his portrait painted in his robes of office.
Now a member of Pitt's Cabinet, he lost no time in running down

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

his new colleagues and speaking disparagingly even of Pitt. His per-
sonality was so assertive that, during Pitt's many absences from the
Cabinet through illness, Townshend did not find it difficult to domi-
nate over the rest, most of whom were in fact at loggerheads. Again
and again Townshend unblushingly adopted a line of action that was
completely contrary to the policy laid down by Pitt. This proved
particularly disastrous in his handling of American taxation. In his
Budget of 1767, when the normal English land tax of four shillings in
the pound was cut down to three shillings by his opponents Grenville
and Dowdeswell, Townshend promptly announced that, in order to
make up the deficiency, duties would be levied at the port of arrival in
America on all imported tea, paper, gkss and other articles. This
astonished his colleagues in the Cabinet, for as a member of the previ-
ous Government, Townshend had supported the repeal of the Stamp
Act.

At the time Pitt was completely incapacitated; by May he was kept
from having any communication with his Cabinet and had even to
decline a visit from the King. Grafton, nominally in charge, tried to
restrain Townshend, but was unsuccessful. Writing of this later
Grafton said: 'No one in the ministry had sufficient authority in the
absence of Chatham to advise the dismissal of Townshend.' He, and
others of the same mind in the Cabinet, foresaw that these new im-
positions, estimated to produce a mere ^40,000 in all, would not
merely enrage the Americans, but would inevitably lead to the loss of
the colonies. Yet they were imposed. Immediately the news reached
America anti-importation associations were formed. There was
rioting. Townshend replied by suspending the legislative functions of
the New York assembly and set up special boards of commissioners to
collect the dues.

A few weeks after these calamitous developments, Townshend fell
ill with *a putrid fever*, as it was called, and died at No. 10 Downing
Street on 4th September 1767. But the damage had been done and
England before long had to face the consequences.

There were three children of his marriage, a girl and two boys, the
eldest only ten when the family moved into No. 10. Not much enter-
taining seems to have been done there, for Townshend appears to have
been very much in demand as a guest by his men friends. Horace

REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES

Walpole tells us of a supper party at General Conway's at which
Townshend with his bubbling wit 'kept the table at a roar until two
o'clock in the morning'.

His funeral took place from No. 10. 'Tomorrow/ recorded the
London Chronicle for 5th/ 8th September, 'the remains of the Rt. Hon.
Charles Townshend, Esq., will be carried from his house in Downing
Street, Westminster, in order to be interred in the family vault at
Raynham in Norfolk.'

CHAPTER 11

Lord North and the War of Independence

IT fell to Townshend's successor, Lord North, the fourth
in this dismal sequence, all of them residents at No. 10, to accom-
plish the complete severance of Britain's link with the American
colonies. He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in October
1767.

Townshend foresaw that North would be his successor, for shortly
before he died, Townshend said, pointing to North: 'See that great
heavy, booby-looking, seeming changeling; you may believe me,
when I assure you as a fact, that if anything should happen to me, he
will succeed in my place, and very shortly after come to be First
Commissioner of the Treasury/

The choice was the King's, who persisted in selecting his own
Ministers. He thus departed from the practice Walpole had introduced
and had for so long exercised in the two preceding reigns. In the brief
span of seven years since he ascended the throne, George the Third had
adroitly gained this advantage and maintained it by the expenditure
of vast sums of money on buying pocket boroughs and by die skilful

LORD NORTH AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

use of the royal patronage to ensure a comfortable majority in the
House of Commons.

His selection of North led to much speculation and gossip. The
striking physical likeness between him and the King caused many to
believe that he was the King's illegitimate half-brother. Indeed
Frederick Prince of Wales, whose Christian name North bore, used
often to chaffNorth's father, Lord Guilford, a Lord of the Bedchamber
in the Prince's household, and say that 'the world would think one of
their wives had played her husband false',38 for both North and the
King had large protuberant eyes which 'rolled about to no purpose', a
wide mouth, thick lips, an inflated visage and 'the air of a blind
trumpeter'.*

A few weeks after his appointment, North moved into No. 10
Downing Street. He was thirty-five years old, half a dozen years the
King's senior. In Parliament since the age of twenty-one, he had
applied himself diligently to the business of the House and was found
to possess both ability and an admirably controlled temper. He was
also an able debater and his popularity with his fellow members was
high.

These not inconsiderable advantages were marred, however, by a
disability which the King's grandfather, George the Second, had been
quick to notice. Seeing North with all the 'boobies and fools and mad-
men' around his son Frederick Prince of Wales, the old King observed:
'There is my Lord North, a very good poor creature, but a very weak
man.' The Prince of Wales had often used him as a messenger to carry
letters to his father and mother at Hampton Court. The lackeying of
those early years was maintained even after North attained high office.
Whatever order the King gave was carried out with unhesitating
alacrity. Nor was it only to the King that he was subservient. Through-
out his life he was dominated also by his father.

Though the Earl of Guilford was exceedingly rich, he allowed his
son no more than ^300 a year. North, in consequence, found it a
desperate struggle to make ends meet. He was expected to acquire his
own fortune through marriage, as his father had done no fewer than
three times. When at last at the age of thirty-four North married a

* Horace Walpole.

NO. 10 DOWNING STWBET

girl of sixteen, he was assured that she was 'a kdy of great fortune . . ,
the Somersetshire heiress of more than four thousand a year'. But these
expectations were never fulfilled. Anne Speke, of Dillington in
Somerset, had a sweet and placid disposition, but little more. Many
were unkind about 'poor Anne's face', which was described as 'pud-
dingy', but the portrait of her by Reynolds does not support this. That
she had great charm is clearly apparent and North remained a devoted
husband. No scandal ever touched their lives. He used, however, to
jest about her appearance as well as his own and, drawing in their very
plain eldest daughter, it was his habit to say: 'We are considered to be
three of the ugliest people in London/ Their poverty North's father
refused to ease, doubtless feeling that his son should have chosen more
wisely. Lady North's expectations were centred on a rich relative, Sir
William Pynsent, who also lived in Somerset. Infuriated that Anne's
husband should have supported the cider tax imposed by Dashwood
and Grenville, Pynsent left his entire fortune to Chatham, whose
ridicule of Grenville during that debate with snatches of 'Gentle
Shepherd, tell me where', had pleased him immensely. The will was
contested by the Norths, but without success.

Their domestic felicity, rare until then at No. 10, won from their
daughter Charlotte this recorded comment: 'I never saw an unkind
look or heard an unkind word passed between them. His affectionate
attachment to her was unabated as her love and admiration of him.'6*

For No. 10 Downing Street, North developed a great affection. He
was there for fifteen years, from 1767 to 1783 - eight more than
Walpole. Most of all he appears to have become attached to the large,
handsome and impressive Cabinet room, from which some of his most
disastrous orders were issued, and for the bedroom in which he must
have passed many nights of sleepless anxiety.

His life here was chiefly a round of domestic quiet. He often spent
the evenings alone with his wife playing chess or quadrille. Of his
political visitors the most frequent were the two Ministers who sat
beside him on the Treasury bench, where, Gibbon says, North often
slumbered, 'supported by the majestic sense of Thurlow on the one
side, and the skilful eloquence of Wedderburn on the other'. Wedder-
burn was the Solicitor-General. Thurlow later became Lord Chan-
cellor.

LORD NORTH AND THE WAB OP INDEPENDENCE

Because of his unflagging industry and the endless hours he spent on
documents and reports, often sitting up until the small hours of the
morning, ready allowance was made for this tendency to fall asleep on
the Front Bench. But it was obvious to many that North often feigned
sleep as an effective commentary on a tedious debate. He never used it
more effectively than against the wearisome George Grenville. Once
when Grenville rose to speak, North, aware that he would embark on
a long historical disquisition, asked a neighbour to wake him when
Grenville began to deal with current affairs. On being roused, he heard
Grenville rambling on about the reign of King William the Third, and
convulsed the House by exclaiming quite audibly: 'Zounds, Sir, you
have woken me up a century too soon.' On another occasion, on being
chided by a speaker for not listening to the debate, North stirred in his
seat and muttered: 'I was not asleep, but I wish to God I had been.'

While he was able to keep critics at bay with his ready wit and his
playful banter, on the more serious plane he cut a very different figure.
He had an unattractive presence, his gestures were ungainly, and his
speech was often indistinct.

Chatham was nominally still the head of the Government, though
he had not been in touch with his Ministers or had any part in the
conduct of affairs for more than two years. During that time measures
known to be in conflict with his pronounced views were passed, such
as Townshend's import duty on tea. His policy was either ignored or
abandoned. His friends Amherst and Shelburne were dismissed. In
October 1768 Pitt finally sent in his resignation in a letter in his wife's
hand, and the Duke of Grafton, who had deputized ineffectively in his
absence, was appointed his unhappy successor.

Early the following year North decided, as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, on repealing all but one of the duties imposed on the
American colonists by Townshend. The reason for the repeal was
the ruinous effect on British manufacturers of the trade boycott in
America, which had brought unemployment to Great Britain and a
great deal of distress. The one duty North proposed to retain was the
duty on tea. The proposal was discussed at great length by the Cabinet
at No. 10 and on ist May, 1769, it was eventually agreed to by a
majority of only one.

The Governors of the various American colonies were informed in

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

a circular letter that it was not the British Government's intention to
impose any further taxes on America for the purpose of raising revenue.
Why then was the duty on tea, amounting to threepence a pound and
expected to bring in only £300 a year, retained? It was because North,
and the King, regarded its retention as vital if Britain was not to lose
all her rights over the colonies. Once again it was an assertion of author-
ity. North had argued in the Cabinet that every concession had been
regarded by the colonists as a weakness. He declared that he was not
prepared to capitulate to the extremists. The imperial link had to be
maintained. But the solitary vote on which its retention was based
destroyed that link, for to the colonists it was a symbol of their state of
dependence and that they resented.

North was unable to see that the Americans had any cause to be
aggrieved. He was granting relief, he said. The duty on tea in England
was a shilling a pound, in America it was only threepence, so they got
their tea cheaper, much cheaper.

Immediate action was taken in America to prevent the tea being
landed. At every port men were enrolled for this purpose. Of all the
ports Boston was at the time quite the most flourishing. Its ships were
engaged in a brisk and expanding trade, not only with the other
American colonies and the West Indies, but also with Europe, with
Guinea and as far afield as Madagascar. Its merchants were immensely
prosperous. It had insisted on making its own laws ever since Down-
ing's uncle, John Winthrop, was elected the first Governor of Massa-
chusetts nearly a century and a half before. In 1765 it had taken the
lead in opposing the Stamp Act. Its violent resistance now led to
British troops being quartered in the town. On 5th March 1770 a
street brawl, accompanied by the baiting of a British sentry, caused
the soldiers ill-advisedly to open fire. Five in the crowd were killed. It
was referred to afterwards as the 'Boston Massacre', This was only the
beginning, worse was to follow.

Meanwhile the Duke of Grafton had found it impossible to maintain
his position as Prime Minister. Apart from his manifest difficulty in
controlling a ministry which contained almost as great a diversity of
opinions as there were members, he had now to face a new and more
vituperative critic in print than Wilkes had ever been. The onslaughts
on the Government, which took the form of open letters published in

LORD NORTH AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

the Publick Advertiser, were signed 'Junes', a name that was and still
is believed to conceal the identity of Sir Philip Francis, but this has
never been conclusively established. He attacked Grafton savagely and
in time went so far as to warn the King that what had been acquired
by one revolution 'may be lost by another*. At this time too, Chatham,
now on the way to recovery, walked unexpectedly into the King's
levee and expressed in the strongest terms his disapproval of the
Government's recent measures. Then, appearing in the House of Lords
leaning heavily on a crutch, his gouty foot swathed in an enormous
bandage, he informed their lordships that for three years he had hung
his head in shame and went on to denounce the Government's senseless
actions against America. Soon he found still another stick with which to
belabour the Government. This was providentially provided by
Wilkes, who, risking arrest, had returned from his exile earlier in that
year 1769 in order to take part in the General Election. Amid delirious
scenes of enthusiasm and rioting, he was elected by the County of
Middlesex with a sweeping majority. Thereupon, as a Member of
Parliament, he surrendered himself to the authorities. But the Govern-
ment, feeling it wiser to evade the issue, declined to arrest him. Wilkes,
however, was not to be cheated. In a coach drawn by a cheering mob,
he took himself to jail.

He proved to be much more formidable behind the walls of the
King's Bench prison. Riots occurred at the prison gates and Scottish
troops (a tactless choice), firing to disperse the mob, shot and killed six
people and wounded many more. The Government congratulated the
Scottish regiment, but Wilkes, referring to it as the 'Massacre of St.
George's Fields', made capital of it in his petition to the House claiming
Parliamentary privilege. The Government promptly rescinded the
outlawry, but on the original conviction for libel, Wilkes was fined
^1,000 and sent to prison for twenty-two months.

There remained the question of his membership of Parliament. The
King, having acquired a vast number of seats in the House through
purchase and influence, insisted in a letter to Grafton: 'The expulsion
of Mr. Wilkes appears to be very essential and must be effected.' But
the Prime Minister preferred not to adopt so drastic a course. He sent
a message privately to Wilkes to suggest that each should leave the
other alone. He was prepared, he said, to release Wilkes and allow him

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

to take his seat in the House if Wilfces refrained from referring to the
legality of his past treatment. This offer Wilkes rejected with scorn. In
consequence the whole of the succeeding Parliamentary session was
occupied chiefly with the Wilkes affair. While privately prepared to
forgive, the Government now publicly insisted that Wilkes' expulsion
was necessary to satisfy the honour of Parliament.

After a long and angry debate, at three o'clock in the morning of
3rd February 1769, the House expelled Wilkes. The voters of Middle-
sex promptly re-elected him, whereupon the House expelled him for
a second time, and Middlesex elected him for a third time. The Govern-
ment then declared the election null and void. The defeated candidate,
Colonel Luttrell, who had polled only 296 votes to Wilkes' 1,143,
was accepted by the House as the true Member on the ground that
only his votes were valid.* Triumphantly North, the most active
of Grafton Ministers, exclaimed, in tones similar to those he used
against the American colonists: 'Tame submission ever produces
insult. It is vain to look for respect if you do not dare to assert your
rights/

Chatham, although he had seen some merit in Wilkes in his early
years, had recently come to regard him as a 'worthless profligate'.
Nevertheless he did not approve of the way Wilkes had been treated.
To adopt Luttrell as the rightful Member for Middlesex when Wilkes
had been repeatedly elected by the populace seemed to Chatham quite
monstrous and he launched a devastating attack against both the
Government and the House of Commons for their action. In May he
presented a Bill in the House of Lords demanding a reversal of the
Commons decision. The Bill was rejected, but Grafton, increasingly
unhappy, felt he could go on no longer and resigned the Premiership
in. January 1770.

The King had already decided on making North his successor and
had in fact written to offer him the position four days before Grafton
resigned. North thus attained the chief office three months short of his
thirty-eighth birthday. But he had in fact been, mainly responsible for
the conduct of affairs and had played the dominating role in the
Wilkes' affair as well as in the accentuation of the crisis in America.

* An earlier parallel to this is the expulsion of Sir Robert Walpolc and his re-election by
King's Lynn in 1712, as has already been described.

LORD NORTH AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

Both were to demand his further anxious attention during the suc-
ceeding years.

Another matter, seemingly of small importance though the Opposi-
tion made much of it, involving North before he became Prime Minis-
ter, was the seizure by the French of the island of Corsica. It was
pointed out that this would provide France with an additional naval
base in the Mediterranean, but North, declaring that it was but a
trifling compensation for France's vast losses to Britain during the
recent war, added: 'If we were to attack France wherever she went, we
should indeed be the bullies of Europe, and like bullies we should come
off with a bloody nose.' He refused to take any action, but it is worthy
of reflection that, had he intervened and taken Corsica, Napoleon,
born later in that same year 1769, would have been a British subject.

The transition to the chief office made no change whatever in
North's mode of life. He continued to live at No. 10 Downing Street.
He submitted, as always, to the direction of the King and still referred
all problems, private as well as public, to his father. Some ascribed this
to his extreme conscientiousness. Others, with more accuracy, attribu-
ted it to his innate irresolution. He had no Party of his own. In his
Government he had the survivors of two wrecks - the ministry of
Chatham and the ministry of Grafton. Denying that he was either a
Whig or a Tory, though his policy, which was the King's, and his
speeches in support of that policy betrayed that he was essentially a
Tory, he kept on such Whigs as were prepared to remain in his Govern-
ment (these were of the group around the Duke of Bedford) and
would gladly have included others, such as those around Chatham and
Rockingham, had they agreed to serve. Chatham indeed was girding
himself for a more spirited attack and was engaged in uniting his
followers with those around Rockingham in order to make the Oppo-
sition more formidable. Nevertheless in the Commons North still
enjoyed the majority secured by the astute application of money and
patronage by the King. Well-placed relatives provided North with
some further influence. His mother's brother was the Earl of Halifax,
who had been President of the Board of Trade for ten years. Through
his father's second marriage, he had as stepbrother the Earl of Dor-
chester, whose brother Henry Bilson-Legge had already been
Chancellor of the Exchequer.

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

la the minds of many, including Chatham, North was regarded as
the puppet of Bute, who was still believed to be lurking at the King's
side, whereas, broken now in health, Bute was in fact in Italy. But the
belief persisted and brought North much odium. At times the attacks
on him in the House were fierce. Most brilliant and vehement of his
critics was Charles James Fox, then only twenty-one. Corpulent,
swarthy, somewhat saturnine, bright-eyed and black-haired, he was
descended through his mother from King Charles the Second. His
father, Lord Holland, had acquired a considerable fortune while Pay-
master-General in the Seven Years War. Astutely North detached
young Fox from this hostile group by inducing him to become a
Junior Lord of the Treasury. The strain thereupon lessened and North
was seen to be in fine spirits when he visited his eldest son at Eton and
again later when he left with his wife and family of five children to
spend the recess near her home in Somerset.

The relief was, however, transient. North was soon engulfed in
fresh difficulties. They came in an unending sequence. There was
trouble when Spain seized the Falkland Islands. The Opposition rose
in wrath at North's impassivity. Chatham in a speech of immense
power in the House of Lords insisted that 'the first great acknowledged
object of natural defence in this country is to maintain such a superior
naval force at home that even the united fleets of France and Spain may
never be masters of the Channel/ North, despite his desire to avoid
war, thought it necessary now to examine Britain's ability to engage
in it should it prove unavoidable. The Navy was found to be in a
deplorable state and immediate steps had to be taken to build new
warships. The naval dockyards began to buzz with activity. Press gangs
got busy in the back alleys and stews. The policy of retrenchment was
halted. The land tax was raised by a shilling to its former wartime level.
Stocks began to fall. North described the situation as being one of
'precarious peace, of too probable war'. After a time the crisis passed
and the islands were restored to Britain without a shot being fired.

Then came a still further brush with Wilkes. His term of imprison-
ment ended in April 1770. Still a member of the House of Commons
but with Luttrell occupying his seat, he was elected now an alderman
in the City of London. In area a mere square mile, the City was proud
of its hard-won rights and fought stoudy to preserve them. They

LORD NORTH AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

could have secured no more active watch-dog than Wilkes and were
ready to render him their fullest support in his battles. The centre of
the country's commercial activity and in command of immense wealth
and influence, it was nevertheless, despite such noble and historic
buildings as the Guildhall and the Mansion House, anything but
elegant in appearance. The streets were unlit and unpaved and cluttered
with garbage, foul and revolting to the nostrils. Carts and coaches
churned up the mud when it rained and gentlemen preferred always to
ride in a sedan chair with perfumed handkerchiefs held to their noses.
From assault and robbery there was little protection. Pickpockets
abounded. Drunkenness was common. Abuse was shouted at passers-
by, especially if they were foreigners. Indecent songs were sung
in the streets and there was a persistent lampooning of prominent
personages.

It was not over these, however, but over the publication of Parlia-
mentary debates that trouble arose not long after Wilkes' election as
alderman. The objection to pubh'shing any reports of Parliamentary
proceedings was explicitly expressed some years before by William
Pulteney, one of Sir Robert Walpole's most severe critics. 'To print or
publish the speeches of Gentlemen,' he said, looks very much like
making them accountable without doors for what they say within.*
Garbled reports of debates in the House had been published since the
time of Queen Anne. They appeared at first in pamphlets and later in
a monthly publication called The Political State, but gave no more than
brief indications of what was said by the speakers. A bolder line was
taken some years afterwards in the Gentleman s Magazine. Its editor
Edward Cave together with some friends sat in relays in 1732 in the
public gallery and surreptitiously made notes, which were later
elaborated and published in the magazine in defiance of the strict
Parliamentary prohibition. As a precaution the actual names of the
speakers were withheld and fictitious names, capable of being de-
ciphered, were used. Parliament's indifference to these early, restrained
endeavours at reporting their proceedings encouraged Cave to come
out after a time with the actual names of the speakers. Instantly a
standing order was passed, describing it as 'a breach of privilege ... to
presume to give, in written or printed newspapers any account or
minute of the debates' and 'that upon discovery of the author, printers

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

or. publishers of any such newspaper this House will proceed against
the offenders with the greatest severity.*

Cave had no alternative now hut to resort again to subterfuge.
Describing them as 'Reports of the Debates of the Senate of Lilliput',
he continued the practice under this thin disguise, avoiding names now,
and in 1737 engaged Samuel Johnson, at that time twenty-seven and
not yet famous or honoured with a doctorate, to take it on. On the
very meagre notes supplied him, Johnson used his powers of invention
and the reports were often not only distorted but inaccurate. Only the
essence of what was said was retained. A Tory, not from rational con-
viction, but because in his childhood he had heard much talk about the
villainies of the Whigs, Johnson admitted that he took care that 'the
Whig dogs should not have the best of it* in the reports.

With the passing years this practice was adopted by a number of
other printers. In London and the other big towns the sale of
newspapers had expanded greatly. There was an apparent hunger for
political news and some printers had taken the liberty of printing
parliamentary reports without any attempt at disguise or subterfuge.

Angered by this, the Government in 1771, some months after the
release of Wilkes, decided to take action. Six printers were summoned
to attend at the Bar of the House. Some appeared and were admon-
ished, but others, who had been arrested in die City, were taken before
Wilkes and another alderman named Oliver, and were dismissed on
the ground that the Speaker's Writ did not run within the City bounds.
Oliver, as a Member of Parliament, was ordered to attend in his place
in the House; Wilkes was summoned to the Bar as an ordinary mem-
ber of the public, but declined to appear unless allowed to take his
seat as the Member for Middlesex, North, having played right into
his hand, decided not to take the matter any further in so far as it con-
cerned Wilkes. But Oliver, as well as the Lord Mayor of London,
Brass Crosby, who was also a Member of Parliament, were dealt with
by the House.

On the morning the Lord Mayor was to appear, all the approaches
to Parliament were blocked by angry mobs. The moment they caught
sight of North's coach, taking him the short distance from No. 10
to St. Stephen's, they attacked it and reduced it to matchwood. A burly
man thrust his staff into North's face and the crowd quickly closed in,

LORD NORTH AND THE WAR OP INDEPENDENCE

ready to lynch the Prime Minister. But a Member of Parliament,
though opposed to North's policies, came to his rescue and dragged
him, shaken, dishevelled and cut about the face, into the safety of the
House.

North had not quite recovered when he rose to address the House.
Tears were seen to gather in his eyes and he finished lamely by apolo-
gizing for his life and work. Once again, and it was in time to become
wearisome, for he never missed an opportunity of repeating it, North
informed the Members : 'I certainly did not come into office at my own
desire. Had I my own wish I would have quitted it a hundred times.
. . . There are but two ways I can get out now - by the will of my
Sovereign, which I shall be ready to obey, or the pleasure of the gentle-
men now at our doors, when they shall be able to do a little more than
they have done this day.*

Both the Lord Mayor and Oliver were sent to the Tower. The
printers were not discouraged by this but went on publishing Par-
liamentary reports, to which they now boldly attached the full names
of the Members. North, aware that Johnson was a Tory, had been in
touch with him of kte and asked him now to issue an explanatory
statement on behalf of the Government. To this Wilkes replied in a
spirited 'Letter to Samuel Johnson LL.D.' 'Junes' rushed to Wilkes'
support, with the City dignitaries wholeheartedly behind him, as well
as the Opposition in the House of Commons. Soon the entire country
appeared to be for Wilkes. His portrait was hung in shop windows,
tacked on to trinkets and displayed prominently in the ale houses. At
about this time he won a further triumph by gaining a verdict against
the Earl of Halifax in the oft-postponed case he had brought some
years before for illegal arrest on a 'general warrant*. The Earl was
ordered by the courts to pay Wilkes ,£4,000 in damages. It was a fur-
ther rebuff to North, as Halifax was his uncle, but he thought it more
prudent to look the other way.

At the end of the Parliamentary session Crosby and Oliver were
released from the Tower. This was marked by an outbreak of joyous
rioting in the course of which No. 10 Downing Street was attacked and
the windows and lamps were smashed. It was the only form of popular
protest in an age when neither the Press nor Parliamentary elections
could provide an adequate outlet for public feeling. In the General

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Election of 1774, Wilkes, on being re-elected to the House of Com-
mons, was allowed to take his seat without further fuss.

The ban against Parliamentary reports was now tacitly dropped.
Indeed North actually supplied Dr. Johnson from time to time with a
precis of what was said in the House, leaving it to Johnson to expand
them into speeches. Told by a friend once that Chatham's speech was
the best he had ever read, Dr. Johnson replied curtly: 'That speech I
wrote in a garret in Exeter Street.' When North was Chancellor of
the University of Oxford he was responsible for the degree of Doctor
in Civil Law being conferred on Johnson; he wrote to Convocation
from 'Downing Street, March 3, 1775' to make the proposal.

Johnson was often at No. 10 and was looked at askance not only by
the other visitors but even by the footmen, for he was awkward in his
movements, growling and grunting as he walked in, always dressed in
untidy, filthy garments, his shoes caked with mud and looking like a
scarecrow. He used to drop in also to see the great Lord Chesterfield
in the same shabby clothes, but after a time he was politely told by the
servants that his lordship was not in.

Hansard, only twenty-two then and a friend of Dr. Johnson, began
publishing his 'Journals of the House of Commons' as early as 1774,
but it was not until 1803 that his printing house, using shorthand for
the purpose, started issuing its famous record of 'Parliamentary
Debates', which still bear his name.

Walpole had made a habit of going away for weekends to his house
at Richmond. North had no house near enough to London, but the
King, by granting him the reversion of the Rangership of Bushey
Park, which was held by the Earl of Halifax, provided a like oppor-
tunity on 7th June 1771. As it happened the Earl died on the very next
day and North was able, until tie end of his term as Prime Minister
more than ten years later, to leave Downing Street with his family on
a Friday and return on Monday, save when crises kept him in town.

He did not indulge in much entertaining. By temperament he was
little attracted to the diversions of the time. He was not a gambler and
when whist was pkyed at No. 10 the stakes were always small. This
would have excluded a large number of those who were in his Govern-
ment. Charles James Fox, for example, used to pky through the night
at his club in St. James's, often losing thousands of pounds in the course

100

LORD NORTH AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

of an evening. Nor did North share the adulterous tendencies of his
First Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of Sandwich. He had neither the
figure nor the means to dress as elegantly as many of the fops who
came to No. 10 in their richly embroidered velvet jackets with quizzing
glasses raised to peer at the ladies pacing out a leisurely minuet. Nor
can one see him participating in the ill-mannered pranks in which the
beaux often indulged for a bet, as when some years earlier the effemin-
ate Mr. Nugent (later Lord Nugent) undertook for a wager to spit in
the Earl of Bristol's hat. Passing Lord Bristol as he stood in the door-
way, richly dressed, with his hat held under his arm, 'the inside upper-
most; Mr. Nugent, turning round to spit, and affecting not to perceive
Lord Bristol, performed the act in his Hat/38

Pretending the utmost distress, Nugent tendered a thousand apolo-
gies. Lord Bristol assured him that it was of no importance, took out
his handkerchief, and wiped the hat. Nugent had won his wager, but
early the next morning he received a challenge to a duel, out of which
he tried but found it difficult to wriggle. It was finally settled by both
Nugent and Lord Temple, who had made the wager, apologizing
publicly to Bristol in the main club-room at White's.

For some years a frequent visitor at No. 10 was Lord Clive of
Plassey. The East India Company, through Clive, had acquired vast
territorial possessions in India. The trading company thus attained the
status of a ruling power. Detachments of die English armed forces had
always been employed for the protection of its fortified trading
stations in Madras, Calcutta and elsewhere, but by now the number of
troops in the company's service ran to 15,000 men, counting horse and
artillery and local levies of sepoys. Its right to administer these territories
and to control the destinies of many millions of Indians was challenged
in Parliament by Chatham and by Clive himself, who on his home-
coming had used a part of his wealth for acquiring seats in die House
of Commons for himself and his nominees. Both insisted that Britain
should take over these administrative duties. Others, however, re-
garded the adoption of such a course as an outrageous infringement of
the rights of a private trading corporation, guaranteed by a charter - a
view that North was disposed to support, for, while he saw the advan-
tage of the Crown taking control, he also foresaw long drawn out and
bitter disagreements, the result of which could not be foretold.

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

The East India Company, despite its extensive acquisitions, was
almost bankrupt. Its employees, on the other hand, its merchants and
factors, by trading on the side, by breaking every rule and pocketing
the gains, had returned home with great wealth, had bought large
country houses, often from men ruined by gambling, and were living
like Nabobs. In 1761, Clive, though by now broken in health, had
returned to India at the express wish of the company, to put a stop to
the rapacity of the English merchants. The Augean stable was cleansed,
but the moment his back was turned avarice was once more given full
rein. His victims meanwhile had hurried home and, vowing vengeance,
had bought seats in Parliament and even on the Board of the East India
Company.

North had many talks with Clive and with others who had served
in India. Affluent, sun-bronzed men drove up to No. 10 in their mag-
nificent coaches or were carried there in sedan chairs. It was not an
easy tangle for North to unravel. His predecessor at the Exchequer,
Charles Townshend, had arranged for an annual payment by the
company of ^400,000 to the Treasury. North insisted on its continu-
ance, since it formed a substantial contribution to the Government's
total Budget of .£8,000,000. He also decided that a Governor-General
should be appointed and, on Clive' s recommendation, Warren
Hastings, who had served with Clive in India, was selected for this post
in 1773. Dowdeswell, a predecessor of North's at No. 10, described
these arrangements as 'a medly of inconsistencies dictated by tyranny,
yet bearing throughout each link the mark of ignorance.' The Select
Committee, on whose recommendations the adjustments were based,
seeking a scapegoat, eventually turned on Clive, himself a member of
the committee. Since Clive was one of the first to bring home a large
fortune, he was sternly criticized for setting a bad example. In view of
his close and friendly relations with Clive, both in the House of Com-
mons and at No. 10, North was uncomfortable at the turn the discus-
sions had taken. But the committee, and especially its chairman John
Burgoyne, were relentless. Clive - the 'Heaven-born General', as
Chatham had called him - was censured, and only as an afterthought
was it added that 'Lord Clive did at the same time render great and
meritorious services to his country/
It was not many months after this that events in America took a

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LORD NORTH AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

critical turn and North, who had boasted that 'our dominions are at
least as extensive as we could wish; and their improvement, not their
extension, should be our chief aim', found that, through his folly and
his obstinacy, quite the most important part of these dominions was
soon to be lopped off.

On 1 8th December 1773, angry inhabitants of Boston, dressed up as
Indians, unloaded all the tea brought in by the East Indiaman Dart-
mouth, amounting in all to 300 chests, and flung it into the sea. In
England those who had lulled themselves into the belief that the
troubles in these colonies had died down, were startled when this news
reached them six weeks later. Nothing in fact had died down. Resent-
ment was still smouldering. It was at its fiercest in Massachusetts, where
the Puritan ideas had undergone little or no modification since the days
of the Winthrops and the Downings, who had left Britain to escape
domination by English legislators. The unhappy memories they
brought with them were handed down to successive generations and
were passed on to the expanding population in this and other States,
thirteen in all at the time, with a total population of three million, who,
despite their diversity and many inter-State jealousies, were united in
their opposition to this and their other grievances. They resented, for
example, the presence of a large standing army, which, they insisted,
was no longer required since the French had been driven out of Canada
and the South. The assurance that the army was there in order to
protect them from the Red Indians who roved the hills and plains just
beyond the fort-lined frontier of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia,
was dismissed with contempt. They resented equally the hordes of
appointments made by Whitehall of Governors and other officials
down to the humblest tide-waiter. 'Most of the places in the gift of the
Crown', it was complained, 'have been filled with broken Members
of Parliament, Valets de Chambre, electioneering scoundrels, and
even liveried servants/ Many also felt that they were looked down on
as 'Colonials'. There was little knowledge among Ministers in London
as to how the American colonists lived and thought. The only relation-
ship they could visualize was that of mother and child. George the
Third often talked of the obedience which a colony owed to its Mother

Country.
The Stamp Act, which introduced direct internal taxation for the

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

first time, had been stoutly defended by North and its repeal was as
vigorously opposed by him. He was obviously not the right Minister
to meet the gathering crisis with understanding and sympathy, nor
did the orders of the King assist him to do so. On hearing of the
'Boston Tea Party* His Majesty wrote to North of the need 'of com-
pelling Boston to submit*. On these instructions North acted. If the
Boston outrage, he told the House, had occurred in any foreign port
there would have been a stern demand for satisfaction. In this instance,
he said, satisfaction was not enough, there must also be security for
the future. A series of fresh coercive Acts was thereupon introduced.
The charter of Massachusetts was revised. The Governor was given
power to appoint all officials, to nominate all members of the Council
and to curb the freedom of local assemblies. The port of Boston was
closed to all trade and was to remain closed until full compensation,
estimated at £15,000, was paid to the East India Company for the tea
dumped into the sea. The Governor was further ordered to arrest all
those who had taken any part in the incident and to send them to
England for trial. To enforce these measures four battalions of infantry
were sent out from England, and General Gage, the British Com-
mander-in-Chief in America, was appointed the new Governor of
Massachusetts. 'We are now to establish our authority/ North declared,
'or give it up entirely.* The King, in an exhilarated note, wrote: 'The
die is cast. The colonies must either triumph or submit.'

War now became inevitable. All the States rallied round Boston
when these dire tidings reached America, brought by a strange irony in
a ship named Harmony. The cry of 'Slavery* went up in all thirteen
States, and the colonists, convinced that neither their pockets nor their
consciences were safe, girt themselves to resist. Muskets were brought
out and cleaned and men turned out to drill on village greens and in
market squares. Cannon and munitions arrived for the colonists from
France and other countries in Europe, and everywhere in America the
name of North was 'cursed from morn till noon and from noon till
morn'.6* The King declared 'Blows must decide* and the four British
battalions were increased to 20,000 soldiers - 'regulars, German hunts-
men, picked Canadians and three or four regiments of light horse'.65

Even before the first clash at Lexington on I9th April 1775, the
already numerous critics in England of North's policy were persistently

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LORD NORTH AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

vocal, both inside and outside Parliament. In the Commons Charles
James Fox, until recently a member of North's Government, as well as
Edmund Burke and Colonel Isaac Barre, the Irish-born son of a French
refugee with a scar across his cheek to remind one of the capture of
Quebec, raged ceaselessly against him. Chatham in the Lords was no
less fierce in his denunciations. All over Britain money was collected
for the relief of the widows, orphans and aged parents 'of our beloved
American subjects inhumanly murdered at or near Lexington*. But the
Government, having a majority in the House, would not be deflected
from their perverse course.

During the six and a half years the war lasted, a steady decline was
noticeable in the appearance and demeanour of Lord North. He moved
between Downing Street and the House of Commons, a poor, pathetic,
bewildered figure. In the Cabinet room at No. 10, he was incapable, he
confessed, of choosing between the clashing opinions of his colleagues
and was unable to make any decisions of his own, which was scarcely
surprising, seeing that from childhood he had learned to rely on the
influence and judgement of others. Each Minister ran his own depart-
ment without bothering to consult the Prime Minister and went above
his head direct to the King. They not only ignored North, but plotted
and intrigued against him as well as against each other. Lord George
Sackville, who had changed his name to Germain because of an inherit-
ance, had recently been appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies
and therefore had the war largely under his direction, though he had
not long before been cashiered from the army because of cowardice and
had been debarred from ever holding army rank again. Yet, through
their friendship, North had given him this exalted authority as well as a
place in the Cabinet. But far from showing any gratitude, Germain had
for North nothing but contempt, and when he gave a ball in London to
which everyone of note was invited, North and his wife were the only
two excluded: Lady North thought this rather 'odd*.

Another minister, Richard Rigby, who was Paymaster-General but
not in the Cabinet, expressed his contempt by declining to sit on the
Government benches. North lacked both the ability and the driving
force required to direct a war. His distress was acute and obvious. Very
rarely now was he able to escape with his family to Bushey for a snatched
weekend and even more rarely to the more-remote peace of Somerset.

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

When not required in the House for questioning and debate* ke spent
almost all his time in Downing Street.

When he complained of his vexations and his distress of mind,*" his
opponents, even his colleagues, jeered at him for not resigning. They
attributed this to his chronic need of money. In The Duenna, a play by,,
Israel Pottdnger presented in London in 1776, North, depicted as
Boreas, is made to sing : '• .

'Tis true I'd dispense with the post that I hold
If with it I should not dispense with my gold,
But avarice seconds ambition so well,
That I'd follow my old Master Walpole to hell.

In fact North kept trying to resign. Pitifully he pleaded with the King
to release him. Describing himself as unworthy and incapable, he
declared that his memory had gone, his strength was exhausted, his
capacity worn to a shred. But His Majesty begged him not to desert
him in this time of trial, to which, quite bluntly, North replied that
'the almost certain consequences of His Majesty's resolution will be the
ruin of his affairs'.

The pressure of North's debts was overwhelming. His personal
expenses greatly exceeded his income and, since his father was still alive,
no inheritance ha.d yet become available. His annual deficit was esti-
mated at £1,500, and, as John Robinson, his secretary at the Treasury,
has noted in his papers, North's recurrent moods of despondency were
due more to his private financial worries than to the adverse drift of the
war across the Atlantic. In September 1777, when the war had been in
progress for two years, the King, concerned at the harassed state of
North's mind, wrote privately to Robinson. The reply he received
stated: 'Mr. Robinson thinks he perceives what oftentimes adds to Lord
North's distress of mind when the weight of public business oppresses
him, but that Mr. Robinson durst not on any account presume to
mention to His Majesty without His Majesty's special command.' The
command having been given, Robinson indicated a variety of causes -
the smallness of North's income, the expenses of his growing family,
the heavy expenditure required to maintain his position. He added that,
though much money had to be borrowed and a mortgage of £6,000
had been effected, there were still many debts outstanding to tradesmen.

106

LORD NORTH AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

'The thought of this situation frequently distresses his mind and makes
him very unhappy/

The King thereupon wrote direct to North: 'You have at times
dropped to me that you had been in debt ever since your first settling
in life and that you had never been able to get out of that difficulty. I
4 therefore must insist you will now state to me whether 12, or j£ 15,000
will not set your affairs in order, if it will, nay if .£20,000 is necessary
I am resolved you shall have no other person concerned in freeing them
but myself/ He added the hope that 'some of the Employments for life
will in time become vacant that I may reward your family'.45 Ten years
earlier, North, having not long held the office of Chancellor of the
Exchequer, had rendered the King a similar service. After a fierce tussle
with the Opposition, he had got the Commons to agree to pay the King
the sum of ^ 500,000 to meet his personal debts. North was shortly
afterwards rewarded with the Garter.

In addition to his private anxieties North had to sustain the unending
strain of national problems, such as unbalanced war budgets, an
inadequate/ Navy unable to prevent war supplies pouring into the
American colonies from Europe, and serious deficiencies in recruiting,
for Englishmen were unwilling to go out and fight their fellow-
countrymen with whose aspirations they were greatly in sympathy. So
North hired mercenaries from Germany. 'I wish much for an assistance
of foreigners', he wrote to the Secretary at War Lord Barrington, 'and
shall think your Lordship does an effective service to the Country if
you can bring us a considerable supply, either by private recruits or by
corps/ What roused the greatest fury on both sides of the Atlantic was
that Red Indians should have been used to fight the colonists. By such a
desperate, and as many felt despicable, expedient was the army
expanded.

The American States, having set up in 1774 a central Congress in
Philadelphia to represent them all, had also appointed a commander-
in-chief to lead their joint forces. To George Washington, a tobacco
planter, this supreme responsibility was assigned. He was of precisely
the same age as Lord North, both being forty-three at the outbreak of
war. John Wesley, writing to North, warned him that the colonists
were 'terribly united' and would dispute every inch of the ground.

The first serious reverse suffered by Britain was at Saratoga in the

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

autumn of 1777. New York had by now been taken by British troops
and Philadelphia was occupied after the American defeat at Brandy-
wine. All seemed to be going well and the news of the rout at Saratoga
brought consternation to the Cabinet room at No. 10. North burst into
tears. Lord George Germain was like a man stunned; William Eden, his
Under-Secretary, learned of it later and felt he was having a hideous
dream. Ministers upbraided each other. In the House there was an
outburst of anger against the Government. Fox, still in his twenties,
remembering Germain's cowardice at Minden, threatened him with
another trial. North turned to him gratefully and whispered: 'Charles,
I am gkd you did not fall on me today, for you was in full feather/

In the Lords, Chatham, emerging once more from his retirement,
spoke with the utmost vehemence and passion against 'the monstrous
measures that have heaped disgrace and misfortune against us - that have
brought ruin to our doors. ... I love and honour the English troops: I
know their virtues and their valour: I know they can achieve anything
except impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English
America is an impossibility. You cannot, I venture to say it - you cannot

conquer America You may swell every expense and every effort

still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can
buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German
prince, that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign
prince: your efforts are for ever vain and impotent - doubly so from
this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable
resentment, the minds of your enemies - to overrun them with the
mercenary sons of rapine and plunder; devoting them and their pos-
sessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I
am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I
would never lay down my arms - never - never - never/ Who, he
demanded with intense anger, is the man who 'has dared to authorize
and associate to our arms die tomohawk and the scalping-knife of the
savage, to call into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman savage of
the woods, to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed
rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our
bretheren?'"

Soon the situation became far more grave. For two years the French
had been sending munitions and fighting men to the colonists: they

108

LORD NORTH AND THE WAR OP INDEPENDENCE

had also, on America's Declaration of Independence on 4th July 1776,
accorded it immediate recognition. Now, encouraged by Saratoga,
they were preparing to assist more substantially by joining actively in
the war. The consequences of this were clearly apparent to the dis-
tracted and despondent Cabinet. No longer would the fighting be
confined to the continent of America, but it would spread to India, the
West Indies and possibly even to Ireland. There would be naval actions
on the high seas, and there was the further risk that before long Spain
would follow France's example, since Spain too was still smarting from
the losses she suffered in the Seven Years War. The Dutch were another
likely enemy; they had also been sending help to the Americans. The
chance had come to all of them for revenge.

To prevent these alarming developments, North felt that peace
should immediately be made with the colonists. He realized that, in
view of their hostility towards him, his own resignation was essential.
He put this to the King and suggested that Chatham should be ap-
pointed his successor. But the King, while prepared now to accept
North's resignation, would not hear of Chatham becoming Prime
Minister. A member of the Cabinet possibly, but he would not have
Chatham in the chief role. On this he was adamant. Chatham, now in
his seventieth year, had not much longer to live. He appeared in the
Lords for the last time in April 1778. Already infirm, he limped to his
seat with the aid of a crutch and was supported on one side by his son
William, on the other by his son-in-law Lord Mahon. The peers rose
to make way for him. They noticed that both his legs were swathed in
flannel and that his wig, too large for his emaciated head, almost
obscured his features. But in his eyes there was still the old fire. After
a rambling speech he said: 'My Lords, if we are to fall, let
us fall like men.' Then he raised his hand to his breast and collapsed.
He was caught as he fell and was carried into one of the lesser
houses in Downing Street, where he lingered for a few days until
he was able to be moved to his home at Hayes, where he died a few
weeks later. There seemed now to be no one to replace North.

The outbreak of war with France, the traditional enemy, later in the
year, rallied the nation behind the Government. Recruiting became
brisk. In time Spain, and eventually Holland too, came in on the other
side. Though repeatedly warned that it would be infinitely more

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

difficult now to conquer America, North resolutely refused to recognize
the Declaration of Independence. The anxieties that followed reduced
him to a nervous wreck. He became short-tempered, petulant, uncivil
even to his friends. For hours he sat inactively in his room at No. 10,
neglecting affairs of State, not even troubling to read the dispatches
from America, leaving vacancies in important offices of Government
unfilled. He sank into an indolent apathy which caused the King the
greatest concern. Writing to Robinson, His Majesty suggested that the
Prime Minister should pull himself together and treat his colleagues
with more civility. This note, left deliberately on his stricken master's
desk, had its effect, but only for a time. Crowds began to boo North in
the street on his short drive to the House, and all through one sleepless
night an angry mob inDowning Street attacked No. 10. The loss of the
American markets was bringing ruin to the merchants and ever-
increasing unemployment to the workers. With the combined French
and Spanish fleets outnumbering the British in the Channel, there was a
constant fear of invasion. At the coffee houses men waited anxiously for
news. The Prime Minister, renowned for his imperturbability in public,
was seen to dissolve into tears in the House.

The war was not his only anxiety. The easing of some of the lesser
restrictions which had for so long oppressed the Roman Catholics,
driving many to France, just as earlier the Puritans were driven across
the Atlantic, brought down on North the wrath of many agitated
Protestants. Lord George Gordon, President of the newly formed
Protestant Association, after dispatching an angry letter to him in
January 1780, called at No. 10 to see North and demanded the repeal
of the concessions. North refused. In June, rioting broke out all over
London and went on for many days. On the evening of 7th June, while
North was entertaining some friends to dinner at No. 10, the riotous
mob surged into Downing Street. One of the guests, Sir John Mac-
pherson, kter Governor-General of India, has described what hap-
pened:38

'We sat down at table, and dinner had scarcely been removed, when
Downing Square, through which there is no outlet, became thronged
with people, who manifested a disposition, or rather a determination, to
proceed to acts of outrage. . . . Mr. Brummell, North's private secret-
ary, who lived in the same street, was in attendance, but did not make

LORD NORTH AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

one of the company.* Brummell was the father of Beau Bruniniell,
whose second birthday it was that day.

Lord North, inquiring what was being done to defend No, 10, was
told that there were 'twenty or more grenadiers, well armed, stationed
above stairs . . . ready on the first order to fire upon the mob/ He
ordered that two or three persons should be sent out to inform the
crowd of this in order to prevent bloodshed.

'The populace,' Macpherson goes on, 'continued to fill the little
square, and became very noisy, but they never attempted to force the
front door. ... By degrees, as the evening advanced, the people , . .
began to cool and afterwards gradually to disperse without further
effort. We then sat down again quietly at the table and finished our
wine.

'Night was coming on, and the capital presenting a scene of tumult
or conflagration in many quarters, Lord North, accompanied by us all,
mounted to the top of the house, where we beheld London blazing in
seven places, and could hear the platoons firing regularly in various
directions/

In October of the following year 1781 the American war moved to a
speedy conclusion after the surrender of Lord Cornwallis's forces at
Yorktown. This shattering news was brought to Lord George Ger-
main's house in Pall Mall on 25th November and he hurried that Sun-
day afternoon, between one and two o'clock, to convey it to the Prime
Minister at No. 10 Downing Street Asked afterwards how North
received it, Germain said: 'As he would have taken a ball in his breast.'
He 'opened his arms, exclaiming wildly, as he paced up and down the
apartment during a few minutes, "O God ! It is all over" ', and repeated
the words 'many times under emotions of the deepest consternation and
distress*.

It was obvious that North could remain in office no longer. Attacks
were made on him from all sides, many of them abusive. The King
begged North not to deliver him into the hands of his enemies, by
which he meant the Opposition, who had all along supported America.
A frantic endeavour was made to form a coalition. But this failed. After
the Christmas recess, motions of censure against the Government came
in rapid succession. Blistering speeches were made by Fox and others.
Shaken by his narrow majority of only ten, North saw the King again

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

on I5th March 1782 and begged to be released, A still further vote of
censure, to be made five days later, North strove to anticipate by
resigning, but he was unsuccessful.

On 20th March a crowded and excited House awaited the Prime
Minister. He arrived at a quarter-past four in the afternoon. He had
come on after a further visit to the King and was in full dress with the
blue ribbon of the Garter. On reaching his seat he turned to address the
Chair, but the Earl of Surrey, who was to move the vote of censure,
rose at the same time to begin his attack. Each refused to give way and
there was an uproar in the House. North eventually managed, during a
fleeting lull, to get out the words that any motion the Opposition
intended to make was unnecessary because the Government had that
day ceased to exist.

Startled by this announcement, the House quietened and the Prime
Minister was able to speak. He told them that they would presently have
another leader. 'Having for so many years held a public situation and
being entrusted with the management of public affairs, I am perfectly
conscious I am responsible for my conduct, and whenever my country
shall call upon me to answer, it is my indispensable duty to answer for
every part of that conduct/

He then drove off in his coach through the snow to dine with some
friends at No. 10 Downing Street. We learn that the atmosphere at the
dinner table was calm and the conversation cheerful.66 The strain and
torment of his fifteen years of office gave place to a sense of immense
relief.

112

CHAPTER 12
The Younger Pitt

NORTH continued to live at No. 10 for some months after his
resignation. His successor as First Lord of the Treasury was the Marquess
of Rockingharn, a Whig and one of his sternest critics, who had held
the chief office before in 1765, though only for a year. Once again he
chose not to live at the official residence of the Prime Minister, but stayed
on in his own house in Grosvenor Square.

It is believed, but it is by no means certain, that his Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Lord John Cavendish, took over a part of No. 10, the rest
presumably being occupied still by Lord North and his family, for they
were certainly in residence until the younger Pitt moved in as Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer later that year.

Lord John Cavendish, now fifty, was a younger son of the Duke of
Devonshire. For a member of such an exalted family, he was personally
undistinguished in appearance. With him in Rockingham's Govern-
ment were Charles James Foxand Lord Shelburne as the two Secretaries
of State, Burke, who had once been Rockingham's private secretary,
and the promising young playwright and politician Richard Brinsley
Sheridan. It was a Government of Whigs.

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

This ministry of Rockingham's lasted even a shorter time than his
first. After being sixteen years in opposition he was Prime Minister
again for less than four months. He died and was succeeded by the Earl
of Shelburne, the great landowner and later the first Marquess of
Lansdowne. It was the King's choice. Fox, feeling that he should have
been selected, promptly resigned and was followed by both Burke and
Sheridan. Cavendish, a close friend of Burke's, left too, and young
William Pitt, only twenty-three at the time, was appointed Chancellor
of the Exchequer in his place and also Leader of the House of Commons.
Writing to his mother two weeks after his appointment, Pitt stated:
'Lord North will, I hope, in a very little time make room for me in
Downing Street, which is the best summer town house possible.' But
North, who had lived there continuously for fifteen years, was reluctant
to leave, and at the end of the month Pitt, writing again to her, said:
(I expect to be comfortably settled in the course of this week in zpart of
my vast, awkward house.' Did North vacate only a part of it, one
wonders, as he had possibly done for Lord John Cavendish?

Until now Pitt, having trained for the law, had been living in cham-
bers in Lincoln's Inn on an allowance of ^300 a year. Chatham's
means, despite his handsome inheritance from Sir William Pynsent,
had been scant. The State had paid his debts, amounting to ^20,000,
and had also endowed the earldom with an annuity of ^£4,000, to
enable his heir to sustain the peerage. His younger son William had by
his precocious brilliance been marked out from childhood for the noble
destiny he was to assume so early in life. In health he was frail. Tall,
slender, often ill, he had been advised at the age of fourteen to drink
port in order to build up a more robust physique. He reacted miracu-
lously to it, but even so was not considered strong enough to face the
rigours of the normal routine at Eton, where his father and brother had
been, but was educated at home by tutors. The education he thus
acquired was remarkable. His brain was able to absorb the intricacies of
mathematics as well as the complexities of the classics. In both he
attained heights far beyond the range of other men. He was also trained
by his father, whom he so greatly admired, to develop his eloquence
and his declamatory skill, which, added to the natural melodious
cadence of his voice, caused the House of Commons to listen always with
rapt attention and wonder.

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THE YOUNGER PITT

He was elected to Parliament in 1780 at the age of twenty-one.
Chatham had by now been dead for two years and England was at war
not only with the American colonies, but also with France and Spain
and Holland. With his very first speech young Pitt made a remarkable
impression. Burke, a great orator himself, was moved to tears and
exclaimed: 'It is not a chip of the old block; it is the old block itself.'
Fox, eleven years Pitt's senior, recognized for years as an outstanding
debater and destined to be Pitt's fiercest opponent, on hearing the
enthusiastic acclaim and the remark that Pitt was likely to be one of the
foremost men in Parliament, replied very quietly: 'He is so already.'
Less than two years afterwards, on North's fall, Pitt was invited to join
Rockingham's Government, together with Fox and Burke. He was
offered one of the most highly paid offices, carrying a salary of ^5.000
a year,* but this he haughtily declined, stating that he would not
accept any post that did not give him a seat in the Cabinet. Such
arrogance, such astonishing self-confidence were weighed against the
young man's resolve to go on living on a mere £300 a year rather than
be inveigled into office by a sum nearly twenty times as large. Here was
a man who could not be bought, it was said. A few months later he
became Chancellor of the Exchequer.

There were three main parties at the time in the House of Commons

- the Whigs who had served under Chatham and were now led by
Shelburne, to which group Pitt belonged; a second group of Whigs,
by far the larger, was under the leadership of Fox, to which Burke and
Sheridan were attached; and North's party which consisted chiefly of
Tories. None of these three was large enough to stand alone against the
other two and it was obvious that a hostile combination, however ill-
assorted, could easily bring Shelburne's Government down. That soo&
happened. Bitter resentment led Fox to form a coalition with North.
It was an astonishing conjunction, for Fox had but recently denounced
North as Void of every principle of honour and honesty' and had
threatened him with impeachment. He declared now: 'It is not in my
nature to bear malice or live in ill-will.' Peace negotiations with France
and America had been begun by the Rockingham Government and
quarrels had occurred between Fox and Shelburne over the terms. The

* The Vice-Treasureship of Ireland, an office once held by Chatham himself.

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

treaty, about to be signed, accepted the independence of the American
colonies; to France and Spain very little of what had been won in the
widespread and devastating war waged by Pitt's father was to be
returned. Nevertheless Fox and North most vigorously criticized the
terms and censured the Government. Their combined vote brought
down the Government and Pitt ceased to be Chancellor of the
Exchequer after holding that office for only nine months. He was asked
by the King to take on the Premiership, but refused it. He preferred to
bide his time until Fox and North, who were certain to be invited next
to form a Government, were given the opportunity of displaying their
joint incapacity to the bewildered country.

Neither Fox nor North in fact became Prime Minister in the new and
fantastic coalition. For some weeks there were arguments, then the
Duke of Portland was adopted as the head of this 'ill-omened and
unnatural marriage', as Pitt called the most unscrupulous coalition
known to history.67 The Peace Treaty they had insisted on rejecting
was in the end accepted unaltered.

The Duke of Portland chose to live at No. 10 Downing Street. Born
William Cavendish-Bentinck, the Duke was now fifty-five. He was tall,
fresh complexioned, full of dignity and benevolence, but 'a convenient
cipher*. Fox and North were appointed his two Secretaries of State;
thus at the Cabinet table where North had presided for so many years,
he now had a lesser place and was under another's guidance, a not
unfamiliar role for him.

Portland, it seems clear, had the whole of No. 10 Downing Street to
himself. By May he and his family had established themselves in the
house and had already begun to entertain on an elaborate scale. The
Morning Herald of 29th May 1783 reported: 'Yesterday the Duke of
Portland gave a grand dinner to several foreigners of distinction, and to
the ministers of state, at his house in Downing Street, Westminster.'

During the very few months he was there, the Duke made the most of
his stay, socially at any rate. The Morning Herald of ist August 1783 tells
us: 'His Grace the Duke of Portland yesterday gave a grand turtle-feast
to several of the Nobility, at his house in Downing Street/ Before the;
end of that month the Duke had to leave, not because he was driven
from office, that came in December, but because the house was in need
of still further attention. Only seventeen years had elapsed since the

116

THE YOUNGER PITT

very substantial alterations had been begun for the Townshends, but
it had been left uncompleted, for a note from North, dated soth
September 1774, asks that the work on the front of the house, 'which
was begun by a Warrant from the Treasury dated August pth, 1766',
should be finished.

This new need of attention became apparent in 1781. In March of
the following year a committee consisting of North and others, after
inspecting the condition of the house, found that the money spent so
far was insufficient and considered a statement from the Board of
Works, declaring that 'the Repairs, Alterations & Additions at the
Chancellor of the Exchequer's House will amount to the sum of
^5,580, exclusive of the sum for which they already have His Majesty's
Warrant. And praying a Warrant for the said sum of £5,580 - and
also praying an Imprest of that sum to enable them to pay the Work-
men/ This was just before Pitt moved in as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The work was apparently still in progress when Pitt took up his
residence, which may explain Pitt's use of the words 'settled . . . in. part
of my vast, awkward house* in a letter to his mother. It seems not to have
been satisfactorily completed by the time Portland moved in, for on
I5th April 1783, a very few weeks before his first big dinner, it is
recorded: 'Mr. Couse reported that having been directed to go over the
House in Downing Street he had caused an Estimate to be made for
sundry Works desired to be done by the Dutchess of Portland.' But it
was not until after the turtle-feast in August that the work was begun.
On the 8th August 'Sir William Chambers Recd a Letter from Mr.
Beirne, private Sec*? to the Duke of Portland, rektive to Painting, &c,
the House in Downing Street'* ; and later that month it was announced
in the Press that 'The Duke of Portland is removed to Burlington
House, where his Grace will reside while his house in Downing Street
is repairing/ Portland never returned, for before the work was com-
pleted he fell from power.

In addition to the repairs required, elaborate alterations were under-
taken - the Cabinet room, for example, was extended. This was
achieved by removing the east wall and rebuilding it several feet inside
the adjoining secretaries' room, which thus became smaller and its

* Public Record Office, Works 4/16.
117

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

fireplace was thrown out of centre. At the new entrance to the Cabinet
room a screen of coupled Corinthian columns (four in all) was erected.
They supported a moulded entablature, which is continued round the
room. Similarly the large drawing-room on the floor above - the
corner room adjoining Kent's Treasury and looking out on to the Horse
Guards Parade - was enlarged by the removal of the wall on the south
side and its replacement by a screen of two Ionic columns. At the same
time the pediment on the Horse Guards front was removed* and a plain
parapet was erected. The architect to whom this work was entrusted,
Robert Taylor, a man in his sixties with wide experience, was knighted
on its completion.

Pitt's comments on No. 10 are quoted in Cleland's Memoirs o/Pztf.180
On xyth June 1783, that is shortly after moving out for Portland, he
referred to 'the expense of repairing the house in Downing Street, in
which he had the honour to be lodged for a few months. The repairs of
that house only, had, he said, but a year or two before he came into
office, cost the public io,ooo/. and upwards; and for the seven years
preceding that repair, the annual expenses had been little less than
500/. The alterations that had cost io,ooo/. he stated to consist of a new
kitchen and offices, extremely convenient, with several comfortable
lodging-rooms; and he observed, that a great part of the cost, he had
understood, was occasioned by the foundations of the house proving
bad.' Four days kter, on 2ist June, the Morning Herald commented:

* £500 p.a. preceding the Great Repair, and £11,000 the Great Repair
itself! So much has this extraordinary edifice cost the country - for
one moiety of which sum a much better dwelling might have been
purchased.' The sums mentioned were very large indeed for those days
when money had many times its present value. Pitt undoubtedly
liked staying there: he was there in all for twenty years; Walpole, who
had built the house towards the end of his premiership, was there for
less than seven.

After leaving it in April 1783 Pitt, as the Leader of the Opposition,
busied himself mainly with Parliamentary reform, which his father,
facing the realities of Britain's industrial expansion, had foreseen was
inevitable. Of the country's eight million inhabitants only 160,000 had

* The pediment was replaced in 1937.

118

THE YOUNGER PITT

the right to vote. Pitt's father had represented the rotten borough of
Old Sarum, which consisted only of ruins, yet returned two Members,
and Pitt had himself got into Parliament, on the nomination of one of
the ruling families, for a pocket borough. With frankness and courage
he had earlier denounced this system, asking if it was true representation
to enter the House 'under the control of the Treasury or at the bidding
of some great Lord or Commoner, the owner of the soil?' As Leader of
the Opposition he returned to the attack. He proposed the abolition of
these corrupt boroughs and suggested that in their place there should be
added a hundred county members, and that London should be given a
much fuller representation - reforms that would have anticipated in
some measure those that were to be fought for so acrimoniously and so
violently fifty years later. But the House rejected the plan by a majority
of almost two to one, since it would have affected the seats of hundreds
of Members. Astonishingly both Fox and Burke, though in principle
dedicated to the cause of reform, voted with North against the motion.*
The following month Pitt introduced another Bill. Having already
attacked *the corrupt influence of the Crown', he now demanded the
reduction of sinecures and pensions to a total not exceeding £90,000 a
year. This was aimed at ending the King's control of Parliament. It was
agreed to. During the recess, Pitt went to Paris on a brief visit. As the
son of Chatham he was lionized. Among others he met was Talleyrand,
a meeting Talleyrand often recalled. It was the only time Pitt left
England. He was accompanied by William Wilberforce, who later
worked for the abolition of the slave trade: they were together at
Cambridge, met again as Members of Parliament and remained lifelong
friends - one of the very few Pitt admitted into his circle of intimacy.

When Portland's Government fell in December Pitt, now twenty-
four, was asked again by the King to form a Government. He accepted
this time andreturned to No. 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister. *Thc
Boy', as he was called, took on also the Office of Chancellor of the
Exchequer. When the House of Commons learned of his appointment
as Chief Minister there was an outburst of loud and prolonged laughter.
But Pitt was unaffected by their derision. Fox prophesied that 'The
Boy' could not survive as Prime Minister for a month. In fact he

* Burke said: 'I look with filial reverence on the Constitution of my Country.'

IIP

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

retained that office for nearly eighteen years and after a brief breaK
returned to it for a further two years.

At the outset, however, he was faced with insurmountable difficulties.
Few ware prepared to serve in his Government. His cousin the second
Earl Temple declined his offer of appointment as a Secretary of
State. Pitt was thus forced to take the best of those who were ready to
join.

On the evening of 23rd December 1783, when the appointments
were finally made, a swarm of Members were seen hurrying along
Downing Street through the bleak, wintry weather. They made their
way into No. 10 in small groups. Of Pitt's first Cabinet of seven all
except himself were members of the House of Lords. In those days, and
indeed until the present century, every new Minister had to seek re-
election and it was to avoid this, with the risk of their defeat at the polls,
that Pitt, like others before him, preferred to appoint peers.

He had no illusions about the difficulties ahead. Unsupported in the
Commons by any of his Cabinet, he faced on the benches opposite the
most powerful debaters of the day - North and Fox, Burke and Sheri-
dan. Also ranged against him was North's formidable following. The
heart of any seasoned Prime Minister might well have been daunted by
such adverse odds, but Pitt faced them with his unquenchable confi-
dence and with an air of contempt. They opposed him at every turn.
Division after division brought defeat. He was defeated sixteen times in
twelve weeks, overwhelmingly defeated, but he remained calm and
resolute.

Outside the House support for him was assured. The people soonmade
it quite dear that they were wholeheartedly behind their young Prime
Minister. They gathered round and cheered him in the streets. When
he went to the City of London to receive the Freedom, all the shops
along the Strand and Fleet Street were illuminated in his honour. This
had its effect on the House, for the majority against him soon began to
dwindle. The followers of both Fox and North, never happy about
their alliance, showed signs of mutiny. Pitt's nights, passed in solitude in
his bedroom at No. 10, were no longer anxious. He decided to dissolve
Parliament and on 24th March 1784 sought the verdict of the country.
The result justified his expectations. No fewer than 160 of North's and
Fox's supporters were defeated. Pitt was now secure.

120

THE YOUNGER PITT

He was resolved to make England great again, as it was when his
father was at the helm. It would take time, he realized, and to achieve
it he needed stability and continuity in office. His immediate attention
was directed to the economic recovery of the country. The protracted
war with the American colonists and its vast extension by three Euro-
pean enemies had played havoc with the nation's budget. Only two
years had elapsed since its termination, while five years ahead (though
it could not be foreseen) lay the French Revolution, destined to involve
Britain in an even more prolonged and devastating war. Pitt used these
years well. The financial rehabilitation of England was accomplished
with remarkable speed. Never before, not even in Walpole's long years
of uninterrupted peace, had the country known such immense pros-
perity. The industrial revolution, accelerated by Crompton's invention
of the spinning 'mule' in 1779 and given a further fillip by Watts'
steam-engine, had an ever widening effect on the life of the people.
New towns, haphazardly built and with a deplorable disregard of the
welfare of the worker, had begun to spring up everywhere. The scene
was changing rapidly. Though in Westminster and Mayfair men still
went about in periwigs and buckled shoes and women dressed their
hair so loftily that they found it difficult to sit upright in their coaches
and sedan chairs, a profound change was soon to be imposed by the
French Revolution and the war that followed, a change from which
men's fashions at any rate have not yet recovered.

'The Boy', secure now with a majority in the House, was faced still
with the relentless hostility of Fox, not only in Parliament but outside
it. In his very first months as Prime Minister, while Pitt was driving
past Brooks's in St. James's Street, his carriage was attacked by a gang of
ruffians. Members of the club rushed out but only to egg on the rioters.
The doors of Pitt's carriage were smashed and it was with difficulty
that he escaped injury by taking refuge in White's. Unhesitatingly the
finger of accusation was pointed at Fox, who was said to have planned
the outrage in order to incapacitate the young Prime Minister. Fox, how-
ever, vehemently denied the charge. He had an alibi, he said. 'I was in bed
with Mrs. Armistead, who is ready to substantiate the fact on oath.'*

Fox had a powerful ally in the Prince of Wales, who maintained the

* Fox married her secretly some years later.
121

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

tradition of the Georges by not speaking to his father. Thus, in still
another reign, though in a far more embittered form now, was the
royal quarrel dragged into the political arena, George the Third
backing Pitt, the Prince ranging himself beside Fox. It was, however,
not so much politics as a community of taste and outlook that drew
Fox and the young Prince together. Both found wine, women and the
gaming tables irresistible. Both were burdened heavily with debt and
often the worse for liquor. Fox, moreover, had rendered the Prince an
inestimable service by relieving him of his mistress, Mrs. Mary Robin-
son, the beautiful but extravagant actress famed for her rendering of
the role of Perdita in The Winter's Tale. The liaison had begun when
the Prince was sixteen and she some years older. In time he tired of her
and, having transferred his affections to Mrs. Fitzherbert, was anxious
to have his adolescent liability taken off his hands. In May 1783 Fox,
using his authority as Secretary of State in the Coalition Government
formed with North, urged Parliament to give the Prince the enormous
income of ^100,000 a year. Even North was staggered. It was cut
down-, on the King's insistence, to half that sum, and in addition a cash
payment of ^60,000 was made from the Civil List.

Fox was completely discredited. His unscrupulous exercise of bias, his
insincerity and appetite for office, which had led to principles being
thrown into the discard, utterly disgusted the country and especially
the powerful men in the City. It rebounded tremendously to Pitt's
advantage.

One of Pitt's earlier dilemmas arose on the return of Warren
Hastings from India in the spring of 1785. Hastings had served in that
country for thirty years and on Clive's recommendation had been
appointed the first Governor-General. Though in temperament as well
as appearance he and Clive were quite dissimilar, this slight, gentle,
dapper intellectual, with deep reflective eyes, had like Clive made
enemies of those he had found it necessary to reprimand or dismiss, and,
returning home ahead of him, they had without scruple launched the
wildest and vilest accusations against him. Of these enemies his fellow
councillor in Calcutta, Sir Philip Francis, suspected of being the author
of the 'Jimius' letters, was the most prominent, numbering among his
closer friends Burke and, through Burke, Fox and Sheridan. Pitt,
conscious of their determination to impeach Hastings, was reluctant to

122

THE YOUNGER PITT

receive him with any mark of favour lest he should be charged with
shielding a criminal; he was careful at the same time not to side with the
critics, lest he should appear to be abandoning to the wolves a public
servant who had undoubtedly rendered great service during his term of
office. Declaring that he was neither the friend nor the foe of Hastings,
Pitt decided to wait, and by his inactivity left himself open to the charge
of weakness if not cowardice. Burke insisted on an impeachment. Pitt,
preoccupied by developments in Europe which seemed likely to involve
the country in war, nevertheless gave a great deal of his time to studying
the papers on the case and to discussing them with Wilberforce,
Dundas and others, often over breakfast at No. 10. His father had
backed Clive with pride and would undoubtedly have stood by
Hastings. But Pitt, still in his twenties and feeling his feet, was more
cautious. In the House he rebutted all the strictures levelled against
Hastings, but to die surprise of all he suddenly swung the other way and
censured Hastings on one solitary count.

Warren Hastings' trial began in 1788 and went on for seven years.
In the end the Lords found him not guilty on all charges. But the cost
of the long trial brought financial ruin to Hastings, who was by no
means a rich man. His appeal to Pitt to meet his costs was rejected. The
East India Company, however, came to his rescue. They granted him
.£90,000 in cash and an adequate annuity. This was an unattractive and
unworthy episode in Pitt's long and distinguished tenure of the office of
Prime Minister.

Another crisis, involving this time the Prince of Wales, confronted
the Prime Minister in 1788 when the King, driving through Windsor
Park, suddenly stopped his carriage, alighted and shook hands with a
low-hanging bough of an oak tree, which he mistook for the King of
Prussia. On learning of this the Government decided that a Regency
would have to be set up. As the Prince of Wales was the obvious and
inescapable choice, the hopes of the Opposition rose high. Fox returned
hurriedly from Italy. Pitt's Government, it was generally felt, could no
longer survive. Sympathizers in the City, in expectation of Pitt's fall,
speedily subscribed the sum of ;£ 100,000 and offered it to him as a gift.
But, despite his great need of money, Pitt refused it. In the House,
though Fox fought vigorously, Pitt insisted on imposing restrictions to
prevent the Prince from granting pensions, conferring peerages, or

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disposing of Crown property. This withheld from him all power to
reward his friends. But before the Act could come into operation the
King unexpectedly recovered. The crisis passed, but the danger that the
malady would recur was ever present.

It was during these still peaceful years that Pitt, stirred by Wilber-
force's horrifying description of the traffic in slaves, promised his whole-
hearted support for its abolition. He was revolted by the conditions
during the transit of human cargo in ships from Africa to America -
huddled below decks, chained to each other, suffering constantly the
acutest agony, to which a great many succumbed. Some months later
in the autumn of 1788, Pitt personally introduced the motion in the
House. He described the trade as 'shocking to humanity, abominable to
be carried on by any country, and which reflected the greatest dis-
honour on the British Senate and on the British nation/ A Bill was
passed in the first instance to regulate the skve trade. In the following
May Pitt gave his full support to a further motion brought in by
Wilberforce for its total abolition and found himself in the same lobby
as Fox and Burke. But the slave merchants, with vested interests in
Parliament, were too powerful and too numerous, and the motion was
lost. Year after year it was raised in the House. In April 1792 a motion
for its gradual abolition was carried in the Commons but postponed
by the Lords. With the outbreak of the long and devastating war with
France shortly afterwards, no further action was taken for many years.
Similarly Pitt's endeavours to reform the electorate were baulked and
had to be deferred. He realized that he would have to move cautiously
if he was to accomplish what had to be done. Like Walpole, he found it
necessary to use both influence and patronage in order to secure the
support he required in Parliament. Fortunately he had the backing of
the King, who was grateful to Pitt for his deliverance from the bondage
he had suffered under the Coalition. Noticing that the Whig majority
in the Lords was no longer compliant, His Majesty expressed his
readiness to create more peers. The Upper House was small at the time.
The peers numbered in all only 240, of whom fifteen, being Roman
Catholics, were not allowed to sit. Pitt added 140 to their number. By
this means, by granting pkces and pensions, bishoprics, judgeships and
receiverships in excise or customs, he made both Houses pliable - and
was thus assured of die triumph of his policy.

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THE YOUNGER PITT

Despite his masterly handling of the finances of the nation, Pitt's
personal finances were completely beyond his control. He lived
extravagantly. The bills kept mounting and he was dunned ceaselessly
for payment. Tradesmen waited on the doorstep of No. 10 to waylay
him as he went in and out. Unmarried, he invited his sister, Lady
Harriet Pitt, to come and live at No. 10 and take charge of the house-
hold and the bills. For two years, until her marriage in 1785, she kept
the tradesmen at bay and his affairs in reasonable order. After she left
chaos descended again.*

His kinsman Lord Rosebery, himself Prime Minister more than a
century kter, says of Pitt: 'Throughout his life, from the cradle to the
grave, he may be said to have known no wider existence' than the
House of Commons provided. It was his mistress, his dice-box, his
game preserve; it was his ambition, his library, his creed.' Yet one gets
glimpses of his playful ease with children. One evening two Cabinet
Ministers, arriving at No. 10 for an interview, found the Prime Minister
on all fours on the floor, his face blackened with burnt cork, and child-
ren romping around him.f Pitt asked the Ministers to wait while he
went and washed his face. When he returned the children noticed an
astonishing change in his bearing. His manner became lofty, his talk
formal. After the Ministers left he blackened his face again and rejoined
the children.

Though solitary by choice and detached in bearing, Pitt did go in for
entertaining, and he did so on a reckless scale with no thought what-
soever of cost. His dinner parties at No. 10 Downing Street were wildly
lavish. The bills he ignored. Sir Nathaniel Wraxall records: 'It was
commonly asserted that the Collectors of Taxes found more difficulty
in levying them from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, than from
almost any other Inhabitant of Westminster. Even Tradesmen's Bills,
particularly those of Coachmakers, were said to be frequently paid,
not in Money, but by ordering new Articles, and thus augmenting
the Pressure of the Evil itself.'

To escape the stress of office (for his debts seemed to cause him scarcely

* Lord North, who lived at No. 10 for fifteen years, was also in great financial difficulties,
but it was never as acute as this - partly because he was not so extravagant, largely because
he worried, whereas Pitt didn't.

f One of these was the daughter of his sister Harriet, who had died a year after her
marriage to Edward Eliot.

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any uneasiness) Pitt, a few months after becoming Prime Minister, took
the lease of a house on Putney Heath, which had for him the advantage
of being near Wilberforce's house at Wimbledon. A year later, how-
ever, he decided to move. He bought a site at Holwood Hill, near
Bromley, about ten miles from Downing Street and at that time in the
heart of the country. He described it as 'a most beautiful spot, wanting
nothing but a house fit to live in*. Its building imposed a further severe
strain upon his finances. Nevertheless it was here that he found such
relaxation and happiness as his temperament would allow.

The governing of the country he kept almost wholly in his own
hands. Not content with being Prime Minister as well as Chancellor of
the Exchequer, he also took on the chief duties of the Secretary of State
nominally responsible for foreign affairs. The arranging of all alliances
in Europe, the handling of all correspondence with Ambassadors, Kings
and Emperors, he always conducted himself. Thus in a Cabinet still
limited to approximately half a dozen members, Pitt undertook quite
half the work and subjected the rest to his own personal direction. The
other Ministers were in consequence no more than ciphers.

England's prestige when Pitt took control was at its lowest ebb
because of the disasters suffered in the American War of Independence.
Europe treated her with indifference if not contempt, a humiliating
decline from the high esteem to which Pitt's father had raised the
country less than a generation before. Pitt realized that no heed what-
soever would be paid to what England said or felt until England was
strong again, and it was to this that he gave his consistent attention.
Since it was on the sea that England relied both for her security and her
trade, Pitt made the reconstruction of the Navy his most urgent task.
Many of Britain's battleships at the end of the American war were
barely able to crawl home across the Atlantic. Some indeed were not
even able to do that, but foundered through the rottenness of their
hulls. 'There was not one ship', stated Admiral Byam Martin, 'in a
condition to be placed in the return as fit for service without repair.'
Nor were the naval dockyards in a position to undertake such work.
The inefficiency and waste were found by Sir Charles Middleton, die
Comptroller, to be utterly appalling. Pitt selected Admiral Howe to be
First Lord of the Admiralty. Howe during the American war had
command of the North American station, while his brother com-

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THE YOUNGER PITT

manded the British land forces. The Admiral had held this office before
with great credit and now, despite sharp differences with the Navy
Board, he not only redressed abuses but got more work and far longer
hours of work from the Admiralty dockyards than ever before, and
gave out further contracts to private yards for the building of still more
warships. In his Budgets Pitt allocated vast sums to meet these greatly
enhanced costs and by 1785, when he had been in office for less than
two years, he was greatly reassured to learn that ninety sail-of-the-line
and as many frigates were nearing completion.

The effect of this on foreign affairs was as Pitt had expected. He was
able at last to play his part in the adroit balancing of power in Europe,
with a particularly watchful eye on the shifting events in Belgium and
Holland which lay all too near the English shores. As always the dynastic
ambitions of European rulers were at work. The Emperor of Austria,
Joseph II, evolved an ingenious scheme for the exchange of Bavaria,
which he wanted, for Belgium, which was then under his control and
had brought him endless friction with France. Pitt foresaw that such
an exchaiige would be disadvantageous to Britain. He had already tried
to improve relations between England and France. He had arranged a
commercial treaty which provided favourable terms of trade and
granted the citizens of both countries free entry without passports. But
he was only too well aware of French designs on Belgium and of the
continuing French intrigues in Holland. Prussia, at the same time, was
strongly opposed to Austria acquiring Bavaria and thus dominating
southern Germany. Conducting the negotiations personally and in
secret, Pitt promptly formed an alliance with Prussia. Frederick the
Great had died recently and his successor, Frederick William of Prussia,
in September 1787 moved his troops to the Dutch frontier, as had been
arranged, while Pitt sent the British fleet off the Dutch coast. The
Prussians then marched into Holland and found whole companies of
French soldiers dressed in Dutch uniforms. The French, caught red-
handed, gave way. A triple alliance was then signed for mutual security
between Great Britain, Prussia and Holland. It was England's first
diplomatic success for a generation.

Pitt had begun to play the role his father had once played. The
tough, aggressive attitude Chatham had inherited from his grandfather,
the merchant interloper, which had made him stretch out and seize

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trade routes and trading stations for Britain, young Pitt adopted now.
Only in a measure was he successful, for by temperament and disposi-
tion he was more fitted for raising the nation to greatness by pursuing
a policy of peace.

Nevertheless for a time he maintained the aggressive role. After a
year, in 1789, there was trouble with Spain. The large island of Van-
couver, off the west coast of Canada and today an integral part of
Canada, was the bone of contention. The Spaniards claimed the whole
of the Pacific coast of America and Canada, as far north as Alaska,
which at that time was Russian, British ships were seized by Spain at
Nootka Sound, in Vancouver, an admirable natural harbour, and Pitt
instantly demanded, not only the return of the ships and full reparation,
but also a renunciation of Spain's fantastic claims. To support this
Parliament voted a million pounds for the further strengthening of the
British fleet. In all two and a quarter millions were spent in naval
preparations. Spain climbed down and Britain's mastery of the seas was
restored.

In his third thrust Pitt was not so successful. Catherine the Great of
Russia, with designs on Turkey, had seized the fortified port of Ocza-
koff, on the Black Sea. Encouraged by his two brinkmanship triumphs
and regarding Russia's action as a possible threat to British interests in
the Mediterranean, Pitt insisted that die Russians must withdraw. He
was given a substantial vote in the House, but within twenty-four
hours, aware that Catherine was not likely to be intimidated, Pitt
cancelled his instructions. This time it was he who climbed down, for
war was the last thing he wanted, since he realized that it would undo
all he had so far achieved; nor would the country be prepared, he felt,
to shed blood for an obscure, swampy port, of which no one had ever
heard. Not all in the Cabinet agreed with him on this. There were end-
less quarrels. Many were eager to force a showdown. Pitt's wise and
courageous decision led to the resignation of his Foreign Secretary Lord
Carmarthen, later the Duke of Leeds; and Pitt's personal reputation
suffered too, both abroad and at home. But he foresaw only too clearly
that his earlier rash attitude, had it led to war, would have wrecked the
entire financial edifice he had so patiently been erecting, and would have
postponed, possibly for years, the many schemes for reform he still
planned to put into operation.

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THE YOUNGER PITT

Even after the outbreak of the French Revolution, Pitt adhered
resolutely to his resolve to avoid war at almost all costs. No one could
have regarded the Revolution with greater detachment. In introducing
his Budget for 1790, a few months after the fall of the Bastille, Pitt spoke
with the greatest optimism of Britain's future. Even as late as 1792 he
said: 'Unquestionably there never was a time in the history of this
country, when, from the situation of Europe, we might more reason-
ably expect fifteen years of peace than at the present moment.'

War came within ten months.

129

CHAPTER 13
The Napoleonic War

BEHIND Pitt's detached attitude to what he called 'the present
convulsions in France', there lurked a certain sympathy with the aspira-
tions of the revolutionaries, which before long he went so far as to
express quite openly. It may be that he saw in the upheaval a weakening
of his country's implacable enemy. It can, however, be said with
certainty that he shared neither Fox's glowing conviction that 'it is the
greatest event that has ever happened in the world', nor that of Burke,
now completely estranged from Fox, who described the French as the
ablest architects of their own ruin. By the spring of 1790, still feeling
that Britain would in no way be involved, Pitt realized that 'the res-
toration of tranquillity' would be distant, but added that 'whenever her
system shall become restored, if it should prove freedom rightly under-
stood, freedom resulting from good order and good government,
France would stand forward as one of the most brilliant powers in
Europe', enjoying the kind of liberty which Englishmen venerated.

In the House, having triumphed in his second General Election,
Pitt's position was even more assured by the disarray of the Opposition.

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THE NAPOLEONIC WAR

The Whigs, led by Fox and once closely united, had been split by the
French Revolution into two irreconcilable factions. Fox and a handful
of others were wholeheartedly for the Revolution. They toured the
Radical clubs in the country and made inflammatory speeches in support
of the revolutionaries. Fox's exhortations were fanned by Tom Paine's
cheaply priced book Rights of Man, of which many hundred thousand
copies were sold. There was a continuous flow of deputations across the
Channel from this Foxite group. They were received by the French
National Convention with rapture and were fortified with the assur-
ance that England's own day of deliverance was near at hand, to
achieve which every possible assistance was offered.

Burke, on the other hand, was equally energetic in denouncing the
rebels. In speech and in pamphlet he attacked the Revolution with
fiercest passion. It was indeed in answer to his Reflections on the French
Revolution that Tom Paine published his Rights of Man. There were
clashes in the House between Burke and Fox. When Fox remarked
amid an uproar that there was surely no loss of friendship between
them, Burke shouted back angrily: 'Yes - yes - there is a loss of friends.
I know the price of my conduct. I have done my duty at the price of
my friend. Our friendship is at an end.' All who felt as strongly as
Burke, and he had many supporters, clamoured for war. But Pitt (at
whom Burke had sneered in his Reflections, crying 'The age of chivalry
is gone') kept calmly on his intermediate course, unswayed even by the
Bang's anger at what was happening in France.

When the Emperor Leopold of Austria, understandably deeply con-
cerned about his sister, the lovely and feckless Marie Antoinette, talked
of going to war and went so far as to sign a pact for this purpose with
the King of Prussia and the Elector of Saxony, Pitt refused to be drawn
in. He merely expressed his regret that the King of Prussia, as an ally of
Britain, should have joined in the pact. Burke, entirely on the side of
the Kings, talked to the fleeing aristocrats as they arrived in England in
boatloads, offered them encouragement and hope, and sent his son to
spur on those who had escaped over the frontier to Germany. Make
war, he urged, for he felt that unless the Revolution was ruthlessly
stamped out, its principles would endanger every State.

Europe's crowned heads, having assembled 80,000 men under the
Duke of Brunswick, began their march on France in August 1792. The

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Revolutionary army was routed. Panic spread and the panic brought in
a reign of terror in France. The mob in Paris broke into the Tufleries
and the Kong was moved to the Temple as a prisoner. A month later
there was a massacre of aristocrats in the jails.

In command of the Hanoverian troops serving under the Duke of
Brunswick was George the Third's son, Ernest Duke of Cumberland,
who was in his early twenties. Brunswick's initial success did not last.
At Jemappes the tide turned against him and the whole of the Nether-
lands lay open to the Revolutionaries. Flushed by their victory, the
French offered to send their troops to help people everywhere to rise
against their rulers. 'All Governments are our enemies/ declared the
President of the Convention, 'all peoples are our allies.' An immediate
attack on Holland was ordered.

This made it impossible for England to stand aloof any longer. It was
through Pitt's influence that Holland had refrained from joining the
coalition against France. His plan had been to confine the war so that
hostilities would end quickly. In a desperate endeavour to preserve
peace he was even prepared to recognize the French Republic. During
most of that dismal, rainy autumn, so great was Pitt's distraction that
he was unable to concentrate on anything. He was often away from No.
10 and wrote scarcely any letters. The moves made now by the French
forced his hand. He was not prepared to tolerate the presence of the
French fleet at Antwerp or to desert his Dutch allies, faced as they were
by French aggression. One final bid for peace was made by him in
December 1792. He offered to help Austria acquire Bavaria if Austria
made peace with France. He also informed France that he would stand
aside so long as Holland was not invaded.

In January 1793 news reached England of the execution of Louis the
Sixteenth; Marie Antoinette was left to linger at the Conciergerie for a
further nine months. A shudder of horror swept the country. All the
theatres were closed and the nation went into mourning. George the
Third was deeply moved and the crowds showed their sympathy by
gathering round his carriage and shouting for an immediate declaration
of war. But Pitt even now refused to act. The French, however, attri-
buting his forbearance to fear, declared war on England on ist February

1793-
Fortunately Britain's Navy, so recently strengthened, was powerful.

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THE NAPOLEONIC WAR

But her army had been sadly neglected. In his efforts to keep his Budgets
balanced, Pitt had been reducing the land forces and had lopped off not
long before a further 17,000 men. He had felt it would be enough for
Britain to rely upon her Navy and to leave the campaigns on land
to the immense armies of her Continental allies. He was to find that
these allies could not be relied upon to serve any but their own interests.

At home, as an immediate precaution in view of the mischief being
stirred up by Fox and his followers, Pitt brought in a series of stern
measures. His Aliens Act imposed a close watch on the activities of all
foreigners. He suspended Habeas Corpus. A special proclamation was
issued against all seditious publications, and with the sales of Tom
Paine's book still soaring, a prosecution of Paine was ordered. Many
were in sympathy with Paine and substituted for the National Anthem
'God Save the Rights of Man' at public functions. At a meeting in
Surrey, called especially to hear this proclamation, Paine suddenly
appeared and began distributing copies of his book. He appeared also
at a meeting in London, called by the Friends of Liberty, but was
advised by the poet William Blake: 'You must not go home, or you
are a dead man/ His friends hurried him to Dover and put him on a
pacquet for France, where on his arrival the jubilant Revolutionaries
elected him to the Convention.

Pitt received a great accession of strength by the coming over to his
side of the Old Whigs, led by the Duke of Portland. His friend Wilber-
force, however, took a pacifist line and for a time the two were
estranged. Though opposed to war, Pitt was far from dejected. He
entered the conflict with the firm conviction that it would prove of
short duration. France, he knew, was bankrupt and its affairs in appal-
ling disorder. He proved, however, to be wrong. The war lasted for
eight years and the Peace of Amiens in 1802 provided only a brief
respite, after which the war was resumed and went on for a further
fourteen years.

In those first eight years he was faced with overwhelming difficulties.
Not only were his allies unreliable, but neither they nor the British
produced a single general of any distinction, until, much kter, General
Suvarov took the field at the head of the Russian armies, whereas the
French had Napoleon Bonaparte, an outstanding general of that or any
other age. At sea, however, the British fleet, commanded by men of

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great brilliance, gained victory after victory. Howe, Jervis and Hood
were joined before long by young Horatio Nelson, who in 1798, after
winning the Battle of the Nile, bottled up Napoleon and his army in
Egypt. These successes still further extended Britain's already vast
Enipire. The remaining colonies of France, as well as the Dutch
settlements at the Cape of Good Hope, in Ceylon and elsewhere, were
seized once Holland came under French control. But these triumphs
were not without their shadows. There was the constant fear of inva-
sion and Britain had to see to her coastal defences. Small parties of
French troops did manage to land at remote, isolated coves in England
and in Ireland, but they were soon ejected and many prisoners were
taken. There was also an unfortunate series of Naval mutinies - at
Portsmouth, at Sheerness, and at the Cape of Good Hope.

Pitt's greatest anxiety during these trying and strenuous years was
the raising of money to carry on the war. He had to find vast sums to
pay out in subsidies to the Prussians and the Austrians for the mainten-
ance of their armies in the field. The demands of Britain's Navy were
also great, and Pitt realized that unless trade was sustained his task would
be wellnigh impossible. To begin with a great part of the money was
raised by loans. This he supplemented by appealing for voluntary
contributions, and, despite his own pressing debts and the demands
made on his purse by his mother and his elder brother, Lord Chatham,
he himself subscribed £2,000. At that moment the bailiffs were actually
on their way to seize his furniture at No. 10 Downing Street. Friends
tried to keep him solvent. The King considerately appointed him
Warden of the Cinque Ports, which provided him with an income of
£3,000 a year, but Pitt promptly gave away £1,000 of this to launch
the Dover Volunteer Corps, one of the first to be formed in the country.
It was found later that his own extravagance was not alone responsible
for his insolvency. He was swindled systematically by tradesmen (the
bill from his hatter alone for just the one year 1793 was for £600) and
also by his household staff at Downing Street, where his expenses were
at times higher when he was away than when he was in residence.

In addition to loans and voluntary contributions, it became inescap-
able as the war dragged on that taxes, which he had been trying to keep
down, should be raised. It was now that income tax was introduced in
England for the first time. Although the levy was small, a mere two-

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THE NAPOLEONIC WAft

pence in the pound on incomes of £60 to ^65 (incomes below £60
were exempt) and scaled up to two shillings in the pound on incomes of
£200 a year or more, it caused an uproar. The ruin of the country was
predicted. Pitt was booed and jeered at in the streets. His carriage had
to be guarded by a squadron of horse. But he refused to give way, and
trade, far from suffering, improved despite this.

Among the angriest critics of income tax in the House of Commons
were Sheridan and George Tierney. The latter, an irritable and ex-
tremely prickly Irishman, had been attacking Pitt persistently on a wide
range of issues. In a debate on the activities of the pressgang his criti-
cism of Pitt drew a terse rejoinder from the Prime Minister on Tierney' s
repeated attempts at obstructing the work of national defence. Pitt's
rebuke was sharp. The strain of the war had begun to tell on his nerves
and it had been noticed for some time that he was becoming irritable.
His manner at Cabinet meetings had led to angry quarrels. Protesting
in the House against Pitt's rebuke, Tierney demanded an immediate
apology. But this Pitt firmly refused to give. The moment the House
rose Tierney sent the Prime Minister a challenge to a duel. Without
hesitation Pitt accepted it.

On the following Sunday, 26th May 1798, Pitt, having made his
will, left No. 10 Downing Street early in the afternoon and walked
down to St. James's Park. From Birdcage Walk he climbed the steps to
Queen Street and got into a chaise for Wimbledon Common. Pitt,
Tierney and their seconds met on Putney Heath at three that afternoon.
The Speaker of the House of Commons, Dr. Addington, who had
tried repeatedly to prevent the duel, rode to the scene on horseback,
but drew up before he reached it and climbed a small hill from which
to observe the outcome. He dismounted by a gibbet on which a felon
had recently been hanged.

He saw the seconds arguing with the contestants. They were trying
to persuade both Pitt and Tierney to abandon the project, but neither
would agree to do so. The pistols were then handed to them. The
twelve paces were measured. Both fired, but the shots went wide. The
seconds tried once again to dissuade them, but without avail. A second
pair of pistols were then handed out and again Pitt and Tierney faced
each other. Pitt was seen to fire his into the air and Tierney missed for
a second time. Urged now to regard their honour as having been fully

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satisfied, they agreed at last to shake hands. Addington then came down
and joined the group. 'You must dine with me,' he said to Pitt and the
two returned to London together.

For a dozen years, ever since the marriage of his sister Harriet to his
friend Edward Eliot, Pitt had been living alone at No. 10. Harriet's
daughter often came round to see him and he enjoyed the gay diversion
of spending a little time with her and other children. But all knew that
his private life was lonely and empty. At weekends when he was at
Holwood he often saw Lord Auckland, who was his neighbour there
and Postmaster-General in his Government. Auckland's daughter,
Eleanor Eden, he had known since her childhood. She was twenty now,
very lovely and vivacious. She had for the Prime Minister a deep ad-
miration and affection which made her delight in his company, and in
his turn Pitt, though at thirty-eight almost twice her age, was attracted
by her gentleness and her striking beauty. Before long it became obvi-
ous that they were both very much in love. That they would marry
was never doubted. But Pitt, after many weeks of anguished reflection,
felt that it would not be fair, heavily burdened as he was by debt, which
already amounted to .£30,000, to ask her to share his problems and
his plight. Forced by a fresh pressure upon his purse to take out a second
mortgage of £7,000 on Holwood, he decided that he could no longer
leave the girl's expectations in doubt. So early in the year 1797, the
year before his duel, he sent Lord Auckland a 'most private' letter
explaining the position. He stated that 'whoever may have the good
fortune to be united to her is destined to more than his share of human
happiness*, but his own 'obstacles' were decisive and insurmountable.58
Auckland was deeply distressed on reading it. He called to see Pitt
and offered to help in every way he could, even financially. But Pitt
did not feel it would be right to allow himself to be persuaded. He was
resolute, and in fact he never married. Later Eleanor accepted a proposal
from Lord Hobart and, on his succeeding his father, became the Coun-
tess of Buckinghamshire. Pitt gave her husband a place in his Govern-
ment and they were both frequent visitors at No. 10. But Auckland
never fully forgave Pitt.

Pitt strove ceaselessly to bring the war to an end, provided, of course,
this could be achieved with honour. Repeatedly, and sometimes at
intervals of only a few months, he tried to open negotiations with the

THE NAPOLEONIC WAR

French, but again and again he was rebuffed. So it dragged on. As
each coalition of European powers collapsed, Pitt by offering increased
bribes of money, formed still another coalition. At times Britain found
herself alone, without a single ally, ready to negotiate, but never to
surrender.

In his endeavours for peace Pitt was supported wholeheartedly by the
new Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, George Canning, a brilliant
young man of only twenty-seven, who was one day himself to move
into No. 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister. The Foreign Secretary
was Pitt's cousin, Lord Grenville, son of the 'Gentle Shepherd5 George
Grenville, who as Prime Minister had been responsible for imposing
the Stamp Act on America. Lord Grenville did not support Pitt's view,
or his own Under-Secretary's. Like the King, he felt there should be no
compromise until the Bourbon heir was restored to the French throne.
What was at stake for Britain, Pitt was only too well aware. Challenged
in the House by Tierney to state in one sentence 'without ifs and buts'
the object of the war and why it was being pursued, Pitt replied: 'I
know not whether I can do it in one sentence, but in one word I can
tell him that it is security; security against a danger the greatest that
ever threatened the world; . . . against a danger that has been resisted
by all the nations of Europe, and resisted by none with so much
success as by this nation, because by none has it been resisted so uni-
formly and with so much energy.'

In 1798 his difficulties were accentuated by the outbreak of a rebellion
in Ireland. A French invasion was timed to coincide with it, but the
Irish were routed at Vinegar Hill before the French forces could land.
The Irish problem had for centuries bedevilled the life of every
Government in England. Attempts to solve it has been made by Queen
Elizabeth, by Cromwell and by William the Third, but the brutal
methods adopted - the dispatch of armies, the sacking of towns, the
burning of villages and the destruction of crops to starve the people into
submission - brought quiescence for a time, but not pacification. After
an interval rioting, arson and murder broke out anew and was followed
by a new cycle of coercion. When Ulster was subdued after the flight
of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnd in the reign of James the First,
from whom, because of his Catholic mother Mary Queen of Scots, the
Irish had expected so much, the six northern counties were parcelled

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out among English and Scottish colonists, with only small sections of
the least productive land reserved for the Irish. The site of the sacked
town of Derry was adopted by London and renamed Londonderry.
The relationship with the Irish was one of conquerors and conquered
and it bred bitter resentment which no clemency in the succeeding years
could eradicate. The Irish Catholic gentry were severely penalized;
their land was taken over by the new Protestant aristocracy who num-
bered less than a sixth of the total population: among them were a few
Catholic proselytes who had agreed to conform only to preserve their
property. There was a continuous exodus. Men left to enlist in foreign
armies, serving Spain or France or the Holy Roman Empire. Thousands
went to settle in the West Indies and in America. Ireland's population,
once equal to half that of England, dwindled to little more than three
million. The country was wholly agricultural and when the crops,
largely potatoes, failed there was famine and a heavy death roll through
starvation. The flourishing wool industry had been deliberately
destroyed, in fact all industrial enterprises were banned to prevent
competition with England's manufacturers and traders. The vast
numbers of unemployed took to smuggling, which came to be a major
activity in the country; its furtive practise developed criminal instincts
which found a wider outlet in every political upheaval. There was a
Parliament, with both a House of Commons and a House of Lords, but
only Protestant freeholders were permitted to vote. Of the 300 M.P.s
only fifty-two were really elected. The remaining scats were owned by
Whig potentates or were obtained for their nominees by bribery.

The large numbers of Irish who had migrated to America took with
them an undying hatred of England and eagerly aided the colonists in
their War of Independence. Many returned later to Ireland resolved
on winning a similar freedom for their country by the use of similar
tactics. In 1793, a few weeks after Prance declared war, Pitt granted
Irish Roman Catholics a substantial measure of relief. Though still
debarred from sitting in Parliament, they were given the right to vote,
to bear arms, to hold commissions in the Army below die rank of
Major-General, to serve in grand juries, to become members of cor-
porations and to receive university degrees - all these had been denied
them before. Pitt began to feel that the best solution would be to
unite the two countries on the lines that England and Scotland were

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THE NAPOLEONIC WAR

united a hundred years before. Ireland would thus, like Scotland, be
given the right to send Members to the British Parliament in London.
This union was effected on ist January 1801.

Pitt wanted at the same time to remove all the civil disabilities
imposed on Roman Catholics so that they should in future enjoy the
same rights as Protestants. He wanted also to help the Roman Catholic
clergy. The Established Church in Ireland was Protestant and the
Catholic peasantry had to pay taxes for its support, while no aid what-
soever was given to the Catholic church, which in fact served the vast
majority of the population. To such measures there was considerable
opposition in the Cabinet. Of the dozen Ministers who now sat round
the table at No. 10, no fewer than a third - the Lord Chancellor Lord
Loughborough, the Duke of Portland, Lord Liverpool and Lord
Westmorland - were vigorously opposed to the granting of these
further concessions. There were heated arguments and the Lord
Chancellor was indiscreet enough to speak of Pitt's plan to the King,
who declared hotly: 'I shall reckon any man my personal enemy who
proposes any such measure.' His Majesty's attitude, like that of the four
rebellious Ministers, was based on the strong anti-Catholic feeling in
England at that time. There was a great fear that if the Catholics were
granted equal rights Ireland would be lost just as America had been
lost. Many were convinced that the security of Britain was entirely
dependent on keeping Ireland and its ports under British control.

When Pitt informed the King that he proposed to substitute a
political oath for the existing sacramental test so that Catholics should
be able to take their seats in the House of Commons in London, the
King became furious. In his Coronation oath, he said, he had sworn
to uphold the Protestant faith and not to accept the 'superstitious and
idolatrous . . . sacrifice of the Mass.' He refused to yield. Pressed
further, His Majesty told Pitt never to mention the subject again.
Thereupon Pitt handed in his resignation.

139

CHAPTER 14

The Doctor Moves in . . *

ANTICIPATING that Pitt would be intractable, die King had
been secretly trying for some days to sound Dr. Addington, the
Speaker of the House of Commons, to see if he would take on the
office of Prime Minister. Despite his personal affection for Pitt, His
Majesty was tired of his 'authoritative manner* and had indeed been
trying to find a successor since August 1799, nearly eighteen months
before. His earlier efforts to induce Lord Malmesbury* and William
Windhamt to accept the office failed through their loyalty to Pitt.

Addington, though even more closely attached to Pitt, for his father
had been Chatham's doctor and the two sons had known each other

* Formerly Sir James Harris. Thirteen years older than Pitt, he had been at Oxford with
Fox. Was Ambassador at St. Petersburg and later at The Hague, where he helped to
further Pitt's policy. His wealth gave him a prominent place in society, where his hand-
some presence and lively conversation won him wide popularity,
f A Whig Member of Parliament since 1784, one ot the very few to be elected as a
supporter of the Fox-North Coalition. He went over to Pitt after the outbreak of the
French Revolution, was made Secretary at War by Pitt in 1794 and given a seat in the
Cabinet.

I4O

THE DOCTOR MOVES IN ...

since childhood, nevertheless informed the King of his readiness to
serve. He did not, however, find it easy to form a Cabinet and His
Majesty had to ask Pitt if he would be prepared to carry on until
Addington was ready. Placing the needs of the country above any
personal feeling, Pitt agreed at once. He even went so far as to plead
with his recent colleagues in the Cabinet and his friends to join the
new administration. Most of them, including Lord Grenville, Wind-
ham, Cornwallis and Castlereagh refused, but Pitt was able to induce
his brother Chatham, as well as Lord Hawkesbury (later the Earl of
Liverpool) and the Duke of Portland, who had opposed him on the
Catholic question, to support Addington.

In February 1801, with the new Prime Minister not yet ready to
take over, Pitt introduced the Budget. The King meanwhile had begun
again to show signs of acute distress and anxiety. He assembled his
family and read his Coronation oath out to them, saying that if he
broke it by agreeing to any relaxation of the restrictions on Catholics,
he would be compelled to abdicate and let the Crown pass to another.
Shortly afterwards the King's madness returned. Pitt was on the point
of setting up the Regency and of imposing the same restraints on the
Prince of Wales as he had planned in 1789, when the King showed
signs of recovering. From his sick bed, His Majesty sent a message to
Pitt, blaming him for the return of his malady. Touched by this and
in order to assist his recovery, Pitt assured the King that he would not
again raise the question of Catholic emancipation during the King's
lifetime: to this assurance he remained tied for the rest of his life.

When at last Addington's Cabinet was complete - it consisted chiefly
of men who, as Macaulay states, could hardly be considered even
second-rate - and the news got out that Pitt was no longer Prime
Minister, it struck the country like a thunderclap. There was wide-
spread consternation. The general feeling may best be expressed in the
words of Lord Minto,* at that time Britain's Ambassador in Vienna:
'I have long looked on him as the Atlas of our reeling globe.' Yet to
Pitt no alternative to his resignation seemed possible. To have put it to
a vote in Parliament, or worse still to have appealed to the country,

* Formerly Sir Gilbert Elliot. Educated in Paris where he became an intimate friend of
Mirabeau. Entered Parliament in 1776 as an independent Whig and later became an
ally of Burke. Was envoy-extraordinary to Vienna from 1799 to 1801.

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

seemed to him a dangerous procedure in time of war, since it would
doubtless have set a large section of the people against the King.

Pitt vacated No. 10 for Addington, who moved in almost at once.
They were almost of an age, Addington at forty-four being two years
Pitt's senior. It was through Pitt that Addington, who had been trained
for the kw, first came into politics, and through Pitt's influence that
he was elected Speaker. He was not entitled to the prefix of 'Doctor* :
it was first used in derision and it stuck. A tall, heavily built man, he
was mild and conciliatory in manner, and not particularly prepos-
sessing. He succeeded Pitt now as First Lord of the Treasury and
Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it soon became obvious that he was
not able to undertake either of these tasks. A mere plodder, most of
his political life had been devoted to working on committees. As a
debater he was a complete failure. His only asset was that he had the
confidence and support of the King, due to his father having also been
the King's doctor. Thus it was to his parent that he owed his astonish-
ing and quite unmerited rise to the chief office of State.

He knew No. 10 Downing Street well of course, for he had fre-
quently been Pitt's guest there. It is recorded of an occasion there
when Addington was with a small party which included Grenville and
Burke, that Pitt, speaking of the French Revolution, declared that
England would not be much affected by it, but would 'go on as we are
until the day of judgement/ Burke retorted: 'Very likely, sir. It is the
day of no judgement that I am afraid of.'68

Addington's position was insecure throughout the two and a half
years he was Prime Minister. Pitt's continued support of him, both in
the House and out of it, especially on financial matters where the need
was greatest, led eventually to a breach with Grenville and Canning,
both of whom were vehemently hostile to Addington. Their attacks
on him often became attacks on Pitt too. Canning accused Pitt of
'deserting' and contrasted the two men in the memorable jingle:
'Pitt is to Addington as London is to Paddington'. Fox described the
substitution of Addington as no more than a juggle', implying that
Pitt was still ruling from behind the scenes, while others, like Malmes-
bury and Auckland, called it a strategic prelude to a triumphant return
by Pitt, which in fact it proved to be, though there is no evidence to
support the view that Pitt had any such design in mind when he

142

THE DOCTOR MOVES IN ...

resigned. His official statement in the House on 25th March 1801 dealt
with his resignation in calm and measured terms, but it was soon
apparent to his friends that he was extremely sorry to go, 'Tliere were
painful workings in his mind, plainly discernible; most of the time
tears in his eyes, and much agitated,' wrote George Rose, a Member of
Parliament, a Secretary of the Treasury and one of the few in Pitt's
intimate circle.

Addington lost no time in securing peace with France. This was, of
course, what Pitt himself had been trying to achieve all along. Adding-
ton was greatly helped by the dramatic change that had just taken
place in France. Napoleon, whom Pitt described as 'this last adventurer
in the lottery of revolutions', had seized power as First Consul and
needed a breathing space. At sea the war was still going triumphantly
for Britain, thanks to Nelson's victories at Copenhagen, in the Straits
of Gibraltar, and elsewhere. Yet in his negotiations for peace, Adding-
ton was prepared to accept terms that were far from advantageous.
The French were allowed to keep their vast conquests on the Conti-
nent, including both Belgium and Holland, the occupation of which
had led to the war. She was also given back all the colonies Britain had
seized. Spain and Holland benefited similarly, save for Trinidad and
certain Dutch posts in Ceylon, which Britain was permitted to retain.
Malta had to be given up and went back to the Knights of St. John,
Egypt was handed over to the Sultan of Turkey, and the Cape of Good
Hope to the Dutch.

Parliament was outraged. Grenville called the terms disgraceful and
ruinous. This view was shared by many. But Pitt urged their accept-
ance, although he described them as perhaps less than adequate. He
had himself, he said, been unsuccessfully striving for peace for at least
six years, but not until now was there a stable enough Government in
France with which they could come to any agreement. England was
weary of the long-drawn-out war, and die House of Commons even-
tually accepted the terms in March 1802.

Peace secured - 'a peace which everybody is glad of and nobody is
proud of, said a critic - Addington appealed at once to the country
and won a sweeping victory at the elections. It did not, however,
secure his position for long. The popular assumption that peace would
endure was shattered when Napoleon rcsxuned his aggressions and

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

sent forth his victorious armies to make still further conquests.They
overran Switzerland in October of that same year (1802), seized Elba
and, across the Atlantic, occupied Louisiana* and the two Floridas.
Under these conditions peace was clearly more dangerous than war,
and war with France broke out again in May 1803.

With this Addington's tenure of No. 10 Downing Street was doom-
ed. The country wanted Pitt back. The first sigti of this was given
on his entry into the House after a long absence, when he was
greeted with shouts of 'Pitt ! Pitt !' His speech, which lasted nearly two
hours, was one of the most memorable he ever made. 'Never, to be
sure, was there such an exhibition,' wrote young Thomas Creevey,
who entered Parliament for the first time in the preceding year and
kept a fascinating record of events in his journal.75 'He exhorted, or
rather commanded, Ministers to lose no time in establishing measures
of finance suited to our situation/ He roused the members to so high
a pitch of enthusiasm, that there were cries of 'Hear, Hear!* thrice
repeated, equivalent, it was said, to three cheers. Even Fox, Pitt's
bitterest and his worthiest foe, was moved to say that, had Demos-
thenes been present, he would have admitted, and even envied, the
oration.

But Pitt, still true to his loyalty, refrained from making any attack
on Addington. The hopes of his supporters which had risen high, were
acutely disappointed. They remonstrated with him, but Pitt refused to
yield. Canning commented dejectedly: 'P. has thrown all away. Us,
the Country, and Himself, in consideration of which last we must
forgive the other two.' In his later speeches Pitt confined himself to
exhortation, to indicating the lines along which action should be taken,
such as the erection of field-works to cover London in case of invasion,
the strengthening of the Navy, the provision of a coast flotilla, and
the raising of a general levy for defence - for Napoleon had an army
of 100,000 men waiting at Boulogne and more than a thousand boats
to bring them across the Channel.

A like loyalty was not, however, shown in return by Addington.
His brother, John Hiley Addington, had obtained editorial privileges
from The Times and used 'often a column or more' of that newspaper

* It was taken over from Spain* A month later, iii order to raise money, Napoleon sold
Louisiana to the United States of America.

144

THE DOCTOR MOVES IN ...

for winning support for the Government. It is recorded in The History
of The Times*7 that 'in spite of the assistance Pitt rendered the Adminis-
tration by abstaining from giving or provoking overt opposition, the
tone of these articles was at first unfriendly to him, then strongly
critical, and at last personally offensive.' George Rose described one
of the articles as 'detestable in all its parts.'

After the resumption of war Addington realized that it was no
longer possible to carry on without Pitt. Repeated efforts were made to
bring Pitt into his Government. He even suggested that the two should
serve as Secretaries of State under another Prime Minister, but Pitt
declined. By now the two friends no longer visited each other and in
the rare letters they exchanged the tone was entirely formal, begin-
ning always with 'Dear Sir'. In January 1804 Grenville, who had
meanwhile entered into an alliance with Fox, urged Pitt to join them
against Addington's 'manifestly incapable' administration. Though
only too well aware of the feebleness of the Government, which
Creevey described as 'such pitiful, squirting politicians as this accursed
Apothecary and his family and friends', Pitt still held aloof. Some
weeks later, however, he revealed the only condition on which he
would be prepared to return. 'I do not see how, under any circum-
stances, I can creditably or usefully consent to take part in any Govern-
ment without being at the head of it/*

With this view large numbers of people, both in the House and
outside it, were in complete agreement. Canning, despite his anger on
Pitt's resignation, had already expressed this thought in verse:

And O ! if again the rude whirlwind should rise,
The dawning of peace should fresh darkness deform,

The regrets of the good and die fears of the wise
Shall return to the pilot that weathered the storm.

He took up the theme actively now and urged that 'the administra-
tion of the Government be placed in the hands of Mr Pitt/ The King's
son, the Duke of York, reinforced this, stating: 'Mr. Pitt must
come in ... it is impossible he should not; the public call for him; they
will force Mr. Addington to give way/ The King, on discovering what

* In a letter to his friend and former colleague Henry Dundas, later Viscount Melville.6
145

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

was afoot, became enraged and once more his mind showed signs of
becoming unhinged.

Shortly after Easter 1804 Pitt decided that it was time to take effec-
tive action. Rising in the House on 25th April, he delivered a shatter-
ing attack on the Government. This sealed Addington's fate. His
majority reduced to a mere thirty-seven, he offered his resignation,
and the way was open for Pitt's return.

But the King, still troubled by fears regarding the removal of
Catholic disabilities, would have none of it. For some days he refused
to see Pitt. But eventually he gave in. It was their first meeting for
three years. For three hours His Majesty argued, laying down all sorts
of conditions. Pitt wanted a truly national Government in which all
factions should be included. But the King refused firmly and absolutely
to have Fox. The discussion grew very heated and, fearing for His
Majesty's mind, Pitt finally agreed to leave Fox out. His own health was
failing, for on taking office again Pitt said : *I think my health such that
it may cost me my life.'47

A few days later Addington left No. 10 Downing Street with his
wife and family - they had one son and four daughters - and all his
furniture. With the return of Pitt the house once more became a
bachelor establishment, but with a difference.

146

CHAPTER 15
The Return of Pitt

PITT did not return to No. 10 alone. He had been living at
Walmer Castle as Warden of the Cinque Ports, drilling the local
volunteers in his uniform as their Colonel-in-Chief, and training his
telescope towards Boulogne where Napoleon's formidable army
waited to invade Britain. At the castle his young niece Lady Hester
Stanhope had kept house for him. It cannot be said that she was able to
impose the efficiency in the management of his servants and his
accounts that Pitt's sister Harriet had displayed during her short stay
at No. 10 when he first became Prime Minister. But she wrought
nevertheless a considerable change in the setting and atmosphere. Now
twenty-seven, she was lively and diverting and brought a brightness
into his life which it had sadly lacked; and he was gkd to have her
accompany him to Downing Street.

Hester was the daughter of the Lord Mahon, who together with
Pitt had escorted Chatham when he entered the House of Lords to
make his last speech on the American war. Mahon had been a warm
supporter of his brother-in-law in the Commons, but not long after

J47

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

succeeding his father as Earl Stanhope, his sympathies swung suddenly
towards die French Revolutionaries. He abandoned his title, called
himself Citizen Stanhope, took down the tapestries from his walls,
describing them as 'too damned aristocratic', and erased the armorial
bearings from his plate, Hester was at that time an impressionable girl
of fourteen, but despite the republican influences in her home the
aristocrat in her was little affected. In appearance she resembled her
uncle Pitt. She was tall, held her head proudly poised, her nose uplifted.
But in temperament there was much of her grandfather Chatham in
her - a violent temper and an unflinching courage. Her vivacity, her
radiance and her magnetism supplied a compelling attractiveness,
which was lit by her deep blue eyes and the brilliant colouring of her
skin and hair. She rode well and fearlessly, talked without cessation,
was blunt and often tactless - a strange wild creature, romantically
interested in men and at times outrageously unconventional in her
behaviour.

Her mother had died when she was very young and, after enduring
for some years the tyranny of her eccentric father, she went to live in
Somerset with her grandmother, old Lady Chatham. Also living there
was her young cousin Harriet, the only child of Pitt's sister Harriet.
From time to time she had visited Pitt at Walmer and after Lady
Chatham's death was taken completely under his care. 'How amiable
it is of Pitt,' wrote Lord Mulgrave to Major-General Phipps, 'to take
compassion on poor Lady Hester Stanhope, and that in a way which
must break in upon his habits of life. He is as good as he is great/ But
Pitt enjoyed having her with him, though occasionally, after his return
to Downing Street, he had to chide her to curb her unbridled tongue,
for she could not sit silent and listen to the conversation of her uncle
and his distinguished friends, but would assert her own opinions,
which were not always well-informed.

The atmosphere at No. 10 changed entirely with her coming. She
sat opposite him at the other end of the table, the hostess from the
start. She was intolerant and mocking, was rude to the Prince of Wales,
mimicked the affected lisp of the great Whig ladies of Devonshire
House, yawned when she was bored by the chatter of the wives of
Cabinet Ministers, and once scoffingly, when Addington flaunted his
Garter in the drawing-room, humbled him by asking if he needed it to

148

THE RETURN OF PITT

tie up his injured leg. Many thought her eccentric. Such unconventional
behaviour brought on her, as well as on Pitt, a great deal of ridicule.
For the most part the great Whig ladies kept aloof. But Hester pre-
ferred to invite her own friends to No. 10. Her uncle found their com-
pany congenial. The house was often crowded. Entertaining was done
once again on a lavish scale and the expenses reached even greater
heights of extravagance.

The King's insistence on the exclusion of Fox from the Government
deprived Pitt of the support of some of his closest and ablest supporters,
for not only did his cousin Grenville refuse to come in without Fox,
but he persuaded others too to keep out. Pitt had accordingly to form
a Government out of the available remnants, some of whom had
served under Addington. They were weak and lacking in talent, and
the new administration was sneeringly described as consisting of
'William and Pitt*. Yet, though they seemed at the time to be insig-
nificant, no fewer than six of them, if we include Pitt, had the qualities
required for the office of Prime Minister and indeed all but one of
them attained that office, while the sixth declined twice to accept it.*
The entire Cabinet, save only for himself and Lord Castlereagh, was
in the Lords. Arrayed against Pitt in the Commons, again as when he
first took office, were men of formidable debating skill who missed no
opportunity of trying to embarrass him. But though tired and ailing
and now forty-five years old, he grappled with them with resolution
and resource.

On the day Pitt took his seat in the House for the second time as
Prime Minister, i8th May 1804, Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor
of the French. Shortly afterwards the American Ambassador in Paris
crossed over to London with an offer of peace, which he took to No. 10
Downing Street, accompanied by Fox. The offer was too vague for
Pitt to be impressed by it. Aware that Napoleon's army was still at
Boulogne waiting to cross to England, Pitt was not prepared to rekx
any efforts to meet and repel the invasion if it came. During the recess,
he still went down to the coast to drill his men and to see to the
defences. Tirelessly he urged the country to face the danger with that

* The future Prime Ministers were: Spencer Perceval, the Earl of Liverpool, George
Canning and Viscount Goderich - some were junior Ministers at this stage; the one who
twice refused was Lord Castlereagh, heir to the Marquess of Londonderry.

149

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

just confidence, which neither despises nor dreads the enemy1 and to
bear in mind what was at stake, 'what it is we have to contend for. It is
for our property, it is for our liberty, it is for our independence, nay
for our existence as a nation; it is for our character, it is for our very
name as Englishmen, it is for everything dear and valuable to man on
this side of the grave/52

Later that year Spain re-entered the war against Britain and
Pitt's Budget had to provide for greatly increased outgoings. The
death duties were raised. A new loan of twenty million pounds
was floated and a million a year had to be set aside to pay the interest
on it.

The estrangement between Pitt and Addington was brought to an
end during the summer. Pitt conferred a peerage on him, making him
Viscount Sidmouth, and invited him to join the Cabinet as President
of the Council. At the same time Pitt brought in the Earl of Bucking-
hamshire, who had married Eleanor Eden, Lord Auckland's daughter:
she was thus a frequent visitor in the house of which she might have
been the chatelaine.

These Cabinet changes were soon followed by a blow which dark-
ened for some weeks the discussions round the famous table. One of
the Ministers, Viscount Melville, formerly Henry Dundas, one of
Pitt's closer friends, his associate from the earliest years, and now First
Lord of the Admiralty, was accused by a Commission of Naval
Inquiry of having misapplied public funds while Treasurer of the
Navy in Pitt's former administration. Pitt's enemies were jubilant.
Thomas Crecvey, whose journals have delighted successive genera-
tions, recorded with glee: 'We have had indeed most famous sport
with Lord Melville. You can form no notion of his [Pitt's] fallen crest
in the House of Commons, of his dolorous, distracted air. ... His own
ruin must come next, and that, I think, at no great distance/ Creevey
was wrong. Melville had not used the money for his own profit, but
had merely been negligent in not preventing his deputy from engaging
in private speculations with these sums. Pitt was determined to do what
he could to help his colleague and was fully supported by the Cabinet
when he demanded the appointment of a special Parliamentary Com-
mittee for further investigation.
The debate on this in the House went on all through the night.

150

THE RETURN OF PITT

Pitt, Canning and Castlereagh rebutted the savage^ attacks of the
Opposition, but it came as a shock to Pitt, when at four o'clock in
the morning, his closest friend Wilberforce rose and joined in the
censure. The House, however, was equally divided and the Speaker,
his face ashen, had to cast the decisive vote. He gave it against the
Government.

There followed an astonishing and memorable scene, such as the
House has rarely seen. There were shouts of jubilation from Pitt's
enemies, but his friends, seeing him in a state bordering on collapse as
he pressed his hat down on his head, formed a protective group round
him and escorted him from the House all the way to Downing Street.

It has been averred that this was the most shattering blow in Pitt's
life, a blow which he took far more badly than any of Napoleon's
victories. Not normally prone to showing any emotion, he was now
often seen to be near to tears. In consequence of the vote Melville was
impeached, but he was acquitted on every count. He nevertheless
resigned. When in October 1805 the news of the battle of Trafalgar
reached Pitt, he wrote to Melville to congratulate him, adding that it
was his energy at the Admiralty that had contributed much to this
victory.

Not long after Melville, Addington (now Sidmouth) resigned too.
This was inevitable after the persistent attack by Addington's friends
on Pitt during his terrible ordeal over Melville. Next Buckinghamshire
left. Though shaken, Pitt remained indomitable. His war policy was
slowly bringing the country away from the defensive line Addington
had for so long pursued and was setting in motion forces that were
eventually to bring victory.

In reconstructing his Government Pitt once more sought permission
from the King to bring in Fox, for he realized it would also bring in
Fox's followers as well as Grenville, and would strengthen his Govern-
ment considerably. But his long journey to Weymouth proved fruit-
less. His Majesty remained adamant. Pitt, enfeebled in health and with
not long to live, was thus left to carry the great weight of the war
alone, fighting not only the enemy across the Channel, but the for-
midable array of opponents in both Houses. Lord Rosebery held the
view that, if the King had yielded, he might have saved Pitt's life. Pitt
may have had the same thought in mind when he said: CI wish the

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

King may not live to repent - and sooner than he thinks - the rejection
of the advice which I pressed on him at Weymouth/

Pitt's predominant purpose in the months that remained to him was
to bring Napoleon's triumphant armies to a halt and to prevent the
invasion of England. Napoleon repeatedly declared that all he needed
was command of the Channel for just twelve hours in order to cross
with his vast army from Boulogne, but those twelve hours proved
elusive and were denied him for ever after Nelson's resounding victory
at Trafalgar.

Pitt, unable to send a large enough force to the Continent, had
already embarked on a fresh gigantic alliance. At a great cost in sub-
sidies and with the promise of the fullest possible support with ships
and men, he succeeded in forming his great Third Coalition, com-
prising Britain, Russia, Austria, and a somewhat wavering Prussia.
And it was to deal with the menace this offered that Napoleon had
begun to move his army from Boulogne, even before Trafalgar, for it
had become increasingly clear, after Villcneuve's flight from Nelson
and his retreat to Cadiz, that the French fleet would never be able to
provide the cover he required. In his very first clash with the new
Coalition he won a resounding victory. On ipth October 1805 his
army inflicted a crushing defeat on the Austrians at Ulm, taking
30,000 prisoners. News of this did not reach Pitt until 3rd November.
A Dutch newspaper was brought to him at No. 10 Downing Street.
Unable to read it and with no one there to translate, he drove in his
carriage up Whitehall to Lord Malmesbury's house in Spring Gardens,
accompanied by Lord Mulgrave. Malmesbury recorded in his diary:
'They came to me to translate it which I did as best I could; and I
observed but too clearly the effect it had on Pitt, though he did his
utmost to conceal it. ... His manner and his looks were not his own.'
Promptly and unflinchingly he sent a dispatch to Vienna, urging the
Austrians to rally and make a fresh effort. To the Prussians in Berlin he
sent Lord Harrowby to stress the urgency for immediate action and
offered to send 60,000 men to augment their forces.

Each day, Hester Stanhope has recorded, 'Pitt would be up at eight
in the morning, with people enough to sec for a week, obliged to talk
all the time he was at breakfast, and receiving first one, then another;
until four o'clock; then eating a mutton chop, hurrying off to the

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THE RETURN OF HTT

House, and there badgered and compelled to speak and waste his
lungs until two or three in the morning ! - who could stand it? ... and
having eaten nothing, in a manner of speaking, all day, he would sup
. . . and then go to bed to get three or four hours' sleep, and to renew
the same thing next day, and the next, and the next ... - it was
murder.' Often indeed the brief respite in bed was disturbed by the
arrival of an urgent rider clattering along Downing Street with
dispatches, bearing, more often than not, fresh disastrous tidings. Once
roused, Pitt found it impossible to regain his rest, but would sit musing,
planning, sending down for more port. His two bottles a day, main-
tained rigorously since the doctor had prescribed it so beneficially in
his boyhood, had been supplemented in recent years by a third bottle,
then a fourth. At times his friends begged him not to drink any more,
especially when he had to go back to the House to speak. But it had
become a necessity by now, and few had ever seen him the worse for
it. Addington recalls but one occasion when Pitt, called unexpectedly
from the table at No. 10 to answer an attack in the House, appeared to
be under the influence of drink. It happened that one of the clerks of
the House that night had fallen ill and was complaining of a severe
headache. 'An excellent arrangement,' Pitt murmured wryly, 'I have
the wine, and he has the headache.' Occasionally he was seen to take a
solitary walk in St. James's Park in the morning; or he would ride to
Wimbledon and Cox Heath to review the troops and inspect the new
'military carriages'.

His dedication to the service of his country was unremitting and
selfless. Again and again the King pressed him to accept the Garter, but
he repeatedly refused. He wanted nothing - neither honours, tides, nor
financial rewards. On his way to the Lord Mayor's banquet that year,
1805, he was again rousingly cheered as his coach came in sight. The
crowd rushed forward, unyoked the horses and dragged the coach all
the way to the Guildhall. There he was toasted with the wildest
acclamation as the saviour of Europe. Pitt replied very briefly. 'I
return you many thanks,' he said, cfor the honour you have done me.
But Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved
herself by her exertions, and will, I trust, save Europe by her example.'
It was the last speech he ever made. It was also his last appearance in
public.

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

A month later, while at Bath where he had gone to take the waters,
news was brought of Napoleon's scattering of the armies of Russia
and Austria at Austerlitz. The Coalition was now completely shattered,
and once again Britain was left to fight on alone. 'Heavy news/ Pitt
said and called for more brandy. Then he asked for a map and said he
wanted to be left alone.

He decided to leave Bath and return to London at once. Because
of his extreme weakness the journey of a hundred miles took as long
as three days. In every town, in every village, the crowds flocked to
catch a glimpse of him. On reaching Putney, he felt he could go no
farther and said he would like to rest there for a few days and stayed in a
rented house before undertaking the final stage of the journey to
Downing Street. Each morning he declared he was better. The doctors
assured his niece Hester that there was no cause for alarm. But his
emaciated frame shocked and disturbed her. Two days later, on I4th
January 1806, while Pitt, propped up with pillows, sat talking to his
friend Lord Wdlesley, a former Governor-General of India and
brother of Wellington, he fainted. Wdlesley hurried back to London
to warn Pitt's cousin Lord Grenville that death was now very near.
He found Grenville drafting a resolution of censure and planning
a fresh attack upon the dying Prime Minister. After listening to
Wellesley Grenville broke down.

Before leaving for Bath, Pitt had arranged to give a dinner at No. 10
Downing Street on I9th January in honour of the Queen's birthday.
Aware now that he could not attend it, he insisted nevertheless that it
should be held and sent his niece to make his apologies and see to the
arrangements. It was a very mournful meal.

Pitt knew he was dying. He kept asking if there was news from
Harrowby, whom he had sent to talk to the Prussians in Berlin. 'How
is the wind?' he inquired. 'East? That will do. That will bring him
quick/ In the early hours of the morning of 23rd January 1806
Pitt gasped and, crying out in a clear voice: *O my country! How I
leave my country!' he died.

Lady Hester records that 'the carriages had been waiting at the door,
ready for a long time' to take him to Downing Street. Her brother
James hurried on to No. 10, where he 'scaled up everything'.

The nation grieved. A State funeral was arranged and Pitt was

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THE RETURN OF PITT

laid in Westminster Abbey beside his father. Later the House of
Commons voted the sum of ^40,000 to pay his debts. 'Never in
my life/ said Fox, his life-long opponent, 'did I give a vote with
more satisfaction.*

155

CHAPTER 16

His Two Unworthy Successors

THE moment Pitt died the Government collapsed. The King
sought in vain for a new head for this headless body. He appealed to
Hawkesbury (later the Earl of Liverpool), who felt he was not pre-
pared at this stage to accept die supreme responsibility; Castlereagh
said he was not equal to it; so in the end the King decided on forming
a coalition - a 'Ministry of all the Talents', it was called. Even Fox,
whom His Majesty had consistently refused to have in the Govern-
ment, was invited to join. Addington returned too and, with Fox
in, Grenville no longer stood out. These were the men who had
hounded Pitt to his death. The principles on which they had opposed
him, chief of which was the emancipation of the Catholics, for
which they felt Pitt had not fought hard enough, they put to one
side on talcing office. Their prime concern, they declared, was to
proceed with the war, which indeed had been Pitt's concern all
along.

A head had still to be found for this assorted collection of Ministers,
consisting of aristocratic Whigs undef Lord Grenville, of more pro-

156

HIS TWO UNWORTHY SUCCESSORS

gressive Whigs under Fox, and of Tories under Addington (now Lord
Sidmouth). For this role Grenville was at last selected.

He insisted on moving into No. 10 at once. On 14th February 1806,
a week before Pitt was buried, the Morning Herald reported: 'Lord
and Lady Grenville visited yesterday Mr. Pitt's late house, in Downing
Street. His Lordship gave orders that everything might be ready for
the reception of his family by next Monday week/ But the Grenvilles
had to wait 'owing to the bad state of repair of the House.' Once again
the Office of Works had to send in builders and carpenters. The repairs,
which took some weeks to complete, cost .£2,200. It was not until the
spring that the impatient new Prime Minister was able to move in.

Grenville knew the house well of course. His father had been Prime
Minister in 1763 - forty-three years before. Grenville, the youngest of
his sons, was only three years old then: his stay on that occasion lasted
barely eighteen months, it was not to be for as long now. In the inter-
vening years he had repeatedly visited the house, both as a guest,
mounting the handsome staircase to the first floor drawing-room, and
as a member of the Government, for he had held various offices under
Pitt, the first time as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1782 and later as
Foreign Secretary, with Canning as his assistant: the Cabinet room
had in fact been for him a familiar setting for close on twenty years.

George the Third was not happy at having him as Prime Minister.
His father, Chatham's 'Gentle Shepherd', had wearied the King with
his interminable speeches and even after forty years His Majesty was
still haunted by that agonizing memory. Like his father, Lord Gren-
ville was both lacking in tact and extremely stubborn. Though blessed
with an unremitting zest for work, and not without ability, he had not,
as Lady Hester Stanhope observed, the talent to lead. 'Some can only
do well', she wrote, 'when under the guidance of another person's
star. What was Lord Grenville without Mr. Pitt? With him, to guide
him he did pretty well; but as soon as Mr. Pitt was dead, he sank into
obscurity.' He had nevertheless an exalted opinion of his own cap-
abilities and regarded himself as Pitt's superior, just as his father had
thought himself superior to Chatham. The Grenvilles were extremely
wealthy and most powerfully connected* Three of his uncles had been
Ministers - Lord Temple, Lord Cobham (also a Temple) and- Chatham.
There were interlocking links with the Pitts, to which he added still

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

another by marrying Anne Pitt, a daughter of Chatham's nephew,
Lord Camelford. Of this marriage, which took place in 1792, and the
change it had brought in Lord Grenville's life, Lord Mornington (kter
Lord Wellesley) said in a letter to him: 'I cannot tell you with how
much pleasure I saw your manage. I told Pitt that matrimony had made
three very important changes in you which could not but affect your
friends - (i) a brown lapelled coat instead of the eternal blue single
breasted, (2) strings in your shoes, (3) very good perfume in your hair
powder.'179

It will be seen from this that men's fashions had undergone a con-
siderable change since Pitt's first Administration. In these brief years
wigs had gone completely out of use, save in the law courts, where
they still survive. Men now powdered their own hair (as Pitt did lat-
terly) and Lord Grenville, who was almost bald, appeared in conse-
quence to belong more to the late nineteenth century than to the
eighteenth, though in fact he had reached middle age by the time the
eighteenth century ended. Men's clothes had changed too. The elabor-
ate brocaded coats were replaced by jackets that were simpler and far
less picturesque. The contrast between Grenville's portrait and his
father's would suggest that more than a hundred years separated them.
Despite his overweening self-confidence, Lord Grenville was aware
that he lacked certain essential attributes. In a letter to his brother, the
Duke of Buckingham,* he confessed: 1 am not competent to the
management of men.' This, though accurate, was an understatement.
His shortcomings were far greater. The Ministry of all the Talents was
found to be a complete misnomer. Fox, one of its principal members,
described it in these words: 'We are three in a bed.' Sheridan, also in
the administration, said of Grenville: 'I have known many men knock
their heads against a wall, but I never before heard of a man collecting
bricks and building a wall for the express purpose of blocking out his
own brains against it.'

The one memorable achievement of Grenville's brief year as Prime
Minister (his father is remembered for having imposed the Stamp Act
on the American colonists) was the further limitation of the Slave
Trade. This Act was passed in February 1807. In the following month

* Not to be confused with the Earl of Buckinghamshire.

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HIS TWO UNWORTHY SUCCESSORS

he was dismissed from office by the King, for taking up the precise line
which had led to Pitt's dismissal six years earlier, namely the emanci-
pation of the Catholics. Once again the old King firmly refused to have
it even mentioned in his presence.

The Ministry, however, was already in decline. Fox had died in the
preceding autumn: he outlived Pitt by only a few months. On yth
May, 1807, the Morning Chronicle announced: 'Lord Grenville will
remove today from Downing-Street to his house at Dropmore.' He
was glad to go. He wrote to his brother Buckingham of 'the infinite
pleasure I derive from my emancipation.'

Not yet forty-eight, he was exactly the same age as Pitt, but his
political career was already over. He spent his remaining years at his
magnificent country house in Buckinghamshire, tending his garden,
writing books, collecting pictures and china. He was devoted to his
wife Anne, but there were no children. In the country, as at Downing
Street, he entertained sumptuously.

His successor as First Lord of the Treasury was the aged Duke of
Portland, now in his seventieth year, who had been Prime Minister
before for a few months in 1783, just before Pitt's first term. At that
time Portland headed, as a 'convenient cipher', the notorious coalition
which included both Fox and North. He had been dismissed ignomini-
ously then, but it did not deter him from writing to the King while
Lord Grenville was still Prime Minister, to offer himself again for the
chief office. If your Majesty should suppose', he wrote, 'that in form-
ing such an Administration, I can offer your Majesty any services, I am
devoted to your Majesty's commands; but while I say this I feel con-
scious that my time of life, my infirmities, and my want of abilities,
are not calculated for so high a trust.'77

He came this time as the head of a Tory Government. His furniture
was taken back into No. 10 on 2ist July, ten weeks after Grenville
vacated die house. Spencer Perceval was appointed Chancellor of die
Exchequer, George Canning became Foreign Secretary, both destined
to live in that house as Prime Ministers.

Portland was not blessed with much intellect. As a speaker he was
poor and hardly ever spoke in the Lords, even after he became Prime
Minister. He had been in and out of office at intervals, owing his
inclusion wholly to his powerful connections. At the early age of

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NO. IO DOWNING STREET

twenty-eight, for example, he was appointed Lord Chamberlain in
the Marquess of Buckingham's short-lived Government; in Pitt's first
Ministry he was given the Home Office and held it for six years. When
Addington took over he remained in the Cabinet as Lord President of
the Council, and on Pitt's return was kept on as Minister without Port-
folio. His political influence was immense. He kept pouring out money
to get his followers into the House of Commons, without ever calcu-
lating the cost. Horace Walpole records that Portland once took
^30,000 with him to meet the expenses of an election at Carlisle 'and
it is all gone already'.

Earlier in life he was expected to marry Sir Robert Walpole's
granddaughter, Lady Waldegrave, one of the most beautiful women
of the time. But nothing came of it and he married instead Lady
Dorothy Cavendish, the only daughter of the Duke of Devonshire.
Not particularly well off then, Portland decided to go and live at
Burlington House in Piccadilly, the London home of the Devonshires.
Some years later he inherited a considerable sum of money on the
death of his mother, the granddaughter and heiress of the famous Duke
of Newcastle. His wife died some years before his second term as Prime
Minister and he came alone now to No. 10 Downing Street.

No sooner had he succeeded Grenville than doubts of his own cap-
acity began to assail him. 'My fears', he stated, 'are not that the attempt
to perform this duty will shorten my life, but that I shall neither bodily
nor mentally perform it as I ought.' His chief Ministers, Canning,
Liverpool, Perceval and Castlereagh, acted quite independently of him,
each managing his own department without any reference whatso-
ever to the Duke. Of others in the Government, Sir Arthur Wellesley
(later the Duke of Wellington), home from his brilliant victories in
India, was Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Lord Palmcrston Civil Lord
of the Admiralty: both of them were later Prime Ministers.

Portland left No. 10 Downing Street in October 1807, less than
three months after moving in, and Spencer Perceval, the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, moved in. Portland returned to the far greater
comfort of Burlington House, from where he continued to exercise
such supervisory control as he could enforce over his unruly team. He
was listless, worried and often ill. The war with Napoleon dragged
endlessly on, its conduct chiefly in the hands of the Secretary for War

160

HIS TWO UNWORTHY SUCCESSORS

Lord Casdereagh. Pitt had said with astonishing foresight as he lay
dying that nothing but a war of patriotism, a national war, could now
save Europe, 'and that war', he added, 'should begin in Spain'.

An opportunity for the fulfilment of this prophesy was provided
unwittingly by Napoleon himself towards the close of 1807, the year
following Pitt's death. A French army under the command of General
Junot was sent into Lisbon. The Portuguese royal family fled to Brazil,
where they established their kingdom in exile. On the way the French
troops took possession of Spain. In both countries there arose die
fiercest resentment against the invaders.

To stir up a war of patriotism, Sir Arthur Wellesley, given leave
from his ministerial office, was sent in the summer of 1808 to Portugal
in command of a division of British troops. The young general was at
the time only thirty-nine, precisely the same age as Napoleon. Fool-
ishly Casdereagh allowed him to be superseded after his initial victory
at Vimeiro and Wellesley resumed his ministerial duties in London. In
Portugal Sir John Moore, senior to Arthur Wellesley and regarded by
many as the greatest soldier of the day,84 having missed the chance of
following up Wellesley' s success, was forced to retreat in mid-winter
to the beaches of Corunna, from which the British troops had to be
evacuated to England - as more than a century later they were evacu-
ated from Dunkirk. The burial of Sir John Moore, mortally wounded
at Corunna, is commemorated in Charles Wolfe's famous poem
beginning 'Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note. . . /

There followed a series of rows in the Cabinet. Canning, the Foreign
Secretary, said: 'It makes one sick with shame to think of it', and
threatened to resign unless Casdereagh was dismissed. The rows
reached their climax in a duel fought by the two Ministers in the late
summer of 1809. John Wilson Croker, Secretary of the Admiralty and
closely associated with many of the senior members of the Govern
ment, recorded in his journal: 'The duel took place on the 2ist Sep-
tember (Thursday), on Putney Heath. Lord Yarmoudi, Casdereagh' s
first cousin and second, told me afterwards that Charles Ellis, who was
Canning's second, was so nervous for his friend's safety that he could
not load his pistols, and that Lord Yarmouth either loaded Mr.
Canning's pistols for Mr. Ellis, or lent him one of his own, I forget
which but I think the latter.' Both missed the first time. When they

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NO. IO DOWNING STREET

fired again, a button was shot off Castlereagh's coat, Canning was
wounded in the thigh, severely but not dangerously. Both then re-
turned to London and both resigned from the Government. The
Foreign Office was taken over by Lord Wellesley (Arthur Wellesley's
brother), while Lord Liverpool went to the War Office. Some months
later Arthur Wellesley was restored to his command in Portugal.

Portland, ill and often in excruciating pain, had a paralytic stroke in
August 1809. He resigned in October and died a few weeks later. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Spencer Perceval, who had akeady been
living at No. 10 since Portland vacated it two years before, succeeded
him as Prime Minister.

162

CHAPTER 17
Spencer Perceval

THE Hon. Spencer Perceval was the younger son of the Earl
of Egmont. Through his mother he was closely connected with the
Earl of Wilmington, who had succeeded Walpole as the second Prime
Minister of Britain. His family was extremely wealthy, but he himself,
as a younger son, was left with only ^200 a year and had to rely on
making a living at the Bar.

In appearance he was not particularly prepossessing: singularly
small and slender, with pale, pinched features redeemed only by
his lively eyes. He was lacking too in some of the social graces. Sir
Samuel Romilly describes him as a man 'with very little reading, of a
conversation barren of instruction and with strong invincible prejudices
on many subjects, yet by his excellent temper, his engaging manners
and his sprightly conversation he was the delight of all who knew
him'.85

He fell in love with Sir James Wilson's remarkably beautiful
daughter, whose sister had married Perceval's brother Lord Arden, but,
lacking his brother's great wealth, Perceval was not considered eligible

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

by her family and there was considerable opposition to their union.
Nevertheless perseverance and devotion secured her as his bride when
he was twenty-seven: she arrived for the wedding, it is recorded,
dressed 'only in her riding habit'.8* The young couple lived for a time
in modest lodgings over a carpet shop in Bedford Row; later they
were able to move to a more comfortable house in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
bought with some money inherited by his wife, but with the arrival
of a fresh child each year their resources became increasingly strained.
The pressure of work thus went on unrelieved. Often the position was
desperate and, though weary through scurrying from one brief to
another, he had to sit at his desk far into the night, writing articles for
the British Critic or pamphlets because another child was on the way.

A turn in his fortunes came in 1790 when he published a political
pamphlet on the constitutional issues involved in the impeachment of
Warren Hastings, which was then in progress. Pitt was impressed by it,
a meeting was arranged - they had supper together - and Perceval was
drawn eventually into a political career. But in the meantime he was
engaged by Pitt as counsel for the Crown in some notable trials,
including the prosecution of Tom Paine.

When Perceval was elected to Parliament in 1796, Pitt offered him
the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland, but he declined it, stating that
he could not afford to accept it because of his growing family: at the
time there were five children. 'Even if you were prepared', he added,
'to offer me such terms as I should think sufficient to answer the claims
of my family upon me, I would not accept them, because I should feel
they would be so much too great for any service I could render to the
Public.'

So greatly was Pitt impressed by this and by Perceval's outstanding
ability that two years kter, when Pitt was about to fight his duel with
Tierney, on being asked whom he regarded as a likely successor if the
duel proved fatal, Pitt after some reflection replied: 'Perceval,' because,
he added, he was the most competent person and 'the most equal to
cope with Mr. Fox'.73

Although he consistently supported Pitt's Government, Perceval
was in fact a staunch Tory: he would have had far less in common with
Chatham than he had with Pitt, who by the suspension of his pro-
gramme of reforms after the outbreak of war and by his adoption of

164

SPENCER PERCEVAt

strong repressive measures for the security of the State had drawn the
Tories to his support, and had come to be regarded by most Whigs as
the head of a Tory Administration.

Perceval was not invited again to join the Government until Adding-
ton succeeded Pitt in 1801, when he was appointed Solicitor-General
and a year later Attorney-General. On Pitt's return to Downing Street
in 1804 Perceval was asked to stay on in the Government, but he
imposed conditions: he insisted that Fox should not be included, that
Addington's administration should not be censured, and that the
question of Catholic emancipation, to which he was strongly opposed,
should not be raised. These were exacting conditions, but Pitt accepted
them, partly because he wanted Perceval, but chiefly because the con-
ditions had already been imposed by the King.

After Pitt's death Perceval left because of his violent opposition to
Lord Grenville's Whig outlook, and became the Leader of the Opposi-
tion in the Commons. Nothing the Whigs did was ever right in his
view. He even went so far as to make a stand against the Prince of
Wales because of his friendship with Fox and incurred the Prince's
further enmity by siding against him in the two causes dlebres - over
the guardianship of Miss Minnie Seymour, the adopted daughter of
Mrs. Fitzherbert whom the Prince had married, and in the case for
adultery brought by the Prince in 1806 against the Princess of Wales,
whom he had bigamously married for the purpose of providing an
heir. Perceval championed the Princess's cause and helped to establish
her innocence. He was applauded for his daring, but many regarded
it as sheer folly, for in the event of a Regency his political prospects
would undoubtedly suffer irreparably. In 1807, with the Regency still
three years away, he served in the Duke of Portland's Government as
Chancellor of the Exchequer and continued to hold that office when
at the age of forty-seven he became First Lord of the Treasury.

By the time Mr. and Mrs. Perceval moved into No. 10 Downing
Street in 1807 they already had six children, and six more were boni
to them while they lived in the house. It must have been extremely
uncomfortable for a household of that size in that rambling old place,
with secretaries and offices on the ground floor, official reception rooms
and some of the main bedrooms on the floor above, nurseries on the
floor above that, and accommodation to be found in the basement

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NO, 10 DOWNING STREET

and attic for cooks, tweenies, parlourmaids, chambermaids, gover-
nesses and a housekeeper. At the back, alongside and above the stables,
the grooms and coachmen slept, most of them doubtless rolled up in
blankets on the floor. The noise until the children were put to bed must
have been incessantly distracting. Those not in dose contact with it
admired the atmosphere of domesticity at No. 10, but others declared
that it would have been better for the country if Perceval had deceived
his wife, whipped his children, and spent more time in getting on with
the war.

Arthur Wellesley, back in the Peninsula since April 1809, drove

the French out of Oporto in May and won the battle of Talavera in

July; for these victories he was rewarded with a peerage and became

Viscount Wellington. But not even these remarkable successes caused

Perceval to be liked either in the House or in the country. Again and

again he was defeated in divisions, the people grumbled ceaselessly at

the high taxation (in addition to the cost of the British forces in Spain,

the Spanish army had to be subsidized and they insisted on being

paid in gold); it was indeed touch and go whether the Government

would endure. But Perceval plodded on tirelessly, working kte into

the night, often exhausted by the strain and anxiety. What he lacked

was the ability to grapple with the many problems that confronted

him, and his slight nervous stutter did not help his efforts to explain

them to the House. The great promise of his early years, the semblance

of strength when Portland was too weak a Prime Minister and Perceval

took charge of the helm, gradually dissipated and, as the mists cleared,

his own inadequacy was starkly revealed. It was remembered that

when he was invited to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, he hesitated

because the salary was too small and he had also to be given the Duchy

of Lancaster to supplement it. It was also remembered that it was part

of the bargain that he should move into No. 10 as Chancellor so that

a home should be provided rent free. Thus set up, he bought himself a

house at Baling (now the public library) and used to ride there from

Downing Street for a breath of fresh air, as Baling was in the country

then, and ^doubtless his family followed or went on ahead.

Then quite unexpectedly, while he was still Chancellor of the
Exchequer, but responsible for the conduct of Portland's Administra-
tion, Perceval was confronted early in 1809 with a critical devdop-

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SPENCER PERCEVAL

ment in the affairs of the Duke of York. The Duke, a tall, fair-haired
man in his forties and the favourite son of the King, had been trained
in Germany as a soldier and had served, though not effectively, in
some of the battles on the Continent against the Revolutionary forces
of France. More recently, appointed Commander-in-Chief of the
British Army, he had formed an illicit alliance with Mrs. Mary Anne
Clarke, a frail beauty with dazzling dark eyes, and had moved her into
his London house. Always promiscuous with her favours, she directed
her attention to acquiring as much money as possible, since the Duke
was by no means generous. From young officers in the Army eager
for promotion, she extracted large sums on the promise that she would
influence the Commander-in-Chief in their advancement. This
emerged when Colonel Wardle, a member of the Opposition, asked
in the House for a committee to investigate the conduct of the Duke of
York in his capacity of Commander-in-Chief. The Government
decided to defend the Duke and Perceval as Leader of the House took
on the task. The inquiry lasted seven weeks and was given the greatest
possible publicity. It was proved that Mrs. Clarke had in fact taken
money with a view to influencing promotions, but it was not estab-
lished that the Duke received any part of it or that he was influenced
by her to make the promotions, though some that had been paid for
were in fact made. When the vote was taken 196 Members of Parlia-
ment thought the Duke guilty, but, though exonerated of complicity
by a majority of eighty-two, he nevertheless resigned at once. The
Prince of Wales could have influenced the votes, for the Opposition
consisted largely of his followers, but he stood aside, saying: 'I have
been no party to my brother's irregularities. I have never been con-
nected with the woman with whom my brother has been connected.
Indeed I dislike such society.'

All this was doubtless a greater ordeal for Perceval than for the Duke,
who took it with astonishing calm. In addition Perceval had the heavy
strain of producing Budgets for what was the crucial phase of the
Napoleonic war when almost all Europe was closed to British trade.

'We want gold,9 he stated in a memorandum to Croker shortly after
becoming Prime Minister. 'Our warehouses are clogged with mer-
chandise which the Continent would be most glad to purchase, but
their tyrant will not let them.'

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Then at the close of the year 1810 the question of setting up a
Regency cropped up again. Following the death of his beloved
daughter Princess Amelia, the King lost his reason, this time perm-
anently. It was quite clear to Perceval that he would have to go. For
the Whigs it was a Heaven-sent opportunity. They had been out of
office for twenty-seven years, save for the brief interlude under Lord
Grenville on the death of Pitt. The Prince too rejoiced; for the time
had come at last for him to reward the many faithful friends who had
stood by him. But Perceval was resolved not to let him have things
entirely his own way. Restrictions, identical with those earlier imposed
by Pitt, were inserted in the Regency Bill, denying the Prince the
right to create peers, to confer sinecures or grant pensions, and exclud-
ing from his control the whole of the King's personal property. None
of this was palatable. Not only the Prince of Wales, but his brothers
too protested most vehemently against it.

Perceval defied the Princes and refused to give way. While the Bill
was going through the House, the Regent-to-be angrily denounced
the Government to his friends. 'By God,' he said, 'they shall not
remain an hour.' But a week later, when the Act was passed, the
Regent decided to accept it and retained the Government, despite the
pressing advice of Sheridan and other Whigs who had called to urge
Perceval's dismissal. Sheridan informed Creevey later that evening at
Brooks's that the Regent had expressed his regret at 'being compelled
to continue a Government not possessing his confidence', but added
that, should the King's condition not improve 'after a certain time',
the Government would have to go.7*

Creevey was even more angry when some weeks later, while walk-
ing past No. 10 Downing Street, he peered through the area railings
and saw through the basement windows 'four man cooks and twice
as many maids preparing dinner for the Prince of Wales and Regent.'
Writing to his wife, Creevey poured out his disgust. 'He whose wife
Perceval set up against him in open battle - who at the age of 50, could
not be trusted by the sd. Perceval with the unrestrained government
of these realms during his father's incapacity - he, who, on his last
birthday at Brighton, declared to his numerous guests that it was his
glory to have bred up his daughter [Princess Charlotte] in the principles
of Mr. Fox - he who, in this very year, declared by letter to the said

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SPENCER PERCEVAL

Mr. Perceval, and afterwards had the letter published as an apology
for his conduct, that he took him as his father's Minister, but that his
own heart was in another quarter - by God ! This is too much.'

Though the King lingered in madness until his death nearly ten
years later, the Regent throughout that time made no change in the
Government, and Perceval continued in office until his own life was
ended. The dinner to which Creevey refers doubtless passed pleasantly.
The Regent came to recognize Perceval's many fine qualities and,
because of his courageous stand against the Prince, Perceval rose
greatly in stature with the public. He was no longer spoken of sneer-
ingly as 'Little P.' Some even went so far as to say that he was treading
in the footsteps of the immortal Pitt. His manner as a speaker and as a
debater had improved and he often took a strong, independent line,
at times liberal in spirit, as when he refused to prosecute members of
the early trade unions at the insistence of the employers and also when
he supported Wilberforce's efforts to remedy the abuses of the slave
trade.

Napoleon had prophesied that 'if the Prince of Wales is put at the
head of affairs, Wellington's army will be recalled' from the Peninsula.
But the prophecy proved to be false. Wellington continued to harass
the French troops. There was, however, a feeling among some mem-
bers of the Cabinet that Wellington's army was not being adequately
supported by the Government. Wellington himself did not share this
view but his brother, Lord Wellesley, who was Foreign Secretary,
resigned on this and other counts, and, though the rest of the Cabinet
still held together, there was undoubtedly great dissension among
them.

Soon there came a turn in the war which greatly worsened Britain's
position. As a retaliation to Napoleon's closing of the Continent to
British trade, Perceval stopped all supplies reaching France from across
the seas. Neutral ships were most rigorously searched and before long
a quarrel developed with America. There had been tension between the
two countries because French privateers had been allowed to use
American harbours fqr refitting and, despite repeated British protests,
the Americans still persisted in rendering them this service. When the
British took to searching American ships, not only for supplies to
France but for press-ganged sailors who had deserted from the Navy

169

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

and were only too readily protected with American citizenship, things
came to a head. America complained that her trade was suffering and
promptly stopped the sale to Britain of raw cotton from the Southern
States. By June 1812 Britain and America were once again at war.

In the midst of the crisis that led to this war, the Prime Minister,
while on his way from Downing Street to the House of Commons
on the afternoon of nth May 1812, was stopped in the street by a
Member of Parliament and asked to hurry to an urgent debate.
Perceval, who had always been interested in prophecies and had written
a pamphlet and some articles on the subject, appears to have had a
premonition that his death was near, for he had made his will and gave
it to his wife, mumbling something about his 'impending fate'. Some
days before this, a Cornishman named John Williams had dreamed -
three times, he said - that he was in the lobby of the House of Commons
and saw someone 'dressed in a snuff-coloured coat and yellow metal
buttons, take a pistol from under his coat* and fire it at 'a small man,
dressed in a blue coat and white waistcoat'.?* He saw in his dream that
'the ball entered under the left breast of the person at whom it was
directed'.

On that afternoon of nth May, Perceval, small in stature, was
dressed, like the man seen in the dream, in a white waistcoat and a
blue coat. He entered the lobby of the House at a quarter past five. A
man, who, according to The Times 'had a short time previously placed
himself in the recess of the doorway within the Lobby, drew out a
small pistol and shot Mr, Perceval in the lower part of the left breast/
Perceval staggered a pace or two and fell into the arms of Members
who had rushed forward. He said just the one word 'Murder', and
some minutes later he died.

The man who shot him, John Bellingham, was dressed as in the
dream. When seized, he said 'I am an unhappy man', and explained
that he had at one time been doing business as a merchant in Russia,
had gone bankrupt, but was arrested for fraud and sent to prison in
Archangel for five years. Since his release and return to England he had
been seeking redress and had approached many Members of Parliament
and had even written to the Prime Minister. Not receiving a satisfactory
reply he had decided to shoot the Prime Minister.

The body of Perceval was taken back to No. 10 Downing Street,

170

SPENCER PERCEVAL

where it was kept for five days until the funeral on i6th May. His
grieving widow and children had the sympathy of a shocked nation,
in whose eyes Perceval through his unflagging devotion to duty had
begun to assume the stature of greatness.

171

CHAPTER 18

The Unremembered Chancellor

THE new Prime Minister was the Earl of Liverpool, who in
Perceval's Government was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies,
which at that time were combined. He belonged to a Tory family.
His father, Charles Jenkinson, had been secretary to Lord Bute and had
later served as Secretary at War under Lord North; he was raised by
Pitt to be President of the Board of Trade and held the post for many
years during Pitt's long reign. He was in consequence a constant
visitor at No. 10.

His son Robert, now Prime Minister, was elected to Parliament, no
doubt through his influence, at the early age of nineteen. He already
knew Pitt and won that great man's commendation with his maiden
speech. Chance provided him with an unforgettable experience: he
happened to be in Paris on I4th July 1789 and actually saw the storm-
ing of the Bastille.

Office was given to him early, but it was not until Addington
succeeded Pitt that he entered the Cabinet as Foreign Secretary. He
was then thirty years old, and played an important part in the conckision

172

THE UNREMEMBERED CHANCELLOR

of a treaty of peace with France - the short-lived peace of 1802. His
father had in the meantime been made the first Earl of Liverpool.

On Pitt's death in 1806 he succeeded him as Lord Warden of the
Cinque Ports and the King also offered him the Premiership, but
Liverpool (Lord Hawkesbury at the time) refused. Two years kter he
succeeded his father as the second Earl. It was by the choice of his
Cabinet colleagues and the Regent that he was now appointed First
Lord of the Treasury at the age of forty-two.

Like so many of his predecessors, he preferred not to live at No. 10.
He had already moved into his father's fine town house in Whitehall -
Fife House - and No. 10 was assigned to his Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, Mr. Nicholas Vansittart. In order not to hasten unduly the
departure of Perceval's widow and her large family, Vansittart waited
until their home in Ealing was got ready to receive them. Thus it was
not until the following year, 1813, that he finally took possession of
No. 10.

Vansittafl: was the son of a wealthy merchant in the East India
service, Henry Vansittart, who adjusted the spelling of the family
name, which had been van Sittart, after the town of Sittard in Limburg.
His father and grandfather had made their fortunes as directors of the
Russia Company; and Henry Vansittart, moving to India, succeeded
Clive as Governor of Bengal in February 1760.* Nicholas was not
born until six years later and so was forty-six when he became Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer. He had married Isabelle, the sister of Eleanor
Eden, with whom Pitt had been in love, but their life together was all
too brief for she died a very few years afterwards. There were no
children and he never married again. No. 10 must have seemed
strangely quiet after the departure of the Perceval family.

Nicholas Vansittart knew the house well, for he had been joint
Secretary of the Treasury for three years in Addington's Administra-
tion, the other secretary being Addington's brother John Hiley Ad-
dington, whose hostility to Pitt was expressed so consistently in The
Times. Pitt appointed Vansittart Secretary for Ireland in 1805,
but Perceval put him back in the Treasury and kter offered him the
Chancellorship of the Exchequer, which he refused at the time. Now

* Lord Liverpool's maternal grandfather, Mr. William Watts, had also been Governor
of Bengal.

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

he was to occupy that office and live at No. 10 for more than ten years.

America declared war on England on i8th June 1812, ten days after
Liverpool formed his Administration. Four days later Napoleon began
his ill-fated march on Moscow. The Cabinet doubtless continued to
meet at No. 10 while Mrs. Perceval was still in residence. Few changes
were made in the Government. Lord Castlereagh had returned to the
Foreign Office some months earlier and was now also Leader of the
House of Commons. Eldon, that ageing reactionary, remained Lord
Chancellor. Sidmouth (formerly Addington) moved over to the Home
Office, Palmerston stayed on as Secretary at War, a position he had
already occupied for three years and was to retain for a further sixteen.
Canning was invited to come in but the old hostility that had led to
his duel with Castlereagh still separated them.

As late as July 1812, three weeks after the chief ministries had been
filled, attempts were still being made to bring in Canning. Replying
to Charles Arbuthnot, a junior Minister, on the 1 8th July, Canning
said: 'The price to be paid on coming in would cost me a bitter pang -
not from any personal feeling towards C. upon my honour, but from
a sense of humiliation - hard to endure, & I think unnecessary to be
proposed to me. I have not demanded the lead [the Leadership of the
House of Commons] for myself. It is not my fault that such a thing as
lead has been known or named in these discussions. I should be con-
tented if it could be put in abeyance as between C. and me - as it would
be if continuing nominally with the Chancp. of the Ex. in a third
hand - even in Van's. Why not? He can live in the house - write the
letters - give the dinner & read the speech - and C. and I could assist
in the House, doing the business of our respective Departments/

Canning wanted equality, Castlereagh insisted on having pre-
eminence, and as a result Canning, by far the more brilliant of the two,
had to wait ten years until Casdereagh's suicide before returning as
Foreign Secretary.

Vansittart, in the office and the house that Sir Francis Dashwood had
once occupied, could not have been much comforted by the thought
that his father and two of his uncles had once been friends of Dashwood
and members of the disreputable fraternity of Franciscans at the Hell
Fire Club at Medmenham. It was indeed one of these uncles, Robert
Vansittart, who had brought in the baboon to receive the Sacrament

174

Margot Asquith, later the Countess of Oxford and Asquith. The photograph shows htr
as an oriental snake-charmer at a fancy dress baU at Devonshire House in July 1897.

David Lloyd George (right) with Clemenceau, the French Premier, and President
Wilson, both of whom visited the British Prime Minister at No. 10 Downing Street
at the end of the First World War.

Bonar Law (second from left) with the French Premier Raymond Poincare (on his
right), Signer Mussolini, and M. Theunis, the Belgian Premier, in the State Drawing
Room at No. 10 in December 1922.

THE UNKEMBMBEKED CHANCELLOR

during their blasphemous rites. In time Robert reformed and became
Professor of Civil Law at Oxford and Recorder at Windsor. Nicholas*
father settled down too as Governor of Bengal, but he did not long
survive the birth of Nichoks, the youngest of his five sons. When the
boy was only four years old, the father set out on an important mission
to India, but was lost with the ship at sea.

The new Chancellor of the Exchequer was quite unlike either his
father or his uncles. After a very brief spell of gaiety in the fashionable
world, he turned away from it, became home4oving, diligent and
pious, and was described by many as 'mouldy*. He had been called to
the Bar, but on getting into Parliament devoted a number of years to
writing pamphlets, most of them on finance. They gave the impression
that he had quite a flair for economics. But many criticized his schemes
as being unsound, and some indeed were found later to be unworkable.

His first Budget, presented within a few days of taking office, must
largely have been prepared by his predecessor Perceval. In view of the
pressing need for more money, the existing taxes were raised, a heavier
levy was imposed on male servants, carriages, horses and dogs. But
even these were soon found not to be enough. With Wellington's
campaign proceeding in the Peninsula, bringing most heartening
victories, with the war against America to be sustained and a vast Navy
to be kept supplied, still further burdens had to be heaped year after
year upon a people who had already endured dose on twenty years of
war. And even now few felt that the end was in sight. Not until news
reached England of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in the autumn of
1812, did hopes begin to rise. But they soon faded. With a fresh force of
young conscripts Napoleon inflicted a telling defeat on the Prussians
and the Russians in Saxony. Wellington had to withdraw his troops
from Burgos and return to Portugal. But in May 1813 the tide finally
turned. Napoleon's brother Joseph, appointed King of Spain, was
routed by Wellington at Vittoria and scurried back to France. In
October British troops, wading across the Bidassoa estuary, invaded
France. Napoleon himself was defeated a few days later at Leipzig by
the combined forces of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden, and five
months later the Allied forces inarched into Paris. Napoleon abdicated
and was sent to Elba,

The sense of relief in the Cabinet room was not one of undiluted

175

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

jubilation, for the war against America still continued. The British
troops from the Peninsula were sent across the Atlantic to bring the
American war to a speedy conclusion, and once again large numbers of
Englishmen were engaged in hostilities against those who but a genera-
tion before had been their countrymen. The consistent British successes
on land were counterbalanced by some notable American naval
victories, especially on Lakes Erie and Champlain. In August 1814 a
British expedition descended on Washington and set fire to the White
House. Not long after that, in December 1814, the war ended, with a
give and take on both sides in the terms of settlement.

It provided but a brief respite, for Napoleon's escape from Elba early
in 1815 brought a renewal of the war. Still heavier taxes had to be
introduced, and it was not until after the final victory at Waterloo that
Vansittart was able, in his Budget in February 1816, to adjust the
financial policy to a peace basis. A large decrease in taxation was
expected. It was felt that now at last the property tax would be
abolished. But Vansittart merely reduced it. Its retention was met with a
howl of angry protests in the House of Commons. Members insisted
that it was purely a war measure; to continue it in peacetime was a
breach of faith. When a vote was taken its abolition was carried.
Vansittart was forced also to remit the extra tax on malt, and had to
make up the deficiency from other sources. He increased the soap tax
very considerably and got the rest by borrowing. His financial policy
was subjected to consistent attack throughout his ten years at the
Exchequer. Fiercest of his critics was George Tierney, whose quarrel
with Pitt had led to a dud. In each Budget Vansittart introduced 'a new
plan'. Some of these plans were quite fantastic. One, for instance, was
for handing over the payment of naval and military pensions to con-
tractors, who would be given a fixed sum annually for forty-five years,
but he could find no one to take on such a contract. It was patent that he
lacked the talent to deal with the finances of the country at this most
critical juncture. His name could hardly be mentioned in any circle
without expressions of loathing. Even on his own side of the House,
little regard was shown him, yet he was kept on in office for six years
after Waterloo.

Meanwhile, following Napoleon's abdication and before his escape
from Elba, the great powers had met at the Congress of Vienna to

176

THE UNREMEMBEKED CHANCELLOR

dispose of the many countries in Europe Napoleon had annexed.
Metternich acted as host at the magnificent but impoverished Austrian
court, and Talleyrand, after serving Napoleon, now represented the
returned Bourbon King of France, Louis the Eighteenth, who had been
living in exile in England in a mansion near Aylesbury. Castlereagh,
mistrustful of Russia, concerned himself solely with ensuring the
Balance of Power in Europe, a policy that Britain strove at all times to
maintain. In consequence the disposal of the liberated territories was
effected with no regard whatsoever to the wishes of the inhabitants or
to the national yearnings for independence which had contributed so
vitally to Napoleon's downfall. After a call at No. 10 Downing Street
by Henry Brougham, the young Whig who later became famous as
Lord Chancellor, Vansittart wrote a memorandum which Lord Liver-
pool sent on to Casdereagh in Vienna: it was to plead for the re-
unification and independence of Poland, which had been carved up by
her neighbours in a series of ruthless partitions during the preceding
century. But it was unsuccessful. The Congress hurriedly dispersed
when the startling news reached Vienna of Napoleon's escape from
Elba and of the assembling of a large new army.

One of Vansittart's closer friends was the Duke of Cumberland, a
younger son of George the Third and quite the most unpopular
member of the Royal family. He was with the Hanoverian troops at the
battle of Leipzig in 1813 and thereafter lived abroad for sixteen years.
On his visits to London it was his practice to call on No. 10 Downing
Street to see Vansittart. Among others who came to the house were
those who had served in India and had links with Vansittart's father.
Another frequent visitor was Nathan Rothschild, a Jewish banker,
who had come over from Frankfurt in 1797, when only twenty, to
establish a branch in England for the family firm of bankers, already
represented in the key capitals of Europe by his father and his four
brothers. Despite the troubled and confused state of communications
during die long war, this family was able to keep money in circulation
even across hostile frontiers and were able, for example, to transport
gold to Wellington throughout his campaign in Spain. For some of the
talks his brother James Rothschild managed, despite the war, to come to
London from Paris and saw both Vansittart and the Prime Minister,
Lord Liverpool, at No. 10. 'His Lordship's reason for wishing to see

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Mr. J. Rothschild', wrote Mr. John Herries, the Commissary-in-Chief,
who had been Spencer Perceval's secretary at No. 10 and now con-
ducted the correspondence on behalf of the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, 'is to receive from him the general information which he is
enabled to give respecting the state of Paris.'* The meeting took place
at eleven o'clock on the morning of 29th January 1814.

The Rothschilds had a network of agents all over Europe and used
carrier pigeons to convey their information, finding this a much
speedier method than dispatch by couriers on horseback. It was partly
by this means that news of the victory at Waterloo was brought to
England - a day ahead of the official dispatches. Wellington had just
taken Castlereagh's pkce at the Congress of Vienna when the news of
Napoleon's escape reached that exalted gathering. The four great
powers, England, Russia, Prussia and Austria, immediately undertook
to send an army of 150,000 men each and Wellington, on Britain's
behalf, guaranteed to give the Allies in addition a subsidy of five mil-
lion pounds. He then left Vienna to command the British forces against
Napoleon.

An agent of the house of Rothschild at Ostend, the moment he
learned of the victory at Waterloo, crossed the Channel and the news
was brought by Nathan Rothschild himself from his office in St.
Swithin's Lane to Vansittart at No. 10.

For years after the war had ended, the austerity continued. The
country was saddled with a vast national debt and heavy taxation was
unavoidable. Trade, which had been expected to revive with the
removal of barriers, in fact declined. Unemployment was widespread.
Many thousands were reduced to starvation and had to scavenge in the
gutters for food. Even the heroes home from Waterloo and the Penin-
sula suffered the most agonizing privation. In the large towns, born of
the Industrial Revolution, the conditions were indescribable. In
Birmingham more than half the population lived in cellars. Out of
such desperation came ugly scenes of rioting. The Prince Regent was
stoned as he drove through the streets of London. Vansittart, attending
divine service at the Millbank Penitentiary, was pelted with stale bread
by the women prisoners. The Government, diagnosing this as an out-

* These letters are preserved in the archives of Rothschild's Bank.

178

THE UNREMEMBERED CHANCELLOR

crop of the French Revolution, were resolved on preventing its spread
and resorted to the use of force. Troops were sent out to quell the
angry mobs. Rioters were hanged or transported overseas - to Botany
Bay now that America was no longer available to receive them.

In 1820 George the Third died. During his long reign America had
been lost and two vast new empires had been won - one of these in the
Seven Years War, concluded shortly after he came to the throne, the
other in the recent war against France. Twice he had been served by
both father and son as Prime Ministers - Chatham and Pitt, George
Grenville and Lord Grenville. His heir, who had ruled as Prince Regent
for ten years, now ascended the throne as George the Fourth. The new
King's heir, Princess Charlotte, an only child, had died three years
before. His niece the future Queen Victoria, was then only
eight months old. There was an ugly scene at the King's Coronation
at Westminster Abbey in July 1821 : when Queen Caroline arrived the
doors were shut and she was barred from entering. Canning, who had
joined the Cabinet after the war, immediately resigned in protest.

Vansittart was removed from the Exchequer in December 1822, was
given a peerage and became Lord Bexley ; but Lord Liverpool kept him
on in the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He had,
however, to vacate No. 10 for the new Chancellor, Frederick John
Robinson.

'Van is to be crowned with a coronet !' exclaimed Canning.* 'Laugh
if you will, but it is a most serious relief to me.'

* In a letter to Charles Bagot.
179

CHAPTER 19
'Prosperity Robinson'

FREDERICK ROBINSON, later Viscount Goderich and later still
the first Earl of Ripon, was a young man, just turned forty. He came
of a family with powerful political connections. His grandfather had
been a Secretary of State under the famous Duke of Newcastle and,
despite the ridicule heaped upon him by Chatham, was rewarded with
a peerage and became the first Lord Grantham. Robinson's father, the
second Lord Grantham, was Foreign Secretary under Shelburne; his
uncle was Lord Malmesbury; his mother was the daughter of the
second Earl of Hardwicke. He was thus surrounded by overwhelming
influence. Later he married Lady Sarah Hobart, the only child of the
fourth Earl of Buckinghamshire: her stepmother was Pitt's Eleanor
Eden.

Young Robinson was at Harrow with Palmerston and got into the
House of Commons at the General Election of 1806 while in his early
twenties. A moderate Tory, he held office under Portland and, having
become a dose friend of Castlereagh, resigned when the latter left the

180

'PROSPERITY ROBINSON'

Government after his duel with Canning. Such early and rapid advance-
ment would suggest that he was not without ability, hut his contem-
poraries were of the opinion that he hadhardlyany. George the Fourth,
when Robinson was appointed to the Exchequer, felt that the appoint-
ment was Very likely to give great satisfaction to the country gentle-
men',77 but a few years later decided that he was a 'blubbering
fool'.

An early blunder was committed by him on ist March 1815, when
the country was suffering the acutest privation. Robinson, then Trea-
surer of the Navy, brought in a Bill to prevent the import of wheat into
the country until the average price in England was eighty shillings a
quarter, with a similar ban to exclude other grain. The Bill passed both
Houses, but caused much rioting. Robinson's house in Old Burlington
Street was attacked, most of his furniture and some very valuable
pictures were destroyed. What was left he brought with him now to
furnish No. 10. He married towards the end of the war and by the time
he came to Downing Street he had only one child, a daughter aged
eight.

His face was round and pudgy, his complexion bright. In manner
he was nervous and vague. Croker states74 that he had 'an absent
enthusiastic way of telling stories which were often very much
mal h propos'. An instance of this was his frequent narration of the old
jest with which Lord North used to regale his friends about the
ugliness of his wife and daughter. One evening Robinson told the
story to a woman seated beside him at a party and found that it
was not received with much relish. The woman turned out to be
North's daughter. Like his grandfather, Robinson was the genial
butt of everybody, and was often referred to as the 'Duke of Fuss
and Bustle'.

He astonished his contemporaries by earning a considerable reputa-
tion as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The years of austerity had been
maintained too long by Vansittart and Robinson decided that the time
had come for substantial reductions in taxation. In his very first Budget,
introduced a month after he moved into No. 10, he made a wide series
of cuts, reducing among other things the long standing window tax,
which he cut by half. This was greeted in the House by loud and hearty
applause such as had not been heard for a generation or more at a

181

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

Budget statement.* Further reductions followed : in 1 824 he reduced the
duties on rum, on raw silk and on foreign wool. In 1825 he reduced the
duties on iron, hemp, coffee, sugar, wine, spirits and cider. A succession
of fine harvests and a steady improvement in the country's trade
brought great prosperity and earned him the nickname of 'Prosperity
Robinson'.

Despite the many tributes paid him, in his own mind he was uneasy,
for it had begun to leak out that his knowledge of finance was only
superficial and that his Budgets were worked out for him by William
Huskisson, the President of the Board of Trade, a man of outstanding
ability, very closely associated with Canning. Robinson had also the
help of John Herries, who had rendered Vansittart such great assistance
in his dealings with Nathan Rothschild. Robinson's biographer admits :
'He had the faculty of using the brains of his subordinates.'86

With his own fine collection of furniture and pictures so recently
destroyed, he strove to provide the nation with worthy centres where a
taste similar to his own could be indulged. In May 1823, only a few
months after becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, he obtained a
grant towards the new building for the British Museum; and in the
following year he allocated the sum of ^57,000 for the purchase of the
Angerstein collection of pictures with which the National Gallery was
started, and as a trustee was concerned too with the acceptance of the
design for the building in Trafalgar Square which houses the pictures.
He next turned his attention to the house in which he lived. No. 10
Downing Street, with its rambling passages and warren of rooms, some
of them offices, others bedrooms, though constantly repaired, often at
great cost, had not been elaborately redecorated since Kent merged the
three houses together for Walpole ninety years before. Robinson now
called in John Soane, the eminent architect, to examine the building
with a view to effecting improvements. Soane, in his seventy-third
year, was architect to the Bank of England and was also responsible for
much of the rebuilding in Whitehall. He designed for No. 10 a new and
very handsome dining-room, panelled in oak with reeded mouldings.
It stands on the first floor, but its lofty ceiling is raised right through the
next floor, so that it actually occupies two floors. He also provided an

* Annual Register for 1823.
182

'PROSPEWTY ROBINSON'

ante-room alongside, similarly panelled and decorated: it served
as a smaller dining-room and is now known as the breakfast-room.
He further inserted some new cubicles and, as the record states,
'the Passage of communication therewith'. The cost of all this
was approximately ^£2,000.* The work was done while the Robin-
sons still lived in the house. In 1829, after its completion, the Office
of Works, in its report on the house, stated: 'This is a large old
Building which has been altered, and added to, at many different
periods, and tho' in a substantial condition requires very frequent
repairs/

While the work was in progress fate dealt a cruel blow to the
Robinsons. Their daughter, now in her twelfth year, died after a short
illness. The effect was shattering. His wife went down with a severe
illness and Robinson wrote to the Prime Minister to ask if he could be
sent to the Upper House so that he might be relieved of the heavy
work he had to undertake in the Commons as Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer. But, with the country going through a severe economic
crisis, Lord Liverpool replied that 'such a change would be quite
impracticable.' The general prosperity, due to the expansion of trade,
especially with the South American colonies now struggling for free-
dom from Spanish rule, collapsed suddenly and there was once again
widespread unemployment, as in the years after Waterloo. There
followed the most reckless speculation, which the banks did nothing to
check; indeed the Bank of England encouraged it by advancing money
freely.103 A run on the banks followed and there was panic. Many
London banks and eighty country banks failed. Mills and workshops
closed down. Wages fell rapidly. Thousands of the workless lived on
the edge of starvation and begged in the streets for food. There was
rioting and scenes of the wildest disorder. Units of the armed forces,
since there was no organized police, were sent into the big towns to
quell the mobs, and once again there was a spreading fear of revolu-
tion. Sir Robert Peel, the Home Secretary, connived at the use of
agents provocateurs and spies by the military authorities.

Lord Liverpool, in rejecting Robinson's plea, added: "This is the first
session you will have had of real financial difficulty, and I do not think

* Public Record Office.
I83

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

it would be for your credit that you should appear to shrink from it.
. . . Your voluntarily quitting the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer
at the present moment would infallibly bring on the crisis which must
lead to the dissolution of the Government/76

So Robinson had to remain in office and grapple with the difficulties.
In January his wife was pregnant again and on 24th October a son was
born to them who later became Viceroy and Governor-General of
India and Marquess of Ripon.

Lord Liverpool had himself been very ill when he refused Robinson's
request, and six weeks later he was found lying on the floor of his bed-
room *in a violent apoplectic fit, quite senseless', wrote Lord Eldon, the
Lord Chancellor. For two years Liverpool had been harassed by intri-
gues in the Cabinet, and the strain had worn him down. A few weeks
later he resigned : he died in the following year. Though undistinguished
by his own achievements, he managed to remain Prime Minister for
fifteen years, the longest term anyone has held the office other than
Walpole and Pitt.

There were in the Government men of marked talent - Canning,
who had succeeded his arch-enemy Castlereagh at the Foreign Office
when the latter, having but recently become the Marquess of London-
derry, cut his throat with a knife; Robert Peel at the Home Office;
Palmerston Secretary at War; Lord Wdlesley as Lord-Lieutenant
of Ireland; and his brother the Duke of Wellington, who had joined
the Cabinet in 1818 as Master-General of the Ordnance. Of these
Wellington, surprisingly, was expected to be the new Prime Minister.
A stir was caused when it was learned that the King had sent for
Canning, who was lying ill at Brighton as a result of a severe chill he
had caught at the Duke of York's funeral.

Canning drove up to London for the interview. The question of
Catholic emancipation had come again to the fore in recent weeks and
running was strongly in favour of it ; Wellington in the House of Lords
and Ped in the Commons were its most violent opponents. In the hope
of obtaining a balanced Government, the King suggested that Canning
should remain in office, but that a peer 'of anti-Catholic opinions'
should be Prime Minister. It was at once dear whom His Majesty had
in mind, and Canning refused to agree to it. Whether he stayed at the
Foreign Office or went to the Treasury, he said, he must have, and be

184

PROSPERITY ROBINSON

known to have, the 'substantive power of First Minister* ; failing this, it
was his firm decision to resign.

After two weeks of royal hesitation, and considerable intrigue behind
the scenes, the King sent for him again, and Canning was appointed
Prime Minister.

185

CHAPTER 20
Canning's Short Reign

GEORGE CANNING was born in Londonderry and regarded
himself as an Irishman because his ancestors, though of English origin,
had lived in that country for a century and a half. His father, disowned
by his family, had struggled to make a living by writing and had mar-
ried a poor but beautiful Irish girl. On his death in 1771, exactly a year
after his son's birth, his wife and only child were left destitute. She tried
to make a living on the stage and eventually married a dissolute actor.
At this point her brother-in-law, Stratford Canning, a prosperous Lon-
don banker, fearing the evil influence of this union on his nephew,
offered to take charge of him. He settled £200 a year on the boy, sent
him to Eton, where he rose to be head of the school, and then to Christ
Church, Oxford.

At the home of his uncle, a staunch "Whig, Canning met Fox and
Sheridan and later got to know Burke extremely well; at Oxford he
became a dose friend of Lord Liverpool, then Robert Jenkinson, and
of Pitt's cousin Lord Grenville. He was introduced to that centre of
Grand Whiggery, Devonshire House, and attended the impressive
supper parties where rank and wealth and beauty mingled.

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CANNINGS SHORT REIGN

But his admiration was focused on Pitt, who, having been brought
up a Whig, had during the war drifted closer to the Tories. Canning
decided on a political career and, like Burke, broke with the Whigs
after the outbreak of the French Revolution and joined the Tories. He
had just emerged from his teens, but he was sufficiently prominent to be
lampooned by Fox's friend Colonel Fitzpatrick in the lines:

The turning of coats so common is grown

That no one would wish to attack it,
But no case until now was so flagrantly known

Of a schoolboy turning his jacket.

At twenty-two he wrote to ask Pitt for an interview and was received
at No. 10 Downing Street on isth August 1792. Writing of it to a
friend at Oxford, he described how he 'was ushered into that study in
which so many great statesmen and great scoundrels have at different
times planned their country's ruin and the advancement of their own
futures'. Pitt was obviously impressed by the brilliance of the young
man, for he took immediate steps to find him a seat in Parliament.
Canning made his mark quickly as a speaker of wit and vigour, and
within three years was appointed by Pitt Under Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs. One of the first things he did now was to settle an
allowance of £500 a year for life on his mother and stepsisters.

His chief at the Foreign Office was Lord Grenville. Canning disliked
his staunch adherence to Whig principles and his cold, unbending
aristocratic air, but nevertheless remained in the Government until
Pitt resigned in 1801. A little before this, in July 1800, his marriage to
Joan Scott, sister-in-law of the Duke of Portland's heir, brought him a
dowry of ^£ 100,000, a very considerable sum in those days, which
made him both rich and independent. Thus by the time he was thirty
his fortunes had changed from the dire poverty of childhood to extreme
affluence.

His strong attachment to Pitt and his contempt for Addington caused
him to launch a series of most bitter attacks on Addington and his
Cabinet. In addition to his quip 'Pitt is to Addington as London is to
Paddington', he was more pointedly offensive, when, on the proposal
that the Thames estuary should be defended by the erection of block-
houses, he perpetrated the rhyme:

187

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

If blocks can the nation deliver,
Two places are safe from the French;
The first is the mouth of the river,
The second the Treasury Bench.

These attacks, though often quoted with chortling approval, re-
dounded in the end to Canning's disadvantage. The more earnest
Members of the House disapproved of his levity, and it was believed
that it was because of this that Pitt, on returning to No. 10 in May 1804,
offered him the subordinate post of Treasurer of the Navy, which
Canning nevertheless accepted. It was not until the Duke of Portland
moved into No. 10 in 1807, that Canning was given an opportunity
worthy of his talent and became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
He used it with striking effect. Napoleon had just forced Tsar Alexander
the First of Russia to make a separate peace and to co-operate in exclud-
ing all British trade from the Continent. Sweden, Britain's only re-
maining ally, had been induced to renounce the alliance and the Russian
and Swedish fleets were about to seize the Danish fleet when Canning
by a bold move foiled them. With secrecy and speed, he dispatched
British warships to Elsinore in July 1807. The immediate surrender of
the Danish fleet was demanded by Britain with the promise of its return
at the end of the war. The demand was refused. Copenhagen was there-
upon bombarded and the entire Danish fleet was seized, together with a
great mass of naval stores, and taken to British ports. Canning thus
added the finishing stroke to Nelson's resounding victory at Trafalgar
less than two years before.

In October Napoleon arranged that Portugal should be divided
between France and Spain. But a few months later he deposed the
Spanish King and placed his own brother Joseph Bonaparte on the
throne. Canning instantly decided that British forces should be sent to
support the enraged Spaniards, who were eager to drive the occupying
French forces from their country.

Following bis quarrel with Castlereagh, he was for some years out of
office, and even after his return in the subordinate post of President of
the Board of Control (forerunner of the India Office), his support
of Queen Caroline in thedivorce proceedings brought by King George
the Fourth in 1820, led to a further term in exile. He agreed two years

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CANNINGS SHORT REIGN

later, with no apparent hope of office, to go out to India as Governor-
General. It meant his retirement from political affairs in England for a
number of years. On the eve of his departure Casdereagh's suicide
completely changed the pattern of his life. Liverpool invited him to re-
turn to the Foreign Office. Canning, however, insisted on having
Casdereagh' s 'whole inheritance' - not only the Foreign Office but the
Leadership of the House of Commons as well. This was agreed to, and
for the next five years Canning exercised an influence that was far-
reaching and momentous. It is on his statemanship in these years that
his fame rests.

He completely reversed Casdereagh's foreign policy. Ever since the
Congress of Vienna, which Casdereagh attended, and his dose support
of Metternich, Casdereagh had come to be regarded as a friend of
despots and dictators. He was associated with the European alliances
formed to 'preserve the peace* and suppress all insurrections prompted
by the desire for national freedom. Canning, on the other hand,
returned to the earlier progressive policy of Pitt and gavehis sympathy,
and later even encouragement, to national movements in various parts
of the world - in Europe to the liberation of the Greeks from the
Turks (in which Lord Byron died) and to the defence of Portugal from
Spanish intervention; in South America and Mexico to the revolt of the
Spanish colonies and their recognition as independent states. 'I called the
New World into existence,' Canning said, 'to redress the balance of the
Old/

By thus extending the influence of Britain and raising its status in
international affairs, Canning became the most popular statesman in the
country. The King, overlooking his attitude in the divorce case, held
him now in very high esteem. There were nevertheless undoubted
difficulties when the succession to Liverpool arose. Canning, though a
Tory, was far more enlightened and progressive than the majority of his
colleagues in Liverpool's Government. Most bitterly opposed to him
was the Duke of Wellington, who detested not only his foreign policy
but also his championship of Catholic emancipation. It was certain that
if the King selected Canning as Prime Minister, quite a number of his
colleagues in the Cabinet would resign. This would mean the break up
of the Tory Party, which had been in office (save for Lord Grenville's
short term of twelve months) ever since 1783. That was undoubtedly

189

why his Majesty proposed to make 'a peer of anti-Catholic opinions'
the new Prime Minister. Canning's refusal to accept this was based on
the certainty that he would have the backing of the Whigs, since they
approved of his progressive outlook. There were a few waverers among
the Whig peers. Earl Grey, for example, asserted that 'the son of an
actress' was 'de facto incapacitated from being Premier of England'.81
But they were eventually won round. A coalition between die pro-
gressive Tories and the Whigs seemed a possible solution and among
those who advocated it was Lord John Russell: The Times also hinted
at it in an inspired leading article.

When, after two weeks of hesitation, the King finally asked Canning
to form a Government, the Duke of Wellington resigned instantly and
even gave up his position as Commander-in-Chief of the Army.
Another to leave was Robert Peel, a brilliant young Tory, who, though
not yet forty, had been seriously regarded by many as the rightful
successor to Lord Liverpool. He was a member of the new middle-
dass thrown up by the Industrial Revolution and had been especially
trained for a political career by his father, a prosperous textile baronet.
Elected to Parliament on coming of age, he had within a year been
given a junior ministerial post by Spencer Perceval, and in 1812 was
appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland by Lord Liverpool. He remained
in office throughout Liverpool's long reign and succeeded Addington
(Lord Sidmouth) as Home Secretary in 1822, an office which he now
relinquished. Canning was sorry to see him go. The Lord Chancellor,
Lord Eldon, a reactionary Tory, also resigned and was followed
by three other peers. Lord Londonderry, Casdereagh's brother, at
the same time resigned his position as Gendeman of the Bed-
chamber, refusing to serve the King because of his selection of 'that
man*.

Canning lost no time in moving into No. 10. In his Government he
had two former residents of that house - Nichoks Vansittart, now Lord
Bexley, and Frederick Robinson, now Lord Goderich. Viscount
Palmerston, who had been Secretary at War in the previous Govern-
ment, retained that position and was now given a seat in the Cabinet;
die Duke of Portland, son of a previous Prime Minister and Canning's
brother-in-law, was also found a place in the Cabinet as Lord Privy
Seal. Canning himself, like others before Kirn who were not in the

190

CANNING S SHORT REIGN

Lords, took on the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as
First Lord of the Treasury. His Government was in fact a coalition. It
included George Tierney, a Whig and Pitt's sternest critic, and Lord
Lansdowne,* also a Whig, who went to the Home Office.

The country went wild with excitement on learning that Canning
had become Prime Minister. Such enthusiasm had not been seen since
the days of the Pitts. Even the Kong, generally disliked, enjoyed some
of the reflected popularity for having made the choice. The Press too
gave it their fullest support. No premiership could have had a more
auspicious beginning.

When Canning moved into No. 10 he was crippled by rheumatism,
and still had hanging about him the cold he had caught at the Duke of
York's funeral. He was in fact ill for most of the four months that
remained of his life. He was now fifty-seven. His devoted wife Joan, his
constant companion for twenty-seven years, nursed him with solici-
tude and care and sought to alleviate in so far as she could the greatly
increased strain he had now to endure. Of their three sons, the eldest,
George, to whom the Princess of Wales had been godmother, had died
in 1820, the second, William Pitt Canning, was a captain in the Royal
Navy and was to meet his death by drowning off Madeira a few months
after the death of his father. Only two of the children, Charles, aged
fourteen, who was to be Governor-General of India at the time of the
Mutiny and to be rewarded with an earldom, and Harriet, slightly
older, who was to marry the first Marquess of Clanricarde and to be
the ancestress of the Earls of Harewood, were young enough to live at
No. 10 Downing Street with their parents.

Canning's earlier arrogance and pugnacity had softened with the
years. He was far more conciliatory in his manner. Nevertheless the
hostility against him in Parliament was sustained and unrelenting. Fore-
most amongst his critics were his former friends and colleagues. He had
indeed to meet attacks from the extreme wings of both parties. In the
House of Lords he was subjected to a ceaseless onslaught from Earl
Grey for the Whigs and the Duke of Wellington for the 'high Tories'.
This so enraged Canning that he thought seriously of taking a peerage
in order to deal with them since Lord Goderich ('Prosperity Robinson')

* Lansdowne's father was Lord Shelburne, die Prime Minister under whom the younger
Pitt served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1782.

191

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

could not. His wife declared later that it was Grey's attacks in particular
that shortened her husband's life.

With his working majority in the Commons, Canning was able to
put through such measures as he felt were necessary and urgent. He had
set aside, however, a]l thought of Parliamentary reform, once so dear to
his master Pitt. He had even to modify his plan for amending the Corn
Law of 1815, which excluded the import of all foreign wheat, for as
Cobden had declared, the duty was maintained exclusively in the landed
interest and the opposition in both Houses to any interference with it
was overwhelming.

Among Canning's closer friends were his young secretary Augustus
Stapleton, with whom he spent many happy hours at No. 10, and Sir
Walter Scott, the novelist, who never had the opportunity of visiting
him in Downing Street, but spent a joyous summer with him by Lake
Windermere in 1 825, when in company with Wordsworth and Southey
they rode through the woods by day, paddled in the lake by moonlight,
and engaged in 'high discourse', as Scott's biographer Lockhart records,
'mingled with as gay flashings of courtly wit as ever Canning displayed'.
Canning was a man of fine commanding appearance. With wigs no
longer worn, his baldness gave him a wide, but distinguished forehead.
His nose was almost as hooked as Wellington's. He liked the company
of beautiful women, gambled hardly at all and never drank to excess.
As an orator many of his contemporaries ranked him with the Pitts. His
voice was resonant, his delivery, his choice of words, his imagery and
the clarity of his reasoning, while magnificently impressive, were
regarded by some as theatrical. It was said of him that he spoke with his
head and not his heart.

On ist June 1827 he presented his only Budget to the House. His
handling of the intricacies of finance was considered quite astounding.
Three weeks later, speaking on the Corn. Amendment Bill, he made
what was to be his last speech. In the gallery on that occasion was young
Benjamin Disraeli, then twenty-three years old. Later he said of it: 'I
can recall the lightning flash of that eye and the tumult of that ethereal
brow. Still lingers in my ear the melody of that voice.' The Bill was
passed by the House of Commons but was thrown out by the Lords
because of the Duke of Wellington's vigorous opposition.
Parliament rose at the beginning ofjuly. With the cold still lingering

192

CANNING S SHORT REIGN

and suffering also from gout, Canning decided to see his doctors. They
found his constitution strong, with 'stamina for several years to come'.
He had in fact barely four weeks to live. Huskisson, President of the
Board of Trade and one of his closer friends, saw him later that month.
Canning, on being told that he looked ill, denied that there was any-
thing wrong with him and talked of going abroad. On the 2oth he
went to stay with the Duke of Devonshire at his house in Chiswick.
As Fox had died there twenty-one years before, Devonshire was careful
not to give Canning the same room. 'I had a great foreboding when he
came here, and would not allow of his being in the room below where
Fox had died,' he said. From Chiswick he went to see the King on the
29th. His Majesty asked anxiously after his health. Canning said he did
not know what the matter was, but felt 'ill all over'. He suffered the
acutest agony for about a week and died in the early hours of 8th
August.

His body was taken back to No. 10. The Times described him as being
'frightfully attenuated ... so greatly changed that those who were most
intimately acquainted with his person would not now recognize it*.

A strictly private funeral was insisted on by his widow. Only
relatives and his doctors were invited 'to attend in Downing Street'
and to go 'from thence in procession to the Abbey'. His body was
buried at the feet of the younger Pitt.

He was the kst of five Prime Ministers to die in harness within one
generation. The others were Pitt, the old Duke of Portland, Spencer
Perceval and Lord Liverpool.

Wellington was not prepared even now to say one kind or generous
word of him, but was brutal enough to describe Canning's death as a
'great public advantage'.

193

CHAPTER 21
Wellington Moves in

THE King lost no time in selecting his successor. He sent for
Lord Goderich ('Prosperity Robinson'), who was in Canning's Govern-
ment as Secretary for War and the Colonies and Leader of the House of
Lords. This was Goderich's first and only term as Prime Minister.

The choice was not generally approved, A fellow peer described
Goderich as not fit to manage even a poultry yard.88 But it was the
King's desire to provide a continuity of Government without any
upheaval or interruption, and he felt this would be achieved by moving
Goderich up.

He had been given a viscountcy by Canning to deal with the fierce
and persistent attacks in the Lords. But Goderich just looked on
helplessly while the Government was defeated again and again. He
returned now to No. 10 after an absence of only four months and his
stay this time was to be for exactly four months - a tedious moving of
furniture, carpets, curtains and pictures in and out of the house.

Though he had the status of Prime Minister, he was too limp to
exercise the authority. Being in the Lords, he could not take on the

194

WELLINGTON MOVES IN

office of Chancellor of the Exchequer as well: that was given, on the
King's insistence, to J. C. Henries who had greatly helped Goderich
when he was Chancellor. The disgust of his Whig colleagues at his
yielding to the King on this brought upon him unforeseen difficulties.
There were incessant quarrels between Herries and Huskisson, the
President of the Board of Trade. It spread and soon involved others in
the Cabinet. There were 'perpetual brawls and disagreements'. ?*
Goderich was quite unable to keep the peace, and the continuing dissen-
sion made it impossible for him to remain in office. He went to see the
King early in January 1828 and begged to be allowed to resign. He then
burst into tears and the King, offering him his pocket handkerchief to
dry his eyes, agreed to let him go. He was the only Prime Minister who
never met Parliament while holding that office.

This was the Duke of Wellington's opportunity, and he got it. He
had expected to succeed Lord Liverpool, but had been passed over twice.
Nevertheless the total loss of time involved was no more than eight
months.

The Duke, it was thought, did not really want the office. Indeed,
after his quarrel with Canning, which many put down to pique at
having been passed over, he had affirmed quite flatly in the House of
Lords: 'To be appointed to a station, to the duties of which I was
unaccustomed, in which I was not wished, and for which I was not
qualified. . . . My Lords I should have been worse than mad if I had
thought of such a thing.'88

It surprised many that the King should have sent for him, for the King
was exceedingly angry when Wellington resigned his position as
Commander-in-Chief on Canning's appointment and resumed it on
Canning's death. Nor was he the King's first choice now. Others were
interviewed, but they were either unwilling or unable to form a stable
Government.

Sent for at last, Wellington rode to Windsor and found the King
lying ill in bed. His Majesty was 'dressed in a dirty silk jacket and a
turban nightcap, one as greasy as the other'.68 From the bedclothes he
announced 'Arthur, the Cabinet is defunct', and proceeded to mimic
the words and actions of the retiring Ministers.

Wellington asked for time to think it over. He wanted to consult
his friends, he said, and asked if His Majesty had any preferences and

195

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

prejudices as to who should be included in the Government. His
Majesty said he had no objections except to Lord Grey.

Wellington informed his friend General Sir Colin Campbell: 'If
people think I like this station, they are mistaken. The nation has
rewarded, and over-rewarded me. My line is to command the army,
but if I think I can do any good by being Minister, I am willing to
sacrifice my time and habits and do what I can.'

Lord Grey wrote to Wellington's ardent supporter Creevey : 'To me
it seems that the Beau, as you call him, is placing himself in a situation of
dreadful responsibility and danger. His taking the office of Minister,
after all that passed on that subject kst year, to say nothing of other
objections, would, in my opinion, be a most fatal mistake, and I still
hope there may be time and that he may find friends to advise him to
avoid it.' w

Not all, however, shared this view. Many, like General Sir Charles
Napier, who happened to be a dose friend of Wellington's, were
delighted; Napier said: 'The best chance for England is having the
greatest man of Europe for her ruler.'

Wellington was now in his fifty-ninth year. In forming his Govern-
ment he retained six of those who had served under Goderich - four of
them had also been in Canning's Government, of which Wellington
had been such a severe critic. Peel, who had associated himself with that
criticism, was appointed Home Secretary and Leader of the House of
Commons, but foresaw trouble. 'If we are to make a point of honour of
taking in everyone who went out with us' - at the time of Canning's
appointment - 'there are not offices enough. . . . The Duke and I
thought at first that some of our old friends might be disposed to retire
from age and a desire to relieve the Government from embarrassment.
I fear this is not the case, and that all expect to come in.'

Among those who were left out was Lord Eldon, Lord Chancellor in
Liverpool's Government. He had stood by the Duke during his quarrel
with Canning and was intensely angry at being excluded. He lost no
time in rallying the more extreme Tories and became one of the bitterest
opponents of the Duke.

But this does not appear to have disturbed Wellington. The country
as a whole seemed to be in favour of the appointment. The magic of
his name, the memory of his great victories over Napoleon and especi-

196

WELLINGTON MOVES IN

ally the battle of Waterloo, won only a dozen years before, his blunt
and decisive manner, his intolerance of any nonsense or interference,
made him a formidable figure in the eyes of the people and even of
Europe. It was felt that 'he had never failed'. The country needed a
strong and stable Government and it was hoped that he would provide
this for a generation at least.

His surname should by right have been Colley, but an ancestor
changed it to Wesley following an inheritance: the family was related
to John and Charles Wesley, the evangelists. A still further change
was effected in 1798 when the Duke was still a young man, the
Wesley was then extended to Wellesley. For more than two centuries
the family had lived in Dublin. Wellington's father, the Earl of Morn-
ington, was a Professor of Music at Trinity College, Dublin; in time
four of his five sons were peers, Wellington himself attaining the
greatest distinction of them all with a dukedom.

At school, both at Chelsea and later at Eton, Arthur Wellesley was
regarded as unsociable, combative and far from scholarly. After his
father's death, inability to meet his school bills led to his being with-
drawn from Eton. His mother took him to Brussels, where his love of
music caused him to learn to play the fiddle, a diversion he contined to
enjoy in maturity. She regarded him as the least intelligent of her sons.
He was also the ugly one — 'fit food for powder', which was why he
was sent to a military academy at Angers, despite the fact that his
constitution was not robust enough for such rigorous training. He was
not, however, sent to join his regiment after being gazetted a Lieutenant
in the 73rd in 1787, but was appointed A.D.C. to the Lord-Lieutenant
of Ireland and participated in the far less arduous social round in Dublin.
But with his private income only £125 a year, he found it necessary to
take lodgings with a Dublin bootmaker, and often had to borrow
money from him. It was during this period, while still an A.D.C., that
he was elected to the Irish Parliament. He made his first speech in 1793,
the year the war with France began. At about this time too Wellington,
still Arthur Wesley, fell in love with the Hon. Catherine Pakenham, the
daughter of Lord Longford. But her family considered him too poor
to be accepted as a possible suitor; it was not until his return from India,
after eight years of distinguished military service, that he was regarded
as eligible. The marriage was fruitful: there were two sons; but it was

197

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

not a happy one. His roving eye sought fresh romantic conquests. In
1814, after Napoleon was exiled to Elba and the Duke was appointed
British Ambassador in Paris, he met and fell in love with Harriet
Arbuthnot, the attractive young wife of one of the Embassy staff. There
had been earlier attachments but this one was to endure. The Arbuth-
nots and the Duke became inseparable. Harriet began to dominate
Wellington's life; she vetted every invitation he received and, if ske
was not also asked, refused to allow him to go. She was known to his
friends as the Tyrant, he as the Slave.

In 1806 he entered the English House of Commons as the Member
for Rye, joined Lord Liverpool's Cabinet in 1819 as Master-General of
the Ordnance, resigning, as has been noted, on Canning's accession.

It was impossible for him as Prime Minister to retain his position as
Commander-in-Chief and he resigned once again, this time with
reluctance and regret.

The Duke did not move into No. 10 Downing Street at once. He
already had in Apsley House, at the corner of Piccadilly and Hyde
Park, a magnificent residence bought from his brother, the Marquess
Wellesley, with money presented to him by a grateful nation after
Waterloo; and it was not until August, seven months after he became
Prime Minister, that he decided to move in, and then only because
Apsley House was to undergo alterations. The Times of 5th August
1828, reported: 'Part of the furniture of the Duke of Wellington's
residence in Piccadilly was begun to be removed to the house inDown-
ing-street belonging to His Grace as First Lord of the Treasury, which
His Grace, it is expected, will occupy during the time that Apsley-house
is undergoing repair'; and again a week later, on the I2th: 'The Duke
of Wellington has left Apsley House ... for his official residence in
Downing-street.' As the alterations at Apsley House were on an ela-
borate scale, with a view to making it an even more majestic residence,
Wellington had to stay at No. 10 for eighteen months.

He knew the house well, of course. He had visited Pitt there: his
brother Wellesley was a dose friend of Pitt's and a constant visitor.
Wellington himself described* an encounter in another house in
Downing Street which was being used at the time as the Colonial

* To Croker.™
198

WELLINGTON MOVES IN

Office.* He had called to see Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary for War
and the Colonies, and was shown into 'the little waiting-room on the
right hand'. He found there another visitor, also waiting to see Casde-
reagh, and recognized him 'from the likeness to his pictures and the
loss of an arm* to be Nelson. It has been generally believed that these
two great figures of the Napoleonic war, meeting here for the only
time in their lives, did not recognize each other or exchange a word
even by way of greeting. Wellington states that Nelson 'entered at
once into conversation with me, if I can call it conversation, for it was
almost all on his side and all about himself, and in, really, a style so vain
and so silly as to surprise and almost disgust me'.

Nelson, who had not long to live, for it was September 1805, a very
few weeks before the battle of Trafalgar, was wearing an excess of stars
and ribbons and looked, as Sir John Moore wrote in his diary of his
own meeting with the Admiral, 'more like the Prince of an Opera than
the Conqueror of the Nile'.

After a while Nelson got up suddenly and left the room. He had
apparently gone out to establish the identity of the other visitor and
returned in a few minutes to the waiting-room, his manner completely
changed. All that Wellington 'had thought a charlatan style had
vanished, and he talked of the state of this country and of the aspect and
probabilities of affairs on the Continent with a good sense, and a know-
ledge of subjects both at home and abroad, that surprised me equally
and more agreeably than the first part of our interview had done; in
fact, he talked like an officer and a statesman. ... I don't know that I
ever had a conversation that interested me more. If the Secretary of
State had been punctual, and admitted Lord Nelson in the first quarter
of an hour, I should have had the same impression of a light and trivial
character that other people have had, but luckily I saw enough to be
satisfied that he was really a very superior man; but certainly a more
sudden and complete metamorphosis I never saw'.7*

Before moving into Downing Street Wellington had to face a serious
Cabinet crisis. When he constructed it, aware that half the Tories,
especially the more extreme members of the Party, were against his
Government, he had taken in four Canningites - Huskisson, Lord

* This house stood at the end of the cul-de-sac, where the steps now lead down to St.
James's Park.

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Dudley, Charles Grant and Lord Palmerston. But within four months
an incident, neither serious nor unprecedented, led to a series of events
the consequences of which were far-reaching. A Bill was brought in hy
Lord John Russell, a Whig and a member of the Opposition, to
disfranchise the grossly corrupt borough of East Retford in the county
of Nottingham. The Government agreed to accept this. The Whigs
insisted that the two seats thus released should be given to Birmingham,
which was not represented in the House at all. Peel would not agree to
it : the Government, he said, wanted the two seats to remain in Notting-
ham. On this issue Huskisson, though a member of the Government,
voted with the Whigs and felt that in the circumstances it was right for
him to offer the Duke his resignation. To him this seemed to be no more
than a necessary formality and he fully expected the Duke to ask him
to stay. This was explained to the Duke but he declined to see it in that
light. The resignation was offered, he said, and he accepted it. Many
felt that the Duke, not liking Huskisson, was glad to see him go. But
not only did Huskisson leave, with him went the three other Canning-
ites, Palmerston, Grant and Dudley, who instantly resigned too. The
Duke was not sorry. In the Cabinet they had provoked ceaseless argu-
ments. They differed from the rest 'upon almost every question', Lord
Ellenborough has recorded,10* 'meeting to debate and dispute, and
separating without deciding*.

Their replacement caused further consternation, for the Duke
brought into the Government two military men: General Sir George
Murray, who had served with him in the Peninsular War, took Hus-
kisson's place as Colonial Secretary, and Sir Henry Hardinge, the
Duke's liaison officer at Waterloo, succeeded Palmerston as Secretary
at War. The Duke's Irish friend, Lord William Vesey Fitzgerald, went
to the Board of Trade in Grant's place. Harriet's husband, Charles
Arbuthnot, was given the Duchy of Lancaster. Much was said by the
Opposition about these changes. It was pointed out that, being
accustomed to instant obedience in the army, Wellington could not
brook men about him who questioned his commands.

Much more was to follow. The appointment of Vesey Fitzgerald,
who sat for the Irish constituency of Clare, necessitated his having to
seek re-election. Fortunately, though a Protestant and a large land-
owner in Ireland, he was in favour of the Catholics having full equality

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WELLINGTON MOVES IN

and was in consequence extremely popular in his constituency. But the
Catholic Association decided to put Daniel O'Connell up as his
opponent. O'Connell was a man of spirit and intelligence as well as a
Catholic, and behind him stood the entire Roman Catholic hierarchy.
He had been intended for the priesthood, but took up law and rose as
high as it was possible for a Catholic to rise. Tall, red-headed, with a
typically Irish face, he had a voice of tremendous power and melody.
His abhorrence of bloodshed was sincere : he always urged his followers
to avoid violence. It was obvious that he would prove a formidable
opponent. It was obvious too that if elected he would not be able, as a
Catholic, to take his seat in the House. The challenge in fact was not
only a protest, but an attempt to prove that the democratic franchise
was no more than a mockery.

The whole countryside rallied to O' Council's support. Mass meetings
were held. Rousing speeches stirred the populace. Flags and banners
were borne through the streets. Many thousands camped out in various
parts of the constituency. Always perfect order prevailed. Catholic
priests led their flocks in regimented groups to the polling booths. Peel,
who was Home Secretary and therefore responsible for the preserva-
tion of peace even in Ireland, wrote to Sir Walter Scott, the novelist:
'I wish you had been present, for no pen but yours could have done
justice to that peaceful exhibition of sobered and desperate enthusiasm/ J ° *

O'Connell was elected; Vesey Fitzgerald, the new President of the
Board of Trade, lost his seat. All Ireland was roused. 'In this country/
wrote Sir Maurice Fitzgerald, M.P. for Kerry, 'the danger is appalling
and it is rapidly progressive/ It became dear to Wellington and Peel,
both strongly opposed to Catholic emancipation, that it was no longer
the cry of just a small section of Irish agitators, but had the support of
the entire country. The alternatives they faced were concession or
revolution. Force, Peel saw, would provide no solution - 'the question
would remain precisely what it was, but with all animosities doubly
infuriated'. Many nevertheless expected Wellington to deal with the
situation with the firmness he had always exercised against rebellion.
But, as he said afterwards in die House of Lords, he viewed it as 'a
question entirely of expediency'; as in war, on finding a position
untenable, he had always found it necessary to retreat. He informed the
Lords that he would lay down his life to avoid one month of civil war,

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NO. IO DOWNING STBJBET

and it was realized that the Catholics were at last going to get their
way. The question now was how would the Tories take it, for die Duke
had formed his Government on the strict undertaking that 'the Roman
Catholic question should be considered as one not to be brought
forward by the Cabinet*. And how would the King take it? Would
he be as difficult as his father George the Third?

Wellington had first to deal with Peel, his chief and most able
lieutenant, on whom he had to rely for the handling of the House of
Commons. Peel, an uncompromising Protestant, was not prepared to
make concessions; and, even when ultimately persuaded, warned the
Duke 'that it would not conduce to the satisfactory adjustment of the
question, that the charge of it in the House of Commons should be
committed to my hand'. It was his intention, he said, to announce his
conversion to the necessity for adopting such a course, and then
resign. The Duke succeeded in persuading Peel to remain at the
helm.

Nothing of this was revealed either to the public - Wellington never
believed in taking the people into his confidence - or even to his
colleagues in the Cabinet. Early in the new year, 1829, he went to see
the King, His manner with His Majesty, he has himself summarized in
these words: 'I make it a rule,' he said, 'never to interrupt him, and
when in this way he tries to get rid of a subject in the way of business
which he does not like, I let him talk himself out, and then quietly put
before him the matter in question, so that he cannot escape it.'

To begin with, hints were given both to the King and the public.
There was a reference in the King's speech at the opening of Parliament
on the 5th February that the whole Catholic question would be
'considered' and 'reviewed'. This so enraged the King's brother, the
Duke of Cumberland, that he immediately left Hanover and drove for
ten nights through deep snow to the coast, then crossed die turbulent
Channel.

When he arrived at No. 10 Downing Street he was told that the
Cabinet was sitting. His Royal Highness decided to wait. After some
time Wellington emerged and suggested that he should stay to dinner.
'Duke,' said Cumberland, 'I do not like to dine with you, not thinking
it right to dine with a man whose measures I shall probably feel it my
duty to oppose most strenuously in a very few days.' He was nevertheless

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WELLINGTON MOVES IN

persuaded to stay, but, still indignant at the end of the dinner, went on
to Windsor and exercised his pressure on the King.

The next move was for Wellington to take the Cabinet into his
confidence. He was not prepared to stand any nonsense from them.
Asked bluntly by Croker if he had told them that unless they supported
frim they must resign, the Duke replied: 'There are people who, if you
allow them any loophole, will indulge thek own vanity or prejudices
to any extent, and if I were not to show a determined resolution where
should I be? If those in my rear have any excuse for slipping away, how
can I meet the enemy in front? Besides how am I to bring down my
household troops if there is any wavering amongst a class of my official
men?'7*

The one danger point now was the King, for the Duke of Cumber-
land had worked on him successfully. In March, together with Peel and
Lord Lyndhurst, the Lord Chancellor, the Duke went to see His
Majesty at Windsor. The King, very fat and ailing, had been drinking
brandy and water. The audience was most painful. The King talked for
six hours, pausing only to take further sips of brandy. He referred to his
Coronation oath. He talked of abdicating. Since garrulity had marked
his father's madness the Duke was convinced that the King was mad.
Had not His Majesty's delusions led him to believe that he had fought in
Spain and also at Waterloo? Wellington tried to interrupt him, but
could do no more than interject an occasional word. At length he
managed to say that the only course left was for the entire Government
to resign. With that the three Ministers rose. His Majesty accepted their
resignations and they left. Shortly after thek return to London, where
they joined the rest of the Cabinet at dinner, Wellington received a
letter from the King. It conveyed the royal consent. The postscript
added: 'God knows what pain it costs me to write these words. G.R.'

The House of Lords proved to be much more difficult to handle than
the Commons. Not only were most of the Tory peers against it, but
the Whigs, taking advantage of Wellington's change of front, jeered
unsparingly. One of them said derisively that the Duke's manoeuvre
could best be expressed in the words: 'My Lords! Attention! Right
about face! Quick march!' Criticism was fired at .him from both sides.
It was a new experience for the Duke, and he did not like it at all. Most
persistent of his critics was Lord Winchilsea, an unyielding, loud-voiced

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

peer, who did not confine his attacks to the House of Lords, but sent a
letter to the Press, accusing the Duke of having resorted to a mean
subterfuge in order that he 'might the more effectively, under the cloak
of some outward show of zeal for the Protestant religion, carry on his
more insiduous designs, for the infringement of our liberties, and the
introduction of Popery into every department of the State', This
incensed Wellington. Any reflection on his honesty and his inflexible
integrity was more than he could brook. He promptly challenged
Winchilsea to a duel, although duelling had always been most rigor-
ously forbidden in the Army by the Duke himself. It was, he had said,
an unnecessary risk for his officers to take over a private quarrel. That
risk he was himself resolved to take now. He demanded of Winchilsea
'that satisfaction . . . which a gentleman has a right to require, and
which a gentleman never refuses to give*.

Wellington entrusted the staff work to the Secretary at War,
General Sir Henry Hardinge. It was arranged that the duel should take
place in Battersea Fields early on the morning of 2ist March 1829.
Hardinge asked the Duke's physician, Dr. Hume, to go there but did
not reveal who the duellists were to be. The doctor drove along the
King's Road, Chelsea, to Battersea Bridge: the Duke and Hardinge
mounted their horses in Downing Street and rode to Battersea. A
soldier, recognizing the Duke as he went by, said afterwards: 'I saw
that there was mischief in his eye, so I followed and saw what
happened.'106

The doctor was the first to arrive. He got out of his carriage and
waited. A moment kter he saw the two horsemen approaching and was
flabbergasted. The Duke rode up laughing and said: 'Well, I daresay
you little expected it was I who wanted you to be here.' Hardinge and
the Duke then rode to the top of the hill to see if Winchilsea and his
second, Lord Falmouth, were in sight. Presently they returned, dis-
mounted and told the doctor to take the pistols out of the case and
bring them along. This the doctor did, concealing the pistols under a
cloak thrown over his arm. Together they proceeded to a clearing
where they were joined by Winchilsea and his second.

'Now then, Hardinge,' the Duke said brusquely. 'Look sharp and
step out the ground. I have no time to waste. Damn it ! Don't stick him
up so near the ditch. If I hit him, he will tumble in/

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WELLINGTON MOVES IN

Falmouth was in a very agitated state and 'could hardly perform his
task*. The pistols were loaded. The ground was measured out. The
Duke and Winchilsea took up their positions. Before they were allowed
to shoot, Hardinge stepped forward and drawing a paper out of his
pocket, read a strongly worded protest, reminding Lords Winchilsea
and Falmouth that they alone would be answerable for the con-
sequences.

The Duke had been wondering all morning whether to shoot his
opponent. If he killed him it would undoubtedly mean prison, at any
rate until the trial. So he decided to shoot him in the leg.

On the order to fire 'the Duke raised his pistol and presented it
instantly', but 'observing that Lord Winchilsea did not immediately
present at him, he seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then fired
without effect'.88

Winchilsea thereupon raised his arm above his head and fired into the
air. Then, approaching Hardinge, he declared that, having received the
Duke's fire, he now felt he was at liberty to give the Duke the repara-
tion he desired.

Hardinge said: 'The Duke expects an ample apology, and a complete
and full acknowledgement from Lord Winchilsea of his error in
having published the accusation against him.'

Falmouth, producing a paper from his pocket, read out Windhilsea's
admission of his error. This seemed to end the matter. But the Duke was
not prepared to accept it. 'This won't do,* he said. 'It is no apology/

'I assure you what I have written was meant as an apology . . .'
Falmouth began. But the Duke insisted that unless the word 'apology'
was inserted, the duel would have to be resumed.

Winchilsea and Falmouth eventually gave in. Hardinge then rebuked
them for 'bringing this man (pointing to the Duke) into the field,
where, during the whole course of a long military life, he never was
before on an occasion of this nature*.

The Duke meanwhile had remounted and, touching the brim of his
hat with two fingers, said 'Good morning, my Lord Winchilsea; good
morning, my Lord Falmouth,' and rode off. He went straight away to
see Harriet Arbuthnot and found her at breakfast. She said afterwards
that, had she known of it beforehand, she would have 'died of fright'.

Not only had the Duke's honour been satisfied, but he had made an

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

example of Winchilsea and the House of Lords listened more atten-
tively and respectfully thereafter to what the Duke had to say about
Catholic emancipation. He succeeded where Pitt had failed. The Bill
was passed. Thus, as a result of the avalanche caused by Huskisson vo-
ting against the Government over EastRetford and the Duke's accept-
ance of his resignation, the Catholics were at last granted equal rights.
'Well, I said I would do it/ observed Wellington, 'and I have done it
handsomely, have I not?' It was the one measure that distinguished
Wellington's tenure of office as Prime Minister. George the Fourth
remarked with a growl. 'Arthur is. King of England, O'Connell King
of Ireland, and myself Canon of Windsor.'

Catholic peers, including the Duke of Norfolk, so long debarred from
taking their seats in the House of Lords, were now admitted. Daniel
O'Connell came over from Ireland to take his rightful place in the
House of Commons. But allowing equal rights to the Jews was quite
another matter. The following spring a Jews' Relief Bill was opposed
by the Duke. 'This Christian community', he wrote, 'will not much
like to have Jewish magistrates and rulers. ... It besides gives a false
colouring, and throws ridicule upon the great measures of 1828 and
1829, which it resembles only in name.'10*

Wellington was not as tall a man as is generally supposed. He was in
fart only five feet nine inches in height, not very much taller than
Napoleon. As his pictures show, a sharp aquiline nose separated two
penetrating grey eyes. In build he was spare but muscular, and he
walked with a resolute, springy step. He was always most attentive to
his clothes, which earned him the nickname of 'Dandy' as a young man
and 'Beau' later. His endurance, both physical andmental, was astonish-
ing. He worked prodigiously. Every letter he received was read and
answered personally. This took up a considerable amount of his time.
Hours were spent over them in his study at No. 10 as well as at Apsley
House in the evenings. He was a tartar for detail. Nothing was over-
looked.

It could not be said that he had a great intellect. His mind in fact was
simple and direct. He always went straight to the heart of things. Nor
was he a good speaker. His articulation was indistinct, his delivery
over-emphatic and vehement, and what he said was littered with
superlatives, far too many superlatives. In gesture he was sparing. He
206

The older section of No. 10 Downing Street, designed by Sir Christopher Wren in
1677 when he was Surveyor General to King Charles the Second. It shows the garden as
it is to this day. The large room at the corner of the house, flanked by the garden on two
sides, later became the Cabinet Room. Downing Street, built five years later, ran
along 'Hambden Garden' at the top of the sketch.

£&V>y^&$,^';<p;^> '•''"'

• 'm:^t^3mA,

Sir Christopher Wren's note, written in his own hand, refers to the plan shown
above.

/;in>v:^'7*T^ ' / /'A;'

,-" ' '" . ' i J" . ' V ' t'^&U"1' ' "'' . ' '":.'' , , •'"•' W-'"

"""'.' .'.."'.' ri ',. ••'', i "A-.V:'.''*^,^ '''n-''^/,1!' ..-, .•T^.jji.'^j;' :• ' • •• • '

Ground plan of No. 10 Downing Street as reconstructed by William Kent in 173 5 for Sir
Robert Walpole. 'My Lords Study', at the bottom of the sketch, is the Cabinet Room.
The Downing Street house, to which it was joined by a corridor, is at the top of the
sketch. The area space between the two main houses is clearly visible.

"WELLINGTON MOVES IN

spoke as a rule standing bolt upright, with his arms folded across his
chest. Though priding himself on his imperturbability, he was in fact
quick-tempered and unwilling ever to admit that he had been in the
wrong.

In January 1829, like the younger Pitt and Lord Liverpool, he was
appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and often went down at
the end of the Parliamentary session to spend a little time in Walmer
Castle, away from London. His trim, frock-coated figure and full head
of snow-white hair, so familiar in Downing Street during his many
years in Liverpool's Cabinet and now as Prime Minister, could be seen
along the Channel coast where Pitt had once drilled his volunteers. In
the autumn Wellington made the round of the famous country houses,
with Harriet Arbuthnot generally a guest too, accompanied always by
her husband for the sake of propriety. Wellington's wife rarely went
with him. Though they still lived under the same roof, both at Down-
ing Street and at Apsley House, the estrangement was irreparable. Her
devotion to him, however, remained unimpaired and it was pitiful (as
Peel and others have recorded in their letters and diaries) to see her eyes
fixed upon him with adoration, while he completely ignored her.

All through 1829 the King's health declined steadily. His mind was
going and Wellington found him increasingly difficult to talk to. His
Majesty busied himself with alterations to the Guards' uniform; and
though the Duke boasted that 'nobody can manage him but me', he
often complained bitterly.88 'If I had known in January 1828 one tithe
of what I do now, and of what I discovered in one month after I was in
office, I should have never been the King's minister, and should have
avoided loads of misery ! However, I trust that God Almighty will soon
determine that I had been sufficiently punished for my sins, and will
relieve me from the unhappy lot which has befallen me ! I believe there
never was a man suffered so much; and for so little purpose!' But he
was not to be relieved yet: he was to remain, in office for still another
year.

In January 1830, Apsley House being ready for his return, he vacated
No. 10 Downing Street but retained the Cabinet room as his office, and
lent the house to his old friend Earl Bathurst, who was in the Govern-
ment as Lord President of the Council. Thus, after having been occu-
pied for some years by Chancellors of the Exchequer and Prime

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Ministers, No. 10 once again passed into the occupation of one who
was neither.

Bathurst, who was seven years older than Wellington, was to live
here for a whole year. He was not marked by any ability. Charles
Greville, whose diary throws such a vivid light on people and events
of his time, was in his youth Bathurst's private secretary and describes
him as 'a very amiable man though his talents were far from brilliant
... a bad speaker, greatly averse to changes, but unwillingly acquiescing
in many . . . nervous, reserved, with a good deal of humour, and
habitually a jester. . . . His conversation was generally a series of jokes,
and he rarely discussed any subject but in a ludicrous vein'.

Because of his friendship with Pitt, Bathurst was given office in 1783,
when he was only twenty-one, and had been kept on by Pitt's succes-
sors - Portland, Spencer Perceval, Liverpool, and now Wellington. In
addition to these important offices, Bathurst contrived to secure a
number of lucrative sinecures and achieved further the distinction of
the Garter. He was very attached to the Duke and resigned with him
when Canning became Prime Minister. Married in 1789, he had four
sons and two daughters, all of them now grown to maturity - his eldest
son was forty by the time he moved into No. 10.

Greville indicates that, for all his joviality, two men had reason to
dislike Bathurst. One of these was Napoleon. Bathurst was Secretary
for War and the Colonies from 1812 to 1827 and 'his conduct to
Napoleon', Greville states, 'justly incurred odium, for although he was
only one of many, he was the Minister through whom the orders of
Government passed, and he suffered the principal share of the reproach
which was thrown upon the Cabinet for their rude and barbarous
treatment of the Emperor at St. Helena. He had not a lively imagina-
tion, and his feelings were not excited by the contemplation of such a
striking example of fallen greatness.'79

The other with a grievance against Bathurst was Greville himself.
'So far from feeling any obligation to him,' he writes, 'I always con-
sider his mistaken kindness in giving me that post as the source of all
my misfortunes and the cause of my present condition. He never
thought fit to employ me, never associated me with the interests and
the business of his office, and consequently abandoned me at the age of
eighteen to that life of idleness and dissipation from which I might have

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WELLINGTON MOVES IN

been saved had he felt that my future prospects in life, my character
and talents, depended in great measure upon the direction which was
at that moment given to my mind.*

Greville in fact did not do at all badly. The grandson of the Duke of
Portland who had twice been Prime Minister, and connected also with
most of the ruling families, including the Cannings, he was given early
in life the sinecure office of Secretary of the island of Jamaica and when
he was twenty-seven was appointed Clerk of the Privy Council. The
latter brought him in constant touch with all the leading statesmen
over a period of nearly forty years. His diary,- a perceptive record of
his impressions, has been a source on which history has fruitfully
drawn.

From the beginning of 1830, the King's health was seen to be failing
fast. In June he died. Wellington did not view with any satisfaction the
prospect of serving under his successor William the Fourth. He feared
that the new King's outlook would be too liberal and that His Majesty
would press for the inclusion of Lord Grey in the Government. But his
fears were unfounded. The King proved to be reasonable and tractable
and the Duke confessed that he could do more business with him in
ten minutes than with his predecessor in ten days.

Bong William was if anything inclined to be too matey. At short
notice, allowing the Duke's household only twelve hours for the neces-
sary preparations, His Majesty arrived at Apsley House for dinner with
the King and Queen of Wurttemberg. After dinner William delivered
a long and wearying speech, to which the Duke replied very briefly.

The death of George the Fourth necessitated a General Election.
Wellington, aware of his weakness in the House of Commons, sought
to strengthen it. He approached Lord Melbourne, who as William
Lamb had served in Canning's Government. But, as an avowed
Canningite, who had resigned from Wellington's Government with
Huskisson and the others, Melbourne refused to serve unless Huskisson
was brought back too and, what was far more difficult for the Duke to
swallow, unless Lord Grey was also included in the Government.
Wellington declined even to listen to such a proposition.

While the election was in progress a fresh revolution broke out in
France. Once again there were barricades in the streets of Paris. Troops
were called out, but were found to be helpless against the mob. There

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

was a possibility that Britain might be drawn into a war and that many
of the European monarchs would gladly once again take up arms
against the revolutionaries. But Wellington did not want another war.
He wrote to his Foreign Secretary Lord Aberdeen: 'There are some
bitter pills to swallow. . . . However, the last chance of peace is to
swallow them all!'

In that year of revolutions there were risings in a number of coun-
tries on the Continent, including the Netherlands, where crowds
rioted in the streets of Brussels, insisting that the artificial link with
Holland, set up by Wellington in 1815, should be severed. This goal
was achieved by the end of September (1830) when Belgium became
an independent kingdom. There was trouble in England too. As early
as April the Earl of Sefton was writing to Creevey: "The Beau's
troubles are not over yet. The distress in the country is frightful.
Millions are starving, and I defy him to do anything to relieve them.'75

During the General Election a cry that had not been heard for many
years - though there had been murmurs and resolutions had been
passed from time to time at Radical meetings - spread suddenly
throughout the country. It was the cry for Parliamentary Reform. In
their distress the suffering masses, the unemployed and hungry, had
come to believe that once they had the vote all could be set right, for
the remedy would then be in their own hands. That was the dream
born of their desperation, whenever a fresh industrial depression drove
them to rioting and crime. For the acute distress that began just before
Wellington came to power, no alleviation had yet been found. But a
check upon crime had been imposed by the formation of the police
force by Peel, by whose Christian name of Bobby a policeman is still
colloquially known. The protracted misery of the workless had been
aggravated by the displacement of more and more handloom weavers
through the adoption of spinning jennies and of agricultural labourers
by the introduction of threshing machines. Trade unions had been
formed, secretly at first - some were even known as 'secret societies' -
but the protection they afforded was not yet adequate. So more than
ever Parliamentary Reform seemed to be the panacea. The political
agitation spread and for the first time it was being effectively organ-
ized. At Birmingham a Political Union of the Lower and Middle
Classes was started with a programme which included manhood

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WELLINGTON MOVES IN

rf*

juffrage. Similar unions were formed elsewhere. The people of
England had been greatly encouraged by O'Connell's success in
Ireland and, later in the year, by the new revolution in France; and they
were determined at all costs to obtain the vote. More than half a
century before, Chatham had said that Parliament would have to
'reform itself from within, or be reformed with a vengeance from
without'. The public were no longer prepared to wait. The Whigs,
inactive and in disarray during their long spell out of office and deterred
by the Napoleonic wars from agitating earlier, now closed their ranks
and took up the popular cause. Lord Althorp, heir to Earl Spencer,
had just been elected Leader of their Party in the House of Commons.
In the Lords Earl Grey was at the helm. With them, as vocal in the cry
for Parliamentary Reform, stood Lord John Russell, who had already
made an effort to disfranchise corrupt boroughs. Ardent support
was given to them by Henry Brougham, a brilliant young Whig
destined to be a future Lord Chancellor, as well as by Lord Lansdowne
and Lord Holland, a nephew of Charles James Fox.

Wellington was as strongly opposed to Parliamentary Reform as
he had been to Catholic emancipation: more so, for it involved
tampering with the constitution, and that he regarded as most danger-
ous. The time was scarcely propitious, he felt, for constitutional experi-
ments, with revolution again astir in many parts of Europe.

Wellington lost a large number of seats in the General Election. Two
of Peel's brothers and his brother-in-law were defeated. The Govern-
ment was greatly weakened. But the Duke remained unperturbed.
He was prepared to fight it out, since principles were at stake.

When the House met, the country awaited a declaration of policy
from the Government- on the relief of distress and also on the burning
question of Parliamentary Reform. The Duke lost little time in declar-
ing in the House of Lords that he was not prepared to bring forward
any measure of reform, but that he should 'always feel it his duty to
resist such measures when proposed by others'. To a colleague he
wrote: 1 have no leisure to discuss Parliamentary Reform either in
writing or in conversation. I confess that I doubt whether it will be
carried in Parliament. If it should be carried it must occasion a total
change in the whole system of that society called the British Empire;
and I don't see how I could be a party to such changes, entertaining the

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NO. 10 DOWNING STBEET

opinions that I do. ... I foresee nothing but a series of misfortunes for
the country in all its interests, and even affecting its safety. I cannot be
a party in inflicting those misfortunes/88

There were ugly developments in various parts of England, most
marked in the new industrial towns of the North. Wellington decided
to meet this with force. He provisioned his various garrisons and
warned the officers to avoid the narrow streets. Repeatedly news
reached him of plots against his life. The great hero of Waterloo,
cheered once to the echo, was now booed and hissed wherever he went
and stones were hurled by angry mobs through the windows of Apsley
House. He ignored these demonstrations and insisted on going to the
most troubled region in the North for the opening of the railway
between Manchester and Liverpool. Not that he attached much im-
portance to this novel mode of locomotion. He thought it quite un-
practical and shared the view that no good could come of the invention
because stage coaches already travelled at the rate of eight and some-
times ten miles an hour. The idea of accelerating the pace to twenty
miles an hour was to him a matter for derision: even at twelve miles
an hour the speed would be impossible to control, he said. Neverthe-
less he went to the opening, with his Spanish cloak over his shoulders.
His train had an immense canopy which had to be lowered as it puffed
through the tunnels. He saw at the ceremony the local Member of
Parliament, his hated former colleague Huskisson. They shook hands
and had hardly finished talking when an oncoming locomotive struck
Huskisson, who through lameness was unable to get away quickly
enough. He died a few hours later.

Despite the hostility expressed before his visit, Wellington was
received with enthusiasm by the crowds, and returned to London
more determined than, ever to fight against Parliamentary Reform. He
made a spirited speech in the House of Lords in November which,
Creevey records, 'at once destroyed what little popularity the Duke
had left and lowered him in public estimation so much that when he
does go out of office, as most assuredly he must, he will leave it without
any of the dignity and credit which might have accompanied his
retirement'.

The feeling in the country was very strong. All classes appeared to
be against him. He was extremely unpopular even among the mer-

212

WELLINGTON MOVES IN

chants in the City, for his speech in the Lords had 'brought about an
alarming fall in the Funds', states Princess Lieven. 'He is followed in
the streets, hooted, and almost attacked by the mob.' As a precaution
he cancelled the visit he was to make with the King and Queen to dine
with the Lord Mayor on the 9th November. His eldest brother, Lord
Wellesley, described this as 'the boldest act of cowardice he had ever
heard of'.95 The Duke also arranged for the defence of his home,
Apsley House.

A few days later, on ifth November 1830, the Duke's Government
fell - not on the question of reform, but on a simple vote on the Civil
List. The Opposition was out for his blood and it did not matter what
the issue was, they were determined to get him out - and they did.

The Duke was at dinner at Apsley House when the vote was taken
in the Commons. An excited gentleman brought him the news. All
Wellington said was 'Do not tell the women.' The next day he resigned.

213

CHAPTER 22

Grey and the Reform Bill

THE King sent for Lord Grey, the Leader of the Whigs. This
marked their return to power after forty-eight years of eclipse, save for
Grenville's brief ministry. Grey moved almost at once into No. 10
Downing Street.

He was by no means a young man.: he was nearly sixty-seven. His
father, a general and kter the first Earl Grey had served in the American
War of Independence against the rebellious colonists. Young Grey,
having witnessed the rout of the Whigs by Pitt in the General Election
of 1784, became one of Pitt's most vigorous opponents. He joined
Fox's circle, an association that worked greatly to his disadvantage.
Like Fox he was out of office for most of his life, serving for only a
few months as First Lord of the Admiralty, then as Foreign Secretary,
during Grenville's short term as Prime Minister. It was on Fox's death
that Grey became Leader of the Whigs. In the following year 1807,
after being in the House of Commons for nearly twenty years, he
succeeded his father as the second earl: the earldom in fact was given
to the General while his son was in the Grenville Government*

214

GREY AND THE REFORM BILL

Throughout his political life Grey had been interested in Parliamen-
tary Reform. Indeed his first Reform Bill had been introduced as long
ago as 1797. It was defeated by 165 votes in a House of Commons of
350 members. As he loved living in the country and spent a great deal
of his time at Howick, his home in Northumberland, many expected
him to give up politics. He hovered on the brink of doing so for some
years. Writing to his wife in 1804, he said: 1 feel more and more con-
vinced of my unfitness for a pursuit which I detest, which interferes
with my private comfort, and which I only sigh for an opportunity of
abandoning decidedly and for ever. Do not think this is the language
of momentary low spirits; it really is the settled conviction of my
mind/

Very tall and strikingly handsome, he was often looked upon as the
most attractive man in Europe. His charm won him the friendship of
many of the great Whig ladies, in particular of the beautiful Duchess
of Devonshire, with whom, though she was many years his senior, he
was believed to have been very much in love as a young man. But,
despite his charm, his manner was inclined to be lofty and somewhat
severe, at times even unsympathetic. This led to many estrangements.
George the Fourth, who was prepared to like him because of Fox, was
appalled by the stand he took over Mrs. Fitzherbert and later by his
refusal to countenance the divorce of Queen Caroline; after that the
King would not agree to Grey being admitted into any Government.
It was only after the King's death in 1830 that he got his chance of
becoming Prime Minister. Thus at the advanced age of almost sixty-
seven, with a total of barely twelve months' experience in office, he
found himself faced with forming a Government, composed inevitably
of men who were equally new and untried. He selected them with care
and they formed an admirable group. Lord Althorp, the heir to Earl
Spencer, was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the
House of Commons. Lord John Russell was entrusted with the task of
Parliamentary Reform, to which Russell was as dedicated as Grey
himself. Palmerston, Melbourne and Brougham were also given office.
Many of the minor ministries were filled by Grey's relatives, for he
adhered closely to the Whig tradition that the family had a right to
such appointments. A place was also found for his old friend Thomas
Creevey, the diarist and gossip, who had been struggling on a private

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income of ^200 a year: he was appointed Treasurer of the Ordnance
with an office in the Tower of London and a salary of £1,200 a year.
Creevey, now sixty-two, showed a boyish delight in the minute details
of the Ordnance survey maps which were then being engraved for the
first rime.

In a letter to his stepdaughter Miss Elizabeth Ord on 3 ist January
1831, when Grey had been in office only a few weeks, Creevey said:
'I dined in Downing Street with Lady Grey. . . . After dinner the
private secretary to the Prime Minister and myself being alone, I
ascertained that, altho' Lord Grey was gone to Brighton ostensibly to
prick for Sheriffs for the year, his great object was to put his plan of
reform before the King,* previous (if he approves) to its being proposed
to the House of Commons. A ticklish operation, this ! to propose to
a Sovereign a plan for reducing his own power and patronage. How-
ever, there is the plan all cut and dry, and the Cabinet unanimous upon
the subject. . . / Billyj* has been in perfect ecstasies with his Govern-
ment ever since they arrested O'Connell. J Wood§ says if the King
gives his Government his real support upon this Reform question,
without the slightest appearance of a jib, Grey is determined to fight it
out to a dissolution of Parliament, if his plan is beat in the Commons.
My eye, what a crisis !'75

Grey was married at the age of thirty to Elizabeth Ponsonby, the
daughter of William, later the first Lord Ponsonby. Though constantly
beset by women aed himself attracted to them, he appears to have
enjoyed marital felicity: at any rate his wife presented him with nine
sons and five daughters; of these fourteen, the eldest was thirty-
three, the youngest only eleven, and all but those who had already
established themselves in separate homes moved into No. 10 Downing
Street with him. Grey's young grandchildren often came to stay too.
It was eighteen years since the house had held so large and lively a
family; it must have known an unechoing quiet after Mrs. Spencer
Perceval vacated it with her twelve children.

* William the Fourth was living at the time in the ornate oriental Pavilion built by his

brother, the Prince Regent, when Prince of Wales.

t The King.

$ Daniel O'Connell, the Irish M.P. who defeated Vesey Fitzgerald at County Clare, was

arrested for defying a Government order.

§ Grey's private secretary.

2l6

GREY AND THE REFORM BILL

Fortunately the King was well disposed towards Parliamentary
Reform; he realized that it was the will of the people. Creevey, writing
after Grey's return from Brighton, states: 'Grey says the King's
conduct was perfect. ... He bestowed much time and thought in going
over every part of the plan, examined its bearings, asked most sensible
questions, and, being quite satisfied, with everything Grey urged in
its support, pledged himself irrevocably to do the same. . . . Grey said,
too, the Queen was evidently better with him. It seems that her man-
ners to him at first were distant and reserved, so that he could not avoid
concluding that the change of Government was a subject of regret to
her. . . . But he satisfied himself that she has no influence with the King,
and that, in fact, he never even mentions politicks to her, much less
consults her - that her influence over him and to his manners has been
very great and highly beneficial, but there it stops.'

The Queen, whom King William had married late in life, setting
aside for dynastic reasons the coarse Mrs Jordan, who already had
many children by different fathers and had presented him with ten
more of his own, was Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Coburg-Meiningen:
she was only half his age. Surprisingly he settled down to a virtuous
married life. The Queen was never popular. But he, though regarded
as eccentric, was well liked. After a long spell of service in the Navy,
where he met Nelson and was best man at his ill-fated marriage, Prince
William spent some time in New York, the only Royal Prince to visit
the American colonies while they were still colonies. This visit occurred
during the War of Independence and the rebels, with encouragement
from George Washington, planned his capture, but the Prince man-
aged to escape. Later he decided to stand for election to the House of
Commons as M.P. for Totnes in Devonshire, but George the Third
(his father) muttering: 'I well know that it is another vote added
to the Opposition,' circumvented it by creating him the Duke of
Clarence.

Grey, despite the many distractions over the preparation of the
Reform Bill, did a great deal of entertaining at No. 10. Among the
most frequent guests were the great Talleyrand, Napoleon's famous
Foreign Minister and now French Ambassador in London, and the
Duchess de Dino, who, though married to his nephew, was Talley-
rand's mistress.

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Created a Prince by Napoleon, Talleyrand was seventy-seven and
suffered from many physical infirmities. Short, his ankles weak, his
feet deformed, he tottered about 'like a fuddled village schoolmaster',
states Croker. But his mind was quite unimpaired. He had pkyed a
multitude of eventful parts, serving both Napoleon and the Bourbons.
After the Revolution of 1830 he urged the Duke of Orleans to accept
the throne of France as Louis Philippe. The grateful King offered him
the Foreign Ministry, but he preferred to come to England as Ambas-
sador. His life had still a further eight years to run. His wide experi-
ence, his remarkable memory, his great wit, and his immense wealth,
for he had enriched him self through the years, won him many admirers
and friends, notably Lord Brougham, whom Grey presently appointed
Lord Chancellor. For his niece he obtained the status of Ambassadress :
Talleyrand described her as 'the cleverest man or woman he ever knew'.
In England, where he was denounced and hated during the war, not
everyone was prepared to receive him. Creevey records how Lord
Sefton heard 'the Dino' entreating Lady Grey at No. 10 Downing
Street 'to use her influence with Lady Durham [Lady Grey's daughter]
to let her boy, and I believe a little girl, to come to a child's ball at the
Dino's on Monday next. So when Lord Grey was handing the Dino
to her carriage, Sefton and Lady Grey being left alone, the latter said
to him: "Was there ever anything like the absurdities of Lambton?*
He not only won't be introduced to Mons. Talleyrand and Madame
de Dino, but he chooses to be as rude as possible to them whenever he
meets them. ..." Just as Lady Grey was finishing, Grey returned, and
she said: "I was telling Lord Sefton of Lambton's nonsense;" and then
they both joined in abusing him, as well they might. . . . However, I
hope he will go on offending Lord and Lady Grey, and be himself
out of [illegible]'

Lady Grey was 'at home' one evening a week at No. 10. Creevey
records on ipth February 1831: 'Lady Sefton, her three eldest daughters
and myself went after dinner kst night to Lady Grey's weekly. . . .
Our Vauxf was there with his daughter. I had some very good laugh-

* Should be Lord Durham. Charles Lambton is Durham's elder son and grandson of
Lord and Lady Grey. The boy was the subject of Sir Thomas Lawrence's celebrated
picture, 'Master Lambton1.
T Lord Brougham and Vaux, the Lord Chancellor.

2l8

GREY AND THE REFORM BILL

ing with him, and he was in his accustomed overflowing glee. We had
some very pretty amusement with Viscount Melbourne,* who is very
agreeable. . . . Grey was very loud to me in praise of Edward Stanley.' f

Among the regular visitors at No. 10 was Viscount Palmerston,
Foreign Secretary for the first time, and Lord John Russell, J who was
Paymaster-General in the Government. A younger son of the Duke of
Bedford, he was at the time thirty-eight years old, 'a little fellow not
weighing above 8 stone', Creevey writes. Wellington described him
as 'a host in himself'. Though others worked on the Reform Bill with
him, the credit for it was unstintingly given to Russell - 'who,'
Creevey states, 'without taking law or anything else, creates in fact a
perfectly new House of Commons. . . . What a coup it is ! It is its
boldness that makes its success so certain. ... A week or ten days must
elapse before the Bill is printed and ready for a 2nd reading; by that
time the country will be a flame from one end to the other in favor
of the measure.' §

The country was, but the House of Commons was less enthusiastic.
It was passed at four o'clock in the morning by the narrow majority
of one vote. The street outside was thronged with people waiting for
the news. Macaulay, as he got into a cab, was asked by the driver: 'Is
the Bill carried, sir?' 'Yes, by one,' he replied. 'Thank God for it,
sir,' said the driver.10?

Grey decided on an instant dissolution of Parliament. The Lords, to
prevent this, prepared an address to the Crown, protesting against a
dissolution. Grey and Brougham, on hearing of this, promptly left a
Cabinet meeting and hurried from Downing Street to St. James's
Palace to urge the King to come and prorogue Parliament before the
Lords could pass their resolution.

They arrived at the Palace at half-past eleven in the morning. The
King was angry that the Lords should dare to interfere with his prero-
gative. There was no time, he realized, for adopting the usual cere-
monial for proceeding to the House and he was prepared to waive this

* Melbourne was Home Secretary in Grey's Government.

t Later the Earl of Derby and a future Prime Minister. He was in Grey's Government as

Chief Secretary for Ireland.

t Lord John, himself Prime Minister later, was the grandfather of Bertrand RusselL

§ 3rd March i8ai.7S

219

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

in the emergency, declaring that he was ready to go in a hackney

carriage if necessary. But Brougham had already sent for the escort.
The Lord Chancellor hurried to Parliament to put on his State robes.

The Lords with equal haste were trying to get their resolution through.

The argument got so fierce that many were ahout to come to blows.

In the midst of this uproar Brougham entered. He was greeted by

jeers and hoots. Then suddenly the booming salute of guns could be

heard, announcing that the King was on his way.
The doors were thrown open by the attendants and His Majesty

bustled in, his crown a little askew. The Commons, in the middle of

an equally stormy debate, with Peel angry and out of control, were

summoned in by Bkck Rod.
The dissolution was announced: Lord Sidmouth, as Addington a

former Prime Minister, said to Grey: 'I hope God will forgive you for

this Bill, for I cannot/

Three nights kter Lady Grey had her usual 'weekly' at No. 10.
Creevey describes it75 : 1 wish you could have been with me when I
entered our Premier's drawing-room last night. I was rather early,
and he was standing alone with his back to a fire - the best dressed,
the handsomest, and apparently the happiest man in all his royal

master's dominions Lady Grey was as proud of my lord's speech

as she ought to be, and she, too, looked as handsome and happy as ever
she could be. ... She said at least 3 times - "Come and sit here, Mr.
Creveey." You see the course of this uniform kindness of Lady Grey
to myself is her recollection that I was all for Lord Grey when many of
his present worshippers were doing all they could against him. . . .
Upon one of die duets between Lord Grey and me last night, who
should be announced but Sir James Scarlett.* He graciously put out a
hand for each of us, but my lord received him so coldly, that he was
off in an instant, and Grey said to me - "What an extraordinary thing
his coming here! the more so, as I don't believe he was invited. . . ."
Lady Grey said to me - "I really could not be such a hypocrite as to
put out my hand to Sir James Scarlett".'

Grey's cheerfulness, based on his conviction that the country would
support him, proved to be fully justified when the election results were

* A former Whig Attorney-General, who had just resigned from the Party because of
his violent opposition to the Reform Bill

220

GREY AND THE REFORM BILL

declared. The new House of Commons passed the second reading of
the Reform Bill with a majority of 136. Months of debate followed
before it eventually left the Lower House for the Lords, where it fell
to Grey to introduce it. Their lordships were by no means disposed to
accept it. Wellington, who had been in very low spirits for some time,
was as hostile as ever to the measure and determined to defeat it, co-
vinced still that it would 'destroy the country* and seriously affect 'the
property of every individual in the country*. He had discovered as
Prime Minister that party discipline differed greatly from discipline
as enforced in the Army. His authority as Leader of the Opposition, he
found now, was even more tenuous. 'Nobody does anything but what
he likes, excepting myself/ he complained. 'We are all commanders,
and there are no troops. Nobody obeys or ever listens to advice but
myself/ Even Peel, once his staunch lieutenant and now referred to as
'that fellow in the House of Commons', had been proving difficult.
'One can't go on without him/ the Duke said, 'but he is so vacillating
and crotchetty that there is no getting on with him. ... I can't manage
him now at all/ Grey he had never liked but felt that it was his duty to
co-operate with the King's chief Minister on all matters affecting the
foreign policy of the country and he often called at No. 10 Down-
ing Street for that purpose. But help him with the Reform Bill - that
the Duke absolutely refused to do. The Tory peers rallied behind him.
Even the Earl of Winchilsea, but recently his opponent in the duel,
offered his support and the Duke, in amiable reciprocation, went out
to inspect his yeomanry. The Bill had to be defeated - and it was. For
all Grey's urgent pleading it was rejected by the House of Lords by
41 votes.

Many expected Grey to resign. But Brougham advised him to adopt
the course followed earlier by Pitt, which it was obvious at
once would prove effective. His proposal was that the King' should be
asked to create a sufficient number of new peers to outvote the Opposi-
tion. This stratagem was not at all in keeping with Grey's aristocratic
attitude : he thought it quite unconstitutional and flatly refused to adopt
it. Many members of the Cabinet were, however, in favour. The pro-
posal was debated by the Cabinet for hours at a time all through the
month of September 1831. In the end, with the majority against him,
Grey gave way. A fresh Reform Bill, only slightly modified, was then

221

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

prepared and presented to the Commons, who passed the second read-
ing in December by a majority of 162. On New Year's Day 1832 the
Cabinet decided that the King should be informed without further
delay of the need to create additional peers.

Grey went down to Brighton where the King often stayed in the
winter. He found His Majesty far from favourably disposed to the
idea and was told bluntly that he hoped such a course would not be
necessary.

Meanwhile, with mounting public anger at the delay, there had
been alarming incidents in various parts of the country. In Derby the
jail had been stormed. In Bristol there had been fierce rioting for
three days: five hundred people had been killed and fires raged in the
streets of the city. Nottingham Castle, belonging to the Duke of New-
castle, and other famous houses had been burned down. Lords travel-
ling in their carriages to their country seats were attacked by mobs.
The violence was described as 'unparalleled since the Civil War*. The
country appeared to be on the verge of revolution.

Wellington wrote to the King, urging the need for strong immedi-
ate action, and even hinted that he was prepared to take charge once
again and rescue His Majesty from the present Government. The
Duke drove through London with an armed servant on the box and
a brace of double-barrelled pistols at his side.

The King had already 'pronounced himself for Reform5, and
Wellington, though convinced that this would mean the end of the
monarchy, was nevertheless not prepared to desert His Majesty. He
began,however,to feel that it was not longer possible 'to govern in his
name without Reform. But the more gentle and gradual the reform,
the better for the country/ he said. This view began to spread in the
Upper House and waverers were found among the ultra-Tories. Grey
was greatly relieved at this, for the whole thing had got out of hand.
'Damn Reform,' he said. 'I wish I had never touched it.' Melbourne
and Palmerston shared his caution, but others in the Cabinet, notably
Brougham, Althorp and Durham, did not. The King was relieved too
and more hopeful of the Bill getting through without the creation of
additional peers.

The debates in the House of Lords were long and wearisome. The
arguments went on night after night and were so exhausting that the

222

GREY AND THE REFORM BILL

Duke of Cumberland had to be carried out of the Chamber on one
occasion. The second reading was eventually passed by a majority of
nine. But, in the Committee stage after the Easter recess, a morion was
brought in by Lord Lyndhurst, Wellington's Lord Chancellor, that
the most vital clause of the Bill, namely the disfranchising of the
rotten boroughs, on which the Tories mainly depended for their
support, should be postponed, and the Government was defeated by
35 votes. This brought the crisis to a head.

Once again Grey went to see the King. His Majesty was at Windsor.
The Prime Minister arrived together with the Lord Chancellor, Lord
Brougham, and suggested that 'sixty, or perhaps even eighty' peers
would have to be created. The King was startled by the number and
said he would like a little time to think it over. Grey was prepared to
wait until the morning, but stated that the entire Government would
resign if the King did not agree.

They did not return to London until eleven o'clock that night.
Creevey states : 'The King had not even preserved his usual civility. . . .
He did not even offer the poor fellows any victuals, and they were
obliged to put into port at the George posting-house at Hounslow, and
so get some mutton chops.'

In the morning a royal messenger arrived at No. 10 with a letter
stating that His Majesty had accepted Grey's resignation. Grey had for
some years been carrying on a regular, one might even say an intimate
correspondence with the Princess Lieven, the wife of the Russian
Ambassador. He wrote at once to inform her that 'our resignations
have been accepted', adding in a further letter on the next day: 'Per-
sonally, what has happened is no cause of regret to me; and were it not
for my fear of what the consequences of it may be to the King and to
the country, I should look forward with real pleasure to the season
when I may return to Howick/ Meanwhile he stayed on at No. 10
and waited.

The King lost no time in sending for Wellington. He asked the Duke
to form a Tory administration to pass the Reform Bill. About that the
King was quite firm, since it was obvious that the country was deter-
mined to have it. The Duke, despite his own opposition to Reform,
which had in no way changed, was 'perfectly ready to do whatever
His Majesty may command me. . . . No private consideration shall

223

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

prevent me from mating every effort to serve the King*.88 He told Ms
supporters that 'the efforts of all ought to be directed to render that
Bill as little noxious as possible*. Peel was asked for his assistance but
refused to give it. He had given way on Catholic emancipation, but
was not prepared to make a second recantation. For five days the argu-
ments went on. A large number of Tories were interviewed, but none
of them was ready to serve under Wellington, except his two military
supporters, Generals Murray and Hardinge. Meanwhile the country
got restive and began to prepare for further action. Private houses
hung out cards stating: 'No taxes paid Here until the Reform Bill is
passed.' A run on the Bank of England was planned: placards declared:
'To stop the Duke - go for gold/ Soon the run actually began. London
was in a ferment. The King's carriage was attacked on Constitution
Hill. Abuse was shouted at the Queen. The Times in a leading
article went so far as to urge the people to revolt. A number of
soldiers deserted and joined those who were preparing for violence.
Grey was in a curious dilemma, for, with the Government no longer
in existence, if a revolution had broken out there were *no
really responsible Ministers to suppress it or to negotiate with its
chiefs'.96

The King was at a loss to know what to do. He did not want to
give in to Grey; and Wellington was unable to form an Administra-
tion. Even the Speaker of the House of Commons was approached, for
after all Addington had been Speaker of the House before becoming
Prime Minister. In despair His Majesty turned again to Grey and
begged him to moderate his demands and water down the Reforms.
But Grey was adamant. He and the Cabinet insisted on 'The Bill, the
whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill.' Finally the King gave in. He
asked Grey to resume office and gave him this pledge in writing: 'His
Majesty authorizes Earl Grey, if any obstacle should arise during
the further progress of the Bill, to submit to him a creation of
Peers to such extent as shall be necessary to enable him to carry the
Bffl:

Thus the battle was won and after eight days the Whigs were back
in office. Wellington retreated. He and his followers stayed away from
the House of Lords when the vote was taken - 'skulked in dubs and
country houses'. The measure was passed by a majority of 84 on 4th

224

GREY AND THE REFORM BILL

June 1832 and three days later the Royal assent was read out to the
empty benches opposite.*

Creevey was jubilant. He wrote the next day to Miss Ord: "Thank
God! I was in at the death of this Conservative plot, and the triumph
of our Bill/ But Grey, writing to Princess Lieven, revealed that he was
Very unwell ever since the last debate in the House of Lords. ... I was,
at the time, so ill that I thought I should have dropped while I was
speaking.'

During the protracted battle for Reform, Lord Grey lost his grand-
son, young Lambton, the son of Lord Durham. 'Why did the blow fall
on this heavenly boy?' he wrote to Princess Lieven. 'I can think of
nothing else, and am quite unnerved for the battle I have to fight.'
While she cooed responsively to Grey's incessant letters of affection,
the Princess had no liking whatsoever for his wife. She wrote to
Lady Cooper: 'Do you know that Lady Grey is a very horrid
woman, passionate, bitter, Jacobinical, anything you wish to say
bad.'"'

While the Parliamentary registers were being revised the Greys
went to East Sheen; they had to move out of No. 10, as the house was
once again in need of attention. The Morning Herald of 8th October
1832 stated: 'Earl Grey's house, in Downing Street, is undergoing an
extensive repair and he will therefore reside at East Sheen until it shall
be fit for his reception.' The builders were busy for a full three months
and the Greys did not return until early in January. The cost of the
repairs was .£1,247. This did not, of course, include the new furniture
and curtains Lady Grey now put in. For that the Prime Minister had
to pay. Creevey, visiting the house on I2th January, wrote delightedly
to Miss Ord: 'I might as well say a word of the new furniture in Down-
ing Street at Earl Grey's, everything therein being all spick and span
new. The two principal Drawing Rooms opening into each other are
papered with a pattern of your Drawing Room ground, and a large
gold rose or flower of some kind. . . . The curtains are yellow silk . . .
as gay and handsome as possible.'

At the end of 1832, with the new registers ready, a fresh General
Election was held, since the existing House of Commons was regarded

* The Reform Act specifically denied the vote to women, hitherto excluded by custom.
225

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

as no longer representative of the country. In fact only the worst of
the rotten boroughs had been disfranchised; for one of those that
still remained, namely Newark, William Ewart Gladstone, then aged
twenty-four, was elected: he had ironically made a reputation, while
President of the Oxford Union Society at the University only the
year before, by a devastating attack on the Reform Bill. His eldest
brother Thomas, in the previous Parliament for a rotten borough that
had been abolished, had now to find another seat. Young William
Gladstone, a Conservative at this stage (the old party label of Tory was
by now beginning to be dropped), topped the poll with only 887
votes, which reveals how restricted the Parliamentary Reform was.
There still remained nearly forty proprietary boroughs in England and
Wales. Disraeli also stood for Parliament at this election : he stood as an
Independent Radical for High Wycombe and was defeated. The two
men were to switch their political allegiance later, Disraeli becoming
a Conservative and Gladstone a Liberal.

The Conservatives suffered an overwhelming defeat. Their repre-
sentation in the Commons was reduced to 149 as against 509 Whigs.
But, despite this, most of the well-known faces were back on both
sides of the House. About fifty Radicals were elected, determined to
achieve an extension of the Reform which, they insisted, should
include universal suffrage and vote by ballot. Greville describes the
new House of Commons, which met in January 1833, in these memor-
able words: 'Formerly new members appeared with some modesty
and diffidence, and with some appearance of respect for the assembly
in which they were admitted: these fellows behave themselves as if
they had taken it by storm, and might riot in all the insolence of
victory. There exists no party but that of the Government; the Irish
act in a body under O'Connell to the number of about forty; the
Radicals are scattered up and down without a leader, numerous, rest-
less, turbulent and bold - Hume, Cobbett, &c. - bent upon doing all
the mischief they can and incessantly active; the Tories without a head,
frightened, angry, and sulky; Peel without a party, prudent, cautious,
and dexterous, playing a deep waiting game of scrutiny and ob-
servation.

Grey's chief work was now done. But some further notable measures,
of which he was not the principal architect, were passed during the

226

GREY AND THE REFORM BILL

eighteen months that remained of his premiership. Thus did the new
reformed Parliament express itself. The total abolition of slavery
throughout all the British colonies and possessions was at last achieved.
Grey had supported Wilberforce a quarter of a century before when
the first steps were taken to restrict this evil traffic. Young Gkdstone,
faced with recording his first vital vote, found himself in a dilemma,
for his family owed its vast fortune to the slave trade, and for this he
had been jeered at as a schoolboy at Eton. He had hedged in his election
address, stating that he wanted to see the end of slavery, but con-
sidered that the ground should be well prepared first. 1 cannot forget
that the English factory children are permitted to grow up in almost as
great ignorance and deadness of heart as the West Indian negroes/
Now, in the House, hearing his father attacked by Lord Howick, the
Prime Minister's heir, Gladstone rose to make his maiden speech. 'I
do not admit that holding slaves necessarily involves sin,' he said. His
speech, which lasted fifty minutes, made a great impression. But the
Bill was passed and received royal assent in August 1833. Wilberforce,
aged seventy-four and out of Parliament for some years, had died just
a month before.

Then there was the Factory Act. Attempts had been made since the
beginning of the nineteenth century to protect the children working
in factories. The first of the Factory Acts was not, however, introduced
until 1819, that is to say eleven years before the battle for Parliamentary
Reform began. Lord Liverpool was Prime Minister then. The Act
stipulated that no child under the age of nine (many indeed were only
six) should be employed in the textile trade or work for more than
twelve hours a day. It remained a dead letter, but it established the
important principle that it was the duty of the State to protect from
industrial exploitation those who could not protect themselves. La
1824 Pitt's wartime Combination Laws, making trade unions illegal
and strikes criminal, were repealed. Further Acts in 1826 and 1831 pror
vided some easing of the working conditions. The new Act, .brought
in by Althorp in 1833, widened the scope of the earlier legislation
which had been limited to workers in cotton mills, and was made-tap
apply now to woollen, worsted, hemp, flax, tow, linen and silk mills;
No one under the age of eighteen was allowed to work for more than
sixty-nine hours a week. Inspectors were appointed to see that these

227

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

regulations were observed and they had the right to enter factories at
all times.

The Act was largely inspired by Lord Ashley (later Lord Shaftes-
bury), to commemorate whose further amelioration of the condition of
factory workers the fountain in Piccadilly Circus was erected, showing
in an awful pun Cupid burying the shaft of his arrow into the earth.

With the stimulus and strain of the Reform battle over, Grey began
to weary of the political world. There were endless quarrels in the
Cabinet and between Cabinet Ministers in private houses over mat-
ters that seemed to the Prime Minister to be of small consequence. He
wrote tired, dejected letters from Downing Street to his 'dearest
Princess' Lieven, complaining of little vexations, of being unwell, and
expressing always his eagerness to see her again. 'I hate great dinners,
and they are not suited to the present state of my health; but I find I
must submit to several, and therefore I will not refuse yours on Tues-
day. I hope to meet you also at Palmerston's on Monday. . . . Ever
dearest, Princess, most entirely yours, Grey.' Was he, now in his
seventieth year, in love with her as he had been in love with Georgina,
Duchess of Devonshire, in his twenties? Lieven, in her forties, was
attractive, vivacious and fascinating and many thought there was more
to it than just friendship. 1 promised myself a kind note from you this
morning', Grey wrote, 'and I have not been disappointed. ... It did
my heart good, and is the best compensation I could have; but, still, a
very inadequate one for my not having the pleasure of seeing you/
And she, addressing him more circumspectly as 'My dear Lord/ made
appointments for him to come and see her at three in the afternoon.
'If ... you can only visit me late in the day, I shall put offmy departure
till Thursday. All this pour vos leaux yeuxl'** They were constant
visitors at each other's houses. The Princess came often to Downing
Street, at times dining there with her husband, at others merely to
kate a note for the Prime Minister.

AH through this period and until the end of his stay at No. 10, Grey
ms beset by the greatly intensified troubles in Ireland. The peace
adiieved by the granting of Catholic emancipation was short-lived. A
fresh discontent arose over the payment of tithes, which had always
gone to the Protestant clergy. To this the Irish objected strongly and
had recently stopped paying it. The Government's efforts to collect

228

GREY AND THE REFORM BILL

it had led to rioting, pillaging, cattle-houghing and murder. Edward
Stanley (later Lord Derby), Chief Secretary for Ireland, suggested an
extremely stringent Coercion Act, but many in the Cabinet dis-
approved angrily, declaring that the measures were far too harsh.
Creevey, writing on the I4th March 1833, states : 'There has been most
stormy work in the Cabinet for some time, and it has been with the
greatest difficulty Grey and Althorp have submitted to Stanley's
obstinacy about Irish tithes. The more violent Lambton* I dare say
would not submit, and he retired with an earldom, to cure his head-
aches, of course. What pretty physic ! How delighted his colleagues
must be that he is gone, for there never was such a disagreeable, over-
bearing devil to bear with in a Cabinet.'

The Act gave the Lord-Lieutenant power to substitute martial law
for the ordinary courts of justice, to suppress all meetings, search
houses, suspend Habeas Corpus and punish all persons found out of
doors after sunset. Surprisingly, in view of his subsequent sympathy
with the Irish cause, this ruthlessly coercive measure was ardently
supported by Gladstone, who indeed went further, insisting that all
the privileges of the Anglican Church in that country should be fully
maintained.

The disorders in Ireland were fanned by the distress brought on by
a fresh famine. O'Connell and his followers, in great strength in the
English Parliament since the removal of Catholic disabilities and the
extension of the vote, never ceased to damour and obstruct the normal
business of the Government. Their cry was for the repeal of Pitt's Act
of Union. They insisted on being untethered and left to manage their
own affairs.

Grey had also a hand while at No. 10 in a far-reaching and long over-
due change in India. The East India Company, a commercial enterprise
which had by chance acquired control of a vast empire, was replaced
by a Government department directly under the control of the Govern-
ment in London. With Grey's support the independence of Belgium,
disputed ever since the treaty of separation two years before, was now
finally established. The King selected was Prince Leopold of Ssgce-
Coburg, who had been married to Princess Charlotte, daughter of the

* Should be Durham, Grey's son-in-law. He received his barony and became Lord
Durham in 1828.

229

NO. 10 DOWNING STMET

Prince Regent (George the Fourth), and who would have been Prince
Consort had she succeeded to the throne. Now it was Prince Leopold's
niece Princess Victoria who was the heir and he was later to play an
important role as her adviser.

The people, however, did not seem to be particularly interested in
any of this. Greville noted that they were 'getting tired' of the 'blun-
ders and embarrassments' of the Government, and it was obvious that
Grey was getting very tired too. The quarrels in the Cabinet continued.
Some of the Ministers who had opposed the Coercion Act argued
that it had merely worsened the relations between England and
Ireland. Lord Stanley, loathed by die Irish, was removed from that
post- Brougham had threatened to resign if he wasn't. Stanley became
Colonial Secretary, and Edward Littleton, Lord Wellesley's son-in-
law, succeeded Stanley as Chief Secretary for Ireland - 'which shows',
wrote Greville, 'to what shifts they are put.' Wellesley was at the same
time appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. When in the following
year (1834) the Coercion Act came up-for renewal, Littleton informed
the Cabinet that he was in favour of allowing public meetings, as their
suppression was 'mere personal spleen against O'ConnelT.* He was
imprudent enough to reveal this to O'Connell and told him that Lord
Althorp, Leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the
Exchequer, also supported it wholeheartedly. Lord John Russell, after
a visit to Ireland, declared that the Irish ought not to be made to pay
taxes for the maintenance of the Protestant Church, and that some at
least of the money ought to be diverted to non-religious purposes, such
as education. This horrified Stanley who, as an ardent Protestant,
regarded it as an attack on the true religion. With these quarrels con-
tinuing in the Cabinet room, Grey's position as Prime Minister became
impossible. He was unable to curb or control his Ministers. Creevey
noted on 8th May: 'Our Government was in the gravest danger all
yesterday and added that these arguments had 'roused all the fire of
those in the Cabinet/

Brougham, irritated by the incessant quarrels, has recorded: 'I was
obliged to declare that unless we had something like order, meaning

y one speaking at a time, I should leave the room. We then called

* Brougham in a letter to Althorp.
230

GREY AND THE REFORM BILL

out "Order" and stopped all who interrupted. . . . Things were con-
tinually told out of doors as having been said by members of the Cab-
inet and not only thus told but sent to newspapers All were traced

to Cabinet dinners - tales carried by the servants, who were in the habit,
no matter at what house we were dining, of seizing every pretence for
remaining in the room. Then some of our colleagues would go on
talking as if none but ourselves were in the room/80

Clearly Grey could not carry on like this for long. The resignation
of the Duke of Richmond, then of Graham*, and finally of Goderich,
by now the Earl of Ripon, were followed by others. Princess Lieven
wrote to Grey: 1 feel so sick at heart. It is you who are principally in
my thoughts/

At the end of May (1834) Grey began to reconstruct his Govern-
ment. *I dined yesterday,' writes Creevey on 2pth May, 'at Stanley's,
with Johnny Russell by his side. All the offices were to be filled today/
On 8th June the entire corps diplomatique was entertained at No. 10,
just as thougl lothing was happening.

On 8th July, Althorp resigned. As he was Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer and Leader of die House of Commons it came as a great blow.
'Our poor Earl Grey was so deeply affected last night,' Creevey states
in a letter dated the loth, 'as not to be able to utter for some time, and
was obliged to sit down to collect himself. When he did get under
weigh, however, he almost affected others as much as he had been
affected himself/

Grey was now ready to go. Arrangements were being made at No. 10
for his departure. He wrote to the Princess: 'My life for the last
eight months has been one of such unhappiness as nobody can imagine.
... I feel, deeply feel, for the difficulties of the King and the country/

A few days later, on I4th July, he assembled what remained of his
Cabinet. It was their last meeting. As the majority were against him,
it was decided that one of them should go and see the King at Windsor
and ask to be allowed to form a new Government.

The choice fell on Lord Melbourne. Though as Home Secretary he
was responsible for the direction of Irish Affairs and had himself been
Chief Secretary of Ireland in Canning's Government only a few years

* Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty.
231

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

before, lie had adopted a lazy detachment towards what was going on
in Ireland, and, if anything, had sympathized with Grey's attitude.
Nevertheless, he was regarded hy the others as a suitable successor to
the Prime Minister. He hesitated a little. It would mean more work,
there would be less time for his normal diversions. But he accepted
and the next day set out for Windsor.

232

CHAPTER 23
Melbourne, then Peel

LORD MELBOURNE, well connected and extremely wealthy,
was at fifty-five one of the younger men in the Cabinet. It was his
colleagues' conviction that, with him as leader, they should the more
easily jettison the repressive policy they had found distasteful, invite
Althorp to rejoin the Government as Chancellor of the Exchequer and
Leader of the House of Commons, and take steps to satisfy some at
least of the demands of Daniel O'Connell and his irate Irish supporters.
The Melbourne family fortune had been amassed by his grand-
father, Sir Matthew Lamb, a lawyer who was suspected of not always
being scrupulous. The peerage had been acquired by Melbourne's
father for being a consistent supporter of Lord North; but there was
great doubt as to whether the first Lord Melbourne, Peniston Lamb,
was in fact his father, for the lovely, flirtatious Lady Melbourne
had numerous admirers, the Prince of Wales (later the Regent)
among them. Of her Byron, whose love affair with the younger Lord
Melbourne's wife, Lady Caroline Lamb, caused a scandal, said:
'If she had been a few years younger, what a fool she would

233

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

have made of me/ He likened her morals to those of the notorious
Athenian courtesan Aspasia. It was generally believed that Melbourne's
actual father was George Wyndham, the third Earl of Egremont,
whom he indeed strongly resembled. Wyndham was a member of
one of the most distinguished families of the eighteenth century,
closely related to the Grenvilles and through them to the Pitts.

Melbourne had many great qualities, but he seemed to be far more
interested in the social round than in politics. His mother entertained
lavishly. At Melbourne House in Whitehall, which is now Dover
House, there were delightful distractions in the evenings, from which
young William Lamb escaped only to find similar diversions at Devon-
shire House, Holland House, and Carlton House, where the Regent
lived. Nevertheless, in 1806, having some months before become the
heir on the death of his elder brother, he entered Parliament and
attached himself to the Whig Prime Minister Lord Grenville.' He had
just married the tempestuous Lady Caroline, a disturbing alliance
which he allowed to drag on for twenty years. It was not until after
this ended that he was able to accept ministerial office, though it had
been offered before. He served as Chief Secretary for Ireland in Can-
ning's Government, retained the post during the brief Administration
of Goderich and also after Wellington took over, but resigned together
with the rest of the Canningites when it became dear that Wellington's
policy was to be completely Tory,

The King did not like him, but agreed to accept him as Prime
Minister only because he liked the others still less. He had thought of
appointing Lord Lansdowne, but Lansdowne declined, and Melbourne
embarked upon his duties convinced that he would find them *a
damned bore'.

When Grey moved out of Downing Street, Melbourne showed no
disposition to move in. He preferred to remain on in his far more
comfortable house in South Street. No. 10 was left untenanted, but
Cabinet meetings, it is thought, continued to be held there because of
the many offices where the Cabinet papers were kept and because of
its nearness to the Houses of Parliament. The drawing-rooms may also
Eave been used for political receptions, but of this there is no certainty,
since Melbourne's tenure of office was short. It lasted barely four
months. Melbourne indeed was surprised that it lasted so long. His

234

MELBOURNE, THEN PEEL

interviews with the King were long and painful. Nor did he get on
with the Queen. He found his colleagues in the Cabinet trying. One
of them, Lord Lansdowne, was annoyed that two of his friends had not
been given office; Lord John Russell wanted Daniel O'Connell in
the Government in order to ease the Irish situation. And though
Melbourne liked his Foreign Secretary Palmerston personally, he was
uneasy about his eagerness to intervene in other nations' disputes and
to take the side of the people against their autocratic rulers. Melbourne
was an old-fashioned Whig and resented the way one wing of the
Party kept on espousing reform. It was his conviction, born doubtless
of his indolence, that natural and economic laws could, if given time,
set everything right. Poverty, for example, he believed could only be
solved by allowing the forces of supply and demand to take their
course. For this reason he refused as Home Secretary to consider a
scheme put before him in 1831 for relieving the distress of agricultural
labourers by settling them on waste lands as smallholders. Steps of that
kind he regarded as dangerous bureaucratic innovations. The Factory
Acts fell into this category; but he felt sorry enough for the children
working for long hours in trying conditions to stretch out a helping
hand to them, and readily sponsored the alleviating Bill in the House
of Lords. Similarly the rapid growth of trade unions disturbed him
greatly. After the Reform Act of 1832 the working classes, finding that
many of them were still without the vote and that their condition was
really no better, turned to the unions, which seemed to Melbourne to be
multiplying rapidly and spreading from the towns to the smallest
country districts. A plan was even being furthered to unite them into
one great organization, with political as well as economic aims. This
frightened Melbourne. It smelt of revolution and he was old enough
to remember the havoc that was caused in France. That was why he
came down heavily against the new trade union at Tolpuddle in Dorset
and imposed the severe penalty of seven years transportation upon its
chief members. This led to fresh trouble with Lord John Russell, who
was in sympathy with the Tolpuddle Martyrs. But by far the most
troublesome of the Ministers was Lord Brougham, who had expected
to be Prime Minister and never ceased to attack his Cabinet colleagues
in his public speeches.
Outwardly Melbourne appeared to be unperturbed by all this. He

235

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

went Ids amorous round, seeing a great deal of the beautiful Mrs.
Caroline Norton,* who still lived with her husband, and less fre-
quently the virtuous Miss Emily Eden, the sister of Lord Auckland.
But inwardly he was depressed. It added greatly to his despondency
when on the night of i6th October 1834 he saw the Houses of Parlia-
ment in flames. For him the vast fire marked the passing of the age to
which he belonged. The setting of Pitt's triumphs, of Fox's eloquence,
of so many of England's dramatic debates and historic decisions per-
ished in the conflagration. The Times described it with a complete lack
of feeling and dwelt with delight on the new buildings, large and well
ventilated, that would take their place. Nobody in fact seemed very
concerned about the loss. The King arrived with the Queen to gaze
at the ruins and, as has been recorded by Sir John Hobhouse (later
Lord Broughton), 'looked gratified, as if at a show'. His Majesty
suggested that Buckingham Palace should be the new meeting place
of Parliament. His look of gratification, Hobhouse felt, may have been
prompted 'by the prospect of getting rid of Buckingham Palace. Just
before getting into his carriage he called the Speaker and me to him
and said, "Mind, I mean Buckingham Palace as a permanent gift!
Mind that."'108

The King had changed a great deal in the four years since his acces-
sion. Though still the breezy sailor, he no longer wandered about the
streets followed by a large crowd who jostled and pushed him famili-
arly. The Queen had succeeded in restraining him to some extent, but
she had been quite unable to stop him sticking his head out of the State
Coach to spit while out on a royal occasion, with the Horse Guards
bobbing in front and the crowds cheering from the pavements. He
had also greatly modified his democratic outlook since the alarming
disturbances, the rioting, the stones thrown at his carriage, before the
Reform Act was finally passed. He became nervous and jumpy and
was in a constant state of panic. By now suspicious of the Whigs, he
began to bombard each of the Ministers with complaints and advice.
He insisted that workmen should not be allowed to combine. Mel-
Bbdrne, irritated by all this, sent off-hand, facetious, often ironical
ieplies and sometimes wondered if this wasn't the worst of his trials.

* A granddaughter of Richard Brindey Sheridan, the pkywright and politician.
236

MELBOURNE, THEN PEEL

In the autumn Lord Althorp had to leave the House of Commons
on the death of his father Earl Spencer and go to the Lords. The
Government thus lost its brilliantly able Leader of the Lower House.
Melbourne, in two minds about resigning, went down to Brighton to
see the King. But the Ring anticipated him. After dinner in the Pavilion
His Majesty said quite abruptly : 'By the way, Lord Spencer is dead, I
hear. So is the Government, of course: where the head is dead the
body cannot go on at all. Therefore there is no help for it, you must all
resign. Here, my Lord, is a letter I have written to the Duke of Wel-
lington, directing him to form a Government: be sure you give it to
him, directly you arrive in town/

Melbourne, despite his earlier thought that he might be better out
of it, was taken aback by the King's autocratic manner. Feeling he
owed it to his Party to avoid this ignominious dismissal, Melbourne
suggested that Lord John Russell should succeed Althorp as Leader of
the House of Commons. The King instantly flared up; he always did
when the name of 'that young man' was mentioned. His dislike of
Russell was so strong that he said of him: 'If you will answer for his
death, I will answer for his damnation.'

Until late that night and all through the next day, the Prime Minister
kept suggesting possible adjustments in the Government. But the
King was not prepared to accept any of them. Melbourne returned to
London late in the evening, his rule as First Lord of the Treasury at an
end. It was the last time an English Sovereign exercised the prerogative
of dismissing Ministers.

The Cabinet were surprised and indignant when they learned
the news. His Majesty's high-handed manner merely confirmed
Melbourne's view that the King 'had not the feelings of a gentle-
man'. But he put on his usual air of calm and expressed his complete
indifference as to what had happened, and later wrote to Miss Eden:
'I have always considered complaints of ill usage contemptible,
whether from a seduced, disappointed girl or a turned-out Prime
Minister/

The Duke of Wellington, meanwhile, was with the King. He told
His Majesty that Peel should be asked to take over the chief office, but
offered to hold the fort until Peel's return from Italy, where he was
wintering with his wife and daughter. To Wellington, holding the

23?

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

fort meant taking over personally all the principal offices in the Govern-
ment. Greville describes the meeting of the Privy Council at which
the Duke kissed hands as First Lord of the Treasury. He was then
sworn in as Secretary of State for the Home Department. His Grace
'came round, and after much fumbling for his spectacles, took the
oath. . . ,' The King then resumed: 'It is likewise necessary for me to
dispose of the seals of the other two Secretaries of State and I therefore
place them likewise for the present in the same hands/ When the
swearing in was at an end Wellington instantly 'repaired to the Home
Office and ordered tlie Irish papers to be brought to him, then to the
Foreign Office, where he asked for the last dispatches from Spain and
Portugal, and so on to the Colonial Office, where he required informa-
tion as to the state of their department.'7*

The outgoing Ministers, unaware of the wide powers conferred on
the Duke, were startled to see him stride into their offices aijd take
possession, as though the positions had just been captured from the
enemy. Wellington brushed aside their protests. 'The complaint of
incivility', he said, 'is a very good one ad captandum, but it is better to
be uncivil than absurd. . . . Nobody is the worse off for what is doing
except myself, who am worked as no post-horse at Hounslow ever
was.'106

A messenger was at once dispatched to Peel, who returned from
Rome with as much speed as he could. It nevertheless necessitated
Wellington ruling the country as supreme panjandrum for a full
three weeks. On surrendering his numerous seals he was persuaded by
Peel to retain the office of Foreign Secretary.

Peel's authority as Prime Minister was weak and unenviable. His
Party, Conservatives as they now called themselves, were a small
minority in the House of Commons, greatly outnumbered by the
Whigs, the Radicals and the Irish, who could together drive them out
of office at any moment they chose. He had been placed in this un-
pleasant situation by the arbitrary action of the King, and admitted
later: 'Had it been possible that I should have been consulted previ-
ously, I might have dissuaded the act of dismissal as premature and
impolitic.'

He had to do the best he could. He tried to strengthen his position
by inviting Stanley and Graham, both of whom had resigned from

238

The house at the back (the large building on the right) circa 1677, with Charles II and his
courtiers walking in the Mall. To this house No. 10 Downing Street was joined later.
From an oil painting ascribed to Thomas van Wyck.

No. 10 Downing Street, with its walled garden, seen from St. James's Park in 1827.
From a water-colour by J. C. Buckler. In the Cruse collection, British Museum.

There was no access from Downing Street to St. James's
Park when this water-colour sketch by J. C. Buckler was
made in 1827. The cul-de-sac at this end was known as
Downing Square. The first door on the right is the front door
of No. 10. No. 12, at the end of the row, has now been
restored, and once again has a doorway at the corner. But the
other house, forming the square, and where Wellington and
Nelson met for the only time, no longer exists.

The famous front door of
what appears from Downing
Street to be a small, unim-
pressive house, showing the
lion's head knocker and the
swirl of ironwork holding up
a lantern surmounted by a

The other side of the front
door - the entrance hall. A
long corridor links this hall
with the Cabinet Room at the
far end of the house.

MELBOURNE, THEN PEEL

Grey's recent Government and were far closer to his political outlook
than Russell, for example. But they refused to be in the same Govern-
ment as Wellington. 'In a querulous tone,' Croker records, Peel had
accordingly to resign himself to the fact that it 'would only be the
Duke's old Cabinet.' Nevertheless, he brought in some very young
men, the eldest of them only twenty-five years old: these included
Gladstone, Sidney Herbert, Edward Cardwell and Canning's young
son, who was later Viceroy of India, all of whom were to make their
mark later. But neither the House of Commons nor the country were
impressed.

Like his predecessor, Peel declined to live at No. 10 Downing Street,
but stayed on in his own house in Whitehall Gardens, which was just
round the corner. He continued, however, to use the Cabinet room,
where he had first sat as Secretary for Ireland under Liverpool nearly
a quarter of a century before.

But the house did not remain untenanted, as it had been during the
four months Melbourne was Prime Minister. Into it moved Sir Thomas
Fremantle, one of the secretaries of the Treasury. He came of a dis-
tinguished naval family. His father, also Sir Thomas, had served with
Nelson in a number of famous actions, was with him in Seahorse during
the night landing at Santa Cruz when Nelson lost his arm, and had
participated in the glorious victory at Trafalgar. The year before that
battle he was married in Lady Hamilton's drawing-room in Naples.
The son of that marriage was only thirty-seven when he moved into
No. 10. He had been given a baronetcy at the remarkably early age of
twenty-three and was by now a Conservative Member of Parliament.
With him in the house were his wife, the daughter of Field-Marshal
Sir George Nugent, and their nine children, the eldest of whom was
not quite ten. Sir Thomas was small in stature like his father, and
known as 'the pocket Apollo' because of his strikingly handsome
appearance. Forty years later he was given a peerage by Disraeli and
became Lord Cottesloe.

The family lived at No. 10 for only four months, for they had to
move out when Peel's Government fell; but the brief stay supplies a
loose link with the town of Fremantle in Western Australia, named
after his uncle Admiral Sir Charles Fremantle, who, on arriving there
with the first emigrant ships, took possession in the name of the

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King in 1829, five years before the family moved into Dowaing
Street.

With his position in the House so utterly hopeless, Peel decided to
dissolve Parliament and appeal to the country. There was just the
possibility that it might lead to an increase in the number of his
supporters. Many were dubious of this and argued that it would have
been wiser to face the House as Pitt had done when similarly situated:
the country, disgusted by the persistent hostility of his opponents,
gave Pitt an overwhelming majority. Peel declared that his own
position was very different. His opponents had not discredited them-
selves as Fox and North had done in 1784.

Peel, in his appeal to the voters, broke away from the die-hard
Toryism of the past and launched the policy of the new Conservative
Party, with the promise of a moderate but slow reform. Some of his
Ministers did not like it, but it roused the country. He almost doubled
the number of his supporters, but did not obtain a majority, and so
continued to be at the mercy of his opponents. Again and again the
Government was defeated - six times indeed in six weeks. Lord John
Russell, Leader of the Opposition in the Commons, waged an unre-
mitting war, and had the full support of Daniel O'Connell and the
Irish members. It seemed to Greville that the attitude of the Opposition
was: 'The King exercised his prerogative in a most extraordinary and
unjustifiable manner. We have the same right to reject his Government,
that he had to turn out ours; if there is embarrassment, it is none of
our creating, the King and the Tories must be responsible for it/79

Among Peel's most hostile critics were many members of his own
Party, particularly those ultra-Tories who had been ignored when
offices were handed out. By March, Peel realized that he could not
carry on much longer. Wellington urged him to go on fighting. But
a succession of defeats - on and April by 3 3 votes, on the 6th by 25 and
on the yth by 37 - led at last to Peel resigning on 8th April 1835.

For some days the King took no action whatsoever. On I3th April,
five days after his resignation, Peel wrote to Croker: 'I received a note
from the King about seven yesterday evening, requesting me to facili-
tate an adjournment until Thursday next, for the purpose of promoting
the arrangements connected with the formation of a new Government.
I understand that Lord Melbourne is to be at the head. ... I presume

240

MELBOURNE, THEN PEEL

the Government will be as nearly as possible that which was dismissed
in November last.' ?4

The King was far from pleased at having his hand forced. Greville
noted: 'He abhors all his ministers'; His Majesty, he added, was 'in
dreadfully low spirits' and constantly in tears. His crown, he wailed,
was 'tottering' on his head. A great constitutional principle had been
'at stake*, and the Whigs, as the victims, won in the end.

The King sent for Melbourne again. This time, despite his reduced
numbers in the House, Melbourne was to remain in office for more
than six years. Again he preferred to live in his own house in South
Street. He used to mount his horse and ride to Downing Street for
Cabinet meetings at No. 10, and then ride on to the House of Com-
mons, which now met in Westminster Hall, the only part of the old
Parliament buildings still standing. The rebuilding of the two Houses
was begun in 1840 by Sir Charles Barry and it took more than twenty
years to complete.

But the residential quarters at No. 10 were not left unoccupied.
Two of Melbourne's secretaries, working in offices alongside the
Cabinet room, moved into the bedrooms and sitting-rooms above and
made use of the kitchen. One of the two was married, the other a
bachelor and they appear to have lived in perfect amity under the same
roof. The bachelor was Melbourne's nephew, his sister Emily's younger
son, the Hon. William Francis Cowper. He was twenty-three and
had just been elected M.P. for Hertford. Through his father he was
descended from a Lord High Chancellor, the first Earl Cowper. It is a
little startling to discover that the Lord High Chancellor's brother,
Spencer Cowper,* was tried for murder, and more surprising still that
he later became a judge in the English courts. A further link of interest
is that young Cowper's mother had for years been in love with Lord
Palmerston, whom she later married, and Palmerston made this son
his heir, whose name then became Cowper-Temple.

Though unmarried when he moved into No. 10, Cowper was not
wholly unattached. He appears to have had the family's propensity
for falling in love, but with it, unlike the rest of his family, he com-
bined 'a fervent Victorian piety'.110 His life must have been extremely

* Spencer Cowper's grandson was the poet William Cowper.
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NO. IO DOWNING STREET

crowded, for in addition to his secretarial, parliamentary and amorous
activities, interspersed as they must have been with many social diver-
sions and religious observances, he had also as a member of the Royal
Horse Guards to fulfil his military duties.

He enjoyed the full confidence of his uncle the Prime Minister, who,
when King William the Fourth died in 1837, finding that he would
have to spend a great deal of time with the young and inexperienced
Queen Victoria, who was only eighteen, decided to be more circum-
spect in his private life, for only a few months before he had been
involved in a divorce suit over Mrs. Caroline Norton. They had been
seeing each other almost every day for five years, and were often alone
for hours together either in her house or in his. However innocent
the association may have been, it roused much censorious comment,
partly because of his flirtatious reputation, but largely because of her
licentious talk and outrageous behaviour. Lord Malrnesbury records:
'Met Mrs. Norton at the French Ambassador's. She talked in a most
extraordinary manner and kicked Lord Melbourne's hat over her head.'
In April 1836 Mr. Norton turned his wife out of his house and sent his
children to live with his relations. Melbourne, having earlier selected
him to be a police court magistrate, now described him as *a stupid
brute'. Mrs. Norton he found not at all easy to manage now. He
advised her to try and be calm, but she rounded on him with explosive
fury, calling him cold and selfish. Melbourne was reminded unpleas-
antly of the other, equally excitable Caroline who had been his wife.
When the case began he had but recently started his second term as
Prime Minister. He thought of resigning, for he was aware of the
damage the case would do to his Party - many indeed thought that
the case had been maliciously inspired by the Tories to discredit the
Government. As the date of the trial approached Melbourne became
ill through worry. He need not have been anxious, for only three
letters from him were produced in court and they were brief and non-
committal. One of them merely stated: 'How are you? I shall not be
able to come today. I shall tomorrow/ Norton's counsel insisted that
these words concealed far more than they revealed. His argument
inspired the hilarious court scene in Dickens' famous Bardell v. Pick-
wick case in The Pickwick Papers. The jury acquitted Melbourne with-
out leaving the box.

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MELBOURNE, THEN PEEL

Relieved, lie began imprudently to see Mrs. Norton again, but after
the Queen's accession he felt he would have to be careful. So that
Mrs. Norton should not fed neglected, he got his nephew William
Cowper to keep in touch with her whenever he himself could not. In
scolding letters she poured out her rage and her scorn and scarcely
veiled her acute jealousy of the Queen. 'Your uncle has walked over
from Storey's Gate to Buckingham Palace and pursues the same course
with her as with me. ... If he thinks I can be brought to bear tamely
what the Royal Girl considers a fit punishment for me to being her
predecessor in the long conversations which take place at her palace,
I can't help it.'

Melbourne, with his much wider experience, tried to guide his
nephew through his own romantic affairs. 'My dear William,' he
wrote, 'I think you are quite right not to engage further in these
affairs without the certainty of an adequate provision, and I am gkd
that you find a consolation in St. Paul's epistle to the Corinthians. But
you must not run about flirting with girls and persuading them that
you intend to marry, unless you have the intention. St. Paul would
not approve of this. Indeed, would he like to think his epistles made the
instruments of flirtation?'

Cowper stayed at No. 10 Downing Street until Melbourne, despite
his reluctance to give up office, finally resigned in 1841. Two years
later, his uncle's counsel bore fruit. Cowper, now in his early thirties,
married the beautiful Harriet Gurney, but his happiness was short-
lived: she died two months later. Not until five years afterwards did
he marry again.

During his uncle's last months as Prime Minister, Cowper was
given office as a junior Lord of the Treasury. Unencumbered by his
uncle's lethargy, he plunged into his work with an industry that was
unflagging. Later in life his interest in education and in the preservation
of open spaces brought him immense responsibility and he was
rewarded with a peerage; in his tide of Lord Mount-Temple he
enshrined Palmerston's family name.

The other secretary living at the same time at No. 10 was George
Anson. He was a year or two younger and married, but Boyle's Court
Guide does not list his wife as living in the house with him until the
following year, 1839. Anson was a cousin of the Earl of Lichfidd and so

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

was connected with King Charles the Second's illegitimate daughter,
Lady Charlotte Fitzroy who, it will be recalled, on her marriage to the
first Earl came to live in the rear section of the house where the Cabinet
room is. The Ansons moved out a year later, in 1840, on his appoint-
ment as private secretary to Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's fianc6. The
Prince (seven years Anson's junior) was at the time only twenty, the
Queen three months older. Though so very young, Her Majesty already
had both a will and a temper. Her uncle, King Leopold of Belgium,
who was also Albert's uncle, had sent the young Prince and his elder
brother to England three years before in the hope that the Queen might
marry one of them. But neither of the Princes made any impression
on her. Albert came again two years later, alone this time, and the
Queen fell passionately in love with him. She confided to her diary that
he was 'beautiful*, but was resolved, nevertheless, that he would
have to submit to her, because she was Queen.

While the Prince was being groomed in England as her Consort,
Melbourne suggested that Alison should be his secretary. Albert
objected. He preferred to make his own choice, he said; besides
Anson had already served Melbourne and his secretary, he insisted,
should be completely free of any political alliance. The Queen, however,
put her foot down and Anson was appointed. In fact the Queen chose
the Prince's entire Household without even consulting him. He pleaded :
'Is it not even to be conceded to me that two or three persons, who
are to have the charge of my private affairs, shall be persons who already
command my confidence?' She refused to grant him this concession.
The Prince had seen Anson only once, dancing a quadrille. But the
appointment proved to be a most fortunate one for Prince Albert. The
Queen's resolve to exclude him from all political talks was firmly
observed after their marriage. Melbourne cunningly contrived a way
round it and kept the Prince fully informed through Anson. After a
time, desiring to drop this circuitous procedure, Melbourne had a frank
discussion with the Queen. He learned that Her Majesty's one fear was
that political discussions might lead to disagreements and she wanted to
avoid that in her home. Melbourne pointed out that disagreements
were far less dangerous than secretiveness, since secretiveness led eventu-
ally to distrust. And so the position was adjusted.
Baron Stockmar, King Leopold of Belgium's confidential adviser,

244

MELBOURNE, THEN PEEL

wrote to the Prince: 'I have had much talk with Anson; he seems an
excellent fellow and sincerely devoted to you/ In the summer of 1841
Anson took on a fresh role as go-between. Melbourne's position in
Parliament had never been secure. His Party was virtually in a minority
in the Commons, where his own right wing was against him and he
dared not yield to them because of pressure from the left and the
Radicals. To remain in power he had to rely mainly on the Irish. In the
House of Lords the position was even worse. The House was solidly
against him, and Brougham, his former Lord Chancellor, but now left
out of the Government, never ceased to cause trouble. The Opposition,
fortunately, was similarly divided. Peel had to contend with the un-
yielding hostility of the 'ultras', as the reactionary Tories were called,
with Wellington the most vigorous of his critics: in the circumstances
Peel preferred to keep Melbourne in power until the wind changed. It
was only by trimming his policy, yielding a little to the right, then a
little to the left, that Melbourne was able to carry on for so long. He
tackled the Irish tithes question early. A large part of the money was
diverted from the established Anglican church and used for general
education. He also brought in the Municipal Corporations Bill, the
corollary of the Reform Act, for most of the older municipalities were
corrupt, self-elected and therefore not at all responsible to the towns-
people, while the new industrial towns such as Birmingham were
without any municipality. Both these measures were hotly contested
but they got through eventually. In April 1839, quite unexpectedly, the
Government was saved from defeat by merely five votes. Melbourne
decided to resign. When he called on the Queen to say goodbye, her
distress was so acute that neither could speak. She just held his hands in
hers and burst into sobs, saying 'You will not forsake me?' to which,
his own eyes brimming with tears, he replied 'Oh, no.' His devotion to
her made him stay on.

Two years later, in the summer of 1841, defeated this time on the
Budget, Melbourne decided to appeal to the country. The General
Election brought in the Conservatives with a comfortable majority,
and on 28th August, after a further defeat in the House of Commons,
he announced his resignation. The Queen was again distressed and shed
some tears, for she had come to rely on Melbourne, but she had no
alternative now except to let him go. He reassured her by saying that

245

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

she had Prince Albert to lean on. He 'understands everything so well,
he has such a clear, able head. . . . When you married him you said that
he was perfection, which I thought a little overrated, but I really think
now that it is in some degree realized.1 He liked teasing her about the
Prince. When she confided during their engagement that Albert was
not interested in other women, Melbourne replied with a twinkle:
"That will come later.' But the Queen was outraged and he withdrew
the remark.

Saying goodbye now, she confessed that she was most reluctant to
have Peel as her Prime Minister and she begged to be allowed to turn
to Melbourne for advice. Melbourne, realizing that this would be quite
unconstitutional, suggested that perhaps occasionally the Queen might
talk over her problems with Prince Albert, who could then talk of them
to Anson, who in his turn would ask Melbourne for his advice. But this
the Queen firmly refused to accept. She must be in touch with Lord
Melbourne direct, she said. She was only too conscious of the trouble
she had Tyith Peel when he so nearly succeeded Melbourne in 1839. He
had demanded then that some of the ladies in the Royal Household
should be dismissed because of their Whig connections, and had been
backed up in this by the Duke of Wellington. She had, of course,
refused angrily. 'The Queen maintains all her ladies,' she wrote to
Melbourne.

But now she would have to put up with Peel. She had found him
cold, stiff, awkward and ill at ease. 'Oh ! How different, how dreadfully
different to that frank, open, natural and most kind warm manner of
Lord Melbourne/ In fact she had to put up with Peel for five years. But
Melbourne, with his touching solicitude for her, told Anson to ask
Peel to be patient and not too hasty with her.

As before Peel declined to live at No. 10 Downing Street, preferring
his house in Whitehall Gardens. Both Cowper and Anson had already
vacated No. 10, Anson only a few months before; and early in 1842
Peel's secretary, Edward Drummond, moved in. The son of a rich
banker, Drummond had served as secretary to three earlier Prime
Ministers - Goderich (now Ripon), Canning and Wellington. He was
now fifty and still a bachelor. He had been sharing a house in Lower
Gros venor Street with his sister, and even after moving in he often spent
a night or two there, possibly because he found it more companionable
246

MELBOURNE, THEN PEEL

and comfortable. But his long association with No. 10, which went
back to the eighteen-twenries, and the fact that he had his office there
with the papers Peel would require for meetings of the Cabinet, made it
certainly more convenient for him to live in Downing Street, a facility
denied him when he served the three earlier Prime Ministers.

He did not, however, live there for long. Four months after moving
in, while he was walking along Whitehall to No. 10 from Drmnmond's
Bank at Charing Cross, of which his brother was the head, he was shot
in the street. He died a few days later.

The assassin was Daniel Macnaghten, a young half-crazy Irishman
who, it emerged, mistook Drummond for PeeL Macnaghten had been
watching the official residence of the Prime Minister for more than two
weeks and seeing Drummond, who was almost Peel's age, using it as
his home, concluded that he was Peel. Indeed Drummond was often
amused by the idea that he used to be mistaken for Peel. Greville
records in his diary that Drummond frequently went about in Peel's
carriage. 'I well remember his telling me this, and laughing at the idea
of his having been taken for a great man.'79

All England was shocked by the news - 'one of the most unaccount-
able crimes that ever was committed', writes Greville. Drummond, he
adds, 'was as good and inoffensive a man as ever lived, who could have
had no enemy, and who was not conspicuous enough to have become
the object of hatred or vengeance to any class of persons, being merely
the officer of Sir Robert Peel, and never saying or doing anything but
in his name/ It was kter recalled that Tor many days before the murder',
Macnaghten had been seen 'prowling about the purlieus of Downing
Street, and the Duke of Buccleuch told me [Greville] that the day he
[Peel] was expected in town, and when his servants were looking out
for him, they observed this man, though it was a rainy day, loitering
about near his gate, which is close to Peel's house. If, therefore, he saw,
as he must have done, Drummond constantly passing between Peel's
house and Downing Street, and recognizing in him the same person he
had seen in the carriage in Scotland, and whom he believed to be Peel,
he would think himself so sure of his man as to make it unnecessary to
ask any questions, and the very consciousness of his own intentions
might make him afraid to do so. This appears to afford a probable
solution of the mystery.'79

247

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Peel was hated by a large number of people, many of them members
of his own Party. He had begun of kte to flirt with die idea of adopting
Free Trade, a policy beloved of his opponents the Whigs, and Lord
Alvanley had exclaimed that Peel 'ought not to die a natural death*.
It is not clear what Macnaghten's actual grievance was. All he mumbled
as a policeman seized him after the murder was: 'He shall not disturb
my mind any longer.' As an Irish Protestant, he was, of course, opposed
to any further concessions being made to the Catholics and he was
obsessed by the idea that the Pope and the Jesuits were also conspiring
against him.

Queen Victoria wrote of the tragedy to her Uncle Leopold in Bel-
gium: 'Poor Drummond is universally regretted. . . . People can hardly
think of anything else/ And again a few days later: 'Poor Lady Peel
has been very ill from this last terrible event, and no wonder.' Peel died
seven years later after a fall from his horse. Thus was Lord Alvanley's
cruel hope fulfilled.

At Macnaghten's trial in March that year, 1843, eight medical
witnesses declared that, owing to his delusions, Macnaghten was
deprived of all responsibility for his actions ; and the judges, who included
Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, endorsed this view, stating that 'if
under the influence of his delusion he supposes another man to be in the
act of attempting to take away his life, and he kills that man, as he
supposes, in self-defence, he would be exempt from punishment/
Macnaghten was accordingly found 'not guilty by reason of insanity'
and was sent to Bethlehem Hospital and later to Broadmoor Criminal
Lunatic Asylum, where he died twenty-two years later.

This judicial approval of the doctrine of partial insanity was hotly
debated in the House of Lords. Questions were put to the judges
concerned and their answers have come to be known as 'The Rules in
Macnaghten's case', which are still basically the kw of England on the
criminal responsibility of the insane.

To replace Drummond as his secretary, Peel appointed Mr. George
Arbuthnot, the son of Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Arbuthnot, and
in the following year he moved into No. 10. He shared the house with
Mr. W. H. Stephenson, who had moved in not long after Drummond's
death. Both remained there until Peel's resignation in 1846.

During his five-year ministry, his second and last as Prime Minister,

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MELBOURNE, THEN PFEL

Peel had to direct his attention to dealing with the spreading distress in

the country. There had been bad harvests for two years and a severe

trade depression, leading once again to unemployment, hunger and

general unrest. In 1839 the Anti-Corn Law League had been set up and

at mass meetings, attended by the enlightened middle classes as well as

the hungry workers, the cry was raised for the removal of duties that

prevented the free import of com, sugar and other food. The duty on

corn, imposed immediately after the Napoleonic wars to protect the

interest of landowners and farmers, came in for the sharpest attack*

Huskisson, killed by a railway engine some years before, had favoured

the idea of Free Trade, but the Whigs were not then prepared to adopt

it. Melbourne, however, confronted by fresh disturbances in 1840,

allowed his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Francis Baring, to reduce the

duty on sugar and toyed with the idea of reducing the duty on corn,

saying casually just as the Ministers were dispersing after a Cabinet

meeting : "By the by, there is one thing we haven't agreed upon, which

is what we are to say. Is it to make corn dearer, or cheaper, or to make

the price steady? I don't care which; but we had better all be in the

same story.* But pressure from Lord John Russell and other colleagues

eventually made Melbourne agree to reduce it. It was left to Peel, his

successor, to deal with it. Further bad harvests had followed. 'The

Hungry Forties' was the term applied to those lean years. Peel faced the

crisis with decision and courage. Once again he had to withdraw from

his earlier firm stand, for, as with Catholic emancipation, he had always

insisted that the Corn Laws must be maintained.

There were many angry quarrels round the Cabinet table at No. 10
on this issue. To begin with, Peel merely lowered the duty on imported
corn. The Duke of Buckingham resigned at once. Three years later, in
1845, when the potato crop failed in Ireland and there was still another
bad harvest in England, the complete repeal of the Corn Laws was
again discussed. Both Lord Stanley and the Duke of Buccleugh declined
to support it. Peel instantly resigned, but was induced to carry on
because no successor could be found. Stanley refused to remain any
longer in his Government. In June of the following year (1846) after a
long and fierce debate in the House, the 'repeal', as it has been called,
was finally carried - but it was not either an immediate or even a total
repeal : not until 1 849 was the duty to be reduced to a shilling. The battle

249

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

was won with Peel's support of his political opponents ; from many of
his former friends he had to suffer taunts and sneers. But the Duke of
Wellington, changing his mind on this as he had on Catholic emancipa-
tion, steered the Bill carefully through the Lords, but on the very night
it was carried there, Peel was defeated in the Commons on a measure
that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Corn Laws.* The Protec-
tionists in his own Party, led by Lord George Bentinck (son of the Duke
of Portland) and by Benjamin Disraeli, in a show of their intense anger,
joined forces with the Whigs and defeated Peel on an Irish Coercion
Bill by a majority of 73. Disraeli, the architect of Peel's fall, has himself
described the scene in the House: "The flower of that great party which
had been so proud to follow one who was so proud to lead them. . . .

They trooped on. ... Sir Robert looked very grave He began to

comprehend his position, and that the Emperor was without an army/

Ped walked from the House escorted by a large crowd, who
respectfully took off their hats as he reached No. 10. Shortly afterwards
he resigned.

His successor as Prime Minister was the Leader of the Opposition
Lord John Russell, who had taken it over after Melbourne's decline in
health. Russell preferred to stay on in his own house, 32 Chesham Place,
but three of his secretaries now moved into No. 10; their names are
given in Boyle's Court Guide for 1847 as 'Lieut.-Colond the Hon.
George Keppel, the Hon. Chas. S. Grey and the Hon. R. W. Grey.'

* 2jth June 1846.
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CHAPTER 24
Used only for Offices

THAT Peel had been using No. 10 Downing Street not only for
Cabinet meetings but also for the official business of the Prime Minister
is borne out by the letter he wrote to the Queen on that fateful night
of 25th June from Downing Street, It was marked 'Two o'clock' - that
is to say, two o'clock in the morning, for it was written after a prolonged
discussion by the Cabinet, at which it was decided that Peel and the
Government should give up the struggle and let the Whigs take it on.
Four days later Peel went to Osborne in the Isle of Wight and tendered
his resignation personally to the Queen.

Of Lord John Russell's secretaries the use of the prefix 'The Hon.* for
both the Greys would suggest that they were the sons of Earl Grey, the
former Prime Minister, but this is not so in either case. Ralph William
Grey was in no way related, though it is possible that he was a kinsman
because of his link with Northumberland where the Earl lived. He had
served iji Canada, where two armed rebellions had broken out shortly
after Queen Victoria's accession in 1837. Melbourne had to deal with
them and he sent out Lord Durham, Earl Grey's son-in-law, with whom

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

the Earl had so much trouble while Prime Minister and with whom
Melbourne could not get on either. Many said he chose Durham only
to get him out of the way and thus end his consistent sniping against the
Government, composed though it was of his own Party and included his
brother-in-law, Grey's heir Lord Howick, as Secretary at War. It could
not, however, be denied that Durham had outstanding ability and he
dealt with the situation out there not only with firmness but with
remarkable foresight. Canada, a colony at die time, had been divided
by Pitt nearly fifty years before into two provinces - Upper Canada,
which was populated mainly by English Protestants with mercantile
interests, and Lower Canada which was almost wholly French, con-
sisting of Catholics engaged chiefly in agriculture. Both rebelled against
the ruling British officials appointed by Whitehall. It did not take long
to put down the rebellion of the English settlers; the French were much
more difficult to deal with as they wanted to break away and set up an
independent French Republic. Durham, arriving as Governor-General
after the first of the rebellions had been settled, turned his attention to
the second. He banished some of the French ringleaders without trial,
was censured severely by the authorities at home and resigned in a rage,
after being in the country for only five months. But the recommenda-
tions in his Report, which advocated the grant of responsible self-
government, laid the foundations of the British Commonwealth of
Nations. He argued that, far from loosening the bonds of empire, this
would preserve its unity. But it was not until 1867 that Canada was
finally freed from the control of the Colonial Office and made an
independent Dominion - the first of Britain's possessions to achieve this
status.

Ralph William Grey, after serving as secretary to Durham's successor
in Canada, Lord Sydenham, became Lord John Russell's secretary and
later served Lord Palmerston in the same capacity. On his death in
October 1869 he was praised in The Times for his quickness of percep-
tion, accuracy of judgement, knowledge of character, amiable dis-
position, refined taste and his deep interest in archaeology.

The Hon. Charles Grey, one of the nine sons of Earl Grey, was
in the Army and went to Canada as a member of the staff of his
brother-in-law Lord Durham. Later, after he had attained the rank
of General, he was appointed Secretary to the Prince Consort and

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USED ONLY FOR OFFICES

was after that Secretary to Queen Victoria. It was not he, but his
cousin Charles Samuel Grey who lived at No. 10 at this time.
A nephew of the former Prime Minister, he is described correctly
in The Times of nth July 1846, as 'Mr/, not 'The Hon.* The
newspaper states that he had been secretary to Mr. Francis Baring, who,
as Melbourne's Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1839, had taken the bold
step of reducing many import duties and, more adventurously, adopted
Rowland Hill's penny post in 1840 against the angry opposition of Lord
Lichfield, the Postmaster-General, who thought that post office
buildings would collapse when the vast tide of letters began to pour
in.

The third of Russell's secretaries, George Thomas Keppel, was in his
late forties when he moved in to share the upper rooms at No. 10 with
the two Greys. In his autobiography"4 he describes how at the age of
nine he met Princess Charlotte, the daughter of the Prince Regent and
eventual successor to the throne had she lived. She got her porter to give
Keppel half a guinea from time to time and told him: If you use that
well and give me an exact account of how you spend it, I will give you
something more.'

Keppel joined the Army, fought at Waterloo when he was only
sixteen, and entered Paris 'barefooted and in rags'. For a time he was a
Member of Parliament. Doubtless he lived at No. 10 with his wife and
son, though he says nothing of this in his book. Shortly after vacating
the house he succeeded his brother as the Earl of Albemarle.

Lord John Russell, despite the overwhelming social changes wrought
by the Industrial Revolution and the political changes he had himself
initiated, surprisingly for the middle of the nineteenth century, adopted
the practice of the eighteenth century in the selection of his Cabinet, for
more than half the Ministers were hereditary peers and the rest, like
himself, were closely connected with the peerage; the Dukes of Bed-
ford, to whose family he belonged, had controlled a substantial section
of the House of Commons through their wealth and influence in the
boroughs which Russell was responsible for abolishing by the Reform
Act of 1832.

His Party was in a minority in the House of Commons when he took
over and even after the General Election, though his following was
increased, he had not an absolute majority. His position was in

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consequence insecure. Yet he managed to remain Prime Minister for
dose on six years.

Short in stature, with broad shoulders and a massive head, Russell
had been a sickly child like the younger Pitt. His health was never
robust. He had a drawn look and a pallor that betrayed the physical
discomfort he suffered all through life. He never allowed this, however,
to restrain his activities in any way. He went, for example, to Portugal
during the Peninsular War and rode with Wellington at Torres Vedras.
He visited Napoleon at Elba and had a long talk with the exiled
Emperor. He knew Charles James Fox well, was one of his most
ardent supporters, breakfasted often with him and later wrote his
biography. He was fifty-four when he became Prime Minister.

As a speaker Russell was not impressive: his voice was weak, his
accent sounded affected, at times even mincing, his delivery was hesitant
and occasionally he stammered. But in retort he was swift and effective.
A dedicated reformer, he added to his initial achievement of political
reform, fresh triumphs during the years he presided over the Cabinet
in Downing Street. Part of the 'Hungry Forties' fell within his term of
office. He applied the policy of Free Trade with vigour, extending the
reduction of duties to other imported commodities and was supported
by Peel, though the Protectionists raged against him as against Peel. The
year after he became Prime Minister the famine in Ireland led, it was
estimated, to a million people dying of hunger, while a million more
left for America in that and the succeeding years. Russell arranged for
vast quantities of seed to be distributed to the suffering people, land was
acquired and sold, or let, to the people in small lots and on easy terms.

Despite these admirable endeavours Russell was not much liked. He
was careless about conciliating his Radical supporters. His supercilious
manner and his impatience made him unpopular in the House of
Commons. His colleagues in the Cabinet were not wholly for him. But
by far his gravest problem was his Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston,
who acted without consulting either the Prime Minister or the Cabinet,
and sent notes to foreign powers, some of them stern and disapproving
notes, at other times congratulatory notes, as when Napoleon the Third
seized power and proclaimed himself Emperor of France in 1851. Of
these actions the Queen repeatedly expressed the strongest disapproval.
Following angry quarrels in the Cabinet room at No. 10, Russell finally,

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USED ONLY FOR OFFICES

on the Queen's insistence, dismissed Palmerston in December 1851. His
ministry did not survive this for long. Palmerston got his *tit for tat', as
he called it, barely two months later when he and his friends voted
against the Government and brought about its defeat. Russell resigned
at once and the Queen sent for Lord Stanley, who had on Peel's death
in 1850 succeeded as Leader of the Opposition and on his father's death
the year after had become the Earl of Derby.

Like his three predecessors Melbourne, Ped and Russell, Derby did
not regard No. 10 as a desirable residence. He already had a far more
comfortable house in St. James's Square and did not relish the tedium of
transferring his furniture and his pictures, his linen and his silver to
Downing Street. Nor did his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Benjamin
Disraeli, now in his first, important office, choose to move into the
house, but used instead, though only as an office, No. n next door,
part of which had been bought for Treasury needs in 1 805 and had been
enlarged as recently as 1846. The upper rooms at No. 10, therefore, were
left empty, for George Keppel had by now moved out and the house
remained untenanted as a residence for thirty years. The Cabinet room
downstairs, however, was used, as were also the adjoining offices for the
secretaries and the immense files of papers.

Derby's was one of the richest families in England. Brought up in the
Whig tradition, he had served under Canning and under Grey, and had
refused to join the Duke of Wellington's Government. While in Grey's
ministry his brilliant and fiery speeches contributed to the successful
passing of the Reform Bill, and as Colonial Secretary in the following
year, he put through the Bill for the abolition of the slave trade. But he
quarrelled with Russell, his dose assodate in the Cabinet, over the
appropriation by the State of a part of the Irish tithes and its use for the
purpose of education. Indeed Grey's entire Cabinet was divided on this,
and the dissension drew from Stanley (as he was then) the memorable
exclamation: 'I always upset the coach!' Stanley resigned, severed his
connection with the Whigs and joined the more progressive section of
the Tories under Ped, then becoming known as Conservatives. Under
Ped he served again as Colonial Secretary, but refused to go all the way
with him on Free Trade and resigned over the repeal of the Corn Laws.
He was invited by the Queen to succeed Ped, but declined because he
had not sufficient support in the House, and the Whigs came in under

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Russell. Twice in 1851 the Queen asked Stanley to take the helm, but
not until the following year, at the fourth time of asking did he finally
accept. Surprisingly, one of the first things he did now was to ask
Palmerston, his Whig colleague in Grey's ministry, to join his Govern-
ment, although it was because of Palmerston that the previous
Government fell. Palmerston refused and Derby, with no worthwhile
talent to turn to, proudly proclaimed that his Government contained
only untried men, 'not one' of whom 'had ever been in harness before'.
They included Disraeli, who was Leader of the House of Commons as
well as Chancellor of the Exchequer. By the end of the year, however,
having failed to gain a majority in the General Election, Derby resigned
after being in office for only ten months.

His successor was the Earl of Aberdeen, an old-fashioned but not
ultra Tory, now in his sixty-ninth year. He had lost both his parents by
the age of eleven and was brought up under the guardianship of
William Pitt. With him at Harrow were Palmerston and Althorp (later
Lord Spencer), both Whigs. He had served as ambassador in Vienna
towards the end of the Napoleonic war and as Foreign Secretary under
Wellington and under Peel. His policy was the exact opposite of
Palmerston's: he refused to interfere abroad and was insistent that the
country must at all costs maintain peace.

On becoming Prime Minister in 1852 he formed an impressive
coalition of Whigs and Pedites: the former included Russell and
Palmerston, the most notable among the latter was young Gladstone,
who became Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Queen had parted from
Lord Derby without regret and, resenting his advice that Lansdowne
should be his successor, had turned instead to Aberdeen. She was
delighted that 'our excellent Aberdeen' had formed 'so brilliant and
strong a Cabinet'. Most of the members had been in conflict with each
other in the past; what united them now was that they were all in
favour of Free Trade and moderate reform. 'England will occupy her
true position', Aberdeen said, 'as the constant advocate of moderation
and peace.' But the vehemence of Palmerston (not now at the Foreign
Office, but at the Home Office) overbore Aberdeen's pacific views, and
by supporting the Turks in their quarrel with Russia the country drifted
into war in the Crimea.

Early in 1854 Aberdeen wrote to Russell, who was President of the
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USED ONLY FOR OFFICES

Council: *I wish I could feel as much at ease on the subject of the
unhappy war in which we are about to be engaged. The abstract justice
of the cause, although indisputable, is but a poor consolation for the
inevitable calamities of all war, or for a decision which I am not without
fear may prove to have been impolitic and unwise. My conscience
upbraids me the more because seeing, as I did from the first, all that was
to be apprehended, it is possible that by a little more energy and vigour,
not on the Danube, but in Downing Street, it might have been pre-
vented/

Not only was Aberdeen without enthusiasm for the war, his Cabinet
were at loggerheads over it. The military preparations were haphazard,
and Britain suffered in consequence a series of early reverses. Palmers-
ton's persistent pleas for more energy and Russell's continuous
criticism were without avail. Russell resigned in January 1855. A week
later Aberdeen went too. Disraeli wrote of his term in office: 'The
country was governed for two years by all its ablest men, who by the
end of that term had succeeded by their coalesced genius in reducing
that country to a state of desolation and despair/"5

Aberdeen, a dark, pale ageing man, was, despite his many gifts and
his wide interests, too timid and hesitant to be effective as Prime
Minister. He was a dull and ungraceful speaker. Had he succeeded in
preserving peace he might have remained in office longer, but with the
country clamouring for a more vigorous waging of the Crimean War,
he had to go. He did not live at No. 10, but remained in his own house
at 7 Argyll Street.

He had been Prime Minister for just over two years and was suc-
ceeded, not surprisingly, by Palmerston, whom the need of the hour
had brought to the supreme office at the age of nearly seventy-one.

257

CHAPTER 25
Palmerston's Finest Hours

PALMERSTON did not live at No. 10 either, but stayed on in his
own large and comfortable house in Piccadilly which is now the Naval
and Military Club. It soon became the centre of the social and politi-
cal world in London.

At weekends Palmerston went down to Broadlands, the lovely family
home in Hampshire where he was born.* Lavish parties were given
there too, with his devoted wife Emily, Melbourne's sister, as the
presiding genius. Palmerston's own gaiety contributed greatly to the
rollicking success of these gatherings. His youthfulness of spirit he
accentuated by dyeing his whiskers. His energy was unflagging, his
interests varied. His zest for racing and his pride in his stables were
rewarded when one of his horses won the Derby in 1860 while he was
Prime Minister. Until the year before his death, although by then in his
eighty-first year, he rode and shot and dined out regularly.

The drawing-rooms and bedrooms at No. 10 Downing Street were

* Now the residence of Earl Mountbatten. Queen Elizabeth the Second and Prince Philip
spent their honeymoon there.

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PALMERSTON S FINEST HOURS

left empty. Only the Cabinet room and the offices of the secretaries
and clerks were used.

As an Irish peer, Palmerston sat in the House of Commons to which,
after three unsuccessful attempts, he had been elected at the age of
twenty-two. Exceedingly rich, with fortunes inherited from his father
and his mother, and blessed, moreover, with influential friends, he
obtained his first political office even before his election to Parliament.

The Duke of Portland appointed him a junior Lord of the Admiralty
and Spencer Perceval, Portland's successor, offered him the post of
Chancellor of the Exchequer when Palmerston was only just twenty-
five, but wisely he refused. He accepted instead the office of Secretary
at War, which dealt merely with the finances of the Army and was
therefore less important than the Secretaryship for War and the Colo-
nies,* which carried a seat in the Cabinet. It was a shrewd choice:
Palmerston became a Privy Councillor and, refusing all inducements to
promotion, remained Secretary at War for no less than nineteen years.

When Canning became Prime Minister in 1827, Palmerston, after
twenty consecutive years in office, at last agreed to become Chancellor
of the Exchequer. But Canning, under pressure apparently, shortly
afterwards withdrew his offer and suggested that Palmerston should
be Viceroy of India instead, but he preferred to go back to his old office
of Secretary at War. On Canning's death four months later, the new
Prime Minister, Goderich, again offered Palmerston the Exchequer, but
it emerged now that King George the Fourth disliked Palmerston and
would not agree to it. Palmerston explains what happened. He says110
that during a meeting of the Privy Council at Windsor 'Goderich then
asked the King if he would not see me, and explain the matter to me/
The King saw Palmerston privately and indicated that he preferred Mr.
Herries as being 'the fittest man in England for the office.' Palmerston
refused to serve under Wellington after the other Canningites resigned,
for he had been drifting towards the Whigs for some years and finally
broke with the Tories in 1826. It was not until Grey went to Downing
Street in 1830 that Palmerston became Foreign Secretary for the first
time and retained that office for four years, returning to it for a further
six under Melbourne in 1835, and five more when Russell became
Prime Minister in 1846.

* These two Departments were separated in 1854.
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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Despite Queen Victoria's intense hostility to Palmerston, she had no
choice on Aberdeen's resignation but to send for him. While he was in
Aberdeen's Government, she firmly refused to invite him to Balmoral.
Greville refers to this on 28th August 1853 and supplies a reason for her
deep-seated antagonism: 'Her dislike of him is, in fact, of very long
standing, and partly on moral and partly on political grounds. There
are old offences, when he was at the Foreign Office, which sunk deep in
her mind, and besides this the recollection of his conduct before her
marriage when in her own palace he made an attempt on one of her
ladies, which she very justly resented as an outrage to herself. Palmerston,
always enterprising and audacious with women, took a fancy to Mrs.
Brand (now Lady Dacre) and at Windsor Castle where she was in wait-
ing and he was a guest, he inarched into her room one night. His tender
temerity met with an invincible resistance. The lady did not conceal the
attempt, and it came to the Queen's ears. Her indignation was pacified by
Melbourne, then all-powerful, and who on every account would have
abhorred an esclandre in which his colleague and brother-in-law would
have so discreditably figured, Palmerston got out of the scrape with
his usual luck, but the Queen has never forgotten and will never for-
give/79 The date of this incident is not given, but Palmerston was
presumably unmarried then. He married Melbourne's sister towards
the end of 1839; the Queen married Albert early in the following
year. But Palmerston was certainly in love with Emily, Lord Cowper's
widow, at the time. There had been other affairs during this period, one
of them with the lovely Lady Jersey, which had been much talked
about but which Emily decided to ignore.

On 3 ist January 1855, as the crisis around Aberdeen grew, Lord
Derby informed Her Majesty 'that the whole country cried out for
Lord Palmerston as the only man fit for carrying on the war with
success/

Palmerston had used Downing Street for more than forty years, for
apart from the Cabinet meetings he attended at No. 10 while serving
under ten Prime Ministers, the Foreign Office itself was only just across
the road. It was in one of the four houses belonging to Sir Samuel
Fuldyer stretching from Downing Street to Fuldyer Street at the back,
and had for some time been used both as the office and residence of the
Foreign Secretary. All four houses were bought by the Government in

260

PALMERSTON S FINEST HOURS

1814 and later demolished, and on the site the present Foreign Office
building was erected. In 1831 Downing Street was macadamized at a
cost of ,£190 us. 6d.

Palmerston found the Cabinet room much too dark to work in. He
put up with it, however, for the first three years he was there, as the
Treasury was not disposed to spend any money on putting in new
windows; it was not until he returned in 1859, following Derby's
second short spell in office, that Palmerston insisted on having larger
windows put in. After much argument the Treasury finally gave way
and the work was begun. But an Office of Works note of 3rd September
1859, addressed to Mr. H. Fitzroy at the Treasury, states: 'Lord Palmers-
ton's private secretary came to see me to complain that the alteration in
the Cabinet Room was being made with Single Windows: He says
that the Ld. P. determined to have them Double: I find that they were
to be single in consequence of your decision and I must therefore ask
for your explanation/

Fitzroy replied: 'There is nothing about double windows in the
requisition, nor have I any means of knowing that they are requisite.
I am writing by this night's mail to Lord Palmerston of the Subject/

There came a firm broadside from his lordship in answer. It was
scribbled on a quickly torn half sheet of notepaper and was dated
'Broadlands 7 Sept. 1859.' It read: 'My dear Fitzroy, the Cabinet Room
is dark and in winter cold; by opening two windows it will be made
light, but unless the windows are double, the Room will be much
colder/

That brought immediate action. Under 'Ordinary Grant of Parlia-
ment' an estimate was drawn up five days later 'To provide and hand
folding glass Doore to the two new windows. £10 . o . o/ - which
was only a small additional sum since die single windows cost no more
than .£31 los. od. A month earlier Parliament had voted ^100,000 for
the new Foreign Office building facing No. 10.

Palmerston's masterly handling of the Crimean War during his first
term caused Queen Victoria to change her views about him and she
rewarded him with the Garter. Sebastopol was captured by British
troops in September 1855 and early in the following year peace was
signed.

But the Prime Minister soon had another war in hand. During the

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

winter of 1856-7, Persia seized Herat, regarded as the 'Gate of India'.
Palmerston ordered an immediate withdrawal and on this being
ignored, he joined India in an attack. It was all over in no time. Herat
was evacuated. Palmerston, beaming with satisfaction, declared: 'We
are beginning to repel the first opening trenches against India by
Russia/ whose hand, he felt, was behind it.

Before this was settled there was trouble with China. A small coasting
vessel on the Canton river, Chinese-owned but flying the British flag,
had been seized by China on a charge of smuggling and piracy and
twelve members of its crew had been imprisoned. Britain demanded an
apology and redress. The vessel and the crew were released but there
was no apology. Thereupon a squadron of the Royal Navy went in and
bombarded Canton. Many Chinese were killed and the town was
occupied by the British in December 1857. A special envoy was sent
to Peking in 1859 to effect a settlement, but his ships were fired on and
the following year a full-scale expedition was dispatched to Peking.
The Emperor's Summer Palace was set on fire and the terms extorted
were wounding to Chinese pride. Palmerston was severely criticized in
the House of Commons for his 'high-handedaction* ; the condemnatory
motion, supported by Russell and Gkdstone, until recently his col-
leagues, as well as by Disraeli, was carried by a majority of sixteen
votes.

Palmerston hit back instantly in a manner that was both effective and
impressive. He dissolved Parliament and appealed to the country. The
election brought him a tremendous triumph.

Meanwhile in May 1857 the Indian Mutiny had broken out. Palmers-
ton seemed to regard it with a certain casualness, confident that all
would come right. But the Queen, viewing it with far greater gravity,
suffered the acutest mental distress. She wrote to the Prime Minister, as
well as to the Secretary for War, and to the Viceroy in India, Lord
Canning, son of the former Prime Minister who had been Palmerston's
chief. Her Majesty informed Palmerston that 'the measures hitherto
taken by the Government are not commensurate/ Jestingly he replied
that it was 'fortunate for the Government that the Queen was not
sitting on the Opposition benches in the House of Commons/ Her
Majesty was not amused.

His colleagues in the Cabinet and in the House of Commons found
262

PAtMERSTON S FINEST HOURS

Palmerston increasingly brusque and dictatorial. They detested his
abrupt jerky manner of speaking ('bow-wow', they called it) and his
use of low ribaldry for reasoned argument and his often juvenile jokes.
They decided it was time he went. In February 1858, on a relatively
unimportant measure, the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, brought in to
placate Napoleon the Third following his attempted assassination in
Paris by Orsini with bombs manufactured in England, eighty-four
members of Palmcrston's own Party, now becoming known as
Liberals, voted against him and the Government was defeated while
the Mutiny was still raging. Derby came back, reluctantly because his
Party was in a minority in the House - but it suited Palmerston. He
waited. A year later on Derby's defeat Parliament was dissolved. The
election gave the Liberals a diminished but adequate majority and
Palmerston was sent for again by the Queen.

His second term as Prime Minister lasted until his death more than six
years later. By that time he was eighty-one and had been Prime Minis-
ter, save for the brief Derby interruption, continuously since the age of
seventy-one.

During all those years, during Derby's rule and his, No. 10 remained
empty as a residence. It had been so ever since the two Greys and
Colonel Keppel moved out in 1847 and was to remain untenanted until
1877. The ground floor, however, was continuously active. Secretaries
sat at their desks in the rooms adjoining the Cabinet room, two and
sometimes three to a room; clerks in ever-increasing number filled the
smaller rooms beyond. Sheafs of paper were set out on the Cabinet
table in front of each chair, and Ministers ambled down the long
corridor and hung their coats on hooks by the Cabinet door before
going in for their deliberations. Every morning, whether the Cabinet
had been called or not, the Prime Minister arrived and, seated alone at
the long table with his back to the fire, went through the documents
and reports, while his groom waited outside with his horse. The stables
were no longer by the Horse Guards but had been moved to College
Mews, near the Jewel Tower by Westminster Abbey.

It was during these years, with the upper rooms shut off, that the
inner courtyard began to be cluttered with shacks and lean-tos, and
they remained a disfiguring blot for more than a century until the house
was dismantled for alterations in 1960.

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

When Palmerston returned to office in 1 8 59 his manner was markedly
different. His startling defeat the year before had taught him to be
conciliatory. The imperious tone in the House was dropped. He was
pleasant even to his avowed opponents. He went out of his way to offer
the Board of Trade to Richard Cobden, who had attacked him per-
sistently and vehemently. But Cobden refused.

Towards Napoleon the Third his attitude had now changed.
He had approved of the Emperor's invasion of Italy to liberate the
people from the domination of Austria, but he nursed the suspicion
that Napoleon 'had at the bottom of his heart a deep and unextinguish-
able desire to humble and punish England/ Accordingly he induced the
House to vote nine million pounds for the strengthening of Britain's
coastal defences, just as Pitt had once done against the other Napoleon.

On die outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Palmerston's
sympathies were with the South. In this he was supported by his Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer Gladstone and some other members of the
Cabinet, but the majority, including Russell, who was Foreign
Secretary, insisted that a strict neutrality should be observed.

Palmerston would not agree, however, to recognize the blockade
imposed on the Southern States by Abraham Lincoln. The seceded
Southern States, formed into a Confederation, established agencies in
England for the purchase of arms: these were dispatched to the Baha-
mas and transhipped to fast steamers. Ships were also being built for
the South in English shipyards at Liverpool. When two Confederate
envoys, on their way to England in the British mail ship Trent, were
taken off by force, Palmerston insisted on full and complete reparation
and was backed in this by the whole country. It brought Britain and the
United States once again to the brink of war. The situation was soon
further aggravated. The United States Consul protested that one of the
ships being built at Birkenhead by Laird's, the Alabama, was intended
for use as a man-of-war and ought to be detained. Before the British
could act the Alabama escaped, hoisted the colours of the South, and
wrought havoc on the shipping of the North for more than two years.
There were prolonged angry arguments which went on long after the
Civil War had ended, and were not indeed settled until nearly six years
after Palmerston's death.

He died in October 1865, while still Prime Minister. He had gone to
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PALMERSTONS FINEST HOURS

stay at his wife's country house, Brocket Hall, in Hertfordshire, and had
been out for a drive with her in their carriage. On returning, though
feeling unwell, he insisted on taking a bath. A chill led to inflammation
of the kidneys. His wife nursed him with loving solicitude all through
that night and the next. On the I5th, a Sunday, the doctor suggested
that Palmerston should go to church. He did, and three days later,
while engaged in writing a letter, his pen fell out of his hand and he
died. Beside him on the desk the official dispatch box lay open.

That he consistently used No. 10 as Prime Minister is supported by
the large number of letters written by him from that address: the very
first of these was to his brother, stating : 'Here am writing to you from
Downing Street as First Lord of the Treasury/11 ?

265

CHAPTER 26
Disraeli and Gladstone

PALMERSTON was succeeded by his Foreign. Secretary, Earl
Russell,* who now became Prime Minister for the second time.
Russell, who was nearly seventy-four, did not retain the office for long.
In eight months he was out and Derby returned for a not much longer
term. Neither of them lived at No. 10.

Though seven years younger than Palmerston, Russell had neither
his vigour nor his health. Indeed his powers had already begun to
decline. He seemed to spend his time diverting his friends with an
endless flow of anecdotes, living in the past rather than facing up to the
problems of the present. His handling of foreign affairs under Palmers-
ton had come in for a severe and somewhat sweeping attack from
Derby in the House of Lords. "The foreign policy of the noble earl,'
Derby said, 'as far as the principle of non-intervention is concerned,
may be summed up in two truly expressive words — meddle and muddle.
During the whole course of his diplomatic correspondence wherever

* An earldom was conferred on Lord John Russell in 1861.
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DISRAELI AND GLADSTONE

he has interfered - and he has interfered everywhere - he has been
lecturing, scolding, blustering, and - retreating.' The criticism was a
little unfair because the interference had been begun earlier by Palmers-
ton, who was never prepared to leave things entirely to his Foreign
Minister.

Surprisingly, despite this, Russell tried to get Derby's son Lord
Stanley to join his Government. But Stanley refused, just as he had
refused to serve under Palmerston. Gladstone, quite definitely a Liberal
now, took on the Leadership of the House of Commons, a task he had
not undertaken before. It had been expected that Gladstone would be
appointed Prime Minister and doubtless, had Russell refused, he would
have been chosen; but, as King Leopold of Belgium wrote to his niece
Queen Victoria: 'These politicians never refuse/

Disraeli was certain that Russell's thoughts would go back to his
Reform triumph of 1832. 'If Johnny is the man', he wrote, 'there will
be a Reform Bill — very distasteful to the country.' Stanley was of the
same opinion: 'The Reform crisis cannot now be delayed,' he wrote to
Disraeli. 'There are at least fifty Conservatives on the Whig side; the
question is, can we utilize them, and how?' These fifty Conservatives
and the old Whigs were expected to resist a fresh Reform Bill - and it
was on that that the Conservatives hoped to bring Russell down.

Gladstone was Russell's most ardent supporter in the project and
worked night and day on preparing a new Reform Bill with a view to
extending the vote. When the Bill was introduced on I2th March 1866,
Gkdstone explained that the property qualification in the boroughs
was to be reduced from a rental of £10 a year to fji and in the
counties from £50 a year to £16. This, he calculated, would bring in
about 400,000 additional voters - that is to say half as many again as
the 800,000 the Act of 1832 had brought in.

It caused a political storm. Not only did the Conservatives oppose die
measure, but a section of the Liberals too opposed it. One of the latter
denounced the working classes as the ultimate repository of venality,
ignorance and drunkenness. Disraeli begged the House to 'sanction no
step that has a tendency to democracy' or 'you will have a horde of
selfish and obscure mediocrities, incapable of anything but mischief,
and that mischief devised and regulated by the raging demagogue of
the hour.'

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NO. IO DOWNING STREET

All this made Gladstone very angry. He hurled bitter taunts at the
Opposition and gave great offence when he went so far as to describe
Lord Grosvenor and Lord Stanley as a pair of selfish aristocrats who
were conspiring to defeat an act of justice to the people. He was pre-
pared, Gkdstone added, to stake the existence of the Government on
the passing of the Reform Bill and was backed in this by Russell, who
regarded the Bill as 'a satisfactory dose of my political life, whether
carried or defeated/ Gladstone answered a fierce attack by Disraeli with
a memorable peroration: 'You cannot fight against the future,' he said.
"Time is on our side. The great social forces which move onward in
their might and majesty and which the tumult of your debates does not
for a moment impede or disturb ... are against you' ; and he added that
the banner of reform, however it might droop, would be borne in time
by firm hands to a certain and not far-distant victory. He had spoken
from one in the morning until halt-past three.

The debate went on for weeks. It was not until the middle of June
(1866) that an Opposition motion to substitute the rateable value for the
rent of the house was carried by eleven votes. A week later, despite the
Queen's pleas that the Government should ignore it and carry on,
Russell resigned.

Derby, as the head of the Conservative party, succeeded Russell,
although he had not a majority in the Commons. It was his third and
last term as Prime Minister, each of them of short duration. In all he
held the chief office for a total of less than four years. He put his son
Stanley in charge of the Foreign Office - a not particularly effective
choice. Lord Cranborne (later the third Marquess of Salisbury and three
times Prime Minister) went to the India Office. Disraeli was once again
Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons.

Indeed Disraeli was the effective head of the Government, for Derby,
though not yet seventy, was old beyond his years and was frequently
away, laid up with gout at his home at Knowsley. Disraeli presided
over the Cabinet meetings at No. 10 and by a constant flow of confi-
dential dispatches from Downing Street kept Derby informed of the
many problems that beset the Government. As always there was trouble
in Ireland. Then the great boom in railway shares during the preceding
decades brought on a number of bankruptcies. There was also a
preoccupation with the transfer of the telegraph services from the

268

DISRAELI AND GLADSTONE

private companies operating them to the State - one of the earliest
instances of nationalization, the first being the take-over of the main
thoroughfares.

Though Disraeli's letters were headed 'Downing Street*, they were
not in fact from No. 10, but from the adjoining house No. n, which
had been acquired from Lord Eliot for the use of the Home Secretary.
It was not, however, so used but was assigned to the Treasury and was
often occupied by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Disraeli first used
it in 1852 when he took on that office, but he did not live there. But
Gladstone, on succeeding him two years later, did move in - his son
Herbert, later Viscount Gladstone, was born there.

It was Disraeli's practice to go back to his office at No. n after the
House rose and send the Queen each night a long account of what had
happened during the day. These private notes, normally written by the
Prime Minister, helped to forge, from his earliest days at the Exchequer,
the Queen's great attachment for Disraeli. She appreciated his thought-
fulness, was flattered by his courteous phrasing and, overcoming her
initial dislike of him, began to think of him as 'dear Mr. Disraeli*.

Because of his immense ability and his brilliance, Disraeli was
Derby's obvious successor as Prime Minister. But only grudgingly was
this recognized, for the Tory Party still regarded him as something of a
charlatan and treated him as a pariah.118 To them he was the complete
outsider - the son of a Jew, Isaac Disraeli, and his wife Maria Baseri:
an outlandish background, without much money in the family, for the
father was a humble writer of books. At least the Pitts, though outside
the aristocratic circle, were backed by the wealth of Chatham's grand-
father, the East India interloper Thomas Pitt, and Peel, though the son
of a cotton mill owner, belonged to the new industrial felite. Even after
Disraeli had led them in the House of Commons for many years, a
group of Tories, assessing his status as one would in cricket, said: 'Our
team is the Gentlemen of England, with a Player given/ The Whigs,
far more aristocratic in their attitude, also looked askance at him. Yet
when in February 1868 continued ill health finally forced Derby to
retire, it was to Disraeli, on Derby's recommendation, that the Queen
turned.

Disraeli had always been confident that he would one day attain the
chief office. More than thirty years before, when Melbourne, glancing

269

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

disdainfully at his flamboyant satin trousers and his gleaming black
ringlets, asked: *WeIl now, tell me - what do you want to be?',
Disraeli without hesitation replied: 1 want to be Prime Minister/
Melbourne was taken aback. It did not seem to him conceivable that
this would ever be possible, and he warned the over-confident young
man not to place his ambitions quite so high. But now, in his sixty-
fourth year, Disraeli attained his goal.* Yes,' he said, replying to the con-
gratulations showered upon him, 'I have climbed to the top of the
greasy pole.' It was a remarkable achievement when one considers the
handicaps he had to overcome. It was fortunate for him that he became
a Christian at the age of twelve, for the Jews were excluded from
Parliament until 1858, only ten years before he attained the Premiership.
Even at this late date, with two-thirds of the nineteenth century over
and the twentieth almost within sight, Disraeli conformed to the old
pattern of having in his Cabinet three dukes, two earls and other peers
or sons of peers. Derby's son Lord Stanley was kept on as Foreign
Secretary. The Duke of Marlborough became Lord President of the
Council, the Duke of Buckingham was Colonial Secretary, the Duke of
Richmond was President of the Board of Trade and the Duke of
Rutland's son, Lord John Manners, was First Commissioner of Works.
But this formidable list was of little avail against the vast array of his
Whig and Liberal* opponents and their allies, the Radicals and the
Irish, who together presented a powerful and united majority in
Parliament against the Government. They too had had a change of
leader, for Russell retired at the same time as Derby and was replaced
by Gkdstone. Like Disraeli, Gkdstone had been Leader of his Party
in the Commons for some years and the two came into frequent head-
on collisions, just as Pitt and Fox had done. Both had changed parties,
for Gkdstone began as a Conservative and Disraeli as a Radical. But
what enraged Gkdstone was his opponent's brilliant skill in handling
his most difficult followers: subtly and gradually Disraeli drew them
closer to him. This Gkdstone was never able to achieve. With his
stiffness and obstinacy it was completely beyond him. He got heated,
his gestures became violent: Disraeli reduced the House to laughter
once by congratukting those on his own Front Bench on the security

* The older aristocratic Whigs still adhered to the old name, the newer members of the
Party, drawn from the industrial middle-classes, called themselves Liberals.

370

The main stone staircase, which rises from the basement to the first floe
walls hang pictures of every Prime Minister since Walpole.

The ante-room, just outside the Cabinet Room. To the right of the gr
are rows of pegs for the hats and coats of Cabinet Ministers, with tag
Chancellor', 'Lord President of the Council', etc.

The Cabinet Room. The table
has been moved a little for the
photograph. Normally the
Prime Minister's leather up-
holstered chair, the only one
with arms, stands immediately
in front of the fireplace. All
other chairs stand against the
wall until required. Above the
clock on the mantelpiece hangs
van Loo's portrait of Walpole.
The pillars mark the extension
of the room by Taylor in 1783.

The picture shows the Prime
Minister's section of the Cabi-
net table. Only he has a tele-
phone and bell-buttons. His
blotter is marked 'ist Lord'
because officially he is 'First
Lord of the Treasury'. Every
used sheet of blotting paper in
this room is destroyed immedi-
ately after a Cabinet meeting.

The first of a row of three
drawing-rooms on the first
floor, all of which look out on to
the Horse Guards Parade. This
room was used as a bedroom
by Sir Henry Campbell-
Bannerman, who died there.
Ramsay MacDonald used it
as a study, so did Lady
Churchill. Mrs. Neville Cham-
berlain, by opening the con-
necting doors, used the three
rooms for her large parties.

The middle drawing-room. The large folding doors separate it from the small drawing-
room in the upper picture.

The large State Drawing Room. It was extended by Taylor beyond the columns. A
door on the left (not visible) leads to the small oak-panelled breakfast room built by Soane
in 1825.

Soane's lovely State Dining Room. It is panelled in light oak and is nearly 42 feet long.
The lofty vaulted ceiling rises right through the floor above.

DISRAELI AND GLADSTONE

they derived from the presence of *a good piece of furniture' between
them and the Leader of the Opposition.

Their fiercest rows were over the Reform Bill. Yet, on the change of
Government and even before taking over from Derby, Disraeli
introduced a similar Bill with minor modifications, most of which
were abandoned in the committee stage. He had been induced to change
his mind about Reform by the remarkable popular demonstrations in
London and elsewhere on the defeat of Gladstone's Bill, when a large
crowd marched from Trafalgar Square to Gladstone's house in Carlton
House Terrace, shouting 'Gladstone and Liberty !' and mobs tore down
the railings of Hyde Park in order to hold a protest meeting near
Marble Arch. The disturbances there, so dose to Disraeli's own home
at No. i Grosvenor Gate, Park Lane, went on for three days, then
spread to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow. Like Welling-
ton over the removal of Catholic disabilities and Peel over the repeal of
the Corn Laws, Disraeli gave way on finding that the stand he had
made was no longer tenable. Indeed, within four days of these demon-
strations he was writing to Derby to suggest that they should take up
the Reform Bill where Gkdstone left off. 'It would cut the ground
entirely from under Gkdstone.*

Derby, who as a Whig had most enthusiastically supported Russell's
Reform Bill in 1832 and when the Lords threw it out had jumped
excitedly on to a table at Brooks's and shouted 'His Majesty can ckp
coronets on the heads of a whole company of Foot Guards', wrote now
to express his complete agreement. *If we should be beaten on some
great leading principle, we should have a definite issue on which to go
to the country,' he said, for there was no longer any doubt that the
voters would support it. When it was discussed with the Queen, she
insisted that it should be taken up without deky. Cranborne and Man-
ners did not share this opinion; the ktter felt that the Liberal Party had
gone to pieces already, for the Whigs in that Party had not been in
favour of any extension of the franchise.

Early in February 1867 Disraeli introduced his Reform Bill in the
House of Commons. He indicated that household suffrage on a rating
basis was to be adopted and that the electorate would be very sub-
stantially widened, with an addition of a million new voters as against
Gladstone's 400,000. The Cabinet was by no means agreed on this.

271

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

There had been endless discussions at No. 10 and more than one
Minister had threatened to resign - indeed three did resign before the
Household Suf&age Bill was voted on, Cranborne among them.

The Bill was passed by the Commons without a division and became
kw on 1 5th August 1867. Derby, who had thought it a leap in the
dark*, was now jubilant and spoke with delight of having 'dished the
Whigs'. Disraeli regarded it as one of his greater achievements because
it introduced a tinge of democracy into the Tory Party and gave it a
fresh vitality.

Disraeli's first term as Prime Minister did not last long - a mere ten
months. His kck of a majority in the Commons, only temporarily
adjusted over the Reform Bill, proved a serious handicap and Gladstone
in consequence had things pretty much his own way. The newly
formed Fenians, organized and sustained by angry Irish exiles in
America to set up an Irish Republic, had begun a series of
savage outrages, which spread from Ireland to England- in Manchester
a dozen lives were lost. Gkdstone advocated the abolition of the estab-
lished Church in Ireland as a first step towards conciliation. Disraeli
vehemently opposed this. It was carried nevertheless. Finding it
impossible in these circumstances to continue in office, Disraeli
dissolved Parliament as soon as the new electoral registers were
ready.

The General Election was held in November 1868. With the vote
given them by Disraeli the new electors came down heavily on the side
of Gkdstone: the Government suffered a crushing defeat.

Gkdstone was busy cutting down trees in his park at Hawarden
when the summons came from the Queen, inviting him to be Prime
Minister for the first time. He read the telegram, then calmly picked
up his axe and resumed his vigorous attacks on the tree. Some minutes
later he said: 'My mission is to pacify Ireland.'

During his ten months as Prime Minister Disraeli merely moved his
office from No. 1 1 to No. 10 : the rest of the house, apart from the rooms
occupied by his secretarial staff on the ground floor and the large ante-
room for junior ministers in attendance, remained empty. He continued
to live in his house at Grosvenor Gate, with his wife Mary Anne
Wyndham Lewis, a very wealthy MJP.'s widow whom he had married
thirty years earlier. She was nearly a dozen years his senior and was by

272

DISRAELI AND GLADSTONE

now close on her eightieth year, but they remained deeply devoted
throughout their long life together. On giving up the Premiership, he
refused a peerage for himself, but his wife became Viscountess Beacons-
field, taking the title from the town near which Disraeli had bought the
small manor of Hughenden with the money left him by his father.

Gladstone too declined to live at No. 10, but remained on at n
Carlton House Terrace, where he had been residing for some years.
But, like Disraeli, he used No. 10 Downing Street both for Cabinet
meetings and his work. Such entertaining as he did, for he was not very
sociable, was at his own home.

With his immense Parliamentary majority Gladstone was able to
continue in office for more than five years. Disraeli withdrew to write
a new novel, Lothair, emerging only occasionally to criticize and attack
the Government. The new Cabinet was well chosen. Its leading figure
was Lord Granville, not to be confused with Lord Grenville who was
related to the Pitts and to Melbourne. Granville was the son of Granville
Leveson-Gower, the first earl, who had been the lover of that great
Whig hostess Lady Bessborough and the father of some of her children.
The present earl, known as 'Puss', was a gay, social figure and his
influence with Gkdstone was such that he was able to induce the
austere Prime Minister to accompany him once to the Derby. Their
closeness led to their discussing many complex problems together before
the Cabinet met, with the result that there was rarely anything but
harmony at these meetings.

The new Prime Minister's endeavours were bent, initially, on pacify-
ing Ireland. He was not liked in that country because of his extension of
income tax to Ireland in 1853, a course Peel was careful to avoid when
he re-introduced the tax.*

Gkdstone began by disestablishing the Anglican church in Ireland.
The lands kws were dealt with next. But the Fenians continued to be
violently active and coercive measures had in the end to be adopted
even by Gkdstone. He wrote bluntly to the Queen to tell her of the
part he expected her, as well as her heir, to pky in public affairs, and
especially in the promotion of better rektions with Ireland. The Queen
resented this strongly. Ever since the death of her beloved Albert in

* Pitt's wartime measure, introduced in 1798, ended in March 1816, a few months
after Waterloo.

273

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

December 1861 she had withdrawn more and more from public life.
She had never forgiven Gkdstone for his persistent resistance to provide
more money for the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens.
Although he was always extremely respectful, his manner seemed to her
to be too constrained, it contrasted badly with Disraeli's. She never
asked him to sit down in her presence, he was kept standing throughout
the lengthiest interviews while she herself remained seated. The letters
she received from him now as Prime Minister caused her great irrita-
tion. They were always most involved, their meaning was never clear
and she had to have a prfecis prepared so that she might find some
lucidity through the fog of his words. It emerged at length that he
wanted her to establish a home in Ireland, just as she had one at
Balmoral in Scotland, and he told her that he had already obtained for
this purpose the generous offer of a residence from a Dublin banker. He
also proposed that the position of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland should be
abolished and that there should be a Viceroy instead, with the Prince
of Wales (later King Edward the Seventh) as the first to hold that office.
Both suggestions were unwelcome to Her Majesty. She replied cauti-
ously to the first through her Secretary, General Grey, stating that
nothing could ever take the place of Balmoral in her affections. It was
at Balmoral that she and Albert had spent so many of their happiest
hours and since his death the pkce had become hallowed in her
memory.

A few days after Gkdstone received General Grey's letter, Sir
William Jenner, the Queen's doctor, called to say that Her Majesty did
not intend to open Parliament in person. He added that her decision
was not entirely due to her health. She was uneasy about the Irish
question and especially about the disestablishment of the church and she
preferred not to appear to be taking a personal part in these changes.

Gkdstone was very angry. He had many talks about it with General
Grey, who told him quite frankly: 1 am fairly persuaded that nothing
will have any effect but a strong - even peremptory - tone. In spite of
Sir William Jenner I believe that neither health nor strength are
wanting, were inclination what it should be. It is simply the long,
unchecked habit of self-indulgence that now makes it impossible for
her, without some degree of nervous agitation, to give up, even for ten
minutes, the gratification of a single inclination, or even whim.' He

274

DISRAEII AND GLADSTONE

warned Gkdstone that any 'postponement of the fight, which must
come, will make it seem mote painful and difficult'."1

It was an extraordinary way for the Queen's Private Secretary to talk
of the Sovereign to the Prime Minister. One wonders what made
General Grey open out to Gkdstone in this manner. The General, as a
son of Earl Grey, Whig Prime Minister at the time of the first Reform
Bill of 1832, had a link with Gladstone's present political align-
ment. There was a further, somewhat intimate link between
the two men, for Gkdstone, when he was in his twenties, fell
desperately in love with a young and very beautiful girl named
Caroline Fartjuhar. He proposed to her, at first through her father,
then through her mother and brother, who had been with him
at Eton, but the girl, being gay and light-hearted, thought him much
too austere and disapproving in his manner. Gladstone went through
some agonizing months of pleading, but the girl remained adamant.
She was already, it emerged later, interested in another man, whom she
married - young Charles Grey,* now the Queen's Secretary: she was
kter appointed a Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen. Gkdstone
took her refusal very badly and in his private diary resigned himself to
the wisdom of God, who had thus seen fit to humble him.

Gkdstone did not marry until three years kter. In the interval he
went through yet another shattering romance. He had fallen in love
with Lady Frances Douglas, daughter of the Earl of Morton, and,
without any hint to her of his feelings, quite suddenly he proposed to
her. She was astonished and unresponsive. The Dean of Edinburgh and
other friends were asked by Gkdstone to plead with her, but it proved
of no avail. Some months kter she married Lord Milton. Then
Gkdstone met Catherine, sister of Sir Stephen Glynne, a Scottish
baronet and M.P. The family was extremely wealthy : they had a house
in Berkeley Square and owned Hawarden Castle, which eventually
became Gkdstone's home. He married Catherine in 1839.

Acting on General Grey's advice he kept on urging the Queen to
come back to London and attend to her duties. All his colleagues in the
Cabinet, he added, were of the same view. But despite his persistence
he did not succeed. The Queen was obdurate. Her aloofness had already

* His cousin Charles Samuel Grey, who was secretary to Lord John Russell, lived for a
time at No. 10 Downing Street.

275

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

made her extremely unpopular. For more than two generations the
people had looked upon the monarchy neither with affection nor
respect. The scandalous behaviour of most of George the Third's sons,
and especially of the Prince Regent, whose immorality extended even
into his declining years as King, had filled them with disgust. And now
the Queen, on whom the enchantment of her extreme youth had cast
such a promising glow, was fat and fifty and tad withdrawn into a
solitary widowhood to grieve over her Albert. Her heir, the Prince of
Wales, lived as a profligate.

There were many public demonstrations against the Royal Family.
There was even talk of abolishing the monarchy and setting up a
republic. Fifty Republican clubs were formed in various parts of the
country and Joseph Chamberlain, father of Neville Chamberlain, a
future Conservative Prime Minister, was cheered by his constituents
at Birmingham when he told them that the republic 'must come'.

General Grey died suddenly a few months after his talks with
Gladstone and was succeeded as Private Secretary by Henry Ponsonby,
also a confirmed Liberal and a great admirer of Gladstone. He fully
shared his predecessor's views about the Queen's excuses and evasions,
in which her 'feeble-minded* doctor, as Gladstone called him, en-
couraged her. Having made up his mind to solve this question finally
and to make the Queen play her part more fully, Gladstone was too
resolute and tenacious to be deflected. For his remaining years in office
as Prime Minister this was the one obsession in his mind and it was
repeatedly discussed at Cabinet meetings at No. 10. He made so bold as
to tell the Queen bluntly of his doubts about her alleged headaches and
her so-called nervous attacks. By August 1871, after Gladstone had been
in office for two and a half years, the Queen could endure it no longer
and wrote complaining that she was being 'driven and abused till her
nerves and health give way with this worry and agitation and inter-
ference in her private life/ She even threatened to abdicate. 'She must
solemnly repeat that unless the Ministers support her and state the truth
she cannot go on, but must give her heavy burden up to younger
hands/"1 The doctor warned Gladstone that the Queen's grandfather
George the Third had died mad.

Gladstone himself was getting tired of it. He wanted to give up his
office and withdraw to live a more religious life, but he felt he must not

276

DISRAELI AND GLADSTONE

shirk his duty, and his duty, as he saw it, was to get the Royal Family to
play their part. He renewed his attack on the Prince of Wales, com-
plained of his disastrous influence on society, his utterly purposeless
existence, his love of frivolity, and drew up a schedule of public duties
in order to keep the Prince fully occupied for the entire year 'with
occasional fractions of time for other purposes'. This the Queen
rejected outright. She said that the question was more properly one for
herself to settle with members of her family.

The atmosphere got more and more vitiated, and as late as July 1873,
after Gladstone had been Prime Minister for nearly five years, Lord
Granville passed him a note across the Cabinet table, asking: 'Which
do you and Mrs. Gladstone dislike the least - to dine with the Queen on
Wednesday at Windsor, or to go down for a Saturday and Sunday to
Osborne?' Gladstone chose Windsor as the lesser of two evils. It was
Granville who by his timely intervention at all times helped to prevent
the Prime Minister's relations with the Queen breaking down com-
pletely.

Gladstone did not, however, allow this obsession to deflect his
attention from his plans for reform in other directions. The Irish Land
Act was passed in 1870 to protect the tenant from eviction so long as he
paid his rent and, in the event of a sale, to secure for him the full value
of any improvements he had made. In the following session Religious
Tests in the universities, which had excluded Catholics and Non-
conformists from becoming undergraduates, were abolished. Secret
voting at elections, for which the Chartists had fought more than
twenty years earlier, was passed by the Commons but thrown out by
the Lords. It became law a year later, in 1872.

He next turned to the purchase of commissions in the army, which
had caused a scandal sixty years before when the mistress of the Duke of
York was found to be profiting from this traffic. The sale, nevertheless,
had continued. The attempt to put a stop to it now met with the most
violent opposition. But Gladstone found he could deal with it without
a vote in the House. As the purchase had been established by royal
sanction, he was able to effect its abolition by getting the Queen to
issue a royal warrant cancelling all regulations authorizing the purchase
of commissions.

These were important and far-reaching reforms. He next set about

277

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

establishing a university in Dublin for both Roman Catholics and
Protestants. This did not meet with the approval of the House generally,
or even of the Catholics in it, and it was defeated by three votes.
Gladstone thereupon resigned.

The Queen sent for Disraeli, but he refused to take on the Premier-
ship without having the support of the majority in the Commons. Nor
did he want the Queen to dissolve Parliament yet, for he felt that if
Gladstone remained in office for just a little longer, his unpopularity
in the country could be assured. The Queen accordingly had to ask
Gladstone to carry on, and this after much argument he agreed to do.
Disraeli's forecast proved to be correct. The Government lost one
by-election after another. There was friction in the Cabinet. The work
of many Government departments was badly mismanaged. The
Postmaster-General was forced to resign and Gladstone repkced the
Chancellor of the Exchequer by taking on the duties himself. The First
Commissioner of Works, tactless and overbearing in his manner,
provoked not only Gladstone but the Queen, with whom he came in
frequent contact over the upkeep of the Royal pakces ; yet, inexplicably,
Gkdstone kept him on.

After a very few months, Gkdstone found it impossible to carry on
and decided on a General Election. He dissolved Parliament in January
1874. To make sure that the votes would not go against him, he
resorted to a course that one would not have expected from anyone so
high-minded. His appeal to the electorate was entirely materialistic.
The large surplus the Government had accumukted over the years he
offered, if re-elected, to use for the total abolition of income tax. Since
it would not, he found, be enough, he proposed slashing severely the
naval and military estimates. This enraged the Service chiefs.

There were heated arguments about all this in the Cabinet room at
No. 10, but Gkdstone was confident it would bring hi™ the support
of the country. But since income tax at the time was only threepence
in the pound, the pledge failed to interest the electorate.

Disraeli for his part, promised the voters a rest from the 'incessant
and harassing legisktion', a restoration of Britain's former great
influence in Europe, and 'support by every means of her imperial
sway*. He was returned with a majority of fifty over all other parties.

278

CHAPTER 27
'Jingoism'

THIS time, his second and last term as Prime Minister, Disraeli
was in office for six triumphant years, as against his earlier spell of only
ten months.

His life had been seriously affected in the interval by the death of his
doting wife, Mary Anne, Viscountess Beaconsfield. She had been ill
for some time and showed signs of severe strain in the spring of 1872,
but continued to carry on bravely with her social duties. In December,
after a week's acute illness, during which her husband scarcely left her
side, she died. She was in her eighty-fourth year.

The Queen, whose telegrams and inquiries had been constant
throughout her illness, wrote on the same day, hoping that her heart-
felt sympathy would not be *an intrusion in this his first hour of deso-
lation and overwhelming grief/ Gladstone, writing from No. 10
Downing Street, said: 'You and I were, as I believe, married in the
same year. It has been permitted to both of us to enjoy a priceless boon
through a third of a century/

It was fourteen months after this thatDisraeli becamePrime Minister.

279

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

He was now seventy. His wife's death had also made a great difference
to his circumstances, for her income died with her. Disraeli thus lost
.£5,000 a year and the town house in Grosvenor Gate. He was in debt
and for the time being moved into a nearby hotel offHanover Square,
where he found the loneliness overwhelming. Later he took a small
house in Whitehall Gardens,* two doors from where Peel used to
live. Downing Street was only just round the corner and there seemed
no need for Disraeli to move in, though, as before, he used the Cabinet
room both for Cabinet meetings and as his personal office.

He had led the Conservative Party for more than twenty-five years,
the longest period of leadership in either Party, but there was still dis-
cernible a strong undercurrent against him. As recently as 1868 Lord
Salisbury, bearer of the historic name of Cecil and a descendant of Lord
Burleigh who had served Queen Elizabeth the First, was looked upon
by many as the rightful leader of the Conservatives, the more so be-
cause he had always disapproved of Disraeli. An effort was made to
appoint him Leader in the House of Lords, but this Disraeli would not
countenance. Now in 1874, on Disraeli's return as Prime Minister, he
generously offered Salisbury the India Office, where Salisbury had
already served under Derby. He accepted. Derby's son Stanley, who
had succeeded his father in 1869, went again to the Foreign Office,
where Salisbury was to follow him presently and carve out an out-
standing reputation for himself. Once again half the Cabinet of twelve
consisted of peers.

Disraeli was regarded as the most arresting figure in politics since
the death of Pitt. The Queen was, of course, delighted with the change,
for she was heartily sick of Gladstone's constant nagging and did not
disguise her pleasure at being rid of him. One aspect of the change
though was not altogether pleasing to Her Majesty. Her normal
antipathy towards High Churchmen, which had led to their complete
exclusion from her Household, had become accentuated of late by the
great spread of ritualism in the country. The presence of Lord Salisbury,
a leading High Churchman, in Disraeli's new Cabinet presented a grave
difficulty which had to be handled with the utmost delicacy. The Queen
had to be mollified. Disraeli handled it with great tact. Focusing his

* This house later became the office of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and during
the 1914-18 War Lloyd George's War Cabinet used to meet there,

280

JINGOISM

attention on two others in the Government with similar leanings,
Lord Beauchamp and Lord Bath, he wrote to Lord Salisbury and
sought his co-operation in dealing with this thorny problem. 'Last
night, the Queen, while accepting the appointment of Beauchamp as a
favour to myself, requires that there shall be an undertaking from him,
that he will take no prominent part in Ch. politics. It is very desirable,
Her Majesty adds, that this condition should be clearly understood,
as she looks upon the views of the Ch. party with wh. Ld. B. is con-
nected, as detrimental to the interests of the Ch. of England, and
Dangerous to the Protestant religion. . . . This morning comes another
letter. She hears with regret that Lord Bath is as bad as Lord Beau-
champ : consequently the same restrictions must be put upon him as on
Lord Beau., etc., etc.* Gkdstone would have handled it differently and
doubtless clumsily. The Public Worship Act, brought in by the
Archbishop of Canterbury to restrain ritualism, put it on a securer
basis not long afterwards.

This was the greatest period of Disraeli's career. All he had ever
dreamed of had at last been attained : he had a majority in both Houses,
the Sovereign's enthusiastic support, recognition by the heads of the
great aristocratic families, the Cecils, the Percies, the Lygons, the
Bridgemans, the Lennoxes, the Stanleys, of course, and the Manners.
But he felt it had come too kte. If only he had been twenty years
younger. His health, never robust, had begun to fail, and, though he
seemed to be still fresh in spirit, he was not physically as energetic and
robust as Palmerston was when he became Prime Minister at the age of
seventy. Disraeli had to swallow pills and drink unpalatable mixtures
in order to keep fit. He was troubled by gout and asthma, and the
strain of the supreme office and having to spend long hours in the House
of Commons greatly taxed his strength. After two years, in 1876, he
decided, like Chatham, to go to the House of Lords and became
the Earl of Beaconsfidd.

But before he did this he was able to inform a wildly enthusiastic
House of Commons that the British Government had acquired a krgc
holding of Suez Canal shares from the bankrupt Khedive of Egypt.
Disraeli wrote to the Queen to tell her of the scheme in brief outline:
' 'Tis an affair of millions; about four at least; but would give the
possessor an immense, not to say preponderating influence iu the

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management of the Canal. . . . Scarcely breathing time! But the thing
must be done/

The deal had to be completed with speed and secrecy in order to beat
a French syndicate which was also after the shares; and the .£4,000,000
had to be paid, and indeed was paid, without the sanction of Parliament,
since the House was not sitting at the time.

There were excited but uneasy discussions for some days at No. 10
about this. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, agreeing eventually to
apply direct to the Treasury for the money, said with some emphasis:
'I don't like it/ The money in fact was advanced by the Rothschilds.
Disraeli had told his secretary, Montagu Corry (later Lord Rowton), to
wait outside the Cabinet room. When Disraeli put his head through
the door and said 'Yes', the secretary set off at once to see Rothschild.
He found the great financier seated at his desk in the City eating grapes.
Not until the last grape had been devoured did Rothschild speak:
'What is your security?' he asked. Corry replied: 'The British Govern-
ment/ Rothschild nodded slowly. 'Then you shall have it,' he said.

The Queen wrote ecstatically to Disraeli. This 'gives us complete
security for India ... an immense thing!' India had been as much in
her mind as in his. That winter the Prince of Wales went on a visit to
India, and shortly afterwards, while opening Parliament in person (a
rare event since her widowhood), the Queen announced the Govern-
ment's intention of a 'formal addition to the style and tides of die
Sovereign/ Her Majesty became *Her Imperial Majesty, Empress of
India/ It aroused die most furious opposition in Parliament and in the
country. But that did not detract from die joy of eidier the Queen or
Disraeli, who had said earlier: 'You can only act upon the opinion of
Eastern nations through their imagination.' And indeed it was most
enthusiastically welcomed by the Indian Princes.

Ireland, as always, remained an ever bleeding sore. The Fenians con-
tinued to be active there as well as in England. The problem demanded
unremitting attention, but Disraeli had to direct his immediate thought
to the disturbances that had broken out in the Balkans against Turkey,
for he realized that Russia's inevitable intervention would be of the
utmost disadvantage to Britain. Russia had to be contained; any
expansion towards the Mediterranean would imperil Britain's access to
the Suez Canal.

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The situation was extremely tricky. The 'Three Emperors* (of
Russia, Austria and Germany) insisted that the Turks should be
compelled to grant better conditions to the vast number of Chris-
tians living under Turkish rule in the Balkans. But Disraeli refused to
accept this : he declared it was merely a conspiracy on the part of Russia
and Austria to divide Turkey's European possessions among them-
selves. To make it clear that he was not prepared to tolerate any such
intervention, he at once dispatched British warships to the Dardanelles.
This, unfortunately, encouraged the Turks to adopt an intransigent
attitude. They treated the rebellious Bulgarians with savagery: 12,000
men, women and children, all of them Christians, were massacred.
When this news reached England, the people, always against Russia,
and enthusiastically behind Disraeli until now, were rudely shaken and
wondered how they could possibly side with Turkey any longer.

Gladstone, who had given up the leadership of the Liberal Party in
January 1875, now abandoned his resolve to retire from politics and
re-entered the arena. Rising in great wrath in the House of Commons,
he attacked the Government mercilessly, and insisted that Britain must
support the Christian minorities against the Turks, on the grounds of
humanity if nothing else. But Disraeli remained unshaken. He dis-
counted the atrocities, he said. Besides, Britain's imperial and strategic
interests were dependent upon the maintenance of Turkish integrity,
and for this he was prepared to go to war. He was only deterred from
adopting this course by dissensions in the Cabinet room and by the
uneasiness in the country generally.

The public had been roused by a passionate pamphlet published by
Gladstone, urging that the Turks should be bundled out of Europe
'bag and baggage*. This he followed up by a speech at an open-air
meeting at Blackheath in the pouring rain at which he said: *I, for one,
for the purposes of justice, am ready as an individual to give the right
hand of friendship to Russia when her objects are just and righteous,
and to say, in the name of God, "Go on and prosper/' '

The Queen was on the side of Disraeli and kept urging the Cabinet
to go to war. She threatened to abdicate if they didn't."1 By this time
two of the Balkan countries, Servia and Montenegro, had declared war
on Turkey, and Disraeli, in his speech at the Guildhall on pth Novem-
ber 1876, threatened Russia with war if she did not stop the flow of

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so-called volunteers into those countries. It was this speech that
prompted the music hall refrain: 'We don't want to fight, but by
Jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got
the money too!* and added the word jingoism to the English
language.

Both the Conservatives and the Liberals were divided on this issue.
Disraeli informed the Queen that there were seven distinct shades of
opinion in his Cabinet, ranging from those who wanted immediate
war with Russia to those who were for peace at any price. Lords Salis-
bury, Derby and Carnarvon were on the side of the Christians. Her
Majesty urged the Prime Minister to sack Derby and Carnarvon. 'Be
very frm. A divided Cabinet is of NO use.9 Among the Liberals,
Gladstone's closest friend Lord Granville as well as Lord Harrington,
heir to the Duke of Devonshire, were against him. Harrington told
Granville that if Gladstone went any further 'nothing can prevent a
break-up of the Party/

On 24th April 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey and began her
advance on Constantinople. Only the firm opposition of the Cabinet
as a whole, who refused to go to war over this issue, held the Prime
Minister and the Queen in leash. A policy of neutrality was finally
adopted, but it was made dear that neutrality would only be main-
tained while there was no threat to vital British interests.

While the crisis mounted to its climax Disraeli, crippled with gout,
found it impossible any longer to walk the short distance from
Whitehall Gardens to No. 10 for the heated Cabinet discussions. 'I
have been very ill and continue very ill,' he wrote to a friend, 'and am
quite incapable of walking upstairs; gout and bronchitis have ended in
asthma. . . . Sometimes I am obliged to sit up all night, and want of
sleep at last breaks me down. ... I have managed to attend every
Cabinet, but I can't walk at present from Whitehall to Downing
Street, but am obliged to brougham even that step, which I once could
have repeated fifty times a day.' In November 1877 he decided to move
to No. 10 and took up his residence there for the first time. The possi-
bility of such a move had been obvious for some months. The upper
rooms, empty for thirty years, had been opened and aired, and the
decorators had been called in. Their estimate for doing just the large
drawing-room, described as 'The Reception Room for Lord Beacons-

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field', alarmed the Treasury. The cost for painting the ceiling in a plain
colour, for decorating the walls and inserting handsome paper in the
panels, and picking out the cornice in tints and gold came in all to
.£782 for the one room. The cost of a new grate and tiles alone was
£40. An immediate letter from the Treasury, dated 2ist November
1876, stated: *My Lords trust that every effort will be made to confine
the expenditure within narrow limits, as they should regret to see any
greater outlay incurred than is absolutely essential for placing the room
in a condition appropriate to the uses for which it is designed. Beyond
this they could not consent to go, as it would be injudicious to spend
any large amount upon so old a house and one in which the approaches
and other arrangements are so decidedly defective. They should hope
that the Estimate now submitted might yet be found susceptible for
reduction/ Close on £200 was eventually lopped off.

Then there was the question of the furniture. Disraeli insisted that
all the furniture required for the room should be paid for by the
Treasury. He pointed out that this had been the practice next door at
No. n, the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for
a quarter of a century. Indeed it was a quarrel between Disraeli and
Gkdstone in January 1853 that had brought about this change at No. n.
Previously each new Chancellor of the Exchequer had bought the
furniture from the outgoing tenant, but Gladstone, on taking over
from Disraeli, declined to do this and asked the Board of Works to
buy the furniture instead, at any rate for the rooms in official use.
Disraeli indicated that the traditional agreement 'as between gentle-
men' should be observed and that any new arrangement could only
affect the next transfer. An acrimonious correspondence followed
between the two. The furniture was eventually purchased by the
State, and to prevent future disputes of this nature, a Treasury minute
in 1853 clearly defined the degree of responsibility of each tenant. Now,
on it being agreed that this practice should be extended to No. 10, a
new Treasury minute, dated 30th May 1878, was issued. It laid down
that at No. 10, as at No. n Downing Street, the entrance hall, stair-
case and first floor rooms should in future be regarded as used for public
purposes and should be furnished at public expense, but that the use of
all other contents of the residence should be debited to the occupant
on the following basis : when he moved in a valuation was to be made

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of the furniture already there. To this would be added the cost of any
new furniture supplied at his request. The cost of repairs to furniture
carried out for him by the Office of Works during his occupancy of
the house would also be added. On his leaving he would be credited
with the value of the furniture at that time, which would be deducted
from the initial total, and the outgoing Prime Minister would then have
to pay for the depreciation in value - that is to say for wear and tear.
This was adhered to until i8th November 1897. Since then the Office
(later the Ministry) of Works has had to maintain and renew, as neces-
sary and at public expense, all the existing furniture even in the resi-
dential rooms. But Prime Ministers, or others residing in the house in
their stead, still had to bring their own linen, cutlery, crockery, vases,
ornaments and so on.

The furniture, especially brought in for Disraeli's use in the re-
decorated main reception room, cost ^£1,042 los. It included two
large sofas covered with silk j£io6 ios.; four small easy chairs covered
with silk ;£88; four high-backed chairs also covered with silk ^9
each; eight small chairs covered with silk ^7 each; a table .£25 ; two
octagon tables ^£40; an oblong table ^18; partial parquet floor
amounting to only three foot round the room ^50; a fine Axminster
Persian carpet twenty-three feet by twenty £140 ; another for the
passages or stairs £38; and curtains of rich silk with cornices and
valances £145. The house thus once more became the residence of the
Prime Minister; and in the spring was brightened with bowls of
primroses, his favourite flowers, sent to him by the Queen from the
gardens at Windsor.

But Disraeli was not at all happy with the house. He found that
much more needed to be done to it and by August of the following
year (1878) he called the attention of H.M. Office of Works to the
dilapidated condition of cerf'un rooms and the want of proper accom-
modation in his private apartments. A supplementary estimate was
drawn up and sent on notepaper headed 'Downing Street', stating:
'Lord Beaconsfield has approved the following estimate which it will
now be necessary to send officially to the Treasury. New Drawing-
room in all as arranged .£1,000; First Lord's Official room, Bedroom,
Dressing-room and ante-room, with Plate-glass for windows in
Official rooms £400; all necessary painting, cleansing, whitewashing,

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'JINGOISM'

i.e. in offices ^600; Bath with hot and cold water in First Lord's
Dressing room £150; Repair to staircase and take Down existing
boxes for Messengers ^200. Total £2,350.' A letter from the Treasury
dated 28th August authorized this work to be started immediately as
it was classed 'urgent'. The cost was, if possible to be 'defrayed . . . out
of the savings which may be effected upon the votes for Public build-
ings and Furniture respectively'.

This was not all. An order for a brass candle chandelier for the
drawing-room, to match one already there, was given to Mr. Richard
Evens of 43 Baker Street in September. It cost £30.

Meanwhile more important affairs of State had to be attended to.
The Russian armies reached Adrianople in January 1878. Telegrams
and letters from the Queen immediately began to descend on the
Ministers. Disraeli, who fully shared her view, promptly abandoned
his policy of neutrality and ordered the British Mediterranean fleet to
proceed through the Dardanelles right up to Constantinople, the
Turkish capital.

Russia, anticipating trouble, immediately offered to make peace and
dictated terms to the Turks in the Treaty of San Stefano. But Disraeli
was not prepared to accept this. He insisted that the Treaty should be
examined in its entirety by a European Congress. Two members of
the Cabinet resigned - Lord Carnarvon in February, Lord Derby in
March: Lord Salisbury took the latter's place at the Foreign Office,
although the Queen did not want him there. Indian troops got ready
to embark for Turkey, and in this agitated atmosphere a Congress was
finally agreed to - it was to be held in Berlin in June (1878) under the
presidency of the German Chancellor, Bismarck.

Disraeli was far from well, but he insisted on going. The Queen,
greatly concerned as to how he would stand the strain of the long
journey, tried to dissuade him. He was, she said, 'her great support
and comfort' and his health and his life were of 'immense value' not
only to her but to the country. He went nevertheless. Before leaving
No. 10, he wrote to the Queen (in the third person as is customary)
saying that *in all his troubles and perplexities, he will think of his
Sovereign Lady, and that thought will sustain and inspire him.'

As a result of the discussions some of the Turkish provinces were
amputated, but Macedonia, which the Treaty of San Stefano tried to

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take from her, was returned to Turkey. Britain got Cyprus for her
part in the negotiations and Turkey gave a pledge that in future all
her peoples would be guaranteed better government.

Disraeli, or Beaconsfield as he should rightly be called, returned
from Berlin triumphant. He had taken the country to the very brink
of war and had won without having to fire a shot. He was received
with tumultuous enthusiasm: the country was relieved that there was
not to be a war after all. Beaconsfield described the settlement as
'Peace with Honour'. The words delighted the people. Britain had
not fought, yet had got something out of it - Cyprus. The Queen
urged him to accept a Dukedom, but Disraeli refused. The Gladstone
family declared that he should have been made the Duke of Jericho
and sent at once to administer the duchy.

Few would have been prepared to predict that, after such a widely
acclaimed triumph, Disraeli and his Government would in eighteen
months be turned out of office. Gladstone had won little more than
derision for his wild onslaughts and certainly had no hope of winning
the next election. Had it come immediately after Disraeli's return from
Berlin, it is possible that the electorate would have given the Govern-
ment its support. But Disraeli waited and the tide turned disastrously
against him. One of the causes for this was that Russia, having been
thwarted in her thrust towards the Mediterranean, suddenly struck
eastwards towards India, and to check her, Britain was involved in a
long and costly war with Afghanistan. A second war broke out in
South Africa against the Zulus. At home the harvests failed and cheap
corn from the prairies flooded the market, trade declined, many banks
closed their doors, and the distress soon became widespread. Even so the
by-elections during that autumn and winter went well for the Govern-
ment.

Parliament was dissolved in March 1880. But Gladstone had got
busy with his campaign long before this. He had been adopted as
Liberal candidate for the Midlothian in the preceding year, and ever
since November he had been in incessant eruption, determined to get
the Conservatives out if he could. On his way by train from Liverpool
to Edinburgh he was cheered at every station by large crowds of
working people. No opportunity was lost for making speeches. He
denounced the Government for its financial profligacy in the pursuit of

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false phantoms of glory. He denounced Disraeli's imperialism, point-
ing out that he had first annexed the Transvaal*; then he had annexed
Cyprus; then together with Francef he had established a protectorate
over Egypt; next he had made war on the Zulus; and not satisfied with
all this, he had by 'the most wanton invasion of Afghanistan broken
that country into pieces.' Gladstone begged his audience 'not to suffer
appeals to national pride to blind you to the dictates of justice.'131
Disraeli, he said, had violated every canon of morality and had en-
dangered world peace.

In this memorable campaign in the Midlothian, Gladstone's searing
intensity and his denunciatory onslaughts, echoing the ardour of the
Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament, did much to swing public
opinion. All Scotland flocked to hear him and all England read what
he had said.

The Liberals gained a decisive victory. Disraeli was out, but as
Gladstone had given up the leadership of his Party, the Queen had to
choose between Lord Granville, the Liberal leader in the Lords, and
Lord Harrington, Devonshire's heir, who was the Liberal leader in
the Commons.

Both stood down, however, and insisted that Gladstone should be
entrusted with the government of the country. It was Gladstone's
second term as Prime Minister and he held office for five years.

* In 1877, when the Transvaal was facing financial collapse.

t Following the bankruptcy of the Khedive and his sale of the Suez Canal shares, control

over the finances of Egypt was established by England and France.

289

CHAPTER 28

Gladstone's Unhappy Return

GLADSTONE, who liad of late been living at No. 73 Harley
Street, now followed Disraeli's example and moved into No. 10
Downing Street. Disraeli did not long survive his crushing defeat. He
died in the following year, 1881.

It appears that Gladstone, who now combined with the Premiership
the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, took possession of both
Nos. 10 and n; the latter he allocated to his secretarial staff, which
made it possible for him to use almost the whole of No. 10 as a private
residence. He too wanted new furniture. A note from Wilson, First
Commissioner of Works, dated soth April 1880, only a few days
after the Election, states: 'I beg to report that the cost of furniture
supplied to Mr. Gladstone at Downing Street is ^1,555 55. As it was
absolutely necessary that all the things should be provided at once, it
was not possible to report the sum before the expenditure was
incurred.'

Gkdstone was now seventy-one and all his children were grown up.
After a time his eldest son Herbert, in his late thirties and a Member

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GLADSTONES UNHAPPY RETURN

of Parliament, moved into No. 10 and Gladstone appears to have
used No. 12, the house beyond the Chancellor's, as his residence.

Queen Victoria, as may be imagined, was not at all happy about his
return as Prime Minister. She still disliked Gladstone intensely. He was
long-winded and, as she phrased it : 'He speaks to me as if I was a public
meeting/ He had no small talk at all. His mind was wholly serious, his
manner that of a hot-gospeller.

More than thirty years before, when Gladstone had just entered his
forties, a contemporary in Parliament, Lord Macaulay, with astonish-
ing discernment, said of him: 'Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is refracted
and distorted by a false medium of passion and prejudices. . . . His
rhetoric, though often good of its kind, darkens and perplexes the
logic which it should illustrate/ It was not always easy, even for those
who worked closely with him, to understand what he meant: he was
often, as Disraeli so aptly phrased it, 'inebriated by the exuberance of
his own verbosity*.

It proved to be an unhappy five years of office. From the outset there
were difficulties in the Cabinet. Gkdstone had maintained the pattern
by drawing almost half its members from the peerage: of the others
two, John Bright and Joseph Chamberlain, were Radicals. Gladstone
did not like Chamberlain and questioned his 'integrity', but found it
impossible to exclude him, since Chamberlain's recently formed
National Liberal Federation had contributed substantially to the vic-
tory by winning sixty seats in the election.

Many in the Cabinet did not approve of the inordinate amount of
time Gkdstone was giving to finance. It was unarguable, of course, that
he had a brilliant understanding of figures and, to assist him in the
task, he had taken on as Financial Secretary of the Treasury his nephew
by marriage, Lord Frederick Cavendish, whom he regarded with
doting affection. Lord Frederick was the brother of Lord Harrington,
who was at the India Office.

Within six weeks of forming his Government, Gladstone presented
his first Budget. He abolished the malt tax in order to help the farmers
at a time of depression, and recouped the money by raising the income
tax from fivepence to sixpence and also by slightly increasing the tax
on beer. He was delighted with its success. But after some months he
began to complain that he was finding the management of two offices

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i intolerable strain. Asked why he didn't give up the Exchequer,
Gladstone replied: 'Because I have not sufficient confidence in the
-/financial judgement of my colleagues/

In foreign affairs Gladstone's resolve was to reverse Disraeli's policy.
He began by organising a naval demonstration off Albania because
the Turks had not yet ceded the agreed sections of their territory to
Montenegro and to Greece as stipulated in the Treaty of Berlin. He
got the Concert of Europe to induce the French, the Germans and the
Austrians to send warships in support of the British fleet, but these
three countries gave strict orders that on no account were their war-
ships to open fire.

Queen Victoria was furious and appealed to the Conservative ex-
Ministers and, unconstitutional though it was, relays of members of
the Opposition went up to Balmoral to soothe Her Majesty.

The naval demonstration, Gkdstone soon saw, was no more than a
farce. Determined on some effective action, he arranged for an expedi-
tion to be sent to seize the harbour of Smyrna, on the coast of Asia
Minor, with a view to sequestrating the Turkish customs revenues.
Russia and Italy were ready to co-operate, France and Austria were
not. Bismarck, speaking for Germany, declared that all the support
he was prepared to give Gkdstone was with his prayers. The Turks,
however, gave in. The Foreign Secretary, Lord Granville, hurried to
No. 10 Downing Street with the news, which had just arrived by
telegram from Constantinople. He found Gladstone at his desk, busy
writing a letter. His son Herbert and his Secretary Arthur Godley,
later Lord Kilbracken, were in the room with him. Gkdstone did not
look up even when Granville danced a pas dejoie and waved the tele-
gram with delight. But becoming aware after a time of what was going
on, Gkdstone looked up and was horrified to see Granville dancing
with such abandon. He had the telegram read, then said 'God Al-
mighty be praised ! I can catch the 2.45 to Hawarden.'

Gkdstone wanted to give Cyprus to Greece, but Granville told him
that public opinion would not tolerate that. Kandahar, however,
acquired from Afghanistan after Lord Roberts' brilliant victory in the
recent war, was given back to Afghanistan. Transvaal, annexed by
Disraeli after the Zulu war, was handed over to the Boers. Queen
Victoria's fury knew no bounds.

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GLADSTONES UNHAPPY RETURN

Next Gladstone turned to Egypt. That country was still part of the
vast Turkish Empire, but its importance to Britain after the opening
of the Suez Canal was, of course, vital. Gladstone had strongly criti-
cized Disraeli's acquisition of control of the canal, because he foresaw
that political control of Egypt would inevitably follow, which it did.
He had denounced it as one of Disraeli's 'mischievous and ruinous
misdeeds'. But the joint control, set up by Britain and France, had gone
too far for him to undo now. 'I affirm,' he said in the House of Com-
mons, 'and I will show, that the situation in Egypt is not one which
we made, but one that we found.'

A crisis was precipitated by a nationalist revolt in Egypt. Fifty
foreigners were massacred during a riot in Alexandria in June 1882.
The rebel leader mounted guns on the forts as a threat to the British
and French fleets lying off Alexandria. The French fleet instantly sailed
away, but Gladstone refused to withdraw. He was not prepared, he
said, to tolerate the tyranny of the rebels, who were seeking to repudi-
ate Egypt's debts to foreign bond holders. He was prepared to act
alone against Egypt if necessary, he declared. The British Admiral, on
instructions from home, ordered all work on the fortifications of
Alexandria to cease within twelve hours. This was not done and on
nth July the British fleet opened fire. On I9th August British troops,
under the command of Sir Garnet (later Lord) Wolseley, were landed
at Port Said.

This brought the first resignation from the Cabinet. John Bright,
who had served in the Governments of both Palmerston and Russell,
denounced Gladstone's conduct as 'simply damnable - worse than
anything ever perpetrated by Dizzy.' But Gladstone refused to depart
from his policy. The Egyptian rebels were attacked and annihilated at
Tel-el-Kebir in September, and the British became masters of Egypt.

Surprisingly, this put Gladstone in the highest of good spirits. He
ordered a salute of guns to be fired in Hyde Park in honour of the
victory. But his elation was soon followed by a profound depression.
His staff had noticed that these black moods generally occurred when
he was most excited.

Gkdstone hoped that the occupation of Egypt would be short-
lived, but finding it would not, he talked of retiring. He gave up the
office of Chancellor of the Exchequer in December. His colleagues

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were worried about his health and had a word with his doctor, Sir
Andrew Clark, who often visited him at No. 10. Clark stated that
Gladstone was sound in head and limb and was built in the most
admirable proportion he had ever seen in any human being - like some
ancient Greek statue of the ideal man; and added that, with his careful
habits, Gladstone of all his patients had the best chance of living to be
a hundred. Gladstone died in fact in 1898, in his ninetieth year.

Trouble in the Sudan came on the heels of the victory in Egypt.
After sixty years of oppression by their Egyptian rulers, the Sudanese
rose under the leadership of the Mahdi, a self-appointed Messiah, who
vowed that he would rid the country for ever of the cruel extortion
they suffered and secure their complete freedom. His fanatical followers
he called dervishes, or holy mendicants, to give the rising a religious
significance. Gladstone approved of their aims and described their
armed conflicts as 'a rightful struggle'. The first serious clash, between
the Egyptians and the Sudanese occurred in August 1881, but Britain
was not involved until the following year. The Mahdi had gained
considerable successes and the Egyptians sent a large army numbering
10,000 men under the command of an Englishman named Colonel
Hicks, to quell them. The force was annihilated by the Sudanese.

By this time Britain was in military occupation of Egypt and the
Queen regarded the reverse as a blow to Britain's prestige. She insisted
that it should be avenged at once. Public opinion, she said, would
never forgive Gladstone unless an end was put to the 'murder, and
rapine, and utter confusion* caused by the Sudanese rebels.

Gkdstone was not prepared to do anything, but after much pressure
from his Cabinet, and especially from Lord Granville and Lord Hart-
ington, he agreed eventually to send General Gordon to the Sudan,
but only for the purpose of evacuating the Egyptian soldiers and
civilians from various parts of the country in order to prevent their
slaughter.

Gordon had been Governor of the Sudan some years earlier. He
insisted now on being appointed Governor-General. This secured,
Gordon publicly declared that his purpose was not only to withdraw
the Egyptian garrisons, but to establish a new and stable Government
in the country, apparently under British rule.
He reached Khartoum in February 1884 and a month later the

294

GLADSTONES UNHAPPY RETURN

Mahdi's troops closed in on the town. Gordon telegraphed to Cairo
for reinforcements, but Gladstone, furious at the way Gordon had
been issuing proclamations of which he did not approve and which
included the restoration of the Sudanese slave trade, insisted that his
orders to Gordon were clearly for the withdrawal of the Egyptians.
Before the end of May, Khartoum was isolated. Harrington, the
Secretary for War, informed the Cabinet that it was impossible to
say now whether Gordon would be able to leave Khartoum without
the aid of an expeditionary force. But this Gladstone refused to
dispatch.

The Queen became explosively angry. Public opinion was roused
too, for the country realized that Gordon was in grave danger. It was
not, however, until September that Gladstone at last asked the House
for a grant of £300,000 for the rescue of General Gordon. A force of
10,000 men was assembled at Cairo under Lord Wolseley and set out
on the 1,600 mile march up the Nile to Khartoum. It took Wolseley
nearly four months to reach the town. Two days before the arrival
of the expeditionary force Khartourn fell and General Gordon,
facing the rebels as they stormed into the Palace, was killed on the
stairs.

The Queen in her wrath sent an open, unciphered telegram to the
Prime Minister, blaming him for the delay - 'all this might have been
prevented and many precious lives saved by earlier action/ Then she
took to her bed, ill with anger and distress.

The whole country was moved to grief and indignation. Gladstone
thought of resigning. As he left Downing Street to go to the House a
vast crowd in Whitehall greeted him with groans and hisses. The vote
of censure against the Government in the House was defeated by only
fourteen votes.

With Britain so preoccupied the Russians got busy again. For some
years they had been extending their dominion over Central Asia.
Now, early in 1885, shortly after the fall of Khartoum, their troops
staged an incident near the Afghan frontier and marched into
that country. It brought Russia to the gateway of India. A wave of
anger swept through Britain. No one expected Gladstone to react
vigorously. But he did. He denounced the Russians' wanton, high-
handed oppression and announced that the forces of the Empire would

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

be sent immediately to meet the threat. The Russians thereupon with-
drew.

These were not Gladstone's only problems. All through these
troubled years, ever present with him as with his predecessors, was
the Irish crisis. A heavy fall in agricultural prices in that country had
begun shortly before Gladstone took office in 1880, and in time most
Irish tenant-farmers found it impossible to go on paying their rents.
There were evictions and there were also retaliatory outrages against
the landlords. With the population almost wholly dependent on the
land, since there were scarcely any industries, and with much of the
land held by absentee landlords living in England, the hostility against
the English became increasingly acute. Hope for the solution of all
their difficulties was raised by Charles Stewart Parnell, a young Irish-
man still in his early thirties, who was a member of the House of
Commons, where he led the Irish Nationalist Party. He demanded
Home Rule for Ireland and the transfer of all the land from the land-
lords to the actual farmers, and it did not seem odd to his followers
that one who was not only a Protestant but a landlord himself, should
be their leader. His loathing of the English seemed to outweigh all
else in their eyes.

Gladstone's first step towards helping the tenants was a stop-gap
measure to compel landlords to pay compensation to the tenants they
evicted. This led to the immediate resignation of Lord Lansdowne
from the Government. The Bill was eventually passed by the Com-
mons, but it was rejected by the Lords. The Irish retaliated by applying
what came to be known as a boycott, after Captain Boycott, the agent
of Lord Erne. This method of retaliation spread rapidly and soon all
landlords' agents throughout Ireland were boycotted.

The Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Cowper, advised Gladstone that kw
and order would have to be enforced if he wanted the new Land Bill
he was preparing for the benefit of Irish tenants to be passed by Par-
liament. Gladstone was persuaded to bring in a new and severe Crimes
Bill in 1882 for a period of three years. It was, of course, hody contested
by the Irish members. Powers of obstruction in the House were at
that time unlimited. After a record sitting of nearly two frill days, the
Speaker at last, on his own responsibility, forced a vote and the Bill
was passed. Gladstone then brought in his Land Bill, known as *the

296

GLADSTONE S UNHAPPY RETURN

three Fs', because it provided fair rents for tenants, fixity of tenure, and
gave them the right to sell their holdings freely. This brought a further
resignation from the Cabinet, that of the Duke of Argyll, who was
Lord Privy Seal. He wrote to Gladstone: 'You think you have the
Cabinet behind you. I wish you had heard the talk when you went off
to see the Queen and left us mice without the cat/

Despite these fresh concessions terrorist outrages in Ireland con-
tinued, and on I2th October 1881, after a further meeting of the
Cabinet at No. 10, Parnell was arrested. Gladstone announced the
news at the Guildhall, where he had gone to receive the Freedom of
the City of London. It was received by the large audience with fren-
zied cheering. Parnell was released six months kter following his
promise to support the Land Bill and Gladstone, for his part, under-
took to remit all arrears of rent due from the Irish tenants. This led to
a still further resignation from the Cabinet - the third: this time it was
the Chief Secretary for Ireland, W. E. Forster. He was repkced by
Gladstone's nephew by marriage and Lord Harrington's brother, Lord
Frederick Cavendish.

Lord Frederick crossed to Ireland the next day and was walking
across Phoenix Park in Dublin with his Permanent Under-Secretary,
T. H. Burke, when they were set upon by terrorists and both stabbed
to death. When the news reached London late that evening and was
taken to Gladstone, who had been dining with his wife at the Austrian
Embassy, they had already left - Mrs. Gladstone to go on alone to a
party at the Admiralty, while Gladstone set out on foot on his cus-
tomary nightly errand of stopping prostitutes in the streets and urging
them to go home and adopt a more moral way of life. Mrs. Gkdstonc,
the moment she arrived at the Admiralty, was asked to return at once
to No. 10 Downing Street. There, as she entered, she was informed of
the tragedy by Gladstone's secretary. They were still standing in the
inner hall of No. 10 when the front door opened and Gkdstone walked
in. He overheard what was being said and stood there stunned, trying
to take it in; then seizing his wife's hand, he knelt with her by the front
door and they prayed together. They then drove round to see Lady-
Frederick Cavendish in Carlton House Terrace.

It was by now one o'clock in the morning. Lord Harrington was
already there. Lady Frederick has recorded in her journal that Gkdstone

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NO. IO DOWNING STBEET

*came up and almost took me in his arms, and his first words
were, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He
then said to me, "Be assured it will not be in vain." ... I said to him
as he was leaving me, "Uncle William, you must never blame your-
self for sending him." He said, "Oh no, there can be no question of
that." * The murderers were arrested and brought to justice in the
following year 1883.

One further measure of importance introduced by Gladstone during
this, his second term as Prime Minister, was the Representation of the
People Bill Its purpose was to extend the franchise by granting house-
hold suffrage to country dwellers, whereas Disraeli had granted it in
1867 to town dwellers only. The Bill was introduced in the House of
Commons on 28th February 1884 and was expected to add a further
two million voters. Gkdstone said the strength of a country is increased
in proportion to the number of capable citizens who enjoy the vote,
because they 'had a direct and energetic interest in the well-being and
the unity of the State*. He also promised to bring in as soon as possible
a further Bill for the redistribution of the constituencies. Although it
was obvious that the additional country voters would add greatly to
the strength of the Conservatives, the Lords, overwhelmingly Tory
though they were, insisted that the two Bills should be dealt with at
the same time and not separately. Lord Salisbury, regarded by many as
the leader of the Opposition since Disraeli's death, revealed that the real
concern of the Tories was that the extension of the franchise, in Ireland
at any rate, would make the most ignorant and disaffected class supreme
at the polling booth. But Gkdstone was not prepared to yield. He
started an agitation to awaken the country once again to the obstruc-
tive powers of the Lords. A monster demonstration was held in
London. Thousands of supporters of Gkdstone's Bill marched through
the streets. The issue would have to be fought out, Gkdstone decided,
at an election on the question whether the House of Lords should
survive.

This brought the Queen into immediate action. Her Majesty in-
formed the Prime Minister that the House of Lords reflected the 'true
feeling of the country* better than the House of Commons. But
Gkdstone shrugged it off, saying it was useless to argue with 'Her
Infallibility*. One member of the Cabinet, Lord Harrington, threat-

298

GLADSTONE S UNHAPPY RETURN

cned to resign; another, Joseph Chamberlain, went about making
violent speeches against the peers : this brought a further rebuke from
the Queen on the Prime Minister's inability to control his colleagues.
Gladstone ignored this too and set out on a series of 'whisde^stop'
speeches in Scotland on the lines commonly adopted at a Presidential
election in the United States. This was too much for the Queen. Her
Majesty, in Balmoral at the time, complained to her secretary, General
Ponsonby, of 'his constant speeches at every station. . . . The Queen is
utterly disgusted with his stump oratory - so unworthy of his position -
almost under her very nose.'

It was through her intervention, however, that a constitutional
crisis was finally averted. She suggested that there should be secret
negotiations between die two political parties with a view to reaching
a compromise. Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote, represent-
ing the Conservatives, came to No. 10 Downing Street to talk it over
with Gladstone, Lord Harrington, and Sir Charles Dilke, who was
President of the Local Government Board and one of the most
advanced Radicals in the Government. Gladstone's daughter Mary
records that she heard loud voices emerging from her father's room,
the loudest being those of Salisbury and Dilke: 'But Papa was ex-
tremely cheerful when he emerged.' A compromise was eventually
reached. Gladstone agreed to bring in his Redistribution Bill at once
and Salisbury agreed to withdraw further opposition in the Lords.
The Act was passed in 1885. Most of the two-member constituencies
were split up and all the remaining rotten boroughs were abolished.

The Government had not much longer to live. When die Crimes
Act came up for renewal in 1885 there were endless quarrels in the
Cabinet. Lord Spencer, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and Henry Camp-
bcll-Bannerniaii, the Chief Secretary, were insistent that it must be
renewed. Chamberlain and Dilke, on the other hand, were for con-
ciliation and suggested that Ireland should be given local self-govern-
ment, but not a separate Parliament. The majority in the Cabinet was
against this. Gladstone decided that in these circumstances some parts
at least of the Coercion Act should be renewed. Chamberlain and
Dilke instandy resigned.

When Gladstone's intentions were announced in the House
the Irish M.P.s, to get their own back, voted with the Conservatives

299

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

against the Budget and the Government was defeated by twelve
votes.

Gladstone resigned the next day. He noted in his diary that it was a
great relief to him, 'including in this sensation niy painful relations with
the Queen, who will have a like feeling.'

300

CHAPTER 29

The Home Rule Battle

THE Queen seat for Salisbury and asked him to form a new
Government. This many regarded as irregular, since his position as
Disraeli's successor had never been clearly established: in fact he shared
the leadership of the Conservative Party with Sir Stafford Northcote,
who led the Tories in the Commons.

Lord Randolph Churchill, who had formed the militant Fourth
Party consisting of only four M.P.S (one of whom was Salisbury's
nephew Arthur James Balfour) and had sniped ceaselessly at North-
cote, declared that he would not serve in the new Government unless
Northcote gave up the leadership. To this Northcote eventually agreed
and went to the House of Lords as the first Earl of Iddesleigh. He was
appointed Hrst Lord of the Treasury, but was not Prime Minister.
Salisbury took on that role, just as Chatham had done without being
Fkst Lord of the Treasury: with it Salisbury combined the office of
Foreign Secretary. Lord Randolph Churchill went to the India Office.

The Cecils had attained distinction in the reign of Elizabeth the
First when William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, was appointed her Chief

301

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Secretary. Later his son Robert, who was Chief Secretary to her
successor James the First, was made the Earl of Salisbury. But the
family had been inactive and in obscurity for nearly two centuries.
'The general mediocrity of intelligence which the family displayed,'
wrote their descendant Lady Gwendolen Cecil,1" daughter of the
Salisbury who now became Prime Minister, 'was only varied by
instances of quite exceptional stupidity' - until now.

Gladstone's personal furniture and pictures were moved out of No.
10, but Salisbury did not move in. Instead Northcote took up his
residence in the house. He arrived early: as he walked up the main
stairway he saw Gladstone descending. They greeted each other
warmly and paused to talk. More than thirty years before, Gladstone,
at that time a Conservative, had Northcote as his private secretary at
the Board of Trade. Before leaving Gladstone gave him, 'three of his
books on Homer* - it was one of Gkdstone's chief diversions to trans-
late Homer.

Northcote did not enter Parliament until 1855, His administrative
skill had already led to his being selected by Prince Albert as one of the
secretaries on the Commission in charge of the Great Exhibition of
1851. At the time of moving into No. 10 Northcote, or Iddesleigh as
he was by now, was nearly sixty-seven. He had been married for over
forty years and had ten children, seven of them sons. Though they
were all grown up (his heir was just forty) some still lived with him.
He was a gentle, quiet-tempered man, extremely efficient, but quite
unequal to meeting the conspiracies against him by the more ardent
spirits in his Party. His interest was largely centred on children, not
only his own, but the children of the poor and underprivileged: he
set up a home for them near his own country estate outside Exeter,
where he used to go and read to them from Dickens* books, which he
loved.

His stay at No. 10 was brief, for Salisbury was in office for only 227
days. His Party was in a minority in the House of Commons. In order
to obtain the support of the Irish members the new Tory Government
dropped Coercion. That at any rate was a step in the right direction.
The possibility of improving their position by a General Election was
next considered. The new register, it was felt, might benefit them. If
only the greatly increased Irish electorate, of which Salisbury had been

302

The walled garden of No. 10 Downing Street. The flower beds edging the wall were
planted by Neville Chamberlain. Beyond the wall is Horse Guards Parade. The door in
the wall was used by Churchill during the war. The Cabinet Room opens on to the
terrace from which a double flight of steps lead down to the garden.

and was

THE HOME RULE BATTLE

so openly critical, could be induced to come to their support - but the
question was how? In order to achieve this Lord Randolph Churchill
went to see ParneU. Churchill happened to be the only Englishman
Parnell trusted, largely because Churchill had himself been a rebel.
Parnell was ready to make a pact, but, with an eye to getting a better
bid from the other side, asked Gladstone what terms he was prepared
to offer. Gladstone was horrified and refused to counter-bid, although
he had already made up his mind that Home Rule was the only solution
for the Irish crisis. He had not, however, revealed this even to his
closest colleagues (apart from Lord Granville) and he refused to make
it an issue at the election.

Gladstone liked Salisbury and often stayed at Hatfield with him. He
was drawn by Salisbury's high, conscientious principles, but there their
closeness ended. Churchill, on the other hand, he wholly mistrusted.
He felt that, like Disraeli, who had snatched the leadership of the
Conservative Party from Peel, so now Churchill, having disposed of
Northcote, was trying to take it away from Salisbury, by campaigning
nebulously for a 'Tory democracy': this Gladstone described as 'dema-
gogism not ennobled by love and appreciation of liberty, but applied
in the worst way to put down the pacific, law-respecting, economic
elements which ennobled the old Conservatism.' Salisbury, for his
part, was determined not to give Churchill that chance. He showed
patience and strove to smooth out his mutinous outbursts both inside
and out of the Cabinet. The Queen, who seemed to be fully informed
of what was going on, also took a hand in this. She wrote indignantly
that 'the youngest member of the Cabinet must not be allowed to
dictate to the others. It will not do and Lord Salisbury must really put
his foot down.' After a time the mutiny was effectively crushed.

The General Election, held in November 1885, gave the Liberals a
majority. But so long as the Tories were able to work with the Irish
(who now numbered eighty-six), the two sides were equally balanced.
The position in the House was thus a dead heat. Salisbury nevertheless
decided to carry on.

In December, at a Cabinet meeting at No. 10, Lord Carnarvon,
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, pleaded that Ireland should be given
Home Rule. This startled the Conservatives and it was rejected - all
the others voted against it.

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Unaware of this, Gkdstone decided on the very next day to approach
Salisbury with precisely the same suggestion. Without consulting his
colleagues, he set out for the Duke of Westminster's country house,
where he had learned Salisbury was staying. There he found a large
house party. He took Salisbury's nephew Arthur Balfour aside and
told him that, unless Home Rule was given to Ireland at once, the
violence and the assassinations would spread not only in Ireland but
also in England. He offered to support Salisbury wholeheartedly if he
brought in Home Rule: there should be no party conflict on this. It
was discussed later by Salisbury's Cabinet and was once again rejected.
They merely saw in it a plot by Gkdstone to split the Conservative
Party.

Gkdstone was in fact faced with the eventual disruption of his own
Party. So far it had only been whispered that he was in favour of Home
Rule. When the facts emerged, through interviews given to the Press
by Gladstone's son Herbert, the storm burst. Harrington publicly
announced his opposition to Home Rule. Chamberlain and John
Bright were also opposed to it. Soon there were still other objectors.
When the House met and the Tory leader, Sir Michael Hides-Beach,
gave notice of Salisbury's intention to introduce a new Coercion Act,
Gladstone rose and announced that he was going to turn the Govern-
ment out at once. 'Are you prepared to go forward without Harring-
ton and Chamberlain?' he was asked privately. 'Yes,' he replied. 'I am
prepared to go forward without anybody.* He acted on it that same
night and in the small hours the Government was defeated by 74 votes.

Salisbury resigned the next day, 28th January 1886, and Gladstone,
now aged seventy-six, was asked by the Queen to form a new Govern-
ment. Her Majesty had told her secretary Ponsonby : 'She does not in
the least care, but rather wishes it should be known that she had the
greatest possible disinclination to take this half crazy and really in many
ways ridiculous old man - for the sake of the country.'

It was Gkdstone's third term as Prime Minister and, as it turned
out, it did not kst any longer than Salisbury's first - a mere six months.
The revolt in his Party had already begun. Eighteen Liberals, including
Lord Harrington, voted with the Conservatives, and it was impossible
to see how far this revolt would spread. With the selection of his Cab-
inet the schism became clearer. In addition to Hartingon and John

304

THE HOME RULE BATTLE

Bright, Lord Northbrook, Lord Sdbourne, Lord Carlingford and the
Duke of Argyll also refused to serve. This represented in effect the
break away of the old Whig families who had once dominated
the progressive political group. One by one they drifted now. into
the Conservative camp. Lord Granville, however, remained loyal and
Gkdstone also had the support, a little reluctantly, of Lord Rosebery,
Lord Spencer (whose name had once been associated with repression
and coercion) and Lord Ripon, the son of a previous Prime Minister,
Viscount Goderich, 'Prosperity Robinson'. Joseph Chamberlain agreed
to take office, though he made it clear that he would have preferred
'a more limited scheme of local government* in Ireland. His friend Sir
George Trevdyan joined the Cabinet with the same reservation. Sir
Charles Dilke, who had just become involved in an unsavoury divorce
case and had been advised by friends to flee the country because of the
possibility of prosecution for perjury, was unable to serve.

But despite these recurrent stresses, the abuse and ridicule hurled at
him publicly, the Queen's continuing displeasure, and his advanced
age, Gkdstone faced with resolve and in excellent spirits the adjust-
ment he planned to put through. It was evident, of course, though
possibly not to him, that even if he succeeded in getting the Commons
to accept Home Rule for Ireland, the Lords would certainly reject it,
and many of those still loyal to him in the Party dreaded forcing a
constitutional crisis between the two Houses on an issue that was not
likely to be popular. Gladstone was almost ostracized in society.
Dighton Probyn, V.C., a member of the Prince of Wales's Household,
wrote to the Queen s Secretary, General Ponsonby : 'Don't talk to me
about Gkdstone. I pray to God that he may be shut up as a lunatic
at once, and thus save the Empire from the Destruction which he is
leading her to. If he is not mad, he is a Traitor/

Gkdstone still clung to the hope of winning Salisbury's support on
Home Rule for Ireland since it was a necessity that conscience must
concede and Salisbury was a conscientious man. But this he did not
get. Nor was he able to hold the Radicals under Joseph Chamberlain,
despite the fact that Chamberlain had come into the Government.
Obsessed as he was with Ireland, Gkdstone ignored their persistent
demand for social reforms at home. With these he was certainly in
sympathy, but he disliked Chamberlain and when the latter resigned

305

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

two months later, Gkdstone told Lord Rosebery, ids loyal Foreign
Secretary, that nothing that had happened since the Government was
formed had given him comparable satisfaction."1 This resignation
occurred when details of Gladstone's Home Rule plan were finally
unfolded to the Cabinet. Chamberlain rose immediately from the
table and, accompanied by his friend Trevelyan, 'stalked out of the
Cabinet room'. Gkdstone made no effort to call them back or even to
question them.

A few days kter, when Gkdstone left No. 10 to drive to the Houses
of Parliament, the rain was falling in torrents: nevertheless a large
crowd, sodden but with their enthusiasm undamped, cheered him
lustily as he went past. In the House itself the scene is described by
contemporary observers as without parallel in living memory. Never
before was it seen to be so crowded. Extra chairs and benches had been
brought in and occupied every inch of floor space. Gkdstone's daughter
Mary, who sat with her mother and sisters in the gallery beside Lady
Frederick Cavendish, wrote in her diary that 'the air tingled with
excitement and emotion'. When Gkdstone entered the Chamber at
4.30 his supporters rose and greeted him with tremendous appkuse.
He spoke for three and a half hours. Home Rule, he pointed out,
would not destroy the Empire, but would preserve and strengthen the
bonds. Parliament in London, where Irish members would no longer
be sitting, would still have control of foreign policy, defence, customs
and excise, coinage, and so on. As far as Ulster was concerned, 'the
Protestant minority should have its wishes considered to the utmost
practicable extent/

The debate went on for two months. The Bill was attacked by
Chamberlain, Lord Harrington and others. Randolph Churchill
declared bluntly that 'Ulster would fight'. Even the Irish did not like
the Bill entirely.

Chamberlain, calling a meeting of those Liberals who were against
their leader, mustered as many as fifty-five. John Bright, unable to
come, sent a letter to say that he would vote against the Bill. It was
surrender, he said - that word again: Gkdstone had been accused of
surrender in the Sudan, in the Transvaal and elsewhere.

When the vote was taken at one o'clock in the morning, ninety-
three Liberals voted against it. But despite this enormous defection of

306

THE HOME RULE BATTLE

his followers, there were 313 for and 343 against - an adverse majority
of only thirty. At the Cabinet meeting next morning, though pale and
bent, Gladstone remained undaunted. He dismissed abruptly the
suggestion that he should resign. He had decided to appeal to the
country, he said, and the Queen was asked to dissolve Parliament.

During the election Lord Randolph Churchill attacked him savagely.
*Mr. Gladstone has reserved for his closing days a conspiracy against
the honour of Britain and the welfare of Ireland, more startHngly
base than any of those other numerous designs and plots which, during
the last quarter of a century, have occupied his imagination/ He called
the design for the separation of Ireland from Britain *this monstrous
mixture of imbecility, extravagance, and political hysterics . . . the
united genius of Bedlam and Cohiey Hatch would strive in vain to
produce a more striking issue of absurdities/

Gladstone suffered a shattering defeat. The Conservatives got 316
seats; with them were 78 Liberal Unionists under Chamberlain. The
Gkdstone Liberals numbered 191 and even with the 85 Irish National-
ists, they were in a minority of 118 in the House of Commons.

The Queen was delighted to receive his resignation and sent for
Lord Salisbury, who asked Lord Harrington, the seceding Liberal, to
take over the office of Prime Minister, but he declined. So Salisbury
formed his second administration in July 1886, a wholly Conservative
Government, and was to remain in office for just over six years. Lord
Randolph Churchill was rewarded for his invective by being appointed
Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons.

307

CHAPTER 30

W. H. Smith Moves in

LORD IDDESLEIGH (formerly Sir Stafford Northcote) was
appointed Foreign Secretary in Salisbury's new Administration, a
notable honour, for it was an office to which Salisbury himself had been
very much attached and which he had retained during his previous
term as Prime Minister.

Thus once more, as Gkdstone vacated No. 10, Iddesleigh moved in,
but he did not retain the office for long. He resigned in the following
January, after only six months as Foreign Secretary, and at the same
time gave up the house. He retired to his home in the country while
Salisbury went back to the Foreign Office. Salisbury, though Prime
Minister, was once again not First Lord of the Treasury.

Four days after retiring, Iddesleigh came up from Exeter to see
Salisbury. He called at the Foreign Office first, then walked across
Downing Street to No. 10. But he did not get as far as the Cabinet
room, which, like his predecessors, Salisbury used as his office, but,
feeling very ill as he reached the ante-room, he sank into a chair. They
found him breathing with great difficulty. He never spoke again and
died during the course of the afternoon.

308

W. H. SMITH MOVES IN

The house was not left empty. Salisbury continued to live in his
town house in Arlington Street, going to the famous family residence
at Hatfield for the weekends. But in Iddesleigh's place on the other
floors there was a new tenant, unlike, either by birth or background,
any other who had ever lived there. The new tenant was W. H. Smith,
whose name is seen today outside bookstalls throughout Britain. He
was the son of a modest newsagent, who to begin with had just a
small shop in the Strand above which Smith was born in 1825. He was
thus sixty-one years old when he moved into No. 10.

Actually W. H. Smith got into No. 10 following a row with Lord
Randolph Churchill. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Churchill was
resolved on imposing the most severe economies. He declared that
the Army and Navy estimates were too high and insisted on drastic
pruning, though in fact the combined estimates for the two Services
were lower than they had been the year before. Smith, as Secretary for
War, thought it imprudent to prune the Army estimates any further,
and Churchill asked the Prime Minister for an interview. On I5th
December 1886 Salisbury wrote to him: 'My dear Randolph - I will
be in Downing Street at half past three. I have got to go to Windsor
at a quarter to five. . . .

*The Cabinet, happily, not I, will have to decide the controversy
between you and Smith. But it will be a serious responsibility to refuse
the demands of a War Minister so little imaginative as Smith, especi-
ally at such a time. It was curious that, two days ago, I was listening
here to the most indignant denunciations of Smith for his economy -
from Wolseley* - I am rather surprised at G. Hamiltonf being able
to reduce so much. I hope it is all right.'

Churchill, at the interview, insisted that Smith would have to give
way and refused to allow the Cabinet to decide. Smith, who had been
savagely attacked earlier by Churchill and his Fourth Party, took a
strong line too. His comment to Salisbury was: 'It comes to this - is
he to be the Government? If you are willing that he should be, I shall
be delighted, but I could not go on on such conditions.'

A few days later Churchill resigned. His letter was brought by a
special messenger, who arrived at Hatfield by the midnight train. A

* Lord Wolseley, formerly Sir Garnet Wolseley.

t Lord George Hamilton, first Lord of the Admiralty.

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ball was in progress. Lord Salisbury was seated beside Princess Mary
the Duchess of Teck and her pretty daughter Princess May, later
Queen Mary, the consort of King George the Fifth. Salisbury glanced
at the letter and continued his conversation with his guests. Lord
Randolph Churchill, who had felt that his resignation would bring
down the Government, had already sent the news to The Times. He
was only thirty-seven, but it was in effect the end of what might have
been a remarkable political career. The quarrel with W. H. Smith was
the culmination of a series of rows Churchill had with the Cabinet.
His leaving led to a reconstruction of the Government. It was as a
result of this that Iddesleigh went out and Salisbury took on the
Foreign Office.

W. H. Smith profited greatly from Churchill's departure. Not only
did he succeed him as Leader of the House of Commons, but he was
also appointed Fkst Lord of the Treasury, a position normally held by
the Prime Minister, with Chatham and Salisbury as the only exceptions
in the long history of that office.

Smith had entered politics rather late in life. He did not get into the
House of Commons until he was forty-three. He was not an orator.
Indeed no one could pretend that he had any discernible talent, save
as a businessman. The acumen that had prompted his father to set up
bookstalls in railway stations and expand his newsagency into the vast
organization of W. H. Smith the son had inherited in ample measure,
as well of course as the wealth that was derived from it. It opened
many doors to him. Disraeli appointed him Secretary to the Treasury
within six years of his entering the House. Three years kter he was in
the Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty: at that time Russia was at
war with Turkey and Smith had to send the British fleet to Constan-
tinople. He married a widow named Mrs. Benjamin Leach, who
already had a growing family, and from her had a number of sons and
daughters. His eldest son, not quite eighteen when they moved into
No. 10, rowed for Oxford in the Varsity Boat Race during the period
of their stay in this house.

W. H. Smith was a Methodist like his father. He had wanted to take
holy orders, but his father, though deeply religious and so high-
minded that he refused to allow any book or periodical to be sold at
his bookstalls if he thought it coarse or corruptive, insisted that the

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boy, his only son, should go into the business. This he did, and when
he came of age the 'Son* was added to the sign outside the bookstalls.
It was not until after his father's death in 1 865 that he entered the House
of Commons. He had by now joined the Church of England and his
entire political life was guided by his high principles. The Queen
thought his character admirable, but others, both in his Party and in
Gladstone's, referred to him as 'Old Morality* without, however, any
hint of disrespect.

A year before he moved into Downing Street the Queen suggested
to Lord Salisbury that he might be given the Grand Cross of the Order
of the Bath, but with the greatest humility Smith declined it, saying,
as Lord Salisbury informed Her Majesty, that 'in his peculiar position
with respect to his extraction and the original avocation of his family',
he would prefer not to accept it since such an honour was not normally
given to 'men of his social standing'.

He wrote to the Queen every night from No. 10 when Parliament
was in session, telling her of what went on during the day, of the
attacks made upon him by the Irish Members, never omitting to work
in vivid descriptions of Gkdstone's violent gesticulations and excited
harangues.

He worked unflaggingly and in less than two years was utterly worn
out. Yet he refused to give in. 'I am very weary/ he wrote to his
daughter, 'but I must go on doing my daily work as best I can, looking
for guidance and wisdom where alone it can be had, until my rest
comes. I hope it is not wrong to long for it.'"7 A year or so kter he
was given the coveted post of Warden of the Cinque Ports and went
down from time to time during the recess to Walmer Castle for a
brief respite. It was here that he died in October 1891 in the historic
setting where Pitt and Wellington had once lived. His widow was
given a Viscountcy and became Viscountess Hambledon: the title
passed to her son after her death.

In all he and his family used No. 10 as their London home for four
and a half years. He had been second-in-command for the whole of
that period and had he lived might possibly have been Salisbury's
successor, but that would not have occurred until 1902, by which time
W. H. Smith would have been close on eighty years old. Salisbury
spoke of him as a 'most lovable man* and used to say that Smith, more

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than any other man he knew, had shown that character was the most
essential equipment for public life. Smith was succeeded as Leader of
the Commons by Salisbury's nephew Arthur James Balfour, who in the
course of time became Prime Minister. But, though he had to wait
nearly eleven years for that, he was appointed First Lord of the Treas-
ury at once and soon moved into No. 10 Downing Street. He took
with him his grand piano on which he often played in his small study
on the first floor when alone in the evenings. Two of his favourite
pictures by Burne-Jones were hung in the State dining-room and a
high desk was brought into the Cabinet room for his use and placed
near the window.

Balfour was forty-three and still a bachelor, which indeed he
remained throughout his life. Through the influence of his uncle he
had come into politics at the age of twenty-six, and four years later,
in 1878, he accompanied Disraeli and his uncle to the memorable
Congress of Berlin as Lord Salisbury's private secretary. At this stage
of his life his interest in politics appeared to be somewhat detached: it
was no more than taking a hand in the running of a family estate. His
main interests were scholarly and social. After Eton and Cambridge
he entered the world of intellectuals with his book Defence of Philosophic
Doubt, which displayed a subtlety of thought and a literary gift that
won him the highest praise. Li physique he was delicate, in manner
languid: a refined indolence, coupled with an air of cynical superiority,
led to his being regarded as zfl&neur. He joined the select coterie of
wits known as 'The Souls', displayed a passion for music, played
tennis and golf, and plunged wholeheartedly into the diversions of
his set. It is surprising that in politics nobody, apart from his uncle, took
him at all seriously. That he should have joined Lord Randolph
Churchill's Fourth Party caused a certain uneasiness, but he took no
part in the wild sallies of the other three in the group and was generally
regarded as the odd man out.

Until his uncle became Prime Minister in the summer of 1885 he
was regarded in Parliament as a dilettante. Then quite suddenly, and
unexpectedly, he was given office. Salisbury made him President of the
Local Government Board. It will be recalled that Salisbury's first term
of office lasted only six months, but on his return the following sum-
mer, Balfour was given a seat in the Cabinet as Secretary for Scotland;

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W. H. SMITH MOVES IN

and shortly afterwards he was given the trying and extremely difficult
post of Chief Secretary for Ireland. The appointment was received by
the Irish Nationalists with contemptuous ridicule, but Balfour, still in
his thirties, soon proved himself to be an extremely able administrator.
He showed strength and courage and handled Irish problems with
remorseless vigour. He enforced coercion, but at the same time
endeavoured to remedy some of the more glaring injustices, displaying
a calm indifference to the carping both of the Irish and of the Gkdstone
group of Liberals. He was greatly helped by the downfall of Parnell in
1890 and the eventual disruption of his followers after the scandalous
disclosures in the divorce case brought by Captain W. H. O'Shea,
which established that Parnell, the Leader of his Party, had been
carrying on an adulterous intrigue with Mrs. O'Shea for more than
eight years and had had three children by her.

Balfour became Leader of the House of Commons in succession to
W. H. Smith in 1891, and his prestige had risen sufficiently to command
the respect of the House. Salisbury's six years in office were marked
by an expansionist imperial policy, particularly in Africa, where
Nigeria and the Gold Coast on one side of that continent and Kenya
and Uganda as well as Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland
and Bechuanaland on the other, were added to the British Empire.
This was Britain's share in the general scramble by European nations -
particularly France, Germany and Belgium and in a lesser degree
Portugal and Italy - for territory in Africa. Britain was first in the
field, having acquired scattered settlements in the preceding century,
but Salisbury realized: 'It was impossible that England should have the
right to loci: up the whole of Africa and say that nobody should be
there except herself.' The German Kaiser, Wilhelm the Second, who
was Queen Victoria's grandson and was to pky a notable part in the
outbreak of the First World War in 1914, looked askance at some of
the recent annexations. In order to placate him and also to win his
recognition of Zanzibar as a protectorate, Salisbury offered him the
island of Heligoland at the mouth of the Kiel Canal. The Kaiser was
delighted, but Queen Victoria was not. Angrily she wrote at once to
-Salisbury: It is a very bad precedent. The next thing will be to pro-
pose to give up Gibraltar'; and again two days later: 'That any of my
possessions should thus be bartered away causes me great uneasiness/

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The life of Parliament was still limited by the Septennial Act passed
in 1716, 175 years before, and the seven years were by now running
out. The immense majority with which Salisbury had taken office
from Gladstone after the General Election of 1886 had been reduced
in a succession of by-elections and Gladstone, though over eighty but
still vigorously hacking down trees at Hawarden, was convinced that
he would return to power when the next election was held. So certain
was he of this that he lived only in rented houses or with friends in
London, saying that he would soon be back at No. 10 Downing Street.
Those who thought he was too old to take office again were kughed at
scornfully by Gladstone's wife, who said her husband would be guilty
of a breach of trust if he failed the country when the call came.

In the summer of 1892 Salisbury realized that the General Election
could no longer be delayed. On 2pth June Parliament was dissolved
The Queen was extremely pessimistic. She regarded the return of this
'deluded excited man of 82' as quite ludicrous. Gladstone's Party was
in fact victorious. The results gave his Liberals 273 seats, and with him
were 81 Irish Nationalists and one Labour member Keir Hardie, the
Scottish miner, who shocked the House by arriving in a doth cap,
while tie Liberal Unionists (the opponents of Home Rule) got only
46 seats and the Conservatives were reduced to 269. Gladstone's
majority was thus 40, but for it he was dependent of course on the
Irish vote.

When Parliament met on nth August 1892, Mr. H. H. Asquith, a
young Liberal M.P. elected for the first time six years before, moved a
vote of no confidence in the Conservative Government. Salisbury was
defeated and Gkdstone became Prime Minister for the fourth time. Her
Majesty's terse note to him ended with the words: 'The Queen need
scarcely add that she trusts that Mr. Gkdstone and his friends will
continue to maintain and to promote the honour and welfare of her
great Empire/

Mr. Balfour wrote his kst letter from No. 10 on the day the Govern-
ment was defeated. When he moved out Gkdstone moved in, bringing
once again some of his own furniture and his piano. He was not, how-
ever, satisfied with the furniture already there. Only twelve years
before, on his insistence, the State had spent as much as ^1,555 on
bringing in special furniture for him; an official note to the Treasury

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W. H. SMITH MOVES IN

explains that it 'became necessary' on his return now in 1892 'to incur
considerable expenditure for which no official provision had been
made in the Vote for Public Buildings' and that it was done 'in antici-
pation of formal authority, because they were all more or less inevit-
able under the new conditions of occupation' which brought 'into use
rooms previously not required* and for 'the making of sundry altera-
tions which were needed to obviate inconvenience from the new
distribution of the accommodation*. For these 'renovations' at No. 10
the cost was ^35^> for 'sanitary works' a further ^84, for 'new
works' £481 and for furniture ^858 - a total of £1,779. This was
eventually authorized and paid for by the State.

With one at any rate of Gladstone's new Cabinet appointments Her
Majesty was pleased. Lord Rosebery, who had been Foreign Secretary
for four months in Gladstone's previous Administration, was given
that office again. Two others in the new Cabinet - Asquith and Camp-
bell-Bannerman - were, like Rosebery, to be Prime Ministers and to
live at No. 10. From then on in fact, save only for Salisbury's final term
of office from 1895 to 1902, all Prime Ministers have resided at No. 10.

When Gladstone went to see the Queen she found it trying to
have him sit dose to her because he was so deaf. She noted that he had 'a
weird look in his eyes, a feeble expression about the mouth'. She felt he
was 'no longer fitted to be at the head of a Government'. Gladstone's
analysis of her (the Queen was now seventy-four) was just as unfavour-
able. He found that 'her intellect' had 'grown sluggish and her judge-
ment was impaired'. He got the impression, he said afterwards, that it
was the sort of talk that Marie Antoinette might have had with her
executioner at the guillotine.

Without any delay Gladstone set to work on the Irish Home Rule
Bill. He knew the Queen was violently opposed to it, but he went
ahead just the same. It occupied a great deal of his time: he spent hours
every day on the draft and it was discussed again and again by the
Cabinet committee set up for the purpose. By January it was ready. The
full Cabinet, consisting now of seventeen members, then examined it
and on isth February 1893 it was presented to the House of Commons.
Gladstone spoke for two and a half hours. Winston Churchill, then only
eighteen, was in the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery when some days
kter Gladstone, speaking again, wound up the debate on the Second

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Reading of the Bill. "The Grand Old Man', Churchill has recorded,
'looked like a great white eagle, at once fierce and splendid. His
sentences rolled forth majestically and everyone hung upon his lips and
gestures, eager to cheer or deride. He was at the climax of a tremendous
passage about how the Liberal Party had always carried every cause it
had espoused to victory. He made a slip, "And there is no cause," he
exclaimed "for which the Liberal Party have suffered so much or
descended so low." How the Tories leapt and roared with delight! But
Mr. Gladstone, shaking his right hand with fingers spread daw-like,
quelled the tumult and resumed, "But we have risen again." '"8

The Second Reading was carried by 347 votes to 304. Then the House
went into committee and the Prime Minister, tireless as ever, took
personal charge, making speeches on almost every amendment and
hardly ever leaving the House. Apart from Lord Randolph Churchill,
still his most vehement critic, Gladstone's truly formidable opponent
was Joseph Chamberlain, who was joined now by his son Austen, only
recently elected to Parliament. The debates got heated. There was often
an uproar. Blows were exchanged between Members. But Gladstone
went doggedly on. All through that summer Parliament was kept in
session. Randolph Churchill confessed later his warm admiration for
the old man. But for Home Rule, 'which I can never countenance/ he
said, he would have been prepared gladly to give up the Conservative
Party and Lord Salisbury to join Gladstone.

In September in the final vote, the Bill was passed by the House of
Commons with a majority of 40. In the Upper House Lord Harrington,
once a member of Gladstone's Government and now the Duke of
Devonshire, moved the rejection of the Bill, with the ardent support of
Lord Salisbury. The Lords threw it out by a crushing majority - 41 for,
419 against.

At a Cabinet meeting at No. 10 Gladstone announced that he was
going to dissolve Parliament and have an immediate election on the
issue 'Peers versus the People'. That was the conflict at the time of
the Reform Bill sixty years earlier and it was to be fought out again
in a dozen years or so. But his colleagues refused now to support him
in this and Gladstone agreed finally to bide his time, aware that there
would be a further dash with the Lords shortly.

A quarrel with his colleagues developed, however, shortly afterwards

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W. H. SMITH MOVES IN

- this time over the Naval estimates. In view of the continuous increase
in armaments by foreign powers, public opinion was disturbed and so
was the Queen. The Opposition called for an immediate expansion of
the Navy. Gladstone thought the alarm was unnecessary. But his Cabi-
net took a different view. Gladstone refused firmly to give way. Day
after day they argued. On one occasion he talked to the Cabinet for a
full hour.

It was noticed by his friends that a great change had come over
Gladstone. His private life at No. 10 was by now completely dominated
by his wife and his family. They told him what he should or should not
do. 'Mr. G.', his secretary Sir Algernon "West wailed, 'was becoming
more and more the mere tool in Mrs. G's hands, and she was less and
less scrupulous about plans. If she wanted Mr. G. to go away, he went
regardless of all public calls/ At times he acted strangely. He would
suddenly and without any warning get down on his knees to say his
prayers even when there were others in the room. On one occasion,
after glancing about him, he sent Lord Ripon, who was a Roman
Catholic, and John Morley, an agnostic, out of the room before
beginning his prayers.

The following January (1894) he left for Biarritz with his wife and a
party of friends. On his return a month later he gave a dinner at No. 10
for the Cabinet.* His colleagues expected him to announce his resigna-
tion, but he said nothing. When the dinner was over Rosebery asked if
he would like the doors locked. Gladstone said: 'Certainly. If anyone
has any topic to raise, it might be done now.' He glanced about him but
no one spoke. It was not until a fortnight later that he wrote to the
Queen to say that he was thinking of resigning. He saw her the next day
and was grieved to find her 'at the highest point of her cheerfulness*.
He left, however, without resigning.

On ist March he assembled his Cabinet and at last informed them of
his .intention. They were prepared for it; indeed Sir William Harcourt,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pulled out of his pocket the manu-
script of his farewell speech and began to deliver it. Many dabbed their
eyes. Gladstone, replying, spoke for only four minutes. Then he rose
and saying 'God bless you all' went out of the room. The others trooped

* On iyth February 1894.

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

out through a different door, walked slowly down the long corridor
and out into Downing Street. Gladstone spoke of it as *a really moving
scene' and of his colleagues as 'that blubbering Cabinet'.

His parting from the Queen at Windsor was so cold and cruel that it
remained a smarting wound in his memory until he died. Not one word
of appreciation was said by her of his many years of devoted and self-
sacrificing service. She did not even consult him about his successor, but
sent for Lord Rosebery, merely because she had always liked him and
greatly preferred him to the others.

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CHAPTER 31
The Boer War

ROSEBERY, the fifth earl, belonged to the old aristocracy. His
mother, Lady Catherine Stanhope, was the daughter of the fourth Earl
Stanhope and through her Rosebery was related to the Pitts and the
Grenvilles. He did not distinguish himself at Eton (his tutor described
him as 'one of those who seek the palm without the dust') and he was
sent down from Christ Church at Oxford because he made his interest
in racehorses a part of his official curriculum. As early as 1868, when he
was twenty-one, he inherited the earldom and took his seat in the House
of Lords. His marriage to Hannah, the daughter of Baron Meyer de
Rothschild, brought him an immense fortune, which helped consider-
ably in the furtherance of his political career.

As Lord-Lieutenant of Midlothian and responsible for Gladstone's
adoption by the constituency, Lord Rosebery was in constant contact
with the Leader of his Party and inevitably a dose attachment followed.
Gladstone appointed him Under-Secretary at the Home Office in 1880
and later Lord Privy Seal. He was Foreign Secretary in two of Glad-
stone's Administrations and was in that office at the time of Gladstone's
resignation.

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

When the Queen appointed him Prime Minister he was compara-
tively young, only forty-seven. He did not move into No. 10 at once,
but stayed on in his luxurious house in Berkeley Square, selecting,
however, just one room on the first floor at No. 10 Downing Street,
which was furnished as a bedroom and used occasionally. Some months
later, in January 1895, while his own house was under repair, he moved
in completely. But after five months he had to move out again, for his
term as Prime Minister was brief - fifteen months in all. Friends
consoled him with the reminder that Disraeli's first Premiership lasted
only ten months. But Rosebery never returned.

From the outset, in fact before he had even formed his Government,
Rosebery had trouble with some members of his Party. On the very
first day after his appointment, he wrote to the Queen's Secretary,
General Ponsonby: 'Things are not going very well. One or two of
my colleagues in the Commons are endeavouring to impose conditions
upon me - one of which is that the new Foreign Minister shall be in the
House of Commons. I have refused to submit to any conditions not
ordinarily imposed on a Prime Minister. I don't want to be Prime
Minister at all, but if I am to be, I must be a real one/ On 4th March
1894 he wrote to Arthur Godley, who had been private secretary to
Gladstone: 1 do not think I shall like any of the duties of my new
position. Patronage is odious: ecclesiastical patronage distressing.'12*

Much of the trouble was caused by the Queen's arbitrary action in
selecting Rosebery. Sir William Harcourt felt that the succession should
have been his because of his position as Leader of the House of Com-
mons and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Had Gladstone been consulted
his recommendation would have ignored both Rosebery and Harcourt
and the dissensions might conceivably have been more acute.

At a Party meeting, held at the Foreign Office on I2th March,
Rosebery made it clear that 'we stand where we did. There is no change
in measures.* That meant that he was going on with Home Rule for
Ireland. But the next day CampbeU-Bannerman, the Secretary for
War, rushed round to inform him that the Government had been
defeated by eight votes in the Commons during a debate on the
Queen's Speech when Labouchere, a Radical and a Republican, moved
an amendment practically abolishing the House of Lords.

Rosebery had always been interested in the reform of the House of

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THE BOER WAR

Lords, but not its abolition. He wanted a small Upper House, consisting
of elected peers and life peers, together with, representatives sent from
the Dominions. Time after time he had brought this up, but without
success. Now he decided to act. He sent the Queen, who was in
Florence, an elaborate memorandum on this and followed it up with a
speech at Bradford in which he foreshadowed a 'revision of the con-
stitution*. The Queen was indignant and sent him a sharp rebuke. She
also wrote to the Leader of the Opposition, Lord Salisbury, to ask if his
Party was ready to face a General Election. Salisbury assured her that it
was and added that he was always ready to give her his opinions on any
questions she wished to ask him. It is interesting to recall that Melbourne
at the beginning of her reign, anxious though he was to help the young
and inexperienced Queen, thought it unconstitutional to advise her
after he had ceased to be Prime Minister. Discussing her anxieties about
the Lords with Rosebery later in the year, the Queen was bluntly
told that if Her Majesty would prefer it, he -tfas quite prepared to
go, but Rosebery warned her that nearly half his Cabinet were in
favour of a single Chamber and were fully supported in this by
the more prominent members of his Party. The Queen thought it
more prudent not to force the issue.

The Cabinet too were anxious not to force the issue. They felt that
the Lords should be given every opportunity of showing the country
how obstructive they could be. With this in mind, a series of measures
were prepared that their lordships could be relied upon to reject. This
policy, called 'filling the cup', went on until June 1895. While the
Government's hopes rose at the approaching possibility of success, the
Opposition anticipated it by forcing a snap division on what seemed a
relatively trivial matter, namely the supply of cordite ammunition kept
in reserve in the country. The Government was defeated and Rosebery
resigned.

He was glad to go, for Harcourt had been a constant thorn in his
flesh- 'bitterly hostile' was how Rosebery described him to the Queen.
With Harcourt were other Cabinet colleagues ('a small but powerful
section' to whom he had to speak very strongly from time to
time for taking a different line from his in the House of Commons.
Their support was most noticeably lacking in foreign and colonial
affairs, for they regarded Rosebery as an imperialist. There was an early

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

divergence of opinion over France. Rosebery felt that the threat to
India was as great from the French in the east as from the Russians in the
north-west and he wanted Siam to form a substantial buffer between
the British in Burma and the French possessions in Indo-China. He also
viewed with concern the French encroachments in Africa - on the
Niger and towards the Nile headwaters. Others in the Cabinet,
however, felt that the British Empire was quite large enough and
should not be extended any further. But Rosebery insisted that the time-
honoured balance of power still had to be observed, only the balance had
now to be maintained over a much wider area.

The strain of these heated arguments in the Cabinet room eventually
wore him down. He was sleeping badly. He confided to John Morley,
the Chief Secretary for Ireland, that he ought to have allowed Harcourt
to try and form a Government when Gladstone resigned. A pleasing
consolation came in June when his colt Sir Visto won the Derby - it
was his second successive win, for Ladas had won it for him the year
before.

The workmen were stillin his house in Berkeley Square and it was not
yet habitable when he had to leave No. 10. But his furniture was never-
theless taken there. He 'dressed in the caverns of Berkeley Square' he tells
us ; but the farewell dinner to his friends was given at the Reform Club.
In the House of Lords a few days later he fired a parting salvo. 'God
forbid', he said, 'that such causes as Home Rule should be forgotten; but
with the present Upper Chamber these could never be carried through.'
He ended with a call for 'the annihilation of the House of Lords',
which their lordships surprisingly greeted with frantic cheers.

The Queen sent for Salisbury, now in his sixty-sixth year. It was his
third and last term as Prime Minister and it lasted for more than seven
years, extending across the end of the century until July 1902. Once
again he refused to be First Lord of the Treasury or to live at No. 10.
Both the office and the house were taken over again by his nephew A. J.
Balfour, who also took on the role of Leader of the House of Commons.
The General Election in July (1895) brought a great victory for the
Conservatives and the Liberal Unionists, who now worked in close
alliance; they were returned with a majority of 152. The new Cabinet
accordingly included both Parties. The Duke of Devonshire (formerly
Harrington) was Lord President of the Council, Joseph Chamberlain

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was given the Colonial Office, while Salisbury again took the Foreign
Office himself. Lord Randolph Churchill had died earlier that year.
Gladstone was to live for two years longer. Balfour paid a courtesy call
on the Grand Old Man in 1896, travelling from the railway station to
Hawarden on a bicycle. Gladstone was shocked. He thought it 'un-
befitting' that the First Lord of the Treasury should use a 'bike'.130

In the brief span of two years Britain was very near to becoming
involved in four separate wars, each of them with a major power. The
supremely skilful handling of each of these sucessive crises stands to the
great credit of Salisbury and to some extent also of Balfour.

The first of these nearly led to a fresh war with the United States of
America - oddly over the demarcation of the frontier between Vene-
zuela and British Guiana. Salisbury suggested that the dispute should go
to arbitration. But quite unexpectedly President Cleveland of the
United States asked Congress to appoint a boundary commission,
whose findings, he declared, would be enforced by arms if necessary.
War seemed extremely likely. Had it come, just as it nearly did during
the American Civil War, it would have been the third war between the
two countries, if one includes the War of Independence, in the course of
little more than a century. Balfour, in a speech at Manchester in January
1896, said: "The idea of war with the United States carries with it some
of the unnatural horror of a civil war. . . . The time will come, the time
must come, when someone, some statesman of authority . . . will lay
down the doctrine that between English-speaking peoples war is
impossible/ The crisis passed. The dispute was eventually settled by
arbitration, as Salisbury had initially suggested.

The second of these narrowly averted wars would have been between
Britain and Germany. Dr. Jameson, the British Administrator in
Rhodesia, led six hundred men in a raid on the Boer territory of
Transvaal. The force was captured by President Kruger's men and
handed over to Britain for punishment. After a trial in London,
Jameson was sentenced to fifteen months imprisonment in Holloway.
The Kaiser sent a congratulatory telegram to Kruger and offered to
send German troops to protect the Transvaal The Queen, the news-
papers and the British people were incensed at this astounding inter-
vention by a foreign power. Her Majesty chided her grandson severely.
It marked the beginning of anti-German feeling in Britain. Though war

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had been avoided, trouble with the Boers culminated three years later
in the South African War.

There was the risk of war with Russia over Port Arthur, a Chinese
naval base in Manchuria, which had been captured by the Japanese, but
was taken over now by Russia on a long lease; and with France over
Fashoda, on the Upper Nile, which had been seized'by a French force
from the Congo.

But while these major wars were avoided, fighting actually broke out
in the Sudan in 1896. The Cabinet decided to reconquer that country,
partly as a reprisal for Gordon's death eleven years earlier, but chiefly
because of the strategic value of the Upper Nile to Britain in Egypt. The
dervishes were now led by the Kalifa, who succeeded the Mahdi in 1885
and had ruled the Sudan ever since. His menacing moves against his
neighbours gave Britain the opportunity of deposing him and sending
in an army. Kitchener, who was in command, was expressly ordered
not to advance beyond Dongok for the time being, largely because
Salisbury felt the British Exchequer could not support a heavier
financial burden. But Kitchener, as his brother Walter noted, was 'a
real autocrat - he does just as he pleases*. By September of that year
(1896), Balfour, acting as Prime Minister and presiding over the Cabinet
of his uncle, who was ill and much more feeble than his years warranted,
informed the Queen that the dervishes were in full retreat. The war
went on for a further two years before final victory was won at the
battle of Omdunnan, in which Winston Churchill, then a young lieu-
tenant, took part in a notable cavalry charge. Kitchener then marched
on Foshada and ordered the French to withdraw. When news of this
reached Paris there were angry exchanges with Whitehall and a threat
of war. But the French eventually withdrew.

The South African War broke out in the following year, 1899. It
was popularly regarded as a war on Krugerism. Britain had acquired
Cape Colony from the Dutch in the Napoleonic wars and the Boers, to
avoid being under the British, set out on their historic trek into the
interior. The Orange Free State and the Transvaal, where they settled,
found it difficult to survive, surrounded as they were by hostile native
races. There were many clashes with the British, and Disraeli annexed
the Transvaal in 1877. Two years kter an army was sent to crush the
Zulus, the fiercest of the local tribes. In 1881, however, Gladstone

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THE BOER WAR

returned the Transvaal to the Boers. In the succeeding years a gigantic
gold rush brought in a vast number of British prospectors. Kruger
denied them all rights as citizens, and planned also to take over the
British settlements of Cape Colony and Natal. Cecil Rhodes, with an
immense fortune from diamonds found at Kimberley and by now
Prime Minister of Cape Colony, was just as resolved to overthrow
Kruger. War was inevitable. It came following an ultimatum from
Kruger demanding the withdrawal of all British troops from the
frontier.

The war started badly for the British. With astonishing speed the
Boers besieged three important towns - Ladysmith, Mafeking and
Kimberley, the diamond metropolis, where Cecil Rhodes happened to
be then - and at the same time their commandos invaded Cape Colony.
Attempts to recapture these towns brought further serious reverses. In
the course of a single week in December, eight thousand British troops
advancing to the relief of Kimberley were repulsed; the very next day
four thousand men sent to drive the Boers out of Cape Colony were
defeated; and a few days later General Buller, attempting to relieve
Ladysmith with twenty thousand men, suffered a shattering defeat at
Colenso. During that disastrous week Balfour set out every night from
No. 10 Downing Street between eleven and twelve and walked over to
the War Office in Whitehall, where he climbed 'all the stairs, for there
weren't any lifts' and went through the late night telegrams. 'There
never was any news except defeats,' he records.

When he called to see the Queen at Windsor, Her Majesty, then in
her eighty-first year, said sharply: 'Please understand that there is no one
depressed in this house. We are not interested in the possibilities of
defeat; they do not exist/ On returning to Downing Street Balfour
recorded how 'splendid' it was to go from 'the clamorous croakers in
clubs and newspapers into the presence of this little old lady, alone with
her women at Windsor, and hear her sweep all their vaticinations into
nothingness with a nod.' Winston Churchill, in South Africa as a war
correspondent for the Morning Post, was taken prisoner by the Boers in
November, but escaped a day or so before this 'Black Week', as he
called it. 'Mr. Balfour,' he records in My Early Life, 'deemed by his
critics a ladylike dilettante dialectician, proved himself in this crisis the
mainspring of the Imperial Government.' It was decided that General

3^5

NO.IO DOWNING STREET

Buller, in command of the British forces, was incompetent and would
have to be replaced. Balfour sent him a telegram: 'If you cannot relieve
Ladysmith, hand your command over . . . and return home/"8 Lord
Roberts was appointed to take over, with Kitchener as his Chief-of-
StafT. Before the end the British had nearly half a million men in khaki
in South Africa, including Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians;
the Boers never had more than 65,000.

The British Army at the time was governed by regulations 'generally
dated about 1870 and intended for Aldershot manoeuvres*.* The
officers themselves regarded the war, Kitchener groaned, 'too much like
a game of polo, with intervals for afternoon tea.' All this had to be
adjusted and adjusted quickly. By the middle of February 1900
Kimberley was recaptured and Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange
Free State, was taken on I3th March. Mafeking was relieved in May; a
fortnight later British troops took Johannesburg; and five days after
that Roberts and Kitchener rode in triumph into Pretoria. Peace was
expected *in another fortnight or three weeks', Kitchener wrote. But
it didn't come. The war dragged on. Kruger fled in September.

The following month, with the war still in progress, a General
Election, known as the Khaki Election, was held. The Conservatives,
expecting a great victory, increased their majority by only three. The
election brought Winston Churchill, twenty-five and a Conservative,
to the House of Commons for the first time. Salisbury, still Prime
Minister in name, took little part now in public affairs. His big, heavy
frame was a little bowed, his beard white, his hearing poor, his sight
failing. It is recalled that while walking along Downing Street to a
Cabinet meeting, he saw a colleague stop and respectfully take off his
hat. 'Who is that man?' Salisbury asked his companion. He was in-
formed that the man had been in the Cabinet for some years and was on
his way to attend that morning's meeting.

In the summer of 1900 Balfour introduced the motor-car into

Downing Street. Traveling up in it from the country with friends, he

describes how it had 'a small break-down about every three miles' and

adds that they had to finish the journey in hansom-cabs.

Sixteen months after the Queen's death in January 1901, the South

* Kitchener to his friend Pandeli RallL

326

THE BOER WAR

African war finally ended. Two months later Salisbury retired, leaving
to his nephew the title as well as the duties of Prime Minister.

Balfour stayed on at No. 10 for three further years. Although only in
his early fifties, he was tired and talked often of retiring. His love for
politics, never very great, had begun to be taxed by Joseph Chamber-
lain's campaign for Tariff Reform and Colonial Protection. Many
members of the Conservative Party refused to accept it. There were
arguments in the Cabinet and resignations from the Government.

In December 1905 Balfour resigned and King Edward the Seventh
sent for Campbell-Bannerman, Leader of the Opposition, who was in
his seventieth year. At the General Election that followed the Liberals,
who adhered unswervingly to their doctrine of Free Trade, were elected
with an immense majority.

327

CHAPTER 32

The Great Liberal Years

CAMPBEIX-BANNERMAN, a Scot by birth, followed Balfour into
No. 10 Downing Street. He was the son of Sir James Campbell, an
extremely wealthy draper, and inherited a second fortune from his
mother's uncle, which led to the addition of the suffix Bannerman.
Despite a Conservative background, his admiration for Gladstone
caused him to become an ardent Liberal quite early in life. On his
entering the House of Commons at the age of thirty-two, he was found
to be sufficiently brilliant to be appointed within three years Financial
Secretary to the War Office, where he served under the great Army
reformer Cardwell, who swept away the traditional practice of pur-
chasing commissions. Campbell-Bannerman later became Secretary of
State for War and after serving as Chief Secretary for Ireland was a
staunch supporter of Home Rule. Sir William Harcourt said of him that
there was 'no more able, more respected, or more popular Minister in
the House.'

He had been married for forty-five years when he moved into No.
10. There were no children, but it was generally agreed that no marriage

328

THE GREAT LIBERAL YEARS

could have been more marked by such intense devotion on both sides.
His wife meant much more to him than political success. No possible
advancement or reward could be weighed against his life with her; and
for her part she wanted nothing except to have him by her side, away
from all the distractions that public service demanded. Yet she was
unselfish enough not to deny him the leadership of the Party when it
was pressed on him in 1898. Everybody knew at the time that the deci-
sion would rest with her and with her alone, for she was his final court
of appeal in everything. For twenty years before they moved into No.
10, she had been continuously ill and often in great pain. Every moment
he could snatch from his political career was spent in her sick room. For
months at a time he never went to bed but dozed in a chair by her
bedside. Their life was inevitably one of the utmost simplicity.

In 1902 she had a paralytic stroke and it was with the utmost reluct-
ance that she moved from their large and comfortable house in Belgrave
Square to No. 10 Downing Street. From the beginning she disliked the
house. She found it dark and dingy and extremely inconvenient. *It is a
house of doom,' she said when they moved in. Yet she insisted on
coming because the Cabinet room was there as well as the offices of his
secretaries and the papers he required, and she wanted to be near him.

At the beginning of his term as Prime Minister she gave a large
evening party at No. 10. It was a torture for her to dress and she found
it impossible to stand up for more than a few minutes at a time to
receive her guests. But she did her duty heroically as hostess in the
magnificent State drawing-room on the first floor, propped up in a
chair, concealing her pain.

They went to a hotel in Dover for Easter. On their return she was
critically ill, and Campbell-Bannerman realized with a pang of despair
that she might not recover. But by the end of June she got better. It
was their practice to go every year to Marienbad in August, and because
she expressed a desire not to depart from the routine, the doctors agreed
that the journey could be undertaken, provided it was taken by easy
stages. So they set out. She died there on soth August. A service was
held at the cemetery at Marienbad and was attended by King Edward
the Seventh, who was there on a holiday; the body was brought back
to No. 10 Downing Street and taken on to Scotland for burial.

Campbell-Bannerman was often found in his study at Belmont

329

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Castle, his Scottish home, with his head in his hands, sobbing. Less than
a month later he had the first of his heart attacks. He talked of resigning,
but his health improved and he decided to carry on.

A very full legislative programme had been forecast in the pledges
given to the electorate at the General Election, and of these one had
already been fulfilled. This was the granting of self-government to
South Africa by the setting up of the Union. This had been agreed to by
a unanimous Cabinet as early as 8th February 1906. In the Cabinet
Lloyd George, receiving office for the first time, sat as President of the
Board of Trade, without having served at all as a junior Minister. He
had been most violently opposed to the Boer War and had earned a
great deal of unpopularity for his outspokenness. Asquith, who had
been Home Secretary in Gladstone's last Cabinet (he was regarded as
the best Home Secretary of the century - a considerable tribute when
one remembers Peel), now became Chancellor of the Exchequer and
moved into No. n. The new Home Secretary was Gladstone's son,
Herbert Gladstone. Sir Edward Grey was Foreign Secretary, an office
he held at the outbreak of the First World War eight years later.

When the new Parliament met for the first time on I9th February
1906 there wasn't even standing room for the vast numbers on the
Government side. The Liberals together with their Labour* and Irish
supporters had 513 members of die total of 670. The Liberals alone
numbered 377 and, even if their usual supporters chose to vote with the
Opposition, they would have had a clear majority of 132. There was in
the circumstances no Bill that the Government could not get through
the House of Commons. But there remained, of course, the Lords, who
had the right still to reject any or all the measures approved by the
Commons.

One of the more contentious reforms which the Lords allowed to go
through was the Trades Disputes Bill It clarified beyond all doubt the
right of the workers to strike, legalized peaceful picketing, and safe-
guarded trade union funds from being mulcted for damages by em-
ployers. Next came the Plural Voting Bill to prevent a voter from
recording his vote in every constituency in which he happened to have
qualifications. This was hody contested by the Conservatives, who

* The Labour members, numbering 29, included J. Ramsay MacDonald, later the first
Labour Prime Minister.

330

THE GREAT LIBERAL YEARS

viewed it as a serious encroachment into the rights of property. It was
passed by the Commons but rejected by the Lords. The Education
Bill, brought in by Augustine Birrell, the Minister of Education, roused
serious dissension in the Cabinet. The Government had pledged to put
under State control all schools supported by public funds. The question
of religious instruction in such schools raised serious problems. Lord
Ripon, who had been born at No. 10 Downing Street when his father
Viscount Goderich was Prime Minister nearly eighty years before, was
a devout Roman Catholic; Lloyd George was an apostle of Non-
conformity ; others were supporters of the Church of England ; Campbell-
Bannerman, as a Scottish Presbyterian, stood somewhat aloof. The
arguments grew heated. It was generally felt that public opinion was
'not ripe' for the abolition of religious instruction, and it was eventually
decided that such instruction should be general and non-denomina-
tional: it was set out in the 'Cowper-Temple clause' devised by the
William Cowper who as Melbourne's secretary had lived at No. 10.
In certain cases special denominational teaching was to be allowed on
two mornings a week, but not by the regular teachers nor was it to be
charged to the State.

There was furious opposition to this the moment the Bill was intro-
duced in the House. Voices were raised in angry protest everywhere.
Anglican Bishops held a mass meeting at the Albert Hall and the Roman
Catholics supported their denunciation. Only the Nonconformists on
the whole were for the Bill. Its fate in the House of Commons was of
course never in doubt, but the Lords mauled it mercilessly and the Prime
Minister felt it his duty to warn the King that if the Lords persisted in
their attitude a most regrettable situation would arise. The quarrel
between the two Houses was thus taken one stage further towards a
decisive settlement. The Cabinet were quite determined to force it if
necessary. Lloyd George summed up the situation in a speech at Oxford
in December 1906. 'It is intolerable', he said, 'that every petition of
right that comes from the people to their Sovereign should be waylaid
and mutilated in this fashion. . . . If the House of Lords persists in its
present policy, it will be a much larger measure than the Education
Bill that will come up for consideration. It will come upon this issue,
whether the country is to be governed by the King and the peers or by
the King and the people/

331

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

The King, Edward the Seventh, was angry at his 'name' being
brought into this further 'violent tirade' as he called it, and asked the
Prime Minister to prevent a repetition. The reply from No. 10
Downing Street pointed out that Lloyd George did not 'greatly err'
when the 'exasperating conditions are considered' and explained that
the phrase was used because it would have been disrespectful to speak
of 'the peers' and 'the people', without a reference to the Head of the
State: His Majesty was not, however, appeased. The Cabinet was
exceedingly annoyed too, for a great part of the session had been spent
in passing Bills only for the Lords to reject them.

In the following year the Government embarked on less controver-
sial reforms. The only major measure was the reorganization of the
Army by Haldane, the Secretary of State for War, who set up the
Territorial Army and provided for an Expeditionary Force of 160,000
men, both of which rendered vital service in the First World War a few
years later.

Many in the Cabinet, however, were not prepared to postpone
indefinitely the inescapable fight with the Lords, and the opening shots
were fired by the Prime Minister in Manchester in May, when he
declared: 'We do not intend to be a Government on suflrance, or to
act as caretakers in the House of a Party which the country has rejected' ;
and again the following month at Plymouth: 'The British people must
be master in their own house.' These were merely generalities, but they
kept the issue firmly before the electorate, while behind the scenes a
plan was being worked out for adjusting the composition of the Upper
House and its powers. It was eventually agreed that the powers of the
Lords should be dealt with first, its composition later. When this was
indicated to the House of Commons, the Prime Minister did not miss
the opportunity of attacking Balfour personally for 'signalling' to the
Lords to come to his rescue, not on great emergencies affecting national
interests, but on measures which touched mainly the interests of the
Conservative Party. In introducing a resolution as a forerunner to the
Bill, he made dear the Government's intention to restrict the power of
the Upper House so that the final decisions of the Commons should
become law within a single Parliament; at the same time he accused
Balfour of treachery against the Commons. 'I cannot conceive of Sir
Robert Peel or Mr. Disraeli', he said, 'treating the House of Commons

332

THE GREAT LIBERAL YEARS

as the rt. hon. gentleman has treated it.' The resolution was carried by
432 votes to 147.

With his health already impaired, Campbell-Bannerman was
finding the strain of office and these exhausting battles too much for
him. He had a heart attack the day before he made his speech in the
House attacking Balfour. His secretary sat just under the gallery with a
dispatch box on his knees specially packed by the doctor in case first aid
should be needed. Without his wife to make calls on his time, he had
been accepting invitations and entertaining at No. 10 Downing Street
as well as in his house in Scotland. His secretary Arthur Ponsonby
moved into No. 10 to spare him as much of the strain as he could but
many of the calls upon his time and his energy were unavoidable. He
had to speak at the Lord Mayor's banquet at the Guildhall on the pth
November, go to Windsor two days later for the visit of the German
Kaiser, return for a meeting of the Cabinet and go back to Windsor the
next day for a State banquet. He returned to London the same night,
attended a lunch to the Kaiser at the Guildhall, where he had to stand
for an hour because the Kaiser arrived late, and immediately afterwards
caught a train for Bristol where he spoke for an hour. That night he had
a serious heart attack and was not expected to live. He was persuaded
to take a short rest and then went to Biarritz. Not long after his return,
seemingly restored to health, his illness recurred.

It was at this stage that the suffragettes became active in Downing
Street. They had called to see Campbell-Bannerman about eighteen
months earlier. Assembling by Boadicea's statue on the Embankment,
they marched to Downing Street, led by Mrs. Pankhurst, Annie Kenny
in her clogs and shawl and Mrs. Wolstenholme-Elmy in grey curls and
a bonnet, with others in a forage lorry displaying a large red banner
demanding votes for women. CampbeU-Bannerman told them that he
was in favour of giving them the vote but some members of his Cabinet
were against it. It got about later that the fiercest opponent was Asquith.

Now in January 1908 as members of the Cabinet were arriving to
discuss the programme for the ensuing session, suf&agettes streamed
into Downing Street and one of them began to address the group of
sightseers. The police dashed across to stop her and found that she and a
nurse had chained themselves to the area railings of No. 10. Files
and hacksaws had to be fetched from Scotland Yard to free them.

333

NO. 1C DOWNING STREET

Meanwhile they kept shouting raucously 'Votes for women'. Amid the
confusion Mrs. Drummond, known as 'The General', arrived in a taxi-
cab and, eluding the police, forced her way into No. 10, but was
promptly ejected. On two subsequent occasions the suffragettes threw
stones and broke the windows of the house, shouting : 'Next time it will
be bombs' ; later, for picketing the street, some were at last arrested.

On I2th February, after a busy day at the House of Commons,
Campbell-Bannerman returned to No. 10 Downing Street and had
still another heart attack. He never left the house again. On 4th March
the King called to see him. His Majesty drove to the garden entrance in
the Horse Guards so that his visit should not draw attention, climbed
the steps to the terrace and went into the Cabinet room through the
french window. He had not been in that room since his visit to Glad-
stone many years before.

Campbell-Bannerman, who had rallied a little that morning, had
been brought down and was helped into an armchair. King and Prime
Minister sat alone together in the room, with a nurse in attendance just
outside the door. His Majesty urged him not to resign but to wait and
see how he felt after Easter.

Queen Alexandra drove in her carriage to the front door of No. 10
from time to time to ask how he was and always brought a bunch of
violets she had herself picked.

He resigned on ist April and died three weeks later in the corner
bedroom on the first floor, overlooking St. James's Park and the Horse
Guards.

334-

CHAPTER 33
Battle with the Lords

ASQUITH was appointed his successor. All through the last
stages of CampbeU-Bannerman's illness Herbert Henry Asquith, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, had been acting as Prime Minister. His
wife Margot Asquith records in her diary: *One evening he sent for
Henry to go and see him at No. 10 Downing Street and, telling him
that he was dying, thanked him for all he had done, particularly for his
great work on the South African constitution. He turned to him and
said: "Asquith, you are different from the others and I am gkd to have

known you God bless you!" C.B. died a few hours after this/

Asquith and his family moved into No. 10 shortly afterwards. The
new Prime Minister was fifty-six years old. He had married his first
wife Helen Melland at the age of twenty-five and had by her four
children, the eldest of whom Raymond was by now twenty-nine and
already married. Of the others, two boys and one girl, Violet* was
twenty. The first Mrs. Asquith died in 1891 and three years kter

* Later Lady Violet Bonham Carter.

335

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Asquith married Margot Tennant, the brilliantly witty daughter of a
wealthy baronet. By her he had a daughter and a son Anthony, called
'Puffin', who was five now: with them at No. 10 lived Violet and his
younger sons by his first marriage.

Asquith was by birth a Yorkshireman, of a middle-class family of
Liberals and Nonconformists. After a distinguished career at Oxford,
he went to the Bar and was made a Q.C. while still in his thirties. He
had already taken up politics and been elected to Parliament. His
vigour as a speaker led Gladstone to single him out to move the vote of
no confidence which brought down Salisbury's Government in 1892,
when Asquith was forty. Gladstone, on succeeding to the Premiership,
appointed Asquith Home Secretary. One of the features that marks this
period is that Asquith was responsible for allowing Trafalgar Square
to be used by demonstrators. During the Boer War, while his Party was
in Opposition, he sided with Lord Rosebery as a Liberal Imperialist and
against Campbell-Bannerman, who, like Lloyd George, was pro-Boer.
Of Free Trade, on the other hand, he was a staunch supporter and
battled vigorously against Chamberlain's advocacy of Tariff Reform.

Shortly after taking over from Campbell-Bannerman in April 1908
and before handing over the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer to
Lloyd George, Asquith presented his second Budget, notable for the
inauguration of Old Age Pensions.

With the King still in Biarritz, Asquith took the unprecedented
course of journeying there in order to kiss hands. Very few changes
were made in the Cabinet. Winston Churchill (a Liberal now) suc-
ceeded Lloyd George as President of the Board of Trade, Reginald
McKenna became First Lord of the Admiralty.

The first year passed uneventfully, save for the Licensing Bill,
whereby the Government proposed to reduce the number of licensed
public houses in the country as a curb on drunkenness. This roused the
wrath of the brewers, some of whom were members of the Upper
House, and they threatened to withdraw their support from the Tory
Party if their lordships did not squash it. The peers accordingly mustered
for battle and refused to give the Bill a second reading. The King,
gravely concerned about the impending battle between the two Houses,
tried to persuade Lord Lansdowne, the Tory leader in the Lords, to
adopt a more conciliatory attitude, and was told that the peers had

336

BATTLE WITH THE LORDS

already had a 'bitter experience* in having to pass Asquith's Old Age
Pensions Bill the year before. The pension was a mere five shillings a
week payable at the age of seventy.

It was with the presentation of Lloyd George's Budget in 1909 that
the continuing conflict with the House of Lords came at last to a head.
This was achieved by the cunning device, evolved by Lloyd George
and Winston Churchill, of tacking the more revolutionary reforms on
to the Budget, since the Lords by tradition were not allowed to inter-
fere in any way with a money Bill: they could only accept or reject it.

Lloyd George described it as a 'War Budget* against poverty, which
he hoped would, as a result, become 'as remote to the people of the
country as the wolves which once infested its forests/ He was resolved
on 'robbing the hen roosts', as he termed it. There was a tax on motor-
cars, an increase in income tax to one shilling in the pound, the intro-
duction of surtax, a heavy increase in death duties and a tax on unearned
increases in land values, as well as a tax on undeveloped land. The
additional money thus raised was to be used in part to strengthen the
Navy by building larger battleships, known as dreadnoughts, to meet
any threat from Germany, also to pay the old age pensions, and to assist
Lloyd George's novel scheme for social insurance against ill health and
against unemployment.

He had the full support of Asquith, Churchill and Sir Edward Grey,
the Foreign Secretary, but most of the others in the Cabinet were
opposed to the tax on land values.

Lloyd George presented his 'People's Budget' in a four-hour speech
on 29th April 1909. It startled many in the House and the country, for
taxation was being used for the first time on an extensive scale for the
purpose of social reform. It was debated in the Commons for months,
often the arguments went on all through the night. On 4th November
the House of Commons at last passed it by 379 votes to 149. It was
thrown out by the House of Lords on 29th November by an over-
whelming majority of Conservative peers, who insisted that it must
first be 'submitted to the judgement of the country'. It was the first time
for more than 250 years that the peers had rejected a Finance Bill.

Asquith immediately took up the challenge. Parliament was dis-
solved and the election campaign was opened on loth December in the
City by Balfour, the Leader of the Conservative Party, and by Asquith

337

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

at die Albert Hall where he had an audience often thousand. From this
meeting all women were excluded because of the militant activities of
the suffragettes, who had but a few weeks before dog-whipped Winston
Churchill at Bristol.

Both Parties were optimistic of victory. The Liberals, who had been
faring badly in by-elections, got back with a majority of only two,
having 275 to 273 Conservatives. But with 82 Irish Nationalists and
40 Labour members, who could be relied on to vote with the Liberals
on this issue, they could count on a majority of 124. It was nevertheless
a considerable drop from the combined majority of 3 57 which they had
in the previous Parliament.

It was generally believed that before the election Asquith had
extracted a promise from the King that he would agree to a wholesale
creation of peers if necessary. Such a promise was not in fact given.
'The King', Asquith's secretary reported after a talk with the King's
secretary, 'had come to the conclusion that he would not be justified in
creating new peers (say 300) until after a second General Election.'135 Of
this the Cabinet was no doubt informed at the time. On seeing the
extremely close result of the election, the King was even more firm in
his resolve not to give way. He told Haldane, a member of the Cabinet,
that the result was inconclusive and he required 'a much more definite
expression of opinion from the country'.187

While the Government were manoeuvring for their next round, the
King died* and Asquith, with his customary consideration, decided to
suspend hostilities until the new King, George the Fifth, had a chance to
settle down. Meanwhile work was begun on the preparation of the
Parliament Bill to restrict the powers of the Upper House.

When the Asquiths moved into No. 10, the Lloyd Georges, who
had been living in Chelsea, went into the official residence of the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer at No. n. A door in the entrance hall connects
the two houses and, though the garden belongs to No. 10, the Chancellor
is not denied the use of it. Lloyd George was at that time forty-five
years old. He had married Margaret Owen twenty years before and
their four children, two boys and two girls, moved into the house with
them. Of these the youngest, Megan, was of the same age as Anthony

* 6th May 1910.

338

BATTLE WITH THE LORDS

Asquith and they soon became inseparable. The communicating door
was in constant use. If Puffin did not run into No. u, Megan would
come in and the two children, both five, would divert themselves by
going up and down in the lift installed at No. 10 for Campbell-
Bannerman. It was a wheezy lift; its gates clattered as the children went
in and out and the whine of their endless journeys distracted the
Ministers, the secretaries, and even the messengers. But into the Cabinet
room, secured by double doors so that the sound of the discussions, and
dissensions, should not be overheard, the noise was unable to penetrate.
It is among the pleasanter memories at No. 10 that on one of these
diverting journeys the lift got stuck. At the time, however, it was not
amusing either to the two trapped children or to their elders, who were
completely unaware of what had happened. Even the cessation of the
lift's whining did not appear to have roused any concern. Alarm came
much kter when it was discovered that the son of the Prime Minister
and the daughter of the Chancellor of the Exchequer had vanished.
They were called. The garden was searched. Both families went out
into the street and into die Horse Guards Parade at the back. Fear of
kidnapping in those disturbed days, with the sufiragettes so active and
the peers so angry, invaded the parental anxieties. Then suddenly
someone pressed the button of the lift and found it was no longer
working and the children were rescued, scolded and sent off to bed.
Thereafter they took to playing in the garden. Puffin's fresh enthusiasm
was for aeroplanes. They had to be launched by hand, preferably in the
garden, and Megan was always there to assist. Their chortles of delight
as each plane began its journey were not shared by the policemen on
duty at the Horse Guards who had to bring the planes back. After their
twentieth rescue a note of asperity seemed to creep into the phrase: 1
believe this is yours, sir/

The warren of rooms at Nos. 10 and n were found by the children
to be ideal for playing hide-and-seek. They ran in and out of the two
houses until called for tea, and if Lloyd George happened to be at home,
he came in and they sang hymns, always in Welsh, Puffin generally
humming the tune as his knowledge of Welsh was inadequate.

However distracting these childish diversions may have been, the
work on the Parliament Bill wept on. It was suspended only after King
George the Hfth advised the Prime Minister that the two Parties ought

339

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

to get together and try to work out a compromise. This Asquith
readily agreed to. Each side was represented by four members : Asquith
and Lloyd George were the principals on the one side, Balfour and
Lansdowne on the other. The Tories wanted to reform the Upper
House by limiting the number of hereditary peers; Asquith insisted on
limiting their power of veto first. Although the Prime Minister made it
clear that there was 'no question of their indefinite continuance', the
talks dragged on. No solution having been reached by loth November,
Asquith went to Sandringham to report the deadlock to the King. He
asked that Parliament should be dissolved so that another General
Election - the second that year - should enable them, if victorious, to
bring the quarrel with the Lords to a final settlement. The King
realized, of course, what that meant. He was as much opposed to the
creation of hundreds of new peers as his father, and when a day or two
later a promise was sought, His Majesty bluntly refused to give it.

The Cabinet were equally adamant and would not give way either.
The King accordingly came up to London to see Asquith, who has been
criticized for going to the interview with Lord Crewe, the Leader of
the Lords, 'as though he needed a witness*. The King's record of the
talk states : 1 agreed most reluctantly to give the Cabinet a secret under-
standing that in the event of the Government being returned with a
majority at the General Election, I should use my prerogative to make
peers if asked for. I disliked having to do this very much.'188

Parliament was dissolved twelve days later, on 28th November. The
result of the election was very much as before - but the slight increase
in the number of Irish and Labour members made the total working
majority of the Government just a little better. It was the third Liberal
win in succession and it was felt not only that the people still retained
their confidence in the Government, but that the time had come for the
King to comply with the Prime Minister's request.

The King said he wanted to have a word with Lord Lansdowne first.
To this Asquith objected. It was clearly the duty of the Sovereign to
act on the advice of his Ministers, he said, without consulting the
Opposition. Nevertheless, under pressure, he did eventually agree and
His Majesty saw Lansdowne at Windsor on zpth January, Parliament
met on 6th February. The Parliament Bill was immediately placed
before their lordships. Asquith insisted that it should be accepted with-

340

BATTLE WITH THE LORDS

out any amendment, but the peers mauled it mercilessly. About a
hundred peers, who came to be known as 'Diehards', were prepared to
'die in the last ditch* rather than surrender. They were led by Lord
Halsbury, Lord Chancellor in Balfour's Tory Government, and in-
included Lord Salisbury, son of the famous Prime Minister and a cousin
of Balfour.

In this embittered atmosphere the Coronation of the new King took
place in June 191 I, but the celebrations did not interrupt the discussions
of their lordships for long. The mauling of the Parliament Bill went on
and on 1 3th July their work was completed. The Bill was scarcely
recognizable.

The time had come now, Asquith felt, to reveal to the peers the
guarantee he had extracted from the King : it had been kept secret only
out of consideration for His Majesty. He communicated it privately to
the Tory leaders, then called on the King to honour his pledge. But
His Majesty, still reluctant, insisted that the Bill should first be placed
before the Commons in its altered form. Even to this Asquith agreed.
"When he rose in that House to explain it, there was an uproar. Insults
were hurled at the Prime Minister. There were shouts of 'Traitor' and
for half an hour he was unable to make himself heard. The rowdiness
was led by F. E. Smith, kter Lord Birkenhead, and by a brother of Lord
Salisbury, Lord Hugh Cecil. Winston Churchill called it 'a squalid,
frigid, organized attempt to insult the Prime Minister*. The uproar was
so persistent that the Speaker had to suspend the sitting. Not for
centuries had such a scene been witnessed in the Commons.

Behind the scenes the 'Diehards' held angry meetings over dinner and
exchanged letters, in one at least of which violence was advocated if
necessary.* But the more responsible of the Tory peers, following
Lansdowne's lead, began to take a more conciliatory view and the
Opposition was seriously split in consequence. In this changed atmos-
phere, and because the King had urged it, it was decided at a Cabinet
meeting at No. 10 that the immediate creation of extra peers should be
suspended for the time being until the Parliament Bill, with the
Commons* revision of the amendments, was sent back to the Lords.
On pth August, the hottest for seventy years, Asquith, away in the

* Lord Willoughby de Broke to Lord Halsbury on 28th July 1911.
341

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

country with laryngitis, wrote to his secretary : 'If the vote goes wrong
in the H. of L., the Cabinet should be summoned for 11.30 Downing
Street tomorrow morning and the King asked to postpone his journey.
... If I have satisfactory news this evening I shall come up for Cabinet
12.30. My voice is on the mend but still croaky.'

Lansdowne directed his arguments in the Lords chiefly against the
'Diehards' of his own party. The safeguards left to the Lords under
the Bill, he said, while limiting their power of veto to two years, were
worth something, which a wholesale creation of new peers would
sweep completely away and, what is more, would present the next
Tory Government with a hostile House of Lords, predominantly
radical.

There were remarkable scenes in the Lords that day. The debate
started at ten o'clock that morning. Peers who had never bothered to
take the oath poured in and had to be sworn in before they could vote.
Two of their lordships got very drunk and could no longer stand up,
nevertheless, with assistance, they took part in the division.

The result was announced at eleven o'clock that night -131 were for
the Bill, 114 against: a majority for the Government of 17. It had
scraped through. In addition to the 8 1 Liberal peers, 37 Tory peers and
13 bishops had given it their support. In the other lobby were seven
dukes and many who bore historic names, such as Bute and Clarendon,
Salisbury and Malmesbury. The King recorded in his diary: 'The
Halsburyites were, thank God, beaten. It is indeed a great relief to me ~
I am spared any further humiliation by a creation of peers/

342

CHAPTER 34

The Prime Minister's Lodgings

MRS. ASQUITH did not like No. 10 Downing Street, known at
one time, she writes, as the Prime Minister's 'lodgings*. When she
moved in on 5th May 1908, she had a feeling of sadness at leaving their
home in Cavendish Square, where every curtain, every chair, table and
rug had been chosen by her. That house was a home, whereas No. 10
was not, despite the endeavours of the Board of Works (as it was still
called) to make the house comfortable, and the transfer of some of
her own furniture, rugs and pictures. She records: 'It is an inconvenient
house with three poor staircases, and after living there a few weeks I made
up my mind that owing to the impossibility of circulation I could only
entertain my Liberal friends at dinner or at garden parties.'136 Tele-
phones had been put in. There was the lift, but the house was too
rambling and one almost needed a map to find one's way. 'Having no
bump of locality/ she goes on, 'soon after our arrival I left the drawing-
room by one of the five doors and found myself in the garden instead
of the hall. By the help of mildly lit telephones and one of the
many messengers, I retraced my steps through a long and sepulchral

343

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

basement, but I began to regret the light and air of my deserted
home in Cavendish Square.*

She noted in her diary on loth November, after being in the house
for six months : 'I never knew what prevented anyone coming into this
house at any moment: some would say after lunching with us that
nothing had. There was a hall porter who looked after our interests
when visitors arrived, but he was over-anxious and appeared flurried
when spoken to. Poor man, he was never alone; he sat in his hooded
chair, snatching pieces of cold mutton at odd hours; tired chauffeurs
shared his picture paper, and strange people - not important enough to
be noticed by a secretary or a messenger - sat watching him on hard
sills in the windows; or, if he were left for a moment, the baize doors
would fly open and he would find himself faced by me, seeing a parson,
a publican or a protectionist out of the house. But our porter was not a
strong man, and any determined Baronet with hopes of favours to
come about the time of the King's birthday could have penetrated into
No. io.'

Although she had visited four Prime Ministers at No. 10 - Gladstone,
Rosebery, Balfour and Campbell-Bannerman - before moving in and
was familiar with the main reception rooms, Mrs. Asquith never
realized until she went to live there how ignorant many taxi-drivers
were of its location: '10 Downing Street ought to be as well-known in
London as the Marble Arch or the Albert Memorial but it is not. ... I
nearly always had to tell my driver the way. I was taken to Down
Street, Piccadilly, when I was sleepy or unobservant; or there was a risk
of the children and umbrellas being thrown into the streets by the taxi-
driver opening the door suddenly from his seat and asking me where
Downing Street was. The historic house is in a quiet cul-de-sac off
Whitehall and of such diffident architecture that the most ardent tourist
would scarcely recognize it again. Knowing as it did every Cabinet
secret, and what was going on all over the world, I could not but admire
the reserve with which No. 10 Downing Street treated the public.
Even the Press while trying to penetrate the Prime Minister's heart was
unable to divulge the secret of his home. Liver-coloured and squalid,
the outside of No. 10 gives little idea to the man in the street of what it
is really like.'
This is because the windows one sees from the street are of unim-

344

THE PRIME MINISTER S LODGINGS

portant rooms. The big windows in the basement look only into the
kitchen quarters. The two ground floor windows give a brief glimpse
of the hall. On the first floor the only windows facing the street are
those belonging to the room just above the front foor. When the
Asquiths moved in that room was assigned to Violet Asquith as her
bedroom. She had recently come out and went dancing night after
night: 'We never left the dance floor until the band had actually
packed up their instruments and gone. To draw it out we would try
to persuade them to stay and go on playing. I never got back to No. 10
until the small hours. I remember going to the window very
drowsily in the morning and seeing the young men I had danced with
hanging up their bowler hats and umbrellas across the road at the
Foreign Office/*

Her room, facing west on to the narrow roadway, never got the sun
and was the darkest room in the house. But it was reached by a separate
staircase just past the messengers, so she could get to it without disturb-
ing the rest of the house.

With such a large family living there, the place was extremely
cramped. A further drawback was that the only bath in the house was
off the Prime Minister's sitting-room, by his bedroom on the first floor.
In order not to disturb him the family went in when they could. The
sitting-room had in fact been partitioned to provide a separate bath-
room. There were nevertheless compensations. Mrs. Asquith writes:
'The large garden was a joy to us, although a London garden is more
delightful in theory than in practice. All my dresses were either torn or
dirtied by disentangling Anthony's aeroplanes from the sooty shrubs;
but the green trees and large spaces, after the traffic of our square, were
infinitely restful. I amused King Edward by asking him one day if he
would allow me to shoot some of his peacocks in St. James's Park as
their spring screams disturbed my sleep. The ivied wall was also a
danger, and several of our colleagues told me with what anxiety they
had watched the athletic feats of my little son, which they could see
from the windows of the Cabinet room.'

Throughout the long crisis over the House of Lords Mrs. Asquith
could not but keep wondering when they would all have to pack up

* In a statement to the author.
345

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

and leave No. 10. Asquith was often away - either at Windsor with the
King or dining with Lloyd George or one of the other Ministers. But
whether he was at home or not she gave luncheon and dinner parties
and had at her table Lord Kitchener, Lord Curzon, Lord Morley (the
Leader of the Lords in succession to Crewe) and Arthur Balfour, an old
friend, though the Leader of the Opposition.

Early in the battle with the Lords, which began with the rejection of
Lloyd George's Budget in 1909, Margot Asquith wrote in her diary:
'Acceptance of the Budget would look like weakness, but in the end it
would be better for them to give way : the Lords would hear no more of
their veto.' The two year tussle was over now. The Budget had been
accepted and Lloyd George was able to bring into operation his plan for
national insurance, which laid the foundation of the Welfare State. He
harnessed the existing Friendly Societies, which had been offering
benefits of a similar kind to subscribers: they now became approved
agents of the State scheme. The trade unions co-operated to the full and
the forty-two Labour members in the House, led by J. Ramsay Mac-
Donald, also gave it their support.

The most bitter opposition came from members of the medical
profession, who with rare exceptions declined to work as panel
doctors; and equally hostile were the Daily Mail and the other news-
papers owned by Lord Northdiffe. An enormous demonstration of
protest was held at the Albert Hall, at which titled women exhorted all
parlourmaids to refuse to lick their national insurance stamps. In the
House of Lords the arguments went on for six months. But after certain
adjustments the Bill eventually went through.

The way was dear now for still further reforms, beginning with land
reform, and going on to the setting of a minimum wage for all farm
workers as well as security of tenure for farmers. But crises disrupted
the programme of the Government. The first of these was the Marconi
scandal.

At the Imperial Conference (as it was then called) held in London in
the summer of 1911, it had been decided that to improve communica-
tions a chain of wireless stations should be established across the Empire.
Tenders were invited and the tender submitted by the English Marconi
Company was accepted by the Postmaster-General, Herbert Samuel
(later Viscount Samuel) in March of the following year (1912). This

346

THE PRIME MINISTERS LODGINGS

roused a surprising amount of gossip. It was not only whispered but
affirmed that, since the managing director of the Marconi Company
was Mr. Godfrey Isaacs, whose brother Sir Rufus Isaacs (later the
Marquess of Reading) was Attorney-General in Asquith' s Government,
use was being made by certain Liberal Ministers to deal on the Stock
Exchange in the shares of the Marconi Company, with considerable
profit to themselves. It was stated scurrilously in one newspaper that it
had been 'secretly arranged between Isaacs and Samuel that the British
people shall give the Marconi Company a very krge sum of money
through the agency of the said Samuel and for the benefit of the said
Isaacs.'139 A second charge alleged that Rufus Isaacs, Lloyd George and
the Master of Elibank, until recently the Liberal Chief Whip, acting on
inside knowledge, had bought blocks of shares in the Marconi Company
and had pocketed the profits.

Anxious discussions over all this took place in the Cabinet room.
Asquith learned that 'there was not the slightest foundation in fact for
either of the two sets of allegations'. Rufus Isaacs and Lloyd George had
bought no shares at all in the English Marconi Company, which had
been given the contract, but in the American Marconi Company,
which had no interest whatsoever in the English company, but merely
had the right to operate the Marconi patents in the United States.
Asquith agreed that in these circumstances the shares they had bought,
and still held incidentally, in no way conflicted with their duty as
Ministers. 'On balance,' Asquith adds, 'they were substantial losers by
the transaction/139

In the House of Commons in October 1912 Asquith proposed the
appointment of a Select Committee to investigate all the circumstances
of the contract given to the Marconi Company. All the rumours
against Samuel had been dropped by now, nor was anything made of
the allegations against the Master of Elibank.

The Committee issued two reports in June 1913. Both acquitted the
Ministers concerned of all the charges. 'Their honour, both their private
and their public honour,' Asquith said in the House, 'is at this moment
absolutely unstained. They have, as this Committee has shown by its
unanimous verdict, abused no public trust. They retain, I can say this
with full assurance, the complete confidence of their colleagues and of
their political associates.'

347

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

The second, and far more serious crisis, was over Ireland. The
Liberal Government was determined to fulfil the resolve made by
Gladstone to grant that country Home Rule, a resolve that had to be
suspended while the Tories held office. The Bill was introduced by the
Government in April 1912 and had to be passed three times by the
Commons (as a result of the Parliament Act) in order to force its way
through the House of Lords. It reserved to the Prcliament in West-
minster all foreign policy, defence, taxation, customs duties, coinage
and control of the police force, and was therefore not wholly acceptable
to the Irish Nationalist Members in the House. To the Tories it was
entirely distasteful, especially as regards the future of Ulster, which was
largely Protestant and refused to be placed under the rule of the Roman
Catholics of the South.

The leader of the Ulster rebels was Sir Edward Carson, a Southern
Irishman. He arranged for a provisional Government to be formed in
Ulster to take over that section of Ireland the moment Home Rule was
granted. Volunteers, said to number 100,000, were enrolled, drilled and
partially armed, in order to resist being absorbed by the South. The
latter meanwhile began to raise their own army and it was obvious that
a serious dash, resulting in civil war, would develop.

In Parliament the atmosphere became correspondingly heated. Dur-
ing one of the debates a Tory M.P. hurled a bound copy of the Standing
Orders at Winston Churchill and cut open his forehead.

As the time approached for the Bill to become law there were
accelerated preparations for the defiance of authority. There was gun-
running into Ulster and the volunteers began to drill quite openly in the
parks. In July 1913 Bonar Law, who had succeeded Balfour as Leader
of the Conservatives in the Commons, sent a message to the Protestant
Orangemen in Ulster, assuring them that whatever steps they might
feel compelled to take 'whether they were constitutional or whether in
the long run they were unconstitutional', they would have behind them
the whole support of the anti-Home Rule or Unionist Party under his
leadership. Asquith promptly moved troops from Curragh camp, near
Dublin, into Ulster.

But before this crisis came to a head, another that had been gathering
momentum for some time, loomed dangerously near. It was the threat
of war with Germany. There had been clashes in the Cabinet between

348

THE PHIME MINISTERS LODGINGS

Winston Churchill, now First Lord of the Admiralty, who having
opposed the building of dreadnoughts to the number the Tories
demanded, was insisting now on the further strengthening of the Navy,
and Lloyd George, who was against diverting any money from his
programme of reforms and regarded the Navy as being already 'at the
height of its efficiency'. He took the opportunity of pointing out that
Winston's father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had resigned his post as
Chancellor of the Exchequer rather than accept increased estimates for
the Army and the Navy.

The arguments across the Cabinet table raged for some days. Many
of the Ministers supported Lloyd George, who did not believe there
would be a war. Winston threatened to resign, but Asquith managed to
patch up a peace by indicating that if the dispute continued it would
only force a General Election, which he did not want for a further
year.*

The murder of the Archduke of Austria at Sarajevo on 28th June
1914 meant war, but the war, it was felt, would be confined to one
corner of Europe, As Lloyd George records in his War Memoirs, the
Cabinet never discussed the possibility of Britain becoming involved
until a week before war actually broke out. At their twice daily
sessions at No. 10 Downing Street the Cabinet's discussions were
centred on the gun-running in Ireland. Even as kte as 24th July, eleven
days before Britain was at war, the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward
Grey, after reading to the Cabinet the Austrian ultimatum to Servia,
said he did not believe Britain would be involved; he then left for a
fishing holiday in Hampshire and most of the other Ministers also left
town. Only Churchill remained at his post. He had ordered a test
mobilization of the First and Second Fleets and he kept them
mobilized.

At a Cabinet meeting a week later, on 3 ist July, the possibility of war
was discussed and more than half the Ministers, including Lloyd George,
were against being drawn in. Churchill and Grey were for it and so was
Asquith. For the next few days the Cabinet was in almost continuous
session. The arguments were heated. Developments were watched
closely with a map on the Cabinet table passed from one Minister to

* The seven year term for Parliament, established by the Septennial Act of 1715, was
reduced to five years by die Parliament Act of 1911.

349

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

another. Winston Churchill insisted on immediate mobilization. Grey
threatened to resign if Britain intended to remain neutral: after all, he
said, there was an obligation to France, the Entente, and by it Britain
would have to stand. Lord Rosebery had warned, when the Entente
was signed in 1904: It will mean war with Germany in the
end.' Lloyd George felt that no final decision should be taken yet. A
few hours later Grey was instructed to inform the Germans that Britain
would not stand aside and see the German fleet attack the Channel
ports. John Burns resigned at once. The next day Lord Morley, Leader
of the House of Lords, and Sir John Simon resigned too, but the
latter withdrew his resignation when the Germans marched into
Belgium, whose neutrality had been guaranteed by the British and the
French as well as by the Germans.

On Saturday ist August Germany declared war on Russia and two
days later on France. It was Bank Holiday weekend and crowds as-
sembledin Trafalgar Square to listen to protests against Britain becoming
involved in the war. Other crowds swept into Downing Street. 'We
could hear the hum of this surging mass from the Cabinet chamber,'
Lloyd George wrote. By Monday the crowds, now singing God Save
the King and the Marseillaise, had become so dense in Whitehall that it
was impossible to get through and Ministers had to be helped by
energetic policemen in order to reach the House of Commons after
each Cabinet meeting. Britain's ultimatum to Germany to respect the
neutrality of Belgium was sent on the morning of 4th August. It
expired at midnight, unanswered, and Britain was at war - a war that
was to last for four years and involve almost the entire world.

The atmosphere inside No. 10 during these tense days has been
described by Margot Asquith, the Prime Minister's wife.136 Only a few
days before, on 25th July, her daughter Elizabeth,* then in her teens,
had left to stay with friends in Holland. Four days later Mrs. Asquith
wired to ask her to come home. When she mentioned this to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury and other guests at No. 10, they were surprised
that she had done so : they did not share her apprehension. 'The strain
of waiting for foreign telegrams with the fear of war haunting my
brain had taken away all my vitality/ she wrote on the 2pth. 1 went

* Later Princess Elizabeth Bibesco.
350

THE PKIME MINISTERS LODGINGS

to rest before dinner earlier than usual; but I could not sleep. I ky awake
listening to the hooting of the horns, screams of trains, the cries of street
traffic, as if they had been muffled drums heard through thick muslin.
At 7.30 p.m. the door opened and Henry [Asquith] came into my bed-
room. I saw at once by the gravity of his face that something had
happened: he generally walks up and down when talking, but he stood
quite still. I sat up and we looked at each other. "I have sent the pre-
cautionary telegram to every part of the Empire," he said.' At a dinner
two nights later, messengers kept arriving 'with piles of Foreign Office
boxes' for Sir Edward Grey, who was one of the guests. 'He jumped
up and left the room.' Asquith had already gone down to the Cabinet
room.

On the night war was declared, Mrs. Asquith states: *I looked at the
children asleep after dinner before joining Henry in the Cabinet room.
Lord Crewe and Sir Edward Grey were already there and we sat
smoking cigarettes in silence; some went out, others came in; nothing
was said. The clock on the mantelpiece hammered out the hour and
when the last beat of midnight struck it was as silent as dawn. We were
at War. I left to go to bed, and, as I was pausing at the foot of the stair-
case, I saw Winston Churchill with a happy face striding towards the
double doors of the Cabinet room.'

351

CHAPTER 35

Lloyd George and the First World War

IT was at first thought that the war would not last more than
three months. This was being said quite blatantly by many in high
places, but Lord Kitchener, the new Secretary of State for War, foresaw
'a long* and unremitting struggle. Searchlights and guns were set up on
Admiralty Arch, in Hyde Park and elsewhere, for, although aeroplanes
were far from numerous, there were Zeppelins and precautions had to
be taken. A fear of invasion was prevalent and there were scares about
spies. In the garden of No. 10 huts were put up for the use of military
and other additional staff- huts indeed began to go up everywhere in
London. And special protection was provided for the Prime Minister
and other Ministers. War budgets had to be framed. Income tax was
doubled to two-and-eightpence in the pound, super tax was also
doubled, the duty on beer was trebled, on tea doubled. War loans were
floated and were immediately over-subscribed.

As the German troops drove back the Russians and thrust deep into
France until they were bogged down there by trench warfare, an
expedition was dispatched to Antwerp, in October 1914, at Churchill's

352

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR

suggestion - indeed he wanted to lead it. It failed. Another was
dispatched to the Dardanelles in the spring of 1915, also at Churchill's
suggestion, and had eventually to be withdrawn.

Lloyd George, pouring money into the factories, was gravely con-
cerned at the inadequate output of munitions. He urged that the State
should take over all the necessary resources of the country in order to
ensure supplies. But it was not until news of the serious shell shortage
on the Western Front reached the Cabinet in May 1915 that the Ministry
of Munitions was set up and Lloyd George was moved from the
Exchequer to take charge of it. At the same time Asquith formed
a Coalition Government, which included the Conservative leaders
Bonar Law, Austen Chamberlain, Balfour, Lord Curzon and Sir
Edward Carson. The Irish Home Rule Bill had received Royal assent
in September 1914, but it was left in abeyance until after the war and
the old quarrels were buried. Labour was also brought into the Coalition
with three representatives, only one of whom, Arthur Henderson, had
a seat in the Cabinet.

All three Parties were united in their resolve to defeat the enemy.
But the means to be employed roused many dissensions in the Cabinet
room. Within a very few months the new Cabinet was split over con-
scription, which the Conservative Ministers, backed by Lloyd George
and Churchill, insisted should be adopted, while Sir Edward Grey,
Sir John Simon and other Liberals as ardently opposed it. After many
angry scenes across the green table it was eventually agreed to and was
introduced by the Prime Minister in January 1916,

The threat that it would be extended to Ireland, made by recruiting
agents in that country, is said to have caused the rising in Dublin on
Easter Sunday. Both the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and the Chief
Secretary resigned from the Government and Lloyd George was asked
by Asquith to evolve a solution. He suggested that Ireland should be
granted Home Rule at once, but that Ulster should be excluded. This
was accepted by both Redmond, the Irish Nationalist leader, and by
Carson; but the Diehards in the Lords, with the aged Lord Halsbury
at their head, exercised their veto - it was thus deferred for some years.

At about the same time, June 1916, Kitchener, on his way to Russia,
lost his life in H.M.S. Hampshire, sunk by a mine off the Orkneys. He
had already lost the confidence of his colleagues in the Cabinet and

353

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Lloyd George was moved from the Ministry of Munitions to the War
Office to succeed him. Lloyd George had hesitated for some time
before accepting it. His energies, he felt, might be far better employed
in a role of greater authority, and many Conservatives were of that
view too, for they were dissatisfied with Asquith's direction of the
war. His move to the War Office also displeased the generals, who did
not like a soldier being repkced by a civilian. Mrs. Asquith was uneasy
too. She noted in her diary: 'We are out, it is only a question of time
when we shall have to leave Downing Street/ Her forecast proved to
be correct: in five months Asquith was out and Lloyd George became
Prime Minister. Lord Beaverbrook, at that time Mr. Max Aitken,
played a vital part in this adjustment by manipulating the strings effec-
tively from behind the scenes. Fkst he brought Lloyd George and
Bonar Law together to discuss a more vigorous prosecution of the war.
An ultimatum was then sent to Asquith and he resigned. Mrs. Asquith
records: 'We had to leave Downing Street without a roof over our
heads in 1916 - as our house in Cavendish Square was let to Lady
Cunard - she put her own bedroom and sitting room at my disposal
and insisted upon living on an upper storey herself.'

Lloyd George and his family moved into No. 10 from No. 1 1, where
they had stayed on even after he gave up the office of Chancellor of the
Exchequer the year before. Bonar Law, the new Chancellor of the
Exchequer, now moved in next door.

All the Liberal members of the Cabinet remained loyal to Asquith
and refused to serve under Lloyd George, with the single exception of
Dr. Christopher Addison, who had formed the Ministry of Munitions
for Lloyd George, had served under him there and had taken charge of
that office as Minister when Lloyd George went to the War Office.
But of the Liberal Party as many as 120 M.P.s, almost half, came over
to Lloyd George. The Tories stipulated that they would only serve if
Winston Churchill was not included in the new Government. Churchill
had been driven from the Admiralty and was dropped from the
Government later in 1915, since when he had been serving at the
Front. A War Cabinet of only four members was then formed. In
addition to Lloyd George, there were Lord Curzon, Sir Edward
Carson, and Arthur Henderson, representing the Labour Party, all
three without portfolio. Balfour, who had succeeded Churchill at the

354

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Admiralty and was now nearly seventy, was appointed Foreign
Secretary. The rest of the Government consisted chiefly of Tories,
with a few businessmen and a sprinkling of Labour members. Beaver-
brook (then Sir Max Aitken) had expected to be made President of the
Board of Trade. He did not get it and was offered a peerage instead.
He refused this at first, but was pressed to take it because Bonar Law
wanted his seat in the House for the man who, ironically, actually was
appointed President of the Board of Trade.

These dramatic developments in December 1916 were followed by
a most anxious year, for 1917 was marked by an intensification of
submarine warfare: the U-boat havoc on merchant shipping caused a
grave shortage of rations in Britain. The Russian Revolution in March
led to the withdrawal of that country from the fight, but the entry of
the United States in the following month, April 1917, more than
counterbalanced this, once American resources were employed. It was
also the year of some of the bloodiest battles of the war, including
Passchendaele, with its appalling toll of lives. Just before the battle
was launched, the Commander-in-Chief, Field-Marshal Haig, had
come home from the Front and had spread out his map on the long
table in the Cabinet room, his hands indicating the course the offensive
would take. He did not, however, reveal that the French High Com-
mand were strongly opposed to it.

In the months that followed a succession of fierce clashes occurred
between the Prime Minister and the generals, some of them by letter
and ciphered telegrams, many face to face at No. 10. Since becoming
Prime Minister Lloyd George spent most of his time in the house. He
said at the outset: 'One man cannot possibly run Parliament and run
the war/ So he left Parliament to the care of Bonar Law and worked at
No. 10, receiving here the great military and naval commanders, all
the Allied emissaries, and eventually the President of the United States,
Woodrow Wilson. With his activities centred here, there was inevit-
ably a considerable increase in his secretariat. Hut after hut went up
in the garden as offices. The Cabinet no longer looked out upon a
pleasing expanse of green during their deliberations, but on what came
to be known as *The Garden Suburb'.

Lloyd George was an early riser and a great deal of his entertaining
(though it could hardly be called that) was done at breakfast. In the

355

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

small panelled breakfast room on the first floor, Cabinet Ministers
and others would assemble and talk. Yet it remained a family meal,
for his wife and his two daughters breakfasted with them, as well as
his two sons when they were home on leave from the Front. Top
secrets were frankly discussed and the Prime Minister never felt it
necessary to warn his family not to repeat anything they overheard.
Megan, fourteen when her father moved into No. 10, was alarmed one
afternoon to see in an evening paper something that had been dis-
cussed at breakfast. She went to her father and said: 'I hope you don't
think I talked.' He put his arm round her shoulders. 'Of course not/
he said, 'I would trust you with my life and, what is much more
important, I would trust you with the future of our country/*

Megan had lost her companion Anthony Asquith when his family
moved out, but had found a new friend in Kitty, Bonar Law's younger
daughter, who was three years her junior. In order to avoid using the
main staircase and the communicating door between Nos. 10 and 11,
Kitty Law used to climb on to the roof of the Chancellor's house and
walk along the narrow and not very secure ledge between the two
houses, then scramble over the glass roof of the corridor in No. 10, to
talk to Megan before breakfast and again at night. Megan, fearful that
she would fall through the glass and hurt herself, remembered her own
escapades when she was only six or seven and had herself climbed on
to the ledge from No. n. Lloyd George was in the garden at the time,
talking to a group of distinguished French Ministers. Without a word
he left his guests and raced up the stairs two at a time, leaned out of a
top window and, snatching her in his arms, said sharply: 'Don't you
ever do that again/ Now she was away at a boarding school all term,
and when she was due back at No. 10 her small black pug Zulu would
be adorned with a red ribbon and would prance excitedly in the front
hall. Missing him on one home-coming, she was told he was ill, but he
had died and lay in a grave in the garden, a fact not revealed to her
until much later.

In June 1917 her sister Olwen, older than Megan by ten years, was
married from No. 10 to Dr. Thomas Carey Evans. It was the second
wartime wedding from that house, for two years earlier, in 1915,

* In a statement to the author by Lady Megan Lloyd George, M.P.
356

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE FIRST WORLD WAB

Asquith's daughter Violet was married from here to his secretary
Maurice Bonham Carter. Olwen says: 'My fianc6 was in Mesopo-
tamia and we did not know when he would be able to get home. One
day when Carson, who was First Lord of the Admiralty, was over to
lunch, he informed me that Thomas would be home "very shortly"
and the wedding had to be arranged at very short notice. We had a
very small reception and an enormous wedding cake - but it was
almost all cardboard, because we had hardly any sugar.'*

The domestic staff at No. 10 was entirely Welsh. Mrs. Lloyd George
brought in a Welsh cook, all the maids were Welsh, even their old
Welsh nannie Lollie was there. The endless rows of copper pots and
pans in that enormous basement kitchen made them gasp. 'Good God !
What am I to do with all that !' the cook exclaimed, only she said it
in Welsh, for that was what was spoken all the time below stairs and
quite a lot of the time above stairs too. 'Our friends from the chapels
in Wales when they came to London, used to drift in,' Olwen says,
'and often some of them spent the night at No. 10. We always had
visitors, for one meal or another. Mother somehow managed to cope
with those who turned up at the last minute. I remember Harry Lauder
coming to breakfast, General Smuts came several times, so did Sir James
Barrie, the author, and Ramsay Macdonald. Churchill was constantly
there, but never for breakfast - it was too early for him, he was always
a late riser.

'I remember,' Olwen went on, 'M. Thomas, the French Minister of
Munitions, coming to breakfast. I was asked to translate. I'm afraid
such words as "barbed wire entanglements" were beyond me. Lord
Reading came to the rescue, but my father stopped him. "Let her do
it. She's been to Paris," he said.'

Megan's Zulu was not the only dog in the house. Lloyd George had
a Welsh terrier called Cymru, but felt he would be happier at Walton
Heath and had him moved there, but two or three days later he some-
how found his way back to No. 10. A third dog was Olwen's peke
Ching. Just as the Cabinet was about to meet one morning Lloyd
George saw Ching seated in one of the ministerial chairs, with his chin
resting on the blotting pad. 'I see,' said the Prime Minister, 'we have

* In a statement to the author.
357

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

a new member of the Cabinet/ and led him gently out of the
room.

During 1917 the Prime Minister had to solve a number of inter-
departmental squabbles. The most serious of these rows was between
the War Office and the Admiralty over the merging of their separate
air services into the unified Royal Air Force, which Lloyd George
described as 'the cavalry of the clouds'. The fusion was achieved before
the end of the year. By now Churchill had been brought back into the
Government, despite the pledge given to the Conservatives, and the
production of all aircraft was put under his control as Minister of
Munitions.

The tide of war turned in the spring of 1918 after the failure of the
Germans' mighty thrust towards Paris. American troops had begun to
arrive in increasing numbers. When an American mission, led by
Colonel House, reached London, it was received by the Prime Minister
in the Cabinet room at No. 10, the very room, Lloyd George pointed
out, where nearly a century and a half before, Lord North had decided
on the policies of taxation and control that had driven the American
colonies to their War of Independence.

The certainty of victory was apparent in September. News of the
Armistice was brought to No. 10 very early in the small hours of the
morning of nth November. Lloyd George and his wife were in bed.
The messenger hurried up the stairs to the corner bedroom on the
first floor overlooking St. James's Park. The Prime Minister was roused.
The entire household was informed. Soon a crowd began to gather in
Downing Street and in time it filled not only the street but the great
courtyard of the Foreign Office opposite. Men and women with
children in their arms were pressed tight against the walls. It was
impossible for any of them to move. They called for 'L.G.' and
presently he appeared at one of the only windows, other than those in
the attic, that overlook Downing Street - a window of the room that
had once been Violet Bonham Carter's bedroom. The Prime Minister's
face was flushed. He was overcome with emotion and hardly able to
speak. It was the only time in his life when words failed him.

That night Lloyd George and Churchill dined together in Soane's
panelled State dining-room on the first floor. Churchill records: €We
were alone in the large room from whose walls the portraits of Pitt

358

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR

and Fox, of Nelson and Wellington and - perhaps somewhat incon-
gruously - of Washington - then looked down/145

Some weeks before an admirer had sent the Prime Minister an
Egyptian scarab for luck. Sarah, the housekeeper, was horrified
when she saw it and begged Mrs. Lloyd George not to keep it in the
house: she was sure it would bring the most awful calamities. Quite
suddenly it disappeared. It was searched for everywhere and Sarah
finally admitted that she had buried it in the garden. Where it was
buried she could not, or would not, remember. It is there to this day
and no doubt when it is unearthed in the course of some future
excavations the theory is likely to be advanced that at some time the
Egyptians must have been in occupation of London.

359

CHAPTER 36

The Fall of Lloyd Georgb

THREE days after the Armistice, amid the wild excitement and
rejoicing, it was announced that there was to be an immediate General
Election. Bonar Law, as Leader of the House, informed the Members
that Polling Day would be in a month's time and that the votes would
be counted on 28th December. The preparations had in fact been made
months before when the Representation of the People's Act was passed,
granting votes to women at the age of thirty and to all men at the age
of twenty-one. The electorate, as a result, had been doubled.

The purpose of the election was to ensure the continuation of the
Coalition Government. But the Labour members in it resigned the
moment the election was announced. It was fought on a coupon basis -
all candidates prepared to support Lloyd George were supplied with a
certificate and the electors were asked to vote only for them. He prom-
ised the prosecution of the Kaiser, the punishment of all Germans
responsible for atrocities, the rehabilitation of those who had suffered
in the war, the extraction of an indemnity from Germany to the full
capacity of that country to pay, and a wide range of fresh domestic

360

THE FALL OF LLOYD GEORGE

reforms. Reduced to slogans it guaranteed to 'Hang the Kaiser', to
'Squeeze the German lemon till the pips squeaked' and to 'Provide
Homes for Heroes'. It resulted in the personal triumph of Lloyd George
and though the Conservatives (334 in number) predominated in the
new House, they were for the time being at any rate his staunch
supporters. Asquith was defeated and his followers were reduced to
only 33 ; the Labour Party, on the other hand, had 59 members in the
new House. Arthur Henderson, however, was defeated and Ramsay
MacDonald became the new Labour leader.

Having secured the authority from the country, Lloyd George set
out for the Peace Conference in Paris. President Wilson had already
arrived in London and, following a banquet at Buckingham Palace,
was entertained at No. 10 Downing Street on 28th December by the
Imperial War Cabinet before going on to Paris. Together he and
Lloyd George set up the League of Nations, Wilson's pet project, and
carved up Europe, forming each nationality into a separate State, with
the intention of eliminating the risk of future war. H. G. Wells, how-
ever, proved to be right when he prophesied that the Polish Corridor,
cut across Germany to give the new State of Poland access to the sea,
would be the cause of the next world war, and forecast the date of its
outbreak almost to the month.

The Peace Treaty was signed on 28th June 1919 in the Hall of
Mirrors at Versailles and Lloyd George returned to No. 10 Downing
Street to cope with the many problems of peace. Among the first of
these was demobilization. Churchill, appointed Secretary of State for
War in the new Government, had urged before even taking up his
office, that the Allies should deal with the Communist (or Bolshevik
as it was then called) menace which Russia presented to the world. He
was convinced that only a very little resolute action would be required
to eliminate Lenin and his followers, and was even prepared to use
troops for this purpose. But Lloyd George would not hear of it. The
fighting forces, restive already, would have to be demobilized, he said,
and there was no other available man-power, nor for that matter was
there any money with which to conduct a campaign such as Churchill
envisaged. Moreover, unless its result was decisive, the Communists
would win far greater support from the Russian people in their en-
deavour to repel the foreign invaders.

361

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

But Churchill was not to be discouraged. There was already a
British Expeditionary Force in North Russia: it had been sent during
the war to assist those Russians who were prepared to go on fighting
against the Germans. Introducing his Army Estimates in March, he
blandly told the House that the British Expeditionary Force could not
leave Russia until the late summer because of 'that ice-bound shore',
and that they could be used meanwhile to ease the problem of the
Allies who would otherwise have to evacuate 30,000 or more people
who had helped us in the war. Disaster, however, overtook the pro-
ject. In July the White Russian troops in the North revolted and
murdered their officers. Criticized in the House for getting British
troops embroiled, Churchill pointed out with aplomb that had the
Red forces not been thus engaged they would have fallen upon the
border States the Peace Conference in Paris had been busy setting up,
and dismembered them.

Next Lloyd George had to deal with Ireland. At the General Election
the Sinn Feiners, with 73 M.P.s, had secured a sweeping victory over
the Irish Nationalist Party, who had only seven elected to the House.
Flushed with their triumph, the Sinn Feiners proclaimed Ireland a
Republic, and called a meeting of their own independent Parliament,
the Dail, at which they announced that at last, after seven hundred
years under foreign domination, they had achieved their freedom. Of
the Sinn Feiners elected to Westminster, one was a woman, Countess
Markievicz, the first woman ever elected to the British House of
Commons. Like the others, she did not take her seat, but was in an
English prison, together with De Valera who had been elected the
first Prime Minister of the Irish Republic. From this moment the
alternation of coercion and conciliation, which had been a feature of
British rule through the centuries, developed into a continuing
guerilla warfare between the Irish Republican Army and the Royal
Irish Constabulary, expanded by recruitment in England and called
the 'Black and Tans' because of their black caps and khaki uniforms.
The fighting, marked by ambush and murder by gunmen, went on
for two years.

In December 1920 Lloyd George set up two separate Parliaments
for Ireland, one for the South, the other for Ulster, but it did not
placate the Republicans. The final settlement was not achieved until

362

THE FALL OF LLOYD GEORGE

the latter part of 1921. Lloyd George had four talks in July with De
Valera, all of them at No. 10 Downing Street. Dominion status was
offered to Ireland but rejected. The Sinn Feiners insisted on the inclusion
of Ulster, but by masterly handling Lloyd George, on 6th December
1921, got them to sign a treaty of independence, which included par-
ticipation with the Commonwealth and the exclusion of Ulster. It was
one of Lloyd George's greater achievements.

The end of his long Premiership was now drawing near. Many of
the Conservatives regarded the Irish Treaty as a betrayal. It was
inevitable that Lloyd George's radical policies, regarded as undiluted
Socialism, would sooner or later lead to a head-on collision. With
their enormous number in the House, the Conservatives were restive
to have their own Prime Minister. It was only the loyalty of the chief
Tory leaders to Lloyd George that had delayed the impending break.

Following a brief period of boom, a deep depression had set in.
There was acute unrest, as after Waterloo. Strikes followed, then came
unemployment. During 1921 the number wholly or partially unem-
ployed rose to over two millions. By the end of February 1922 Lloyd
George thought of resigning. He wrote to Austen Chamberlain, who
on Bonar Law's retirement through illness had succeeded him as
Leader of the Conservative Party as well as Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, to suggest that he should take over the Premiership. But
Chamberlain declined, saying that Lloyd George's resignation would
be a disaster. A few in the Tory Party shared this view, but others,
though eager to get rid of Lloyd George, thought it would be more
advantageous to wait.

Lloyd George's continued absences from the House of Commons
now caused a great deal of uneasiness and resentment: the war was
over, he should be there, it was said. But he liked working at No. 10
Downing Street. The huts had been removed from the garden and in
the mornings he would take his two granddaughters - Olwen's and his
son Richard's children - for a walk and a romp along the Horse Guards
Parade. If there was to be a Cabinet meeting he always lifted them on
to the long table so that they might step from one freshly filled blotter
to another, walking always on the squares, as A. A. Milne's poem puts
it. This delighted Lloyd George immensely. At weekends he liked to
get away to the country. He often played golf at Walton Heath, but

363

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

after October 1917 there was Chequers to go to - a magnificent Tudor
mansion in Buckinghamshire, which Sir Arthur Lee (later Lord Lee of
Fareham) presented as the official country residence for Prime Minis-
ters - a counterpart to No. 10, away from the bustle of Whitehall,
though inevitably it often became a hive of activity at weekends.

It was trouble in Turkey that finally brought Lloyd George down.
The Turks, allies of Germany in the war, had their Empire dismem-
bered by the Treaty of Sevres. Many of the Western Allies still had
detachments of troops in occupation of certain parts of what remained
of that country. Fighting had recently broken out between the Turks
and the Greek army, which had landed in Asia Minor with the know-
ledge and encouragement of Lloyd George. There was an outcry
against this and when Mustapha Kemal, the newly elected President
of Turkey, routed the invaders in the summer of 1922 and came face
to face with the slender British forces at Chanafc, Churchill, now
Secretary for the Dominions and Colonies, with the approval of Lloyd
George urged the Dominions as well as the French and Italians to assist
in repelling Kemal by force of arms. The prospect of a new war
against their co-religionists roused the Moslems in India. The situation
soon became grave.

This, the Tories decided, was their moment. A dramatic meeting
was held at the Carlton Club in London on I9th October 1922. Bonar
Law, a Member of Parliament still, emerged from his retirement to
address the assembled Conservative M.P.S. He said the time had come
for the Tories to leave the Coalition. Stanley Baldwin, President of the
Board of Trade in the Government, warned the Party in a short but
effective speech that, just as the Liberals had been smashed by Lloyd
George, so would the Tories be disrupted if they did not break away.
By 187 votes to 87 the Tories decided to adopt this course. Austen
Chamberlain, their leader, voted with the minority.

In the Cabinet room at No. 10 four days later Lloyd George bade
farewell to his secretaries. He was playful. He walked up and down the
room and said it was the kst time he would ever be in it unless he came
as a visitor. He was right. The end had come after six years as Prime
Minister, two as a forceful and brilliant leader in war, the remaining
four during the harassments of peace.

364

CHAPTER 37

First Labour Government

LLOYD GEORGE had in fact resigned immediately after the
Carlton Club meeting. As soon as he left Buckingham Palace the
King's secretary, Lord Stamfordham, set out for Bonar Law's home in
Onslow Square, Kensington, and summoned him to an audience.

Bonar Law was reluctant to form a Government. He was not any
longer, he said, the official leader of his Party, nor would his health be
equal to the strain of office.

Many of the ablest Conservatives in the Coalition Government
stood loyally by Lloyd George. These included Austen Chamberlain,
the actual Leader of the Party, who but for his loyalty would now have
becomePrimeMinister.Balfour, a former Prime Minister, Lord Birken-
head, and Lord Lee of Fareham also stood by Lloyd George. The
others rallied round Bonar Law and an immediate General Election
was decided on. It was held on I5th November 1922. A tape machine
was installed in the long red-carpeted corridor at No. 10 just outside
the Cabinet room and those candidates who were not in their con-
stituencies gathered round it for the results. The Tories were returned

3<55

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

with a majority of 77 over all the other Parties put together. The
Labour Party increased its strength in the House to 138, which was
double their previous number, and thus became the official Opposition.
Of the divided Liberals, the Asquith group mustered 60 M.P.s, the
Lloyd George Liberals numbered only 55. Winston Churchill, a
Lloyd George Liberal, was defeated at Dundee, and before long joined
the Tory Party.

In the new Government, Stanley Baldwin became Chancellor of the
Exchequer and moved into No. n Downing Street; Neville Chamber-
lain, younger brother of Austen, and a future Prime Minister,
was Postmaster-General; Lord Curzon remained at the Foreign Office.
When Bonar Law moved into No. 10 Downing Street he was
sixty-four. His wife had died some years before and the desolation
caused by that loss never really left him. The war had taken a toll of
two of his four sons (both were killed in 1917) and he moved in now
with his sister, Miss Mary Law, his surviving sons and his younger
daughter Kitty, who was seventeen and went to a day school.
The elder girl, Isabel, had married Major-General Sir Frederick
Sykes in 1920 from No. n. For official dinners and receptions she
came to No. 10 to act as hostess and in December there was a
christening party at No. 10 for her baby.

Bonar Law lived in the house for less than seven months. His illness
was far more serious than had been supposed - he was suffering from
cancer of the throat - but he carried on bravely, without betraying the
pain he had to endure.

It was not long after he had moved into No. 10 that Mussolini, by
now Fascist dictator of Italy, came to London and dined with Bonar
Law in the State dining-room of this historic house. Richard Law, the
Prime Minister's younger son (later Lord Coleraine), was an under-
graduate at Oxford at the time and had come to stay at No. 10 for the
vacation. He was not invited to the dinner, but peering through the
curtains, he saw the small party of men assemble, Mussolini was not
dressed in his black shirt, but wore a white tie and tails, looking like a
cross between a head waiter and an opera singer. The occasion of the
visit was a conference of European Prime Ministers in December
1922, which was also held at No. 10 in the State drawing-room on the
first floor.

366

FIRST LABOUR GOVERNMENT

Bonar Law was by temperament the exact opposite of Lloyd George.
He had not the flamboyant exuberance of his predecessor, nor had he
the wizardry which had held the world spellbound for so long. He
was always calm, his arguments were always carefully reasoned. He
had promised the country 'Tranquillity* at the General Election ('There
are times when it is good to sit still and go slowly') and he strove to
fulfil this promise. In the glamour of high office he was not interested.
He had a duty to the people and to that he applied himself. His experi-
ence was considerable, for during Lloyd George's consistent absence
from the Commons, it fell to Bonar Law, the Leader of the House and
in effect acting Prime Minister, to shoulder the full Parliamentary
burden. Lloyd George had described him as 'honest to the verge of
simplicity*, and Bonar Law's comment on this was that he could wish
for no better epitaph.

The jibes that met his efforts to form a Government without the
tried leaders of his Party, he parried with skill. To Lloyd George's
sneer that he had to descend to the kitchen to replace the brilliant
Ministers who refused to serve under him, he retorted that Lloyd
George had himself been taken out of the cellar by Campbell-Banner-
man. 'My desire', said Bonar Law, 'is to be the family solicitor, standing
firm on the hearth-rug among the harsh realities of the office furniture,
while he prefers to fly round on one wing.'

The intrusions Lloyd George had constantly made into the various
ministries were abandoned: to each Minister Bonar Law restored the
fullest authority. Thus when a deputation of unemployed asked to see
him, they were told to see the Minister of Labour, and he refused to
alter his decision despite their persistence.

It was during his brief reign at No. 10 that two outstanding settle-
ments were achieved. One of these was the Treaty with the Irish Free
State, which came up for endorsement within a few days of his becom-
ing Prime Minister. Despite the earlier opposition to it by the bulk of
the Tory Party, they agreed that Bonar Law should honour the settle-
ment. The other concerned the immense loan advanced to Britain by
the United States during the war. Baldwin, as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, went to Washington early in 1923 to negotiate the terms
of settlement and, although they were hard and not altogether to
Bonar Law's liking, they were accepted as the best that could have been

367

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

obtained in an extremely difficult atmosphere, exacerbated by the
renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance.

Bonar Law's health got progressively worse and by April 1923 he
was unable to speak. He sat voiceless on the Front Bench with Baldwin
beside him, leaving it to the latter to make all the pronouncements.
But he remained at his post until after the wedding of the Duke of
York* at the end of April, when, on medical advice, he set out on a
Mediterranean cruise. He appeared to be no better at the end of it and
broke the journey in Paris on the way home. There his doctor joined
him and advised him to resign. This he did on 20th May within a few
hours of arriving in England.

Bonar Law died on soth October and was buried in Westminster
Abbey. The Prince of Wales (later the Duke of Windsor) together with
four Prime Ministers, past, present and future - Balfour, Asquith,
Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald - were among the pall bearers.

During Bonar Law's absence on the cruise Lord Curzon acted
as Prime Minister, while Baldwin led the House of Commons. It
was the prerogative of the King to choose which of the two should
succeed as Prime Minister. Queen Victoria was faced with a similar
choice on Gkdstone's resignation in 1894 - Lord Rosebery was Leader
of the Lords and Sir William Harcourt of the Commons: she chose the
former. King George the Fifth chose Baldwin, despite his short and so
far uneventful political career. His Majesty held, and the majority of
the Privy Councillors he consulted endorsed the view, that with
Labour as the official Opposition it was essential that the Prime Minis-
ter should be in the House of Commons. It was a bitter blow to Curzon :
he is said to have cried all night in his palatial home in Carlton House
Terrace.f But in public he conducted himself with his customary dig-
nity and grace, for it fell to him to propose that Baldwin should be
elected Leader of the Conservative Party and later he welcomed him
into the Cabinet room as the new Prime Minister. Outside a swarm of
newspaper men waited. Baldwin went shyly to the front door of No.
10 and said he needed their prayers rather than their congratulations.151

Baldwin moved into No. 10 shortly afterwards. He was fifty-six,
married and had five children, two of them sons: the eldest of these,

* Later King George the Sixth,
f Later the Savage Club.

368

FIRST LABOUR GOVERNMENT

Oliver, now twenty-four, had just returned after fighting in Turkey,
where he had been a prisoner of the Bolsheviks and the Turks. He was
unmarried and spent much of his time at No. 10 together with his
younger brother, Wyndham, who was then nineteen, and Betty, the
youngest of his sisters, the other two having already married. Even so
they found the house crowded. The entire ground floor was given up
to offices. On the floor above, Mrs. Baldwin used the inner room with
the bathroom as her bedroom, while Baldwin slept in the ante-room
outside and had to curtain it off so that he should not be seen lying in
bed indulging his passion for detective stories by the office-keeper,
who had a flat in the house which overlooked the ante-room. This
flat was in the attic above Violet Bonham Carter's old bedroom over
the front door. The youngest of the Baldwin children, Wyndham and
Betty, used two of the attic bedrooms on the top floor; they were
originally maids' rooms and could only be reached by the back
stairs.

Baldwin was to be in this house for only six months - a shorter time
even than Bonar Law. To the country he was comparatively unknown,
but the cartoonists soon made his stocky farmer figure and his pipe
immediately recognizable. A slow, cautious man, he brushed aside
many of the problems that beset him and concentrated only on a few,
which he handled with considerable skill, as will emerge. But his seem-
ing indifference to the rest led to his being regarded as lazy, which to
a large extent he was.

The overriding problem confronting him was unemployment. The
figures were still alarmingly high and Baldwin resolved to apply to
its solution the protective tariff so dear to the heart of his Party. He
felt, however, he was barred from adopting this course because of a
pledge given by Bonar Law that no change of such a kind would be
made in the present Parliament. At the Cabinet table many of his
colleagues insisted that the remedy was required and must be applied:
the electors, they said, had already given them an overwhelming vote of
confidence and it was unnecessary to appeal to them again.

But Baldwin refused to see it in that light. The honest course was to
hold another election and he accordingly asked the King on I2th
November 1923 to dissolve Parliament so that he might seek from the
people their verdict on tariff reform.

369

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

The result was disastrous for the Conservatives. They lost 88 seats
and while with 258 elected members they were still the largest party
in the House, Labour's representation had risen to 191 and the Liberals
(reunited to fight for Free Trade) had 158. Baldwin no longer had a
dear majority and could only govern with the backing of the Liberals,
and that he was certainly not going to get for his policy of Tariff
Reform.

Realizing the situation when the results were declared on 8th Decem-
ber, Baldwin's intention was to resign at once, but the King dissuaded
him, saying that as the head of the largest elected Party he had the right
to rule until he was defeated in the House.

The new Parliament met on the I5th January 1924 and later that
week, on the day the vote of no confidence was to be taken, Mrs.
Baldwin telephoned to the Hampstead home of Ramsay MacDonald,
Leader of the Opposition. He was away in the House and she invited
his eldest daughter Ishbd, then aged twenty, to come and see her at
No. 10 Downing Street.

When fchbel arrived it was dear at once to the large number of
pressmen and photographers waiting in Downing Street that the
country was to have its first Labour Government. Shy and a little
embarrassed by the flashing camera bulbs, Ishbd, looking straight
ahead of her, walked to the front door with Miss Byvoets, the daughter
of a Dutch architect, who was housekeeper in the motherless Mac-
Donald home. Mrs. Baldwin explained the position and showed them
round the house that was to be theirs. Both were appalled by its vast-
ness, unsuspected from the street, by its rambling passages and the
large number of rooms. Apart from the offices on the ground floor,
there were no fewer than forty rooms for them to take over and look
after. After their small residence, where they lived frugally, for Ram-
say MacDonald had never earned much money as a derk or a school-
teacher, the prospect seemed frightening. They were told that they
would have to bring in some of their own furniture and provide all
the linen, crockery and cutlery. Just as they were leaving Baldwin
returned. Defeated in the House of Commons by 72 votes, he had
already been to the Palace and resigned. The Press gathered round the
new tenant. 'What do you think of the house?' they asked Ishbel, and
ignoring the fact that she had been brought up entirely in England,

370

HRST LABOUR GOVERNMENT

they added, because of her Scottish background, a touch of heather to
her accent in their printed version. 'It's awfu' complicated,' the news-
papers made her say and it was picked up by George Robey and others
in the music halls and kughed at by delighted audiences.

On the day following his daughter's visit to No. 10, Ramsay
MacDonald was invited to Buckingham Palace to see the King. The
new Prime Minister was not even a member of the Privy Council and
members of the Council had been especially assembled so that he
should be sworn in at once and then kiss hands on taking office.
1 had an hour's talk with him,' the King noted in his diary on 22nd
January 1924, 'he impressed me very much; he wishes to do the right
thing. Today 23 years ago dear Grandmamma* died. I wonder what
she would have thought of a Labour Government!'138

The King himself was far from uneasy at the prospect of Labour
taking over. He realized that the Prime Minister and his colleagues
were inexperienced and assured them that they might count upon his
assistance in every way.*]"

MacDonald chose his team with care. J. H. Thomas, who had been
an engine-driver, was made Secretary of State for the Colonies. J. R.
Clynes, formerly a mill hand, was appointed Lord Privy Seal and
Deputy Leader of the House. Ramsay MacDonald himself kept the
office of Foreign Secretary because there was no one else he could
offer it to. Philip Snowden, a factory worker who had lost the use of
both his legs, was selected to be the new Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The Labour Party was not represented in the House of Lords. Three
existing peers agreed to join the Labour Government - Lord Haldane,
the great Liberal Secretary of State for War in Campbell-Bannerman's
Government eighteen years before (he was nearly seventy), Lord
Parmoor and Lord Chelmsford; to these the Prime Minister added by
creating three new peers. Arthur Henderson, who had obtained some
experience during the war by serving in two Coalition Governments,
was the new Home Secretary; Major C. R. Attlee, a future Prime
Minister, was given junior office as Under-Secretary of State for War.
Lord Beaverbrook noted: 'Heretofore no British Government for a
hundred years had been without considerable newspaper backing. The

* Queen. Victoria.

t Memorandum by Lord Stamfordham, the King's Secretary.

371

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Socialists could only claim one organ with a small circulation,* and
this newspaper could not be depended on by the new Prime Minister,
for it really represented the extreme Left of his own supporters/1"

The Labour Parry had been formed a little over twenty years before
and to have attained the right to rule in so short a span of time was
regarded as a considerable achievement. The working classes, which
it was organized to represent politically, with the Trade Unions as the
industrial wing, and the support also of the Co-operative movement,
had given their votes in the previous century to the Liberals, the only
radical group with which they had any kinship, and the Liberals had
indeed fought for many of their causes - in Gladstone's day and more
recently in the reforms of Asquith and Lloyd George. Keir Hardie, the
first Labour member in the House, formerly stood for Parliament as
a Liberal. But they had their own organization now and were in office,
though still dependent on Liberal help if they were to continue as the
Government of the country.

Ramsay MacDonald was fifty-seven years old when he moved into
No. 10. All his life had been a struggle. He had known poverty and
unemployment in his earliest years, when he left the small fishing
village of Lossiemouth at the age of twenty in quest of work: no
employer seemed interested in making use of the abilities of a future
Prime Minister and he had to take such temporary makeshift jobs as
he could get. He had married at the age of thirty Margaret Gladstone,
the daughter of a prominent scientist. Her family, remotely connected
with the great Gkdstone but more directly with Lord Kelvin, was
well-to-do and lived in a large house in Pembridge Square. But
Margaret was drawn to Socialism and through it to MacDonald.
After fifteen intensely happy years together, she died in 1911 and it
was as a widower that MacDonald moved in with his young children,
three of them girls, and one son Malcolm, the other, Alister, being
already married.

Furniture for No. 10 presented some problems. Until 1853 the
entire house had to be furnished by the incoming tenant. In that year,
following the departure of the three secretaries who lived at No. 10
while Lord John Russell was Prime Minister, it was decided that the

* The Daily Herald in its earlier very attenuated form before it was taken over by Lord
Southwood and built up into a widely read newspaper.

372

FIRST LABOUR GOVERNMENT

Treasury should in future be responsible for the furnishing, carpeting
and curtaining of the entrance hall and all the rooms on the first floor
that were used for official purposes. The rest of the house remained
unfurnished and untenanted for thirty years until Disraeli moved
in in November 1877. Even then only some of the furniture was
supplied for the upper rooms by the Board of Works. Twenty
years later, in 1897, when Salisbury was Prime Minister and his nephew
A. J. Balfour lived at No. 10, almost all the furniture was provided and
renewed at public expense. But the rooms were by no means fully
furnished. The Asquiths brought in some of their own furniture, so
did the Lloyd Georges. Ramsay Macdonald was unable to do this and
the State accordingly supplied the rest. But all the linen, cutlery and
crockery had to be brought in by him and MacDonald's modest home
was unable to meet the requirements of official entertaining. He ap-
pealed to his wife's stepsister, Miss Florence Gladstone, and she came
nobly to his rescue. She went to the sales (it was January), bought bed-
sheets and table-linen, cups and saucers, a large quantity of plates, for
she realized that entertaining by the Prime Minister would have to be
on an extensive scale, and even bought a certain amount of silver. At
the end of the second day Ramsay MacDonald asked her how much she
had spent. When she told him he was startled. 'My salary as Prime
Minister for these two days,' he said, 'is much less than you have so far
spent. We'll have to be extremely careful. I'm here on suffrance, I
could be defeated in the House tomorrow and there won't be enough
money then to pay for all this.'*

The furniture in the house was shoddy. It had been brought in from
store-rooms instead of museums. Ramsay MacDonald got some of it
changed and also arranged for a few pictures to be lent by the National
Gallery so that the house should have again some of the dignity and
elegance it displayed in die days of Walpole and Pitt. Though lost
without his library, MacDonald decided, in view of the uncertain
length of his stay, that it would be wiser not to bring his own books
from Hampstead. There ought to be, he felt, a library at No. 10, a
collection of books apart from the Hansards in the Cabinet room;
and he started one. It is known as 'The Prime Minister's Library' and is

* As stated to the author by Ishbel MacDonald.
373

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

an essential feature of the house. A special bookpkte was designed and
the collection has since been added to by other Prime Ministers. Fresh
bookshelves were put up in the Cabinet room, on the wall facing the
fireplace. Later, Winston Churchill presented his books on his father
and on his ancestor Marlborough, and even got earlier Prime Ministers
who were still living to add at least a volume to the shelves. Harold
Macmillan brought in a complete set of the works of Kipling.

The room above the front door was taken over as a study by Ishbd.
One of the rooms built round the well separating the house in front
from the one at the back, was used by Ishbel as her bedroom: just
under the office-keeper's flat, she heard him drop his boots when he
took them off every night. Campbell-Bannerman*s old bedroom at
the corner, used by Mrs. Baldwin as her boudoir and filled with family
photographs, became Ramsay MacDonald's study, with his bedroom
and partitioned bathroom alongside.

A fresh domestic staff was engaged: their wages were the Prime
Minister's liability. The butler, a feature of the house through die
centuries, was replaced for the first time by a parlourmaid. A cook, a
pantrymaid and two chambermaids were also taken on by Miss Byvoets,
the MacDonalds' housekeeper. Messengers, provided at public expense,
were on duty all day and far into the night, under the care of Berry,
the office-keeper, whose flat was reached by a private staircase, which
was also used by MacDonald's family as it had been by Lloyd George's
daughters and by Violet Bonham Carter.

The charwomen for cleaning the offices and main reception rooms
were paid by the State. The cost of the coal was carefully divided, such
of it as was used for domestic purposes had to be paid for by the Prime
Minister. For official entertaining the meals were as a rule supplied by
caterers, who prepared the dishes and warmed them up in the large
kitchen in the basement.

'There were no ornaments and no vases anywhere in the house.
They never are provided,' says Ishbel.* 'You just have to get your own.
I inherited £50 from an aunt at about this time and I spent the money
on Venetian glass, light green in colour, and some large vases for the
State drawing-room. I also bought some candlesticks and menu card

* In a statement to the author.
374

FIRST LABOUR GOVERNMENT

holders. I felt I had to do something about it, as the entertaining was a
great strain on Papa's finances. He found he had to pay for quite a lot
of it, and often there were as many as eighteen to dinner. Not much
entertaining was done at lunch because Papa had to get to the House
of Commons early.

'At this time my two younger sisters Joan and Sheila were in school.
They were fifteen and thirteen years old and used to travel by bus every-
day to Camden Town. They had two of the attic rooms as their
bedrooms, alongside the rooms in which the cook and the five maids
slept. There were by this time three bathrooms in the house - one for
Papa, an Edwardian bath with a frame of mahogany, one not far from
my bedroom and the third in the basement near the kitchen, rather
dark and dank with a stone floor, not at all nice. It was used mostly by
the resident staff.

'I found that as hostess at No. 10, 1 had to have a secretary. She lived
in and Papa had a private secretary, Rose Rosenberg, apart from his
official ones - he had of course to pay her salary himself. She worked
in a pokey little room just by the gent's lavatory on the way to the
Cabinet room and found it very noisy with the flush going almost
ceaselessly/

The King kept a watchful eye on events. A great change had
occurred in the history of the country and, to help and guide the new
Prime Minister, he drew up a memorandum on procedure. He pointed
out that the Leader of the House of Commons normally sends a letter
each evening to the Sovereign, describing the day's proceedings, that
all important Foreign Office dispatches are always submitted to the
King, and he urged that a firm hand should be kept on the distribution
of honours, since these had been bestowed rather extravagantly in
recent years. He was thoughtful enough to realize that the cost of the
uniform usually worn by Ministers at a Levfee, approximately ^73,
would be beyond the means of most of the members of the Govern-
ment, and stated: 'In no case do I expect anyone to get more than the
Lev&e coat; full dress is not necessary on account of the expense/ A
hint was even dropped by the King's Secretary that Moss Bros., the
dress hire firm, might be approached.

Having undertaken the dual role of Foreign Secretary and Prime
Minister, Ramsay MacDonald found that he had to answer as many as

375

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

sixty questions in Parliament in a single afternoon. The strain after a
time became oppressive, but he achieved some notable successes in
foreign affairs. There had been disagreements between Britain and
France over Germany. French forces were occupying Germany's
vital industrial region in the Ruhr and had met with passive resistance.
MacDonald felt that the exchange of stern diplomatic notes could be
repkced by a more conciliatory approach. He invited both sides to a
conference at St. James's Palace in London and the French eventually
agreed to evacuate the Ruhr. The King sent his warmest congratula-
tions to MacDonald on this signal triumph. The Soviet Union was
recognized as the de jure government of Russia and MacDonald held
a conference in London for the resumption of trade between the two
countries. This was not at all to the liking of the Conservatives and
before long it brought down the Labour Government.

The dominating task at home was, of course, to seek a solution for
the seemingly insoluble problem of unemployment. In addition to the
nearly two million who were out of work, there were vast numbers
who, though in employment, had had their wages cut severely. There
was widespread unrest and a succession of strikes - by the railwaymen,
by the miners, and others. London was without street transport for
ten days and very short of necessary supplies. The public were irritated
and grumbled that Labour was unable to control its own people.
There was also trouble within the Labour Party, many members of
which felt that the moment for the millennium had arrived but Mac-
Donald was taking no steps to attain it. Driven from behind, confronted
by the massive brick wall of Conservatism in front, and dependent
wholly on Liberal support to remain in power, MacDonald was fully
aware that the situation could not be sustained for long.

The quarrels in the Labour Party became vocal publicly. Back-
benchers criticized the Government and the Prime Minister had on
occasion to rebuke his undisciplined followers. There was conflict, and
confusion, even in the Cabinet. The Civil Lord of the Admiralty, the
First Lord being in the Upper House, rose in the Commons one day
and announced that the Government planned to build five cruisers in
order to ease the unemployment in the shipbuilding trade. A great
many Labour members were startled: their pacifist fervour blinded
them to the duty, imperative and inalienable, of every Government

376

FIRST LABOUR GOVERNMENT

to ensure the fullest possible protection of the people from attack by
sea, land or air. Yielding a little to the critics, MacDonald explained
that the cruisers would be laid down but would not be built without
the consent of Parliament and that in any case these were replacements
and would not be an addition to the total strength of the Fleet.

Two further concessions, or what appeared to be concessions to
his extremist backbenchers, finally brought him down. One of these
was the sudden abandonment of the case against J. R. Campbell, the
acting editor of the Communist newspaper TheWorkers* Weekly, who
was charged with inciting the armed forces to mutiny. The other was
the Prime Minister's complete reversal of his assurance to the House
that on no account would a loan to Russia be guaranteed by the
Government. When it was revealed that he had gone back on this, he
was denounced for giving way 'to forces outside the Cabinet'. The
Liberals and the Tories voted together and MacDonald's Government
was defeated in the House on 8th October 1924 by 384. votes to 198.

An immediate election was held. The voters' verdict was influenced
by the publication, just before polling day, of the 'Zinovieff letter',
the authenticity of which was later challenged and has never been
clearly established. It indicated an attempt by Russia to interfere in
Britain's domestic affairs and to establish Communist cells among the
unemployed, the armed forces and the munition workers. Labour
lost as a result 41 seats and the Conservatives came back 413 strong - a
clear majority of 211 over all the other parties combined, for the
Liberals were reduced by now to only 40 - a mere 'busload', as the
Press described it.

Shortly before the election, the MacDonalds had the Glasgow
Orpheus Choir to sing in the State drawing-room on the first floor.
The Duke and Duchess of York were present. A day or two later the
floor was found to be giving way: there had been too many people in
the room, but the singing of the choir was jestingly blamed. Cracks
appeared in the ceiling of the room below, used by three of the secre-
taries as their office. The cracks were covered over with stamp-paper
and it was said, playfully no doubt, that when the stamp-paper split
something would have to be done.

377

CHAPTER 38

The Return of Baldwin

MACDONALD moved out of No. 10 after a stay of barely ten
months and Stanley Baldwin moved in again with his wife, his
youngest daughter and his younger son, Wyndham. Safe with their
enormous majority, the Baldwins were able to stay here for nearly
five years.

The Conservative Party had by now closed its ranks. Austen
Chamberlain and Lord Birkenhead, who had loyally stood by Lloyd
George when the Coalition broke up, returned to the fold; and
Winston Churchill, after being defeated in a by-election earlier in the
year as an Independent Conservative, had been admitted to full
membership of the Party and was back in Parliament after an absence
of two years.

In constructing his Government, Baldwin surprised many by giving
the important office of Chancellor of the Exchequer to Churchill, who
had only just joined the Party. Chamberlain became Foreign Secretary;
his half-brother Neville became Minister of Health; Birkenhead went
to the India Office. The most disappointed was Curzon, who having

378

THE RETURN OF BALDWIN

missed the Premiership the year before, was now moved out of the
Foreign Office and became Lord President of the Council.

Most of Baldwin's Ministers found him an easy man to work with.
Foreign affairs he left completely to the Foreign Secretary, and in the
solving of crises he relied chiefly on his common sense and his instinct
to guide him to a solution. Both served him. well. Essentially he was a
moderate. He tried to steer a middle course between the Conservatism
of his followers and the Socialism which he sensed the country wanted.
Clearly the Liberal Party was no longer an effective force and the
only alternative Government was Labour.

The deep unrest caused by unemployment, still alarmingly high,
would, he foresaw, require most sympathetic understanding if serious
conflict was to be avoided. That was why when the Cabinet discussed
a Private Member's Bill, which sought to prevent trade unionists being
made to contribute to the Labour Party funds, Baldwin said he would
not support the Bill, though the majority of his colleagues were in
favour of it. Birkenhead passed him a note across the table at No. 10
saying: 'I think your action shows enormous courage and for that
reason will succeed/ The others eventually gave in. When the Bill was
introduced, the Prime Minister said: 'We have our majority; we
believe in the justice of this Bill . . . but we are going to withdraw our
hand, we are not going to push our political advantage home. . . .
Suspicion, which has prevented stability in Europe, is the one poison
that is preventing stability at home. . . . We, at any rate, are not going
to fire the first shot/ The speech, and the gesture it conveyed, won
Baldwin world-wide tributes. Curzon, in almost the last letter he ever
wrote, congratulated Baldwin on 'Your wonderful speech*. Indeed it
ranks among the great speeches made in Parliament.

But while Baldwin strove to woo the workers he grew more and
more impatient with the unyielding attitude of the employers. Con-
ditions were unhappily greatly worsened for the country by the return
to the gold standard, announced by Churchill in his first Budget. It
was done to enable London to retain its position as the banking centre
of the world, but in fact its effect on Britain's exports was most dam-
aging. Coal was seriously affected. One after another the mines
were shut down, and the mine-owners found that the wages they had
agreed in the precedingyear could no longer be maintained. Anattempt

379

NO. 10 DOWNING STMET

to terminate all existing agreements was rejected by the miners. Other
trade unions instantly rallied to their support. The situation became
critical and a meeting of the Cabinet was hurriedly called at No. 10
for 6.30 in the evening on sist July 1925. The faces of the Ministers as
they came along Downing Street reflected their anxiety and their
gloom. After much argument, and angry disagreement, Baldwin got
his colleagues to agree that the Government should pay the difference
between the wages fixed in 1924 and the lower sum the mine-
owners were now offering. This costly subsidy seriously affected
the Budget, but it enabled die mines to keep going until the spring. It
bought time. It was described by some as a bribe to the owners not to
serve their lock-out notices. But, as Baldwin admitted afterwards, it
was done because he was not yet ready to face a General Strike.

That came early in the following year and throughout the interven-
ing winter the Government proceeded quietly with their plans to
meet the threat.150 A Royal Commission was also appointed to inquire
into the mining situation. Its report, issued in March, advised that the
mine-owners should be bought out by the State; that a great many
technical improvements would have to be introduced; that the under-
ground working hours should be kept to seven hours and not increased
as suggested by the owners; and that the cut in wages should be small
and not as large as proposed by the owners.

The miners were not prepared to accept the Report as a whole and
expressed their opposition in the phrase - 'Not a minute on the day,
not a penny off the pay* - which by constant repetition became inflam-
matory. The owners, on the other hand, were ready to negotiate on
wages provided the hours of work were increased. Baldwin hoped that
some compromise would be reached. Talks were arranged with both
sides, but preparations to meet a General Strike went on. For the pur-
pose of combating it, the country was divided into eleven areas, each
under a Civil Commissioner. Troops were to be pkced in certain
industrial centres, and further battalions were to be held in reserve, to
be moved as required.

On 27th April 1926 the Cabinet, in the absence of Baldwin who
was engaged at the time in negotiations with the miners, advised that
a State of Emergency should be declared. Three days later the General
Council of the Trades Union Congress, indicating that the miners had

380

THE RETURN OF BALDWIN

the full backing of the other unions, decided to call a General Stn
They informed the Cabinet that the unions would be responsible f c
the distribution of food throughout the country so that there should
be no shortage and no hardship.

The Cabinet met on the night of Saturday ist May and continued
its discussions until 1.15 on Sunday morning. Baldwin felt that trouble
could be averted and a little extra time could be bought by continuing
the subsidy for a further three months, by which time the reorganiza-
tion of the mining industry could be begun. But the Cabinet, meeting
again at noon that Sunday, regarded this as a surrender under threat.
By five o'clock that afternoon it was announced that, unless there was
an unconditional withdrawal of the threat of a General Strike, nego-
tiations could not be resumed. The Cabinet then adjourned and met
again at 9.30 that evening. Two hours later they were joined by Bald-
win and two other Ministers, who had been engaged in discussions
with the T.U.C. delegates; they reported that no irrevocable step had
been taken with regard to a General Strike and that the T.U.C. were
prepared to withdraw all instructions at once if negotiations were
resumed.

At this point a message was brought to the Cabinet, which was
sitting at the time at No. n because of other discussions that had been
going on at No. 10. The message stated that the printers of the Daily
Mail had refused to print a leading article dealing with the case of the
miners and the supporting unions. This changed the situation. Baldwin
drew up a Note for the waiting T.U.C. committee, indicating that
'overt acts have already taken place, including gross interference with
the freedom of the Press' and asked for a repudiation of such action.
The Note was handed by the Prime Minister to the waiting
delegates and he then went up to bed. It was too late by now to stop
the Strike.

The Government was ready for the fight that followed; the unions
were not. The General Strike began in the early hours of 4th May 1926
and lasted for eight days. Everything was brought to a standstill; but,
following a broadcast appeal, large numbers of the public, being no
longer at work, offered to continue all the essential services, including
transport. As the newspapers were not appearing, a Government sheet,
called die British Gazette, under the editorship of Winston Churchill,
381

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

was issued daily. The strikers brought out their own paper, the Daily
Worker. The Government insisted on 'unconditional surrender'.

Mr. Justice Astbury pronounced the strike to be illegal, and Sir John
Simon charged the leaders of the strike as lawbreakers. Many eminent
legal authorities questioned the soundness of these pronouncements.
The strikers, however, seized the opportunity of sending representa-
tives to No. 10 for further talks, and the strike was over.

Baldwin, in a broadcast to the nation, asked that there should be no
recriminations, no allocation of blame: look forward, not backward,
he said. But among his followers there was a desire to be severe with
the vanquished. The Prime Minister, weary from the strain, gave in
to the extremists in his Party, just as Ramsay MadDonald was accused
of doing less than two years before. First the Seven Hours Act, limiting
the hours worked underground by the miners, was suspended. Next
came a new Trades Disputes Act, making all sympathetic large-scale
strikes illegal and imposing heavy penalties on those who assisted or
took part in them. It also curtailed picketing and compelled Civil
Service trade unions to withdraw from their affiliation to the Trades
Union Congress. These measures caused great resentment and left a
deep-seated bitterness. The Tories, though they had succeeded in
imposing their will on him, regarded Baldwin as being closer to the
trade unionists than to them: his elder son, Oliver Baldwin, was already
a member of the Labour Party, and they remembered moreover that
Baldwin had not hesitated to reprimand his own followers for what
he regarded as a breach of courtesy towards their opponents.

But much more than this was responsible for the gradual erosion of
his popularity with his Party and especially with his Cabinet. He
avoided action. He evaded decisions. He appeared to have adopted
Walpole's golden precept 'Let sleeping dogs lie'; but, whereas
Walpole's desire was merely to avoid trouble (he was indeed extremely
active in furthering his economic and international schemes), with
Baldwin the deterrent was indolence. His interests were narrow, his
knowledge superficial. But his love for England and his instinctive
understanding of the people was considerable. He could be called upon
to speak on a wide range of subjects at an assortment of assemblies and
is said to have delivered more speeches than any other Prime Minister.
The tasks of government were left largely to the departments. Inforeign

383

Gillray's cartoon, showing Britannia in 1804, menaced from one side by Napoleon, as
Death; and from the other by Addington (in doorway) and Fox, whose lethal inter-
ferences the Younger Pitt disposes of briskly.

John Doyle's cartoon, entitled 'Reading The Times' (1829). King George the Fourth (left)
asks: 'Well, Arthur: what's the news?', to which Wellington replies: 'We announce on
unquestionable authority that a serious difference has arisen between a great Personage
and his Prime Minister.'

A contemporary cartoon from The Gladstone ABC (Blackwood) showing Gladstone
invading Egypt in 1882.

THE WOlff AT TMC DOO*

Sir David Low's cartoon in the London Star of 27th October 1932, showing Ramsay
Macdonald at No. 10 with the Wolf of Unemployment at the door and Neville Cham-
berlain, Winston Churchill and others waiting their opportunity to take over.

Strube's cartoon in £yerytorfy',? of 2pth September 1951, during the closing days of
Clement Attlee's term as Prime Minister. Aneurin Sevan stands outside No. 10 while
Churchill, Leader of the Opposition, and Lord Woolton, Chairman of the Conservative
Party, prepare for the October general election.

THE RETURN OF BALDWIN

affairs Austen Chamberlain achieved a remarkable triumph through his
persistent endeavour for a general appeasement in Europe. The
Locarno treaties marked the acceptance by Germany of some of the
most vital provisions of the Peace Treaty of 1919 and led to her admis-
sion into the League of Nations. Chamberlain was rewarded with the
Garter.

But at home unemployment still eluded solution. A slight improve-
ment had been achieved by the building of nearly a million new houses
(for which Neville Chamberlain as Minister of Health and Housing
was chiefly responsible), and hundreds of new schools. But the dole
paid to the workless tore into Churchill's Budgets. Tariff Reform,
still dear to the heart of the Tories and regarded by many as an infallible
cure, Baldwin refused to consider because of the pledge given to the
voters at the General Election. In 1928 he was responsible for the exten-
sion of the franchise to all women on precisely the same terms as men.
Limited hitherto to women over thirty, it now brought in every
woman at the age of twenty-one and came to be known as 'The
Flapper Vote'. It is believed that this vote brought his Government
down in the General Election of the following year. The election was
fought under the uninspiring slogan of 'Safety First'. Labour came in
with greatly increased forces in the House, numbering 288 as against
260 Conservatives. The Liberals improved their position a little to 59.

Baldwin handed in his resignation on 4th June 1929. He had been
four and a half years at No. 10 Downing Street and was doubtless glad
to get away, for he and his wife both loved the country. They liked
going for long walks, stopping to look at pigs over a stile, and spend-
ing the hours watching a game of cricket, which both played. When
he was younger Baldwin used to be a sprinter. His son tells us that
even in maturity his zest for leaping over obstacles had not left him
and he would 'spring over . . . sofas and arm-chairs, low windows,
flights of stairs. ... I cannot recall ever seeing him climbing upstairs
one at a time at Downing Street; always at the double.'1*1 He had an
antipathy to social gatherings and could never wholly conceal, his son
adds, 'his misery when penned in by a fence of small talk' and by the
banquets and assemblies that were an inescapable part of his life at
Downing Street - the White Russian Cossack choir in the garden,
using the Cabinet room as their dressing-room, the display of the

383

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

traditional quilting work of the South Wales miners' wives in the
drawing-rooms to raise funds, and other of Mrs. Baldwin's activities
for the care of mothers in childbirth. His compensatory refuge was to
withdraw to the small room above the front door of No. 10 and read.
Shelves had been built round the room to hold his books and whenever
he could he spent hours here each evening with his wife seated beside
him.

384

CHAPTER 39

The National Government

WITH Labour the largest Party in the House, the King sent
for Ramsay MacDonald. But once again Labour was at the mercy of
the Liberals. By joining forces with the Tories in the lobbies they
could at any time get him out. Nevertheless with fortitude and hope he
took on the task and became Prime Minister for the second time.
Baldwin moved out of No. 10 and MacDonald returned, with his
daughter Ishbel once more as his hostess.

This time MacDonald did not combine the duties of Foreign
Secretary with those of Prime Minister, but handed that office over to
Arthur Henderson. A woman was admitted to the Cabinet for the
first time and took her place at the famous long table. She was Miss
Margaret Bondfield, Minister of Labour in the new Government.
Herbert Morrison became Minister of Transport; Atdee, the future
Prime Minister, who had been a junior Minister in the previous Labour
Government, was left out. Philip Snowden was once again Chancellor
of the Exchequer and went back to No. n next door.

Changes were made in the furniture of the main rooms. Ishbel

385

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

insisted that the chairs in the State dining-room, in the panelled break-
fast-room alongside, and in the two State drawing-rooms could and
should be improved - and they were. The Office of Works brought
along drawings and samples of what could be supplied and from these
Ishbel made her choice. To add to the pictures already in these rooms,
others were brought in from the cellars of the National Gallery. A
cheerful air was provided by arranging flower boxes in the windows,
especially those round the central well, and tubs of plants were also
set out on the roof.

Ishbel wanted to do much more. She wanted to remove the clutter
of partitions and add more bathrooms, but with an economic crisis
looming this was not possible.

Their favourite among the State rooms was the large dining-room
designed by Soane: it is an attractive room with its old panelling, its
pictures - a large one of Pitt over the fireplace, an equally large one
of Nelson over the sideboard, with smaller pictures of Burke over the
door to the pantry and of Fox in the panel beside it. Two other pic-
tures are of the Duke of Wellington and the Marquess of Salisbury.
While the MacDonalds were at No. 10 a picture of Gladstone was
hung in this room, just by the entrance: it caused a young grandson of
the Prime Minister's to remark: 1 know why you've got him here.
It's to remind us to chew each mouthful thirty times before swallow-
ing it/ Ishbel says: 'We liked this room so much that even if only one
of us was in for a meal, we had it alone there rather than in the small
breakfast-room alongside.**

Of the younger girls, Joan was a medical student in London, Sheila
was at Oxford. Malcolm, who had just been elected to Parliament,
took over Baldwin's small study above the front door, but boarded up
the bookshelves and hung his Japanese prints on them. 'For us,' Ishbd
continues, 'No. 10 was just a colony of bed-sitting rooms with a large
communal dining-room where we met for breakfast at eight o'clock.
We didn't use either of the State drawing-rooms ourselves. Prime
Ministers don't have any home life because of the demands made by
the House of Commons and by political and other meetings in the
evenings. I was lucky in having two comfortable rooms furnished to

* In a statement to the author.
386

THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

my liking, instead of just a bed-sitter, although these were inner rooms
with the windows looking out on to an ugly yard. The main drawing-
rooms were used for official entertaining of course - when Dominion
Prime Ministers were in London and when delegates came to attend
various conferences - scientific, economic, naval, that sort of thing/

It was a crowded life for the young hostess, for, in addition to these
official evenings, there were personal occasions when Sir James Barrie
or Mackenzie King from Canada dined and the maids went round in
their black dresses and white aprons. Ishbel also organized charity
appeals, some with sales of work, others musical: usually these were
predominantly-Scottish. Then there were meetings at which she had
to take the chair: one of these was addressed by the Prince of
Wales*, another by the Duke of York, "j*

'The only thing I disliked about being at No. 10,' she says, 'was the
unceasing publicity. Everything you did was in the news. There was
no escape, no privacy whatsoever. I got a key to the garden gate and
used to let myself out into the Horse Guards Parade in order to avoid
the cameras and get away from the clusters of sightseers in Downing
Street.

'The nights I loved, especially when it was late. One had an eerie
feeling about the rooms downstairs - empty, dark and silent.'

Ramsay MacDonald had once again to be extremely careful about
the legislation he tried to put through Parliament. He managed to get
the Coal Mines Bill through, which reduced the working hours under-
ground from eight to seven and a half; but his other measures were
either thrown out or amended beyond recognition. He failed in his
endeavour to repeal the Trades Disputes Act. American relations were
excluded from the control of the Foreign Secretary, Arthur Henderson,
and kept in his own hands; and it was to his tact and patience that an
agreement was reached in London between Britain, the United States
and Japan, establishing an accepted ratio of naval construction. This
saved Britain ^60 million and the United States 500 million dollars.
The agreement was later extended to include Italy and France.

There were minor irritants in foreign affairs. The Prime Minister
did not like Philip Snowden's sharp rejoinder at a conference on

* Later King Edward the Eighth and then the Duke of Windsor,
f Later King George the Sixth.

387

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

German reparations in Holland, when he referred to the French
representative's remarks as 'grotesque and ridiculous'. Snowden
threatened to resign if MacDonald did not publicly accord him his
fullest support. Trouble also occurred with Arthur Henderson over
the terms of a settlement in Egypt, at that time still under British
occupation. This brought another Minister to the verge of resignation.
But both incidents were smoothed out. Over the handling of the
unemployment problem, however, there was a resignation. The
number of workless rose steeply during 1930 and the trend continued
in 1931. It had become by now a world problem, affected in a great
measure by the widespread economic slump in the United States.
MacDonald appointed a committee to deal with it, headed by J. H.
Thomas, the Lord Privy Seal, and including the First Commissioner of
Works, George Lansbury, and Sir Oswald Mosley, who was Chan-
cellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Mosley insisted that only State-aided
public works could effect a cure. As not very much could be done
without immense financial resources, he resigned in despair in May
1930 and C. R. Atdee was appointed to take his place.

The Labour Party, disgusted and angry that unemployment should
still be rising, attacked the Prime Minister at the Party Conference in
October 1930. MacDonald, in a fighting reply, said: 'My friends, we
are not on trial; it is the system under which we live. It has broken
down, not only in this little island, it has broken down in Europe, ill
Asia, in America; it has broken down everywhere, as it was bound to
break down.' The Conference stood by MacDonald.

But the economic depression swelled and threatened the economy of
Britain, as of other countries, with collapse. The Prime Minister was
advised that sacrifices would have to be faced, including a cut in the
dole paid to the unemployed. The Cabinet was stunned when it was
told of this. If work could not be provided, the dole at least saved the
workless from some of the worst pangs of hunger. How could it be
reduced? That the total of such payments had risen alarmingly no one
could deny. The crisis, some began to feel, could only be courageously
met by a Coalition Government, drawn from all Parties.

In June 1931, an Austrian bank closed its doors, and panic set in. It
spread to Berlin. The German mark tottered. Foreign investors next
began to withdraw the money they had deposited in London banks.

388

THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

The Bank of England found it impossible to save the pound without
large credits from America and France, both of which countries had
been accumulating gold. Such credits, it soon became clear, would not
be provided unless the British Government had a balanced budget,
which was impossible without drastic economies. Credits were in fact
obtained from both those countries in July 1931 but not sufficient to
surmount the crisis. It now became essential for the Government to act.
August being a holiday month, most members of the Cabinet and
of the Opposition were away. Ramsay MacDonald returned to London
from Lossiemouth on the morning of nth August and immediately
had a talk at No. 10 with officials from the Bank of England. Baldwin,
on his way to Aix-les-Bains where he and his wife went annually for
August and September, was advised to return. Lloyd George being ill,
Sir Herbert Samuel was acting as Leader of the Liberals.

The Cabinet Economy Committee of five, of which MacDonald
and Snowden were members, met at No. 10 on I2th August and sat
all through that day and the next. It was a sad and anguished delibera-
tion, but they agreed at last that economies, including cuts in the dole,
would have to be made. Their report was discussed at a meeting of the
full Cabinet at No. 10 on ipth August. Many insisted that no cuts in
unemployment relief could humanely be imposed and suggested that
additional revenue should be raised by an all-round tariff of ten per
cent. The T.U.C. General Council expressed the same opposition
when the Prime Minister went to see them the next day. He returned
to Downing Street in a mood of despair. The Cabinet met again the
following morning, Friday 2ist August, and could come to no agree-
ment. That afternoon MacDonald saw the Tory and Liberal leaders.
They made it clear that much more would have to be done than the
Cabinet was prepared to agree to.

The Cabinet met again on the morning of Saturday the 22nd and
was informed of the Opposition leaders' views. The King, at Sandring-
ham since nth August, had kept in constant touch with the Prime
Minister by telephone. On Friday he left for Balmoral, but the moment
he got there he was told that he would be required in London and
travelled back by the night train, arriving at eight on the morning of
Sunday 23rd August. Two hours later he saw MacDonald at Buck-
ingham Palace.

389

NO. 10 DOWNING STBEBT

Later that day His Majesty, 'convinced of the necessity for a National
Government'* saw Baldwin and Samuel separately, then he saw
MacDonald again, and the Prime Minister handed in his resignation.
His Majesty asked him to reconsider his decision, and the next morn-
ing, at MacDonald's request, called together the three Party leaders.
Within a few hours a Coalition Government of all three Parties was
formed, with MacDonald as Prime Minister.

When he returned to No. 10 he found his colleagues waiting in the
Cabinet room. Informing them of what had occurred, he asked if
they were prepared to join him. He looked at each in turn; all refused,
except Snowden, J. H. Thomas and Lord Sankey, the Lord Chancellor.
The meeting lasted twenty minutes. Later the others elected Arthur
Henderson as their new Leader and became the official Opposition.
MacDonald, deeply grieved by their decision, felt it was no more than
a temporary rift, and that the Party would be reunited after the
crisis; but die bitterness, and the denunciation heaped upon him by
his former followers, made this quite impossible. He felt this acutely
for the rest of his life.

Snowden retained the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer and
one of the first things he did was to go off the gold standard, which it
was felt had contributed largely to the accentuation of Britain's
economic difficulties. Severe economies were imposed, and in time
confidence was restored and foreign capital began once again to pour
into London.

In October 1931 a General Election was held. The voters were
asked for a 'Doctor's Mandate' - an overall authority for treatment, as
required, to cure the ills of the country. Baldwin in his appeal to the
country defined his position in these words: 'Here am I,' he said, 'die
Leader of the Conservative Party, who took my political life in my
hands nine years ago to escape from a Coalition, asking you to support
a Government, led by a Socialist Prime Minister, and to enter myself
under him in another Coalition.' The public's response brought over-
whelming victory. The Coalition - or National Government, as it
was called - won all seats except 59 : to that attenuated number was the
opposition Labour Party now reduced.

* Recorded by Sir Clive Wigram (Later Lord Wigram), Private Secretary to the King.
390

THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

Ramsay MacDonald retained the Government almost as constituted
when the Coalition was formed two months before. Baldwin served
under him as Lord President of the Council; Herbert Samuel was
Home Secretary; Lord Sankey remained Lord Chancellor. Philip
Snowden, who had been ill, went to the Lords as Viscount Snowden
and his place at the Exchequer was taken by Neville Chamberlain.
Among the junior Ministers was Anthony Eden, a future Prime Min-
ister: he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Foreign
Office.

391

CHAPTER 40

Baldwin and the Abdication

THE National Government, not fully national since almost
the entire Labour Party had refused to join it and the handful who
were in bore the label 'National Labour', soon lost the main Liberal
group too, and the remnant of that Party, adopting MacDonald's
precedent, became known as 'National Liberals'. This breach, threat-
ened by Samuel in January 1932, was postponed until the Ottawa
Conference in the summer: the introduction of preferential tariffs in
favour of the Empire was regarded as having disposed finally of Free
Trade, brought in nearly a century before with the repeal of the Corn
Laws. Samuel resigned from the Government and Snowden, who was
Lord Privy Seal, resigned too as a staunch Free Trader. Sir John Simon,
now Foreign Secretary, became the Leader of the National Liberals.
But in complexion the Government was almost wholly Conservative.
Churchill was not included in the National Government and on
many issues was its severest critic. His earliest attack was on the plans
drawn up for the future of India. Following on the India Reform Act
of 1919, pledges had been given that India would be granted full

392

BALDWIN AND THE ABDICATION

Dominion status, and this was assured by the Labour Government in
a pronouncement made by the Viceroy* on 30th October 1929. Sir
John Simon had ahready been sent out by Baldwin with a Commission
of Inquiry (of which Attlee was a member) : its report was published
in June 1930 and the First Round Table Conference met in London
in November of that year. Gandhi, the leader of the Indian nationalists
(whose weapon was not terrorism but civil disobedience, though out-
rages were recurrent), attended the second of these conferences in
September 1931. The little wizened man with no front teeth, his sharp
eyes glittering behind glasses, arrived at No. 10 Downing Street
dressed in a dhoti displaying his spindly legs.

The Conferences failed because the proposal to make India a feder-
ation of self-governing provinces and Native States, with a central
federal assembly, was rejected by the Indian Princes. But a new
Government of India Bill was presented and passed, and received the
Royal Assent in August 1935. Every step in this planned progression
towards independence was subjected to the most persistent attacks by
the diehard section of the Tory Party, with Winston Churchill louder
in his denunciation than the rest. Ever since his freedom from office he
had become attached to Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere,
the Press peers whose morning, evening and Sunday newspapers
maintained a strenuous and unremitting criticism of Baldwin. It
weakened but did not destroy Baldwin's authority as Leader of the
Conservative Party; it disclosed, however, that the influence of the
popular Press was by no means as wide and effective as had been
imagined. After suffering it in silence for some years, Baldwin finally
turned on his assailants: 'What the proprietorship of these papers is
aiming at is power, and power without responsibility: the prerogative
of the harlot throughout the ages/

Churchill also used his considerable powers of scathing denunciation
to expose the weakness of Britain's defences and their inadequacy to
meet the growing Hitler menace. Britain was burdened by a dual
handicap. In the first place, since the war her policy had been based on
collective security through the League of Nations, which each succes-
sive Government had most ardently supported; secondly, the acute

* Lord Irwin, later Lord Halifax.
393

NO. 10 DOWNING STKEET

financial crisis of 1931 made it difficult for her to enter into an arms
race on an effective scale without making further drastic economies
in other directions. There was moreover a great wave of pacifist feeling
in the country, emphatically expressed at by-elections as early as 1933.
Nevertheless by July 1934 Baldwin, as Lord President of the Council,
announced that the expansion of the Air Force was to begin. A five-
year programme had been drawn up, providing 41 new squadrons and
raising the total to 75 for home defence. A few months later, on 23rd
November 1934, speaking at Glasgow, he revealed that in his mind the
collective system was no longer practicable, as both Japan and Germany
had by now left the League, but it was not until early in 1937 that a
detailed plan for rearming the country was drawn up, allocating the
expenditure of £1,500 million over a period of five years.188

MacDonald, who had an operation for glaucoma in each eye and
was tired and ailing, exchanged offices with Baldwin in the summer
of 1935, and Baldwin became Prime Minister for the third time. At
the General Election in November 1935 the Government lost 79 seats
but still had a majority of 245. Labour's strength in the House was
now increased to 154.

Baldwin, who had faced two grave crises, had still another to deal
with in the year ahead. King George the Fifth died in January 1936 and
before the end of the year the Abdication of the new King confronted
the Prime Minister. There was no hint of such a possibility when the
reign began. Edward the Eighth was extremely popular - indeed no
Prince of Wales had ever enjoyed such overwhelming popularity. He
had been most carefully trained for his responsibilities and had con-
scientiously carried out his duties both at home and on his many tours
in the Dominions and Colonies. But, though by now forty-two, he
had never married. He had been seen about of late, even before his
father's death, with Mrs. Wallis Simpson, an American, who had
already divorced one husband and was shortly to divorce her second.
The British Press were reticent about their association, but the news-
papers abroad and especially in America, featured it prominently and
even went so far as to say that the King was thinking of marrying her.
The fact that she was an American did not at all affect the attitude of
Baldwin and the other Ministers. That she had been through the
divorce courts did: they did not consider it suitable in the circumstances

394

BALDWIN AND THE ABDICATION

that she should be Queen of England, particularly as the King was by
title Defender of the Faith.

Baldwin had been away during the summer : it was a more extended
absence because of his illness earlier in the year following Hitler's
occupation of the Rhineland in March, the campaign of murder in
Palestine, and the outbreak of civil war in Spain. He returned to No. 10
on I2th October and had his first interview with the King on this
subject a few days later. It became clear to the Prime Minister not only
that marriage was in the King's thoughts, but that his mind had in
fact been irrevocably made up.

The Cabinet was greatly exercised about this. Plans for the Corona-
tion were already in hand. The problem was debated at many sessions
at No. 10, for the King's marriage was not a private matter, but
concerned the people of England, among whom there were a great
many Nonconformists; it concerned also the Calvinists in Scotland,
and the Roman Catholics in both countries. Nor could the feelings of
the people in the Dominions be ignored. Baldwin was convinced that
the King's immense popularity would not be able to withstand the
shock of his marriage to Mrs. Simpson.

After further talks, the King asked the Prime Minister on 25th
November to consider the possibility of a morganatic marriage.
Baldwin said he was quite prepared to consult the Cabinet, but was
confident that Parliament would not pass the necessary legislation.
This was discussed by the Cabinet on Friday 27th November and it
was decided that the Prime Ministers of the Dominions should be con-
sulted too. Atdee, by now the Leader of the Opposition, was also
consulted and stated that the Labour Party was unanimously opposed
to such a marriage. Soon from the Dominions came the same answer.

On 2nd December the Press broke its silence. The whole country
now knew of the King's dilemma. On the next evening the Prime
Minister went to the Palace on the King's invitation. His Majesty stated
that he wanted to put his case to the country in a personal broadcast.
Baldwin pointed out that this would only serve to divide the country.
After fUrther discussions with his colleagues at No. 10 he informed
the King that so long as he remained King he could only broadcast in
words approved by his Ministers. In Parliament a King's Party began
to emerge with Winston Churchill at its head. Some wondered if the

395

NO. 10 DOWNING STBJBET

King would defy his Ministers, ignore the opinion of the Dominions,
cause the Cabinet to resign and force a General Election on the issue.
It was a possibility until Monday yth December, when Churchill was
shouted down in the House as he rose to speak.

The discussions had by now been going on for more than six weeks.
They could not be much further prolonged. Very few of the news-
papers were on the side of the King: among these were the papers of
Lord Beaverbrook and the second Lord Rothermere. It was still hoped
by the Prime Minister that the King might be induced to reconsider
his intention of marrying Mrs. Simpson.

During a Cabinet meeting on the afternoon of Wednesday pth
December a message from Queen Mary, the King's mother, was
brought to the Prime Minister, asking if he would go and see her. He
rose from the Cabinet table and set out at once, accompanied by the
Home Secretary Sir John Simon. It is said that Queen Mary, apart
from her own personal grief about her son, was gravely concerned
about the future of the monarchy. It had already suffered a most
damaging blow through the publicity about the King's association with
Mrs. Simpson, which daily filled many columns of the Press; if the
monarchy was to continue to play its important part in the continuity
of Great Britain and the Empire, then it was inevitable, she felt, that
someone else should take over the succession.*

Further talks then took place with the King. Although Mrs. Simpson,
by now on the Continent, offered to 'withdraw from the situation* in
order to spare the throne any damage, the King was still resolved to
go on with the marriage, and abdicated on nth December 1936. His
brother Albert, next in line, succeeded as King George the Sixth.

For those living at No. 10 these crises caused a stir and traffic that
made rest impossible. Messengers kept arriving. Ministers came and
went. There were hurrying footsteps down the long corridor through
most of the night, with raised voices at intervals. MacDonald's
daughter Ishbel, during the economic crises of 1931, had found such
bustle and whirr wearing on the nerves. 'Otherwise the place was
always so very quiet at night/ she says, 'save for the clatter of dustbins,
which woke one up very early in the morning/

* In a statement to the author by Mr. A. Duff Cooper, later Viscount Norwich.

396

BALDWIN AND THE ABDICATION

Baldwin did not remain in office much longer. After the Coronation
of the new King in May of the following year 1937, he resigned and
went to the House of Lords as Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. The Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain, took over the chief
office on 28th May 1937-

397

CHAPTER 41

Second World War and Churchill

NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN, tall, extremely thin, and wearing a
permanently harassed air, was sixty-eight years old when he became
Prime Minister. The younger son of Joe Chamberlain, who had served
under Gladstone as a Liberal and broke away over Home Rule for
Ireland, and the half-brother of Austen Chamberlain, he was the least
likely member of his family one would have expected to be Prime
Minister. Austen had been groomed for it and would indeed have
attained it had he not stood loyally by Lloyd George at the rime of the
critical Carlton Club meeting, as a result of which Bonar Law went to
No. 10. Austen died just three months before his brother attained the
supreme office.

Neville Chamberlain did not take up politics until well into his
mature life. He had been trained for business. His father had bought
20,000 acres of land in the Bahamas to grow sisal and sent Neville out
to manage the estate. He was out there for seven vital years. The ven-
ture was not a success. On his return to England, Neville settled in
Birmingham and was elected to the local Council, which he served

398

SECOND WORLD WAR AND CHURCHILL

well, and was later made Lord Mayor. In December 1916, when
Lloyd George became Prime Minister, he sent for Neville and ap-
pointed him Director-General of National Service, but after seven
frustrating months, Chamberlain resigned and went back to Birming-
ham, grumbling that he had been given neither instructions nor
powers. Lloyd George's comments were much more scathing about
Chamberlain's incapacity for the task. The only thing that was clear
was that each had developed an obsessive dislike for the other.

Chamberlain did not get into Parliament until after the First World
War. By that time he was in his fiftieth year. There is no other instance
in English history of a Prime Minister entering Parliament so late in
life. He was offered office in the Coalition Government by the Tory
leader Bonar Law, but refused to serve under Lloyd George. In 1923,
when Baldwin took over, he became Chancellor of the Exchequer,
but the Tariff Reform election later that year prevented him from
presenting a Budget.

The Chamberlains did not move into No. 10 when the Baldwins
vacated the house in 1937. The new Prime Minister's wife found it far
from pleasant to live in or easy to run. She found the offices, the State
rooms and the living quarters too interwoven and decided to separate
them. So she moved the residential section one floor up - to the second
floor from the first. The main staircase did not go up so far; it could
only be reached by the back stairs, as that floor had always been used
by the servants, though the two younger MacDonald girls had had
their bedrooms there. A new staircase was accordingly built, near the
main staircase but not so handsome. The whole of that servants' floor
was taken over, leaving seven small attic rooms above for staff use.
It is from this time that the second floor has been mainly used as the
residential section of No. 10 by Prime Ministers and their families.
The old attic windows were removed and larger ones were put in, the
ceilings were raised, the slope of the walls was in a measure straight-
ened. The room at the north-western corner overlooking St. James's
Park and the Horse Guards Parade, was converted into a comfortable
bedroom for the Prime Minister, Mrs. Chamberlain took the room
facing it across the passage, while the room beside it was made into a
spacious bathroom. The bedrooms on the floor below, alongside die
State reception rooms, were now used as additional offices. Many of

399

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

the floors had sagged and the walls of one of these bedrooms was found
to be four inches out of line and had to be put right. It took ten months
for these alterations to be completed. Until then the Prime Minister
and his wife continued to live at No. n, into which they had moved
when he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. They had one
son and one daughter, both grown up, and neither lived with them.

At No. 10 their residence was confined entirely to that upper floor.
Of the two main bedrooms on the first floor, the one at the corner
facing the Horse Guards and the Park was made into an extra drawing-
room, thus forming a line of three reception rooms, including the
small drawing-room and the State drawing-room at the other corner.
The inner bedroom became the Prime Minister's private study. It was
here that he worked late in the evenings.

The big kitchen in the basement was also modernized so that it
should be easier to work in, and a small service lift was put in to take
the food up to the passage just outside the State dining-room. The
total cost of these alterations was £25,000.

Mrs. Chamberlain, with her artistic sensitivity and flair for decora-
tion, strove to provide No. 10 with the elegance and grace it once had.
She had many talks with Sir Philip Sassoon, the Minister of Works, a
man of great taste himself, whose sister the Marchioness of Chol-
mondeley had married into the family of Sir Robert Walpole and lived
at his old house at Houghton. With his help the three main drawing-
rooms were transformed. Painted white, the large State drawing-
room was supplied with fresh furniture, including some eighteenth
century settees and Regency sofas; the middle drawing-room, with its
pink walls and recently acquired suite of red upholstered furniture
which had once belonged to Clive of India, came to be known as the
Red drawing-room; the room at the Park end was decorated in yellow.
Many additional pictures were lent by the National Gallery for use
in these rooms: some came from the cellars, but she was lucky enough
to secure a few that were of interest - Dutch interiors, a large land-
scape by Turner and another by Claude Loraine. The staircase walls
were painted a greeny yellow and a deep red carpet was put down on
the stairs. When Mrs. Chamberlain talked of curtains, she was told
that these she would have to provide herself. She used country chintzes
for the new bedrooms facing the Park - a happy and admired choice.

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SECOND WORLD WAR AND CHURCHILL

Her pride in the house was great and, having absorbed much of its
history, she derived a joy from showing visitors round: among these
was Sir Hugh Walpole, the novelist, distantly connected with Sir
Robert Walpole, and the relatives and friends of past Prime Ministers.
One evening an extremely well-informed address was delivered by her
at No. 10 to the Empire Parliamentary Association, after which they
were shown the State dining-room and main reception rooms. The
Prime Minister was too busy to attend, for by this time the many
crises with which he was faced during his short stay of less than three
years in the house had already begun.

Chamberlain retained Anthony Eden as Foreign Secretary. Sir John
Simon was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hore-Belisha,
Minister of Transport in the previous Government, was made Secre-
tary of State for War, with the specific instruction that the Army, so
long regarded as the poor relation of the Services, should be strength-
ened and modernized. The other two Service Ministers were Sir
Kingsley Wood for Air and Alfred Duff Cooper at the Admiralty.
That war was likely was not overlooked, but Chamberlain was
resolved to avoid it if he possibly could. Churchill, not in the Govern-
ment and with a critical eye still on the inadequacy of the country's
defences, said of him: 'Chamberlain has an absolute lust for peace/*

The chief crises indeed sprang from this pursuit. The first of these
involved the resignation of the Foreign Secretary Eden. Italy's un-
scrupulous war on Abyssinia, launched in defiance of the League of
Nations in October 1935, had led to an endeavour by Eden's predeces-
sor Samuel Hoare and the French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval, to
essay a settlement by offering Mussolini krge tracts of Abyssinian
territory. The suggestion shocked the world, since the aggressor was
to be compensated with land extorted from the unfortunate victim.
Hoare resigned and was then succeeded by Eden. Abyssinia was con-
quered and occupied by the Italians. Mussolini, triumphant in his
aggression, was enthusiastically acclaimed by Hitler as a worthy
colleague and the Rome-Berlin Axis was formed. Both countries
then plunged into the Spanish civil war with Volunteers' supporting
Franco. It was Chamberlain's resolve to separate the two dictators and

* Quoted to the author by Sir A. Beverley Baxter, M.P.
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NO. 1C DOWNING STREET

thus confine the war for which Hitler was so avidly arming. Feeling
that Eden was out of sympathy with Mussolini, the Prime Minister
conducted the negotiations himself. Eden promptly resigned* and
was replaced by Lord Halifax. The detachment of Mussolini, though
for a time it appeared to be hopeful, failed completely.

Hider seized Austria less than three weeks later, on nth March 1938.
His endeavours to deal in the same way with Czechoslovakia became
apparent in July, and throughout that summer critical meetings of the
Cabinet were held at No. 10 in an attempt to prevent this. Ministers
met daily, sometimes twice a day, and talked often far into the night.
On the I4th September the Prime Minister informed his colleagues of
his sudden decision to go and see Hitler. It came as a bombshell.1*8
The meeting took place at Berchtesgaden: the interview was stormy.
When he returned the French Prime Minister, M. Daladier, and the
French Foreign Secretary flew to London to discuss Hitler's demands
at No. 10. A week later Chamberlain went again to see Hitler, this
time at Godesberg. The next evening the Cabinet was informed of
Hitler's fresh demands, and the French Ministers came again for talks.
Chamberlain's third and final meeting with Hider took pkce at
Munich on 29th September. Before setting out, he prepared for the
possibility of war. A State of Emergency was declared. The Fleet was
mobilized. Fifty thousand officers and men of the Territorial Army
were called up: changing from lounge suits to khaki, they set oat to
man the coastal defences and anti-aircraft guns and took their places
at isolated searchlight stations.

On Chamberlain's return, waving an agreement of Anglo-German
friendship and speaking of 'Peace with Honour', the crowds gathered
in Downing Street and cheered wildly, relieved that war had been
averted. But it had not. Chamberlain knew, and the call-up revealed,
that the country was not yet ready for war. Having acquired time, he
accelerated the rearmament of all the services. Whether it would
have been more advantageous to fight has been argued unceasingly
ever since. Many were suffused by shame at the sacrifice imposed on
Czechoslovakia in the cause of appeasement. Dissatisfaction, and even
anger, were expressed in the House of Commons by Churchill, by

* On 20th February 1938.
4.02

SECOND WORLD WAR AND CHURCHILL

Duff Cooper, who instantly resigned from the Government, by
Conservative members and by the Labour Opposition. Only a small
section of the Press was critical, but the uneasiness spread and it began
to be said openly that Churchill should take over the helm as the only
leader capable of rousing the country to the inevitable danger of war.
One of the first of such calls was made some months before Munich in
the Sunday Referee: as early in fact as May 1938. Churchill's reply to it
was despondent.* Endeavours were made to induce the Prime Minister
to bring Churchill into the Government, but Chamberlain refused. 'I
won't have anyone who will rock the boat/ he said.138 The Tory Party
as a whole was also against Churchill: they were not prepared to
serve under him, only Labour and the Liberals were. I

Mrs. Chamberlain did a great deal of entertaining. She usually gave
three parties on consecutive evenings during each Parliamentary
session - on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: arranged in this way
the flowers lasted and they could use the same hired china. Members
of Parliament were invited with their wives and each Member was
asked to bring two of his constituents. Her memory for names and
faces was quite astonishing: she always knew the Member and could
say at once which constituency he represented. Mingled with them
were Ambassadors and High Commissioners (the American Ambassa-
dor, Joe Kennedy, was often among the guests) as well as the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and Cardinal Kinsley in his scarlet robes. The
Prime Minister was rarely there: he looked in for a few minutes when
he could spare the time. Several hundred guests were invited over
the three days, and were given tea, hot or cold coffee and cakes.
A great many waitresses had to be hired and Mrs. Chamberlain's sec-
retary, Miss Marjorie Leaf, and personal friends were placed at the doors
of the three drawing-rooms to keep the guests moving, as the floors were
unsafe and could not hold more than a limited number in any one
room. Smaller sherry parties were held at other times for distinguished
visitors such as President Le Brun of France, the Governor-General of
Canada, Lord Bessborough, and his wife when they were home on
leave, Mr. Lyons, the Australian Prime Minister and later his successor
Mr. Menzies, and, a departure from precedent, the various General

* In a letter to tlie author,
f In statements to the author.

403

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Officers Commanding-in-Chief, Admirals and Air Marshals, not
normally entertained at No. 10. There were also small luncheon parties,
generally on Thursday - a short quick meal because the Prime Minister
had to go on to the House. Princess Mary and Lord Harewood came
to one of these lunches.

The King and Queen came to dinner one night in March 1939 and
sat with twenty other guests in the State dining-room. The caterino-
was done by Mrs. Chamberlain's cook. Only twice before in this
century had the Sovereign and his consort dined in the house: the
first time when King George the Fifth and Queen Mary came to
dinner with the Asquiths in 1911, the second when George the Sixth
and Queen Elizabeth dined with the Baldwins just before he retired
from the Premiership.

The favourite diversion of the Chamberlains was to walk in St.
James's Park every morning as far as the bridge and back, followed at
a discreet distance by a detective. The Prime Minister took a keen
interest in the garden at No. 10 and had a herbaceous border laid out
along the Horse Guards wall. There had not been many flowers there
before, only a lawn with two or three trees, one of them an evergreen
oak.

When Hitler, in a breach of his guarantee, seized the rest of Czecho-
slovakia on I5th March 1939, it was clear that war could 110 longer
be averted. Conscription was introduced a fortnight later: it was the
first time such a course had been adopted while die country was still
at peace. The preparations for war were furthered with increasing
speed and a dear warning was given to Hitler that Britain would fight
for the independence of Poland, Greece and Rumania. It did not deter
Hitler. He secured his flank by coming to terms with Russia and
immediately began his pressure on Poland along the familiar pattern of
allegations about Polish aggressions on the frontier.

It was August when this news reached London and the Ministers
were scattered, as is customary in that month. The Prime Minister
hurried down from Scotland and called an urgent meeting of the
Cabinet on 23rd August. From the South of France and elsewhere die
Cabinet gathered. They were informed of the movements of German
troops and tanks and planes, and expressed their determination to stand
by Poland even if it meant war. Parliament, in recess for the holiday,

404

SECOND WORLD WAR AND CHURCHILL

was summoned tp return at once and met the next day. The Emergency
Powers Bill was passed rapidly through both Houses and received the
Royal assent that same evening at 10.15.

The next day, 25th August, the British Ambassador returned by
plane from Berlin and saw the Prime Minister at No. 10; Hitler at the
same time ordered all Germans in Britain to return home. The Cabinet
met again the next day, Saturday, and twice on Sunday. Hitler had
announced that he was not going to be deterred by Britain's attitude,
and the Cabinet deliberated their reply. As soon as it was dispatched,
the evacuation of children and of women and invalids from London
was arranged and four days later, on sist August, the Army reserve,
consisting of 140,000 men, were called up. Very early the next morn-
ing, 1st September, the Germans invaded Poland.

From that moment the Cabinet was in almost continuous session at
No. 10, breaking off only to go to the House of Commons where the
insistent question was why Britain had not already declared war. The
delay was caused by the endeavour to provide coincident action by
the French. An ultimatum was sent to Hitler late on the evening of
2nd September. It expired at n a.m. the next day and the Second
World War had begun.

From No. 10 Downing Street at 11.15 a.m. the Prime Minister
broadcast to the nation. 'You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to
me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed.' A War Cabinet,
as in the preceding war, was immediately formed: it was large and
included Ministers with departmental responsibility, which Lloyd
George had been careful to avoid. Into this Cabinet, which met each
morning at No. 10, Winston Churchill was brought as First Lord of
the Admiralty, the post he held on the outbreak of the First World
War. Before long he began to dominate the discussions and intervened
in the plans of every Service department. Disagreements with the
Secretary for War Hore-Belisha occurred more than once and in
January, after complaints by the Commander-in-Chief and the Chief
of the Imperial General Staff to the Prime Minister, private talks in
the Cabinet room with Hore-Belisha led to the latter's resignation.

Poland, crushed in less than a month, was divided between Germany
and Russia and the war settled down to what became known as the
'phoney' period. There were scares galore, almost all of them brought

405

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

to the notice of the Cabinet by Churchill: after much inquiry they
proved to be without foundation. Stalin's war on Finland was launched
in November 1939, but before Britain and France could intervene
actively, that country made peace.

It was not until the German attack on Norway on pth April 1940
that Churchill got his chance. The Cabinet met at 8.30 that morning.
Expeditious moves were made to send detachments of the British fleet
to various Norwegian ports and to land troops, but despite the most
valiant and heroic struggles at Narvik and Trondheim, the British were
repulsed, and following critical meetings of the House of Commons on
7th and 8th May, in which Churchill was challenged for the inade-
quate part played by the fleet, the attack turned on the Prime Minister.
Though he secured a majority of 81 when the vote was taken, the
uneasiness in the House caused Chamberlain to decide that the
Government must be reconstructed.

On the afternoon of the next day, 9th May, Churchill was summoned

to No. 10. He found Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, with the Prime

Minister, and in a few minutes the Leader of the Opposition, Mr.

Attlee, together with his deputy Mr. Arthur Greenwood joined them.

They had refused earlier to serve in a National Government under

Chamberlain and they refused again now. Churchill notes161: It was

a bright, sunny afternoon, and Lord Halifax and I sat for a while on a

seat in the garden of No. 10 and talked about nothing in particular/

Early the next morning all hell broke loose in Holland and Belgium.

Tanks crossed the frontiers and German troops were dropped by

parachute at many points. 'At eleven o'clock,' states Churchill, 'I was

again summoned to Downing Street by the Prime Minister. There once

more I found Lord Halifax. We took our seats at the table opposite

Mr. Chamberlain. He told us that he was satisfied that it was beyond

his power to form a National Government/ He was wondering, he

revealed, whom to suggest as his successor and seemed to favour Lord

Halifax. But since it was essential that the Prime Minister should be in

the House of Commons, the choice finally fell on Churchill. He had

achieved at sixty-five what his father, for all his ardent striving,

realized at thirty-seven he would never attain.

At six that evening Churchill went to see the King. By ten that
night he had formed his Government. It was a coalition. The War

406

SECOND WORLD WAR AND CHURCHILL

Cabinet was reduced to five, of whom two were members of the
Labour Party. Attlee became Deputy Prime Minister, Chamberlain
served as Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House
of Commons. Churchill took on the additional duty of Minister
of Defence, a role he was straining at the leash to undertake ever since
the outbreak of war. Halifax was retained as Foreign Secretary;
he was the only one in the War Cabinet with a department to
manage. Churchill thus reverted to Lloyd George's plan for the con-
duct of war.

The Chamberlains did not leave No. 10 at once. Churchill insisted,
as Chamberlain was far from well: 'On no account must you move
from here until you are better.' Four weeks later the Churchills moved
in. Their son Randolph was in the services. The two elder daughters,
Diana and Sarah, were already married. But Mary, the youngest,
moved into the house with them.

The Chamberlain floor - the second floor - was favoured by the
Churchills. There the new Prime Minister had the bedroom with a
bathroom opening off it. Mrs. Churchill had the room opposite over-
looking the Horse Guards and the Park and Mary occupied two rooms
at the other end of the corridor. Alongside, Major John Churchill,
the Prime Minister's brother, had a room: he was a widower and was
the father of Clarissa Churchill, who later married Anthony Eden.

Throughout the early fighting - the fall of Holland and Belgium,
the miracle of Dunkirk and then the fall of France - Churchill, using
No. 10 as his headquarters, went on his recurrent rounds of naval,
military and air inspection, attended the House of Commons regu-
larly and roused the country with his exhilarating speeches, many of
them broadcast direct to the people. Working through most of the
night it was not his practice to rise early - usually it was after eight in
the morning - but his principal personal secretary, Mrs. Kathleen Hill,
and her two assistants slept at No. 10, for one of them was wanted at
11.30 at night to take down minutes for the Service chiefs and the heads
of departments - this went on till 2.30 a.m. if not later; and another
had to be ready to come in the morning with her pad and spare pencils
to his bedroom, where, propped up against the pillows, his breakfast
done and his first cigar lit, the Prime Minister began his day's work.
They could tell by the condition of the morning's newspapers what

407

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

sort of mood he was in. If the papers lay neatly folded by the bedside,
all was well, but if they had been crumpled into balls and hurled to
various corners of the room, then it was obvious that the day was
going to start badly.

Usually it was from his bed that he dictated his speeches. At that
early hour his words were scarcely audible or articulate and one dared
not ask him to repeat what had been said: one had to guess and hope
it was right or he would glower over his glasses and roar. It was in this
room at No. 10, with Mrs. Hill seated by his bed, that he dictated at
the end of the Battle of Britain the historic words: 'Never in the field
of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few/ It was
round these words, dictated in isolation at the outset, that the speech
was built. 'I am speaking in the House today,' he said and Mrs. Hill
knew that the normal speed and urgency with which everything had
to be done for the Prime Minister would have to be redoubled. The
typewriter kept clicking, the sheets were taken in to him in relays,
corrections were made in illegible squiggles in red ink, and then it had
to be typed out in speech form, four or five words to a line. A watch
was kept in the passage. 'He's just gone for his bath* - and all would
have to be ready, the pages tagged together through a hole punched
in them, to be handed to him as he emerged from the bathroom with
only a towel wrapped round his waist and quite often without even
that.

There were distinguished guests at lunch almost every day, with
often a Duke among them: Churchill's sense of fitness must have made
him fed that No. 10 required that. Last minute invitations issued over
the telephone or in personal conversation had to be listened for by the
secretaries and quickly passed on to Mrs. Churchill, who had to adjust
with the cook arrangements already made. As with everything else
throughout the day, these lunches and indeed all the entertaining,
despite the social note introduced into them, were devoted to dis-
cussions and planning for the further prosecution of the war, for some
members of the Cabinet were always there, as well as scientific and
military advisers like Lord Cherwell and Lord Ismay, and representa-
tives of the American President Roosevelt, like Averell Harriman and
Harry Hopkins, and, after the fall of France, occasionally the leader of
the Free French, General de Gaulle.

408

SECOND WORLD WAR AND CHURCHILL

The afternoons, when not in the House or on one of his missions,
Churchill spent in the Cabinet room, using it as his office as all Prime
Ministers have done. Here one of his personal secretaries, seated
opposite him at the table with her noiseless typewriter, would wait
while he, rising suddenly, paced the room in his boiler-suit, cigar in
mouth, and gesticulated as he mouthed his phrases, selecting the words
carefully before dictating them. It was hard to hear every word when
he walked up and down: on the lawn outside, the secretary followed
with a notebook and was able to see the tears come to his eyes with the
emotion of his words. His capacity for going on hour after hour was
wearing to the secretaries but not apparently to him, though he would
snatch an hour or so for sleep, often as late as six or even seven o'clock
in the evening.

When the bombing started in September he was urged to leave
No. 10, because it was unsafe. A flat had already been prepared for him
at Storey's Gate, on the first floor of a more solid building just across
the Foreign Office courtyard and facing St. James's Park: it came to
be known as 'The Annexe*. It was not easy to overcome his reluctance
to go there and, even after he moved, so great was his affection for No.
10 that he would come back from time to time to dine in the house and
sleep there. In the garden-room, under the Cabinet room, used norm-
ally by the clerical staff, meals were now served in the evenings about
once a week. A series of dinners were expressly given here so that the
King should spend an evening with small groups of his Ministers.

Churchill was dining here with some friends on the evening two
bombs fell.* A shelter had been constructed near the kitchen and under
the Treasury building alongside, with about thirty bunks and, though
Churchill never used it himself, he always insisted that his staff should
when the bombing got bad. He records182: 'We were dining in the
garden-room of No. 10 when the usual night raid began. . . . The
steel shutters had been closed. Several loud explosions occurred around
us at no great distance, and presently a bomb fell, perhaps a hundred
yards away, on the Horse Guards Parade, making a great deal of noise.
Suddenly I had a providential impulse. The kitchen at No. 10 Downing
Street is lofty and spacious, and looks out through a large plate-glass

* I4th October 1940.
409

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

window about twenty-five feet high. The butler and parlourmaid
continued to serve the dinner with complete detachment, but I became
acutely aware of this big window, behind which Mrs. Landemare, the
cook, and the kitchen maid, never turning a hair, were at work. I got
up abruptly, went into the kitchen, told the butler to put the dinner on
the hot plate in the dining-room, and ordered the cook and the kitchen-
maid into the shelter, such as it was.'

Mrs. Landemare ekborates on this.* 'He said sharply: "Why aren't
you in the shelter?" I replied: "If you'd been in time for dinner I
should have been." He was never in time for any meal.'

Churchill goes on: 'I had been seated again at table only about three
minutes when a really very loud crash, dose at hand, and a violent
shock showed that the house had been struck. My detective came into
the room and said much damage had been done. The kitchen, the
pantry, and the offices on the Treasury side were shattered. We went
into the kitchen to view the scene. The devastation was complete. The
bomb had fallen fifty yards away on the Treasury, and the blast had
smitten the large, tidy kitchen, with all its bright saucepans and
crockery, into a heap of black dust and rubble. The big plate-glass
window had been hurled in fragments and splinters across the room,
and would, of course, have cut its occupants, if there had been any, to
pieces. But my fortunate inspiration, which I might so easily have
neglected, had come in the nick of time. ... As the raid continued and
seemed to grow in intensity we put on our tin hats and went out to
view the scene from the top of the Annexe buildings. Before doing so,
however, I could not resist taking Mrs. Landemare and the others from
the shelter to see their kitchen. They were upset at the sight of the
wreck, but principally on account of the general untidiness !'

At this period, when Churchill spent a night at No. 10, he slept in
the room alongside the garden-room and used the staff bathroom, a
dark, dismal place, in the basement. Mrs. Landemare prepared his
breakfast, which he always had in bed. 'He liked a cooked breakfast/
she says, 'something hot and something cold - an omelette or a
poached egg, a cold lamb cutlet or cold ham. But he never ate much
of it.'

* In a statement to the author.
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SECOND WORLD WAR AND CHURCHILL

It was in the Annexe, in the deep underground shelter, that the
Cabinet occasionally met and many Ministers and Service chiefs had
their offices and bunks to sleep in at night: it was so deep down that
large notices were dispkyed to indicate what the weather was outside.
Churchill hated being there. His flat, one floor above ground, was
only tolerated. On Fridays he escaped as a rule to Chequers for the
weekend, but it was a weekend of discussions and planning, never of
relaxation and rest. On Monday mornings he would set out in one
of the large official Humber cars on the return journey to No. 10. He
always had Mrs. Hill beside him, for he dictated while they travelled
and the glass between him and the driver was always kept lowered so
that he could urge him on to greater speed. 'Come on, Steve/ he
would call, thinking doubtless of Steve Donoghue, the famous jockey.
As the car swung its way through the narrow, winding roads, flinging
Mrs. Hill at one moment into Churchill's lap and at the next him into
hers, she tried with difficulty to take down what he said. The com-
partment was heavy with cigar smoke and Churchill had a gesture for
almost every word he uttered, often endangering Mrs. HilTs sight by
a sudden dramatic move of his arm.

The journey completed, as they alighted at the garden door of No.
10, Churchill would say: 'Now where are you going? I want you in
the Cabinet room. They are waiting/ Entering, she would see Beaver-
brook, Bracken and the other Ministers. 'Now sit down and read out
the notes to the Cabinet/ They were almost impossible to read and
made all the more difficult because her head ached badly. It was an
ordeal she dreaded, but it had to be faced.

The blitz was followed after an interval of three years by the flying
bombs, or Vis, which came unpiloted and caused much havoc. These
were followed later by the more devastating V2 rockets. But by that
time the worst phase of the war was over. The tide had turned - at
Alamein in Africa, at Stalingrad in Russia, and in due course the Allied
armies were landing on the beaches in Normandy. Just before this
General Eisenhower was a constant visitor at No. 10. The house was
by now badly scarred. The woodwork of the windows was studded
with shrapnel. There were cracks in almost every wall and in many
places portions of the ceiling had come down and lay in dusty debris
on the carpets.

411

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

At intervals all through the war Churchill was away - in America
on a visit to the President, to various fronts and conferences in Africa,
Marrakesh, Egypt, Teheran, and Yalta. After one of his trips to Russia
the State dining-room at No. 10 was filled with presents: bottles of
vodka, caviare (which Churchill liked), glass bowls, inkstands, massive
blotting pads, leatherwork, illustrated books, all gifts from various
cities and organizations, and a few personal presents from Stalin. The
visitors now included Molotov, Field-Marshals Alexander, Wavell and
Montgomery, Queen Juliana of Holland, King Peter of Yugoslavia,
the heads of other exiled Governments, and General Smuts. An unex-
pected visitor was one of the mallards from St. James's Park, who
used the terrace outside the Cabinet room as a maternity ward and was
later photographed escorting her young down the steps into the garden.
Churchill was with Montgomery at the crossing of the Rhine by the
British forces and a few weeks later on 4th May 1945, the German
forces surrendered unconditionally at Luneberg Heath. The war against
Nazi Germany ended three days after that.

The national rejoicing in Britain was followed by Party strife, for
Churchill had committed himself to holding a General Election at the
end of the German war. The Coalition broke up accordingly and both
the Labour Party and the Conservatives began to prepare for the
decision of the nation as to which of them should govern. No election
had been held since the autumn of 1935, when the Conservatives and
their associates in the National Government led by Baldwin won a
substantial victory with 420 members against Labour's 154. The coun-
try had thus been governed by an essentially Tory Government for a
period often years. Few expected the dramatic reversal of this position
which the poll showed on 26th July 1945. Labour's triumph was over-
whelming. For the first time since the formation of the Party it had a
dear majority to rule. Churchill, as the architect of victory, was both
surprised and stunned at being 'immediately dismissed by the British
electorate from all further conduct of their affairs'. He resigned the
same evening and, leaving No. 10 Downing Street at once, moved
into a suite of rooms at Claridge's Hotel.

412

CHAPTER 42
Attlee's Six Years

ATTLEB, small in stature, now sixty-two and almost bald, was
quiet, uncommunicative, but resolute. He did not move into No. 10
Downing Street at once. A lot had to be done there. Apart from the
war damage which had of course to be attended to, the Atdees intro-
duced a still further change into the house. It was suggested indeed by
Mrs. Churchill. Having lived on the second, or servants' floor, herself,
but unable because of the war to add to Mrs. Chamberlain's adapta-
tions, she indicated to the Atdees the great advantage of converting
a part of that floor into a self-contained flat, with its own drawing-
room, dining-room, kitchen, pantry and additional bathrooms. It
took three months to complete this and until then the Atdees lived in
the Annexe in the first floor flat the Churchills had occupied during the
worst phase of the bombing.

i As all the furniture was now provided by the State, the Atdees did
not need to bring very much in with them, except certain pieces of
their own for which they had a preference. They had been married for
twenty-three years and had a family of four : a son and three daughters

413

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

- Martin was at sea, the youngest girl was at school, but they all lived
at No. 10 from time to time. They confined themselves completely
to the flat and did all their personal entertaining and catering there,
using the first floor only for State occasions and the ground floor as
offices.

The pledges given to the country by the Labour Party, as set out in
their Election pamphlet 'Let us Face the Future', were considerable.
Only the nationalization of land, an early aspiration, had been excluded,
otherwise all the other aims had been set down - as dreams, without
any plans for fulfilment. It was Atdee's resolve that not an iota of any
pledge given to the electors should be neglected. Every dream had to
become a reality. He chose his team well. Herbert Morrison, who had
served under Ramsay MacDonald in 1929 as Minister of Transport and
under Churchill, first as Minister of Supply, then as Home Secretary,
was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the House of
Commons. Ernest Bevin, who had worked on a farm as a boy at six-
pence a week plus his keep, became Foreign Secretary - a sturdy John
Bull of the working classes, as Churchill called him. For the second
time a woman was admitted to the Cabinet - Ellen Wilkinson, who
became Minister of Education. They had all served in the Coalition
Government during the war and had therefore been in office for five
continuous years and, though exhilarated by the opportunities offered,
were actually on the verge of exhaustion through the strain of the war.
Aneurin Bevan, appointed Minister of Health and Housing, was
among the newcomers who had not had office before.

They were faced with almost insuperable difficulties. Most serious of
these was the bankruptcy to which the country had been reduced by the
war. An immediate loan of £1,000 million was advanced by the United
States Government, but the austerity enforced during the war as well as
the rationing had to be maintained and were the targets of the taunts of
the Tories. The legislation required to fulfil the Government's pledges
was put through the House of Commons with Labour's immense
majority. It fell to Lord Addison, as Leader of the Lords, to get it
through the Upper House. With his tact and charm and the co-opera-
tion of the Opposition leader there, Lord Salisbury, he achieved this
despite angry protests. The coal mines were nationalized (it had been
recommended by the Samuel commission twenty years before), so were

414

ATTLEE'S six YEARS

electricity and gas, the railways, and all the motor transport services,
compensation being paid in every instance to the owners, A full Health
Service for all, including visitors, was brought in at great cost and
against fierce opposition. An extensive National Insurance scheme was
introduced with family allowances and increased pensions for the aged.
India and Pakistan, Ceylon and Burma were granted independence and
all except Burma elected to remain within the Commonwealth. Only
the nationalization of steel encountered the most vigorous resistance,
not only in the Commons, where it was easily overcome, but in the
Lords, where the resolution not to yield was adamant. The old battle
between the two Houses was once again opened. The Government
dealt with it skilfully. A Bill was introduced to amend Asquith's
Parliament Act of 1911, which limited the veto of the Lords to two
years, and imposed a veto of one year only. The Conservatives were
extremely angry at this, but, as Attlee records: 'The best shots in our
oratorical locker were provided by extracts from the speeches of their
own leader* when he was a Liberal.' The Bill was rejected by the Lords
but under the old two-year rule it was passed 'over the heads of the
peers'.168

The strain of this ceaseless legislation was oppressive. It killed four
members of the Cabinet - Ellen Wilkinson, George Tomlinson, who
succeeded Ellen Wilkinson, Ernest Bevin, and Sir Stafford Cripps, who
by that time had become Chancellor of the Exchequer; and both
Attlee and Morrison were ill on more than one occasion.

There was not much time for entertaining, nevertheless official
lunches and dinners had to be given and Soane's panelled State dining-
room, always admired by visitors and loved by those who lived in the
house, was used on these occasions. Attlee says: 'When we were
entertaining members of the French Government I had to pause and
think for a moment. "No, don't sit there, take this chair," I said, for I
felt it would be embarrassing for them to face the portrait of either
Wellington or Nelson. With the Danes only Nelson was involved
because he had bombarded Copenhagen. But they smiled as I pkced
them with their backs to the picture, and one of them said: "We don't
mind. It happened a long time ago." When we entertained the Russians

* Winston Churchill, who vehemently denounced the Lords in 1911.
415

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

it was so much easier. I told them to sit anywhere they liked as they
were not likely to find a Crimean General in that room/*

Just before the present Queen's marriage to the Duke of Edinburgh
they dined with the Prime Minister and Mrs. Atdee at No. 10. But a
number of smaller dinners and lunches were given in the breakfast-
room where eight people at a time were entertained. Charity f&es were
held in the garden in summer and the Commonwealth Prime Ministers
were also entertained there.

Attlee loved the house and, after steeping himself in its history,
acquired a dislike for Downing and 'the horrible picture in the hall of
Downing with his thick, sensual lips'. All the way up the stairs are
pictures of the Prime Ministers, the earlier ones in engravings, the more
recent in photographs. A painting of Robert Walpole hangs above the
fireplace in the Cabinet room - it is the only picture in the room.

The privacy of his flat greatly appealed to Attlee. It was away from
the rest of the house. Nobody could intrude there. The offices were
kept apart. The old cottage on the Whitehall side which Walpole had
acquired from Mr. Chicken in 1735, had been equipped with a large
bow window and was used as a Public Relations office by Attlee's Press
officer Francis Williams. It is still used for that purpose. Atdee loved
also the stillness of the Park at night and the bird song in the early
morning. Like so many other Prime Ministers he used to walk round
the Park with his wife and his dog before beginning the day's work. His
is the second dog to be buried in the garden at No. 10. A Welsh terrier
named Megan, she died while he was Prime Minister and lies not far
from Lady Megan Lloyd George's black pug Zulu.

The wide range of reforms, building on the foundations laid more
than a generation before by Asquith and Lloyd George, ushered in the
Welfare State. It ensured the care of the sick and needy, provided full
employment for men and women and raised the standard of living for
millions of workers. On their new social level many were drawn closer
to the Conservatives and chafed against the inevitable irritations caused
by austerity and rationing, which kept firmly shut the desirable outlet
for their larger incomes. That supplies were not available to ease these
restraints was never fully accepted. At the same time the Tory Party's

* In a statement to the author.
416

ATTLEE S SEX YEARS

fury at the socialization of the country was given ample expression at
public meetings and in the columns of the Press, which with rare
exceptions were organs of Conservative opinion.

It was unfortunate for the Government, with the atmosphere so
explosively charged, that a senior member of the Cabinet, Aneurin
Sevan, brilliant and outspoken, should have been provoked by these
denunciations to liken the Tories to Vermin' which, although he
qualified its application in the very next sentence to those who were
harsh and immoderate as employers, provided the opponents of the
Government with a war cry they were to use most effectively in the
General Election that was approaching.

The Labour Party was not split but disaffection was certainly appar-
ent. A section, not very large, felt that the speed of alteration and
adjustment in the economy and life of the country was too fast - a halt
should be called to allow for digestion. Two members of the House of
Commons and one of the Lords left the Labour Party over the
nationalization of steel. A much larger section, more vocal, did not
think the reforms cut deep enough; they sharply criticized Attlee and
Herbert Morrison. This division was not noticeable in the Cabinet, but
some of the Ministers did not like Atdee's quiet tongue-tied manner, of
listening but saying nothing.

After one of their meetings at No. 10, as they trooped out of the
Cabinet room and stretched for their coats and hats, hanging from pegs
in the red carpeted lobby outside, they grumbled about this until
someone pointed out that Attlee's silence was in fact his greatest
strength. 'Now Nye Bevan is just the reverse - and in consequence he is
his own worst enemy/ At which Ernest Bevin observed: 'Not while
I'm alive he isn't/

The General Election, anticipating the completion of the five-year
term, was held in February 1950. Labour lost a number of seats, but was
still the largest Party in the House with 315 members to the Conserva-
tives 297. There were, however, also nine Liberals and some Indepen-
dents, and Labour had the infinitesimal majority of only seven over all
other parties.

This made the position of the Government extremely difficult. The
Tories kept harassing them with all-night sessions whenever possible
and, in order to avoid defeat, the Whips had to muster every Labour

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NO. IO DOWNING STREET

Member: even the sick and bedridden were brought from their beds
and waited many hours for the divisions. After a time the strain became
unendurable. Most of the senior Ministers had been in office continu-
ously for close on eleven years. Ernest Bevin was dying, so before long
was Lord Addison. Atdee had two serious bouts of illness and was in
hospital when a crisis developed in the Cabinet. The outbreak of the
Korean war in June 1950 had repercussions on the Budget, and the
imposition of certain charges in the free Health Service in the following
year led to the resignation of two Cabinet Ministers, Aneurin Bevan
and Harold Wilson.

It was impossible to go on, and Attlee, after twenty months of it,
decided on a second General Election. It was held in October 1951 and
brought defeat. The Tories were returned with a dear though small
majority. Together with their associates they had a total of 321 mem-
bers in the House, whereas Labour's representation fell to 295. With an
overall majority of 17 the Tories were better placed to govern. Atdee
resigned and the King sent for Winston Churchill.

418

CHAPTER 43
Eden and Suez

CHURCHILL was not far short of seventy-seven when he became
Prime Minister for the second time - his third if one counts the brief
existence of the 'Caretaker Government' formed on the break-up of
the Coalition in 1945. He and Mrs. Churchill moved in almost at once
and were to live at No. 10 for nearly four years. Their youngest
daughter Mary, who had been living there with them through a large
part of his previous term of office, for even after she joined the A.T.S.,
as the women's Auxiliary Territorial Service was called, and was
attached to an anti-aircraft unit in Hyde Park, she occasionally came
and spent the night at No. 10, but she had married in 1948 and by now
had a home of her own.

The Atdee flat was used chiefly by Churchill and his personal staff of
secretaries. Mrs. Churchill moved down to the first floor. The corner
room, in which Campbell-Bannerman had died, became her private
study: here she dealt with her letters and attended to the domestic
arrangements. The room alongside it, once Ramsay MacDonald's
bedroom, was Mrs. Churchill's bedroom now. At the front of the

419

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

house, near the State dining-room, two rooms were converted into
kitchen and pantry units.

In appointing his Cabinet Churchill once again chose Anthony Eden
as Foreign Secretary and gave him in addition the title of Deputy Prime
Minister. This tide was first introduced by Churchill in 1940 when
Attlee joined the Coalition Government and it was later conferred by
Attlee on Herbert Morrison in 1945. It has, however, been objected to
on constitutional grounds since it implies a line of succession and thus
deprives the Sovereign of his prerogative of choice.175 Lord Salisbury,
grandson of the former Prime Minister, was appointed Lord Privy
Seal and Harold Macmillan, a future Prime Minister, was made
Minister of Housing.

The King, ill through most of the summer, was barely convalescent
when the Election was held and died early in the morning of 6th
February 1952. The heir to the throne, his elder daughter Princess
Elizabeth, had left for East Africa with her husband the Duke of
Edinburgh less than a week before. She hurried home and was pro-
claimed Queen Elizabeth the Second on her return.

Churchill's aim was to undo as far as possible the socialization
brought in by Atdee's Government and to rid the country of the con-
trols and austerity required by the war and imposed then by Churchill
himself. The controls were easiest to dispose of: indeed Attlee had
begun to shed them before his Government fell. Bit by bit now the
rest were removed and in February 1952 the Identity Cards introduced
in 1939 were also abolished. The Health Service, Churchill realized,
would have to remain, despite the stern criticism to which it was
subjected by the Conservatives. He saw also that it would not be of
advantage to denationalize the mines and railways, or even gas and
electricity. These were accordingly left under State control. But steel
was in part returned to private enterprise, so was road haulage. A
promise had been made to extend and accelerate the building of new
houses, and this was achieved by Harold Macmillan.

The practice adopted during the war of flying to America and else-
where for discussions was maintained - it was introduced in fact by
Ramsay MacDonald, who was the first Prime Minister to fly. Churchill
greatly extended it and during these years of peace his visits to Canada
and the West Indies as well as the United States were in a sense tours of

420

EDEN AND SUEZ

the great war leader whom the world was eager to welcome with their
rapturous thanks.

Early in 1953 he was awarded the Garter by the Queen, and after the
Coronation in June his health began to decline. He was by now entering
his eightieth year and the strain of the war had taken a heavy toll of his
system. The possibility of his retirement was constantly in the public
mind, but not in his. Rumours persisted throughout 1954, but he
dismissed them with a laugh even as late as the spring of 1955.

It was during a newspaper strike, which began at the close of March
and lasted for four weeks, that Churchill finally retired. He left in
consequence without a fanfare from the Press to mark his exit. On 4th
April 1955 the Queen and Prince Philip dined with him and Lady
Churchill at No. 10 Downing Street. With them in the State dining-
room were members of his family and some of his wartime colleagues.
Rising to give a toast to Her Majesty, Sir Winston remarked that he
had enjoyed drinking the same toast as a cavalry subaltern 'in the reign
of Your Majesty's great-great-grandmother'. It is interesting to recall
that at a similar distance from Queen Victoria was her own great-great-
grandfather George the Second, in whose reign No. 10 became the
home of the Prime Minister. On the next day, 5th April 1955, Churchill
resigned and the Queen invited Sir Anthony Eden to succeed him.*

Eden arranged for an immediate General Election. The announce-
ment was made on the radio, since there were still no newspapers. The
result, announced on 27th May, gave the Conservatives and their
associates a more comfortable majority - they had 345 as against 319 in
1952, while Labour dropped to 277 from 293, a loss of sixteen seats.
Towards the close of the year Attlee retired too and Hugh Gaitskell was
elected Leader of the Opposition in his place.

The Churchills moved out of No. 10 soon after Sir Winston's
resignation and the Edens moved in. Both Sir Anthony and Lady Eden
knew the house well. Indeed Lady Eden, as the daughter of Churchill's
brother, Major John Churchill, who had lived in the house during the
war, had herself stayed there from time to time and was married from
there in 1952: Sir Winston arranged for his niece's wedding reception
to be held at No. 10 Downing Street. They had no family. Of Sir

* Eden was awarded the Garter in 1954.
421

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Anthony Eden's two sons by his first marriage, one was killed in
Burma during the war and the other, Nicholas, by now twenty-four,
had his own home.

It was Lady Eden's intention to restore No. 10, in so far as the
decoration of the main reception rooms was concerned, to the style
introduced by Kent when he adapted the house for Sir Robert Walpole
more than two centuries before. She went to Houghton, Walpole's
country house in Norfolk, which had also been decorated by Kent, and
was shown some of the old brocades and damasks Kent had used there.
Lady Cholmondeley readily agreed to these being copied for No. 10
Downing Street, but when Lady Eden discussed it with the Ministry
of Works, normally most co-operative in trying to meet the wishes of
each new Prime Minister, it was pointed out that the credit squeeze
imposed by the Government would make it impossible for the Treasury
to sanction the cost involved. That ruled out also her plan to bring in
furniture of the Kent period. The furniture already in the drawing-
rooms was a strange mixture: there were some attractive Regency
pieces, kter than the date of the house but admirably suitable, and an
assortment of chairs and tables that did not blend at all. So she brought
in some of her own furniture for the large green drawing-room at the
Treasury end of the house. Lady Churchill had already put in a
splendid Persian carpet in her study, and by a neat arrangement of
what was available, together with some fresh pictures from the National
Gallery (out of the cellars again) the rooms were agreeably transformed.
Sir Anthony introduced a change in the lighting of the Cabinet room.
It had been lit by three inverted bowls hanging from the ceiling.
Churchill had found them not bright enough and had a desk lamp for
himself. Eden replaced the light bowls by chandeliers - two large ones
and a small one for the section between the Corinthian pillars and the
door.

The Churchills had left behind three or four cats. Sir Winston was
very fond of cats and had one favourite in particular, Nelson, which he
took with him: but their number had been added to during the war
because the bombing caused No. 10 to be overrun withrats of enormous
size. For months the cats were found wandering about the house.
But Lady Eden eventually had them taken to Sir Winston's home in
Hyde Park Gate.

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EDEN AND SUEZ

The Edens lived at No. 10 for just over twenty months. Quite a lot
of entertaining was done, mostly in the small breakfast-room, which
they found much pleasanter than the large Soane dining-room, with
its heavy panelling and vaulted ceiling. The panels of the breakfast-
room, also by Soane, were now painted cream: this gave the wood a
slightly gayer air. Here and in the smaller drawing-room they enter-
tained their personal friends, Dr. Albert Schweitzer and Greta Garbo
among others. Bulganin and Krushchev, travelling in that order of
precedence, visited No. 10 in April 1956, but did not stay to a meal.
The State dining-room was used only for large dinners and banquets,
attended by Eisenhower, Foster Dulles, Adenauer, Mollet the French
Prime Minister, King Hussein of Jordan, King Feisal of Iraq and his
Prime Minister Nuri es-Said, the Prime Minister of Thailand, and
other distinguished foreign guests. The seven servants employed by the
Edens had to be supplemented for such occasions and the catering was
done by one of the outside firms normally used for Government
hospitality. Sir Anthony had laid down some wine when he was
Foreign Secretary and he drew on the small stock that remained for
official entertaining.

During his brief term as Prime Minister, Eden was confronted by
many testing problems. Just before taking over the office he had been
to Bangkok for a conference and on his way home in February 1955,
had stopped at Cairo, where he was entertained by Nasser. There was
trouble in Cyprus, which began its struggle for independence in that
year, and a general uneasiness over the situation in the Middle East,
where the threat of war between Israel and her Arab neighbours was a
constant and disturbing possibility. In his Guildhall speech on 9th
November 1955, Eden appealed to both Israel and her neighbours to
abate their territorial claims for the sake of peace.

The Suez crisis developed in the summer of 1956. British troops had
left the Canal zone on isth June and six weeks later, on 26th July,
Nasser seized the Canal. The Prime Minister and Lady Eden were
entertaining King Feisal of Iraq and his Prime Minister Nuri es-Said*
at No. 10 that night and just as they were going in to dinner the tele-
gram informing him of Nasser's action was handed to Eden.

* King Feisal and Nuri es-Said were murdered in Baghdad on I4th July 1958.
423

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Nasser had already indicated his intention to take over the Canal,
legally and by negotiation, in 1968 when the existing concession under
the Convention of 1888 expired. It was thought that his high-handed
anticipation of this date was in retaliation for the withdrawal, first by
the United States and a day later by Britain, of an expected loan for the
building of the Aswan dam. He proposed now to use the Canal's
revenues for financing the project.

The anger not only in Britain but throughout the Commonwealth
and the Western world generally, was intense, for the Canal was an
international waterway on which most countries were dependent.
Eden tried to bring financial pressure to bear on Egypt, and the
Admiralty and the War office took precautionary measures to streng-
then Britain's position in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Dulles hurried across the Atlantic for discussions with Eden, who put
off his holiday to deal with the emergency. On 2nd August the
American, French and British Foreign Ministers met in London and
agreed to call an immediate conference of users of the Canal for the
purpose of setting up an international company to control the Canal,
with both Russia and Egypt as members.

On that same day, 2nd August, the position was debated in the House
of Commons. Gaitskell, who had denounced Nasser, said he did not
object to the precautionary military measures, but warned the Govern-
ment that 'we must not allow ourselves to get into a position where
we would be denounced as aggressors'.

The feeling in the country had akeady begun to divide over the
possibility of getting the Canal back by force. On the one side were
those who were opposed to any attempt at appeasement, on the other
those who felt that the United Nations should seek a solution.

Meanwhile the international conference had met, Russia attend-
ing, Egypt abstaining. Menzies, the Australian Prime Minister, was
authorized to see Nasser on the setting up of international control. The
talks failed.

Parliament was by this time in recess. From 13th August Gaitskell
had been demanding its recall. On sist August a statement issued from
No. 10 Downing Street declared that the date of recall could not yet
be fixed. Eventually both Houses met on I2th September for a two-day
debate. On the day before its reassembly the British and French Prime

424

EDEN AND SUEZ

Ministers conferred at No. 10 and were said to be 'in complete agree-
ment as to the next step to be taken*.

On 2pth October it was announced in Tel Aviv that Israeli forces
were advancing across the desert between the Egyptian frontier and the
Suez Canal because of continuous military attacks on Israel's land and
sea connections. The next day Eden informed the House of Commons
that the British and French Governments had asked Egypt and Israel to
stop fighting within twelve hours and withdraw their forces to a dis-
tance often miles from the Canal. Egypt had also been asked to agree
to British and French forces occupying temporarily certain key posi-
tions on the Canal. If one or both Governments had not undertaken to
comply, Eden said, then both France and Britain would move in 'in
whatever strength may be necessary to secure compliance'.

Israel accepted the ultimatum, Egypt rejected it and French and
British bombers began their attack on military targets in Egypt on sist
October. President Eisenhower immediately protested that the attack
could not be reconciled with the principles of the United Nations, a
view that was at once endorsed by India. On the same afternoon Gaits-
kell attacked the Prime Minister in the House, vociferously supported
by his own followers and the Liberals. A rowdy scene developed, with
reiterated cries of 'Resign*. The scene was renewed the next day when
Gaitskell moved a vote of censure, and the Speaker had to suspend the
sitting for half an hour. Great indignation was expressed in the Ameri-
can press and on American television and radio, accusing Britain of
trickery and deceit.

Within forty-eight hours, on 2nd November, the Israeli forces won a
decisive victory over the Egyptians in Sinai, and British and French
bombers practically destroyed the Russian-supplied air force of Egypt.

The House of Commons met again on Saturday, 3rd November.
Two Conservative Ministers resigned from the Government - Anthony
Nutting, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and Sir Edward Boyle,
Economic S ecretary to the Treasury ; from the LabourParty there was one
resignation - Stanley Evans, M.P. When the House was informed by
the Foreign Secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, that British troops were about
to be landed in Egypt there was an uproar. Gaitskell called for the
resignation of the Prime Minister.

That evening Eden broadcast to the nation to explain that his object

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NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

was to separate the armies and stop the fighting. Until the United
Nations were ready to take over, the British and French forces must go
on with the job till it was done.

The next day Canada called on the United Nations to send an
international force to put a stop to hostilities.

British and French troops were dropped by air near Port Said on
5th November, but the next day Eden announced that British forces
were to cease-fire at midnight and that an international force would be
taking over. Speaking in the House he said: 'As the dust settles it may
well be that out of this anxiety ... a better opportunity will come than
has ever been available before for the United Nations to prove itself a
really effective international organization/

Thus in the Cabinet room where seventy years before by the astute-
ness of Disraeli and the co-operation of the Rothschilds control of
the Suez Canal was acquired by Britain, so now its loss was accepted.

Eden remained in office only a few weeks longer. On pth January
1957, after returning from a brief stay in Jamaica, he had an audience of
the Queen and handed in his resignation. The reason given was his
health and, though some doubt was cast on this at the time, his health
had in fact made it impossible to carry on. He had been ill off and on
since before his marriage and actually returned from his honeymoon
on a stretcher. The four doctors who issued a bulletin at the time of his
resignation stated specifically: 'The Prime Minister's health gives cause
for anxiety* - and he has been in need of treatment and has had to
undergo a series of operations since.

The question of his successor caused much speculation. R. A. Butler,
Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons, had acted as
Prime Minister during Eden's absence in Jamaica and it was certain that
he would be chosen. But after consulting Sir Winston Churchill and
Lord Salisbury, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the Lords,
the Queen's choice was Harold Macmillan, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer.

Macmillan was sixty-three. He had married Lady Dorothy Caven-
dish, the daughter of the ninth Duke of Devonshire, in 1920, and had
four children - one son, Maurice, who was a Member of Parliament,
and three daughters, all of them married. The Edens vacated No. to
almost at once, taking the furniture they had brought, and Macmillan

426

EDEN AND SUEZ

and Lady Dorothy moved in. No redecoration was asked for; Lady
Dorothy was quite content to accept the house just as it was. She
brought none of her own furniture, but the furniture removed by the
Edens was of course replaced by the Ministry of Works.

Not many changes were made in the Government. Butler retained
his position as Leader of the House of Commons and Selwyn Lloyd
was kept on as Foreign Secretary. Macmillan won plaudits both in the
House and outside it by reducing taxes and announcing that there
would be no further call-up for national military service after the end of
1960. But in successive by-elections fought shortly afterwards the
Conservative majority was alarmingly reduced. The Tories had won
two elections in a row and these results pointed ominously to their not
achieving the hat trick when the next General Election was fought. But
that was not to be for another two years.

Much had to be done in the interval. His first endeavour was to
repair the damage done to the Tory Party by the Suez disaster and to
restore the warm understanding that had existed with America. This
he achieved.

The granting of independence to colonial countries, begun by Attlee,
was continued. In that year, 1957, Ghana, Malaya and Singapore
became self-governing. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland had
already been set up in 1953 and of the West Indies followed in 1958.
Two years kter Nigeria was granted independence, and Cyprus and
Tanganyika were added to the lengthening list shortly after that.

An early blow descended in 1958 when the new Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Peter Thorneycroft, and both his Treasury colleagues,
Enoch Powell and Nigel Birch, resigned suddenly after a disagreement
in the Cabinet on pruning the expenditure for the coming year.
Macmillan was about to set out on a Commonwealth tour and many
expected him to postpone it. But, with an air of imperturbability,
which afterwards came to be recognized as his characteristic, he dis-
missed the crisis as 'a little local difficulty*.

In the Budget, presented by the new Chancellor Heathcoat Ainory,
purchase tax was reduced, the entertainment tax for cinemas was cut
by just over a half, and there were still further, though slight, conces-
sions in income tax.

An important first step towards reforming the House of Lords was

427

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

taken when the Life Peerages Act was passed in April. The initial list of
creations, published in July, comprised ten men and four women. This
brought women for the first time into the Upper House.

Macmillan's visit to Moscow in February 1959 was followed by
visits to Paris, Bonn, Ottawa and Washington. The General Election
was held in October and was won by the Conservatives, who thus
successfully achieved their hat-trick and actually increased their
majority in the House by twenty-one.

Not a great deal of entertaining was done at No. 10 Downing Street.
The inescapable official dinners were held there. Prince Philip attended
a dinner that was entirely for men; the King of Nepal was a guest on
another occasion; President Eisenhower dined there too; and African
rulers on a visit to London were also invited. But the house was con-
sidered unsafe. For some years each Prime Minister in turn had been
asked not to have more than a strictly limited number of guests in any
of the upper rooms. The staircase was known to have sunk a few inches.
A committee under the chairmanship of the Earl of Crawford and
Balcarres* had been appointed to report on the condition of the house.
Its recommendations, made in July 1958, were against demolition and
replacement by an entirely new building; but suggested that, provided
the work was undertaken before the structure suffered further de-
terioration, the house could be underpinned and strengthened, the roofs
renovated or renewed, the dried-wood replaced, and that the existing
building could thus be substantially retained.

This was agreed to. The Prime Minister and Lady Dorothy Mac-
millan moved out on ist August 1960. The last thing Macmillan did at
No. 10 before leaving was to sit for his portrait to Sir James Gunn, the
artist. The next day workmen began to remove the furniture, carpets
and curtains. They were taken to Admiralty House in Whitehall which
became the temporary residence of the Prime Minister.

* Lord Crawford, an eminent figure in the world of art, has been a trustee of the National
Gallery and the British Museum for many years, Chairman of the Royal Fine Art
Commission, the National Trust, and the National Art-Collections Fund.

428

CHAPTER 44

The New No. 10

THE work of reconstruction began on isth August 1960 and
was expected to take two years, but a succession of strikes caused a
delay of almost a whole year. The two houses adjoining, Nos. n and
12 (of the latter only the basement and ground floor were still standing,
the rest had been gutted by fire in 1879), were dealt with at the same
time and the total cost was estimated at half a million pounds. To the
distinguished architect Raymond Erith, with his sensitive understanding
of eighteenth-century buildings, the elaborate work of reconstruction
was entrusted.

Sections of the walls and roof coverings at No, 10 were stripped so
that the nature and extent of the work required should be judged. It
was found that the timber in the floors and roofs was old and in a bad
state: there was evidence of both dry rot and beetle decay. The house
had no damp-proof courses. Many of the walls were out of alignment
because of the sinking of the shallow foundations, which were com-
posed of timber sills laid on the silt subsoil and the overlying gravel:
the sills were found to be 'in an advanced stage of decay'. Repeatedly

429

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

through the centuries the house had to be underpinned and strengthened
and, just before the 1939 war, when the air-raid shelter was built, the
Cabinet room floor beams were strutted from below and some of the
roof beams were stiffened with steel framing. But the floors generally
were still cout of level and of low loading capacity', and very substantial
reconstruction had at last become necessary.

'The sanitation and water supply', the report added, 'were originally
intended for a very limited use and have been constantly added to; the
whole system is a complicated and make-shift arrangement. . . . The
pipe runs are faulty and the wiring needs renewal. When the Prime
Minister is in residence a maintenance engineer has to be kept constantly
available to attend to the lift in case of breakdown. A new lift was kept
in store for several years but was not installed pending the main
decision on reconstruction, because it could not be pkced in the
existing lift shaft.' The fire risk was described as 'abnormally high'.

Mr. Erith's plan was to preserve so far as possible the historical
appearance and atmosphere of the important rooms, and this he has
succeeded in doing. Despite very substantial reconstruction, the ground
floor and the first floor appear to be almost unchanged. The entrance
hall is as it was before, the corridor leading to the Cabinet room, first
inserted for Walpole in 1735 and rebuilt by Taylor for the younger
Pitt, has been almost completely reconstructed, but the eye will detect
no difference; nor has the appearance of the Cabinet room been altered
in any way. The main State drawing-rooms on the first floor and the
panelled dining- and breakfast-rooms also remain unchanged. The attrac-
tive ornamental cornices in these rooms were guarded with the utmost
care during the reconstruction and have been repaired where necessary.
Even in the basement, where the alterations were many, the famous
kitchen withits enormous windowandsolid oak table, may stillbeseen.

The house, a large part of it used for offices manned twenty-four
hours a day for seven days a week, had to be greatly enlarged. Rooms
were needed for a permanent day staff of about fifty, with sleeping
accommodation for those who may be required to stay overnight in
times of stress. The day staffhad already overflowed into the Treasury
building alongside and the files into the kitchen in the basement. Mr.
Erith has made use of the single-storied wing with the bow window on
the east side (originally Mr, Chicken's cottage) by providing it with

430

THE NEW NO. 10

additional floors to the height of the rest of the house. He extended
No. 10 further on the other side by taking in a slice of No. loa (the sec-
tion behind the disused door) and inserting another staircase. Feeling that
this may not be enough, he has given to No. 10 the whole of the top
floor, running above the entire length of Nos. 10, loa, u and 12
Downing Street, in order to provide living accommodation for some
of the staff. A part of the new roof is supported by a vast beam of
Douglas fir, forty-nine feet long and nearly two feet square, specially
imported from British Columbia. He has also, by removing certain
basement walls, given No. 10 the entire basement space save for two
or three rooms under No. 12. The foundations, completely new,
have been sunk to a depth varying from six to eighteen feet and have
been substantially constructed in concrete.

The accommodation on the second floor, which Mrs. Neville
Chamberlain adopted as the residential floor, has been extensively
redesigned. The old attic windows have been pulled back; this enabled
the straightening of the walls and the use of larger windows, and the
size of the main bedrooms was maintained by the removal of some of
the corridors and unnecessary ante-rooms. Many more bathrooms have
also been added. Throughout the house the old wooden floors have
been replaced by a double flooring of concrete, carrying in the inter-
vening space pipes for water, sanitation and heating, as well as electric
and telephone wiring. A new lift shaft has been constructed near the
front door for an entirely new and efficient lift. The central courtyard
between the two original houses joined together by Walpole has been
completely cleared of the clutter of sheds and the old glass-roofed
passages that skirted it, and has been made an attractive feature of
No. 10.

Mr. Erith's aim throughout has been to improve the building within
its established framework, to let in more light and to tidy up the piece-
meal additions made in the course of the preceding centuries. 'It w!as
not a ramshackle house, as some people seem to think,' he says.* 'It was
substantially built, but the original foundations were not strong enough
and they have shrunk. My purpose has been to make No. 10 and the
adjoining houses strong and solid enough to last for many years, and I

* In a statement to the author.
431

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

have allowed in my reconstruction room for further alterations and
adjustments for future occupants. The old rambling appearance of the
house has been removed, and I have made the residential floors more
comfortable and have supplied them with all modern services - bath-
rooms, sanitation, heating, telephones, and so on. I am painting the
lofty vaulted ceiling of the dining-room - it was a stark white and will
look the better for a little colour. I am also dealing with the furniture,
some of which is good; I am re-covering, for example, the Clive of
India suite/

To give it something of its original outer shape the row of houses
has been turned at the corner and taken up to the steps leading down to
St. James's Park. The heating of all these houses is supplied by the
Whitehall district heating system, which has a boiler house under the
new Government buildings in Whitehall Gardens, where both Peel and
Disraeli once lived.

During the excavations under No. 10 some important pieces of
Tudor pottery were found, as well as pieces belonging to the period of
the Roman occupation, at which time the site was nearer a. much wider
River Thames; the finds indicate that it has been in constant use for
nearly two thousand years. As the excavations did not extend to the
garden, the Egyptian scarab buried by Lloyd George's housekeeper
Sarah during the First World War was left undisturbed.

The work completed, back into their original pkces will go the
porter's black leather hooded chair, the marble busts of Pitt and Mel-
bourne and Wellington, Walpole's portrait in the Cabinet room, the
dock beneath it on the mantelpiece, and engravings and photographs
of former Prime Ministers all the way up the staircase wall.

It will be asked again, as it was asked nearly two centuries ago*: 'So
much has this extraordinary edifice cost the country - for one moiety
of which sum a much better dwelling might have been purchased.'

Ruskin provides an answer. 'Watch an old building with anxious
care,' he wrote; 'guard it as best you may, and, at any cost, from any
influence of dilapidation. Count its stones as you would jewels of a
crown. Set watchers about it, as if at the gate of a besieged city; bind it
together with irons when it loosens; stay it with timber when it

* Morning Herald, 2istjune 1783.
432

THE NEW NO. IO

declines. . . . Do this tenderly and reverently and continually and many
a generation will still be born and pass away beneath its shadow/

Thus may it be said of No. 10 that it was here, not on this site but in
this house, that Walpole, Pitt, Wellington, Disraeli, Gladstone, Lloyd
George and Winston Churchill lived and worked for the greatness of
the country and the happiness of the people.

HOUSES OF
PARLIAMENT

ST THOMAS'
HOSPITAL

WESTMINSTER IN 1955

From the six inches to the mile Ordnance Survey, sheets TQiyNE, TQ28SE,

TQ37NW, TQ38SW,

(See also page xviii)

No. 10 Downing Street

FLOOR PLANS BEFORE THE 1960
RECONSTRUCTION

/{Jill lljll

Ss-aswi

LU
ID

0
O

.1 FI J

Prime Ministers and Others

who have lived

at No. 10 Downing Street

The following is a list of the residents at No. 10 Downing Street and the house
at the back. Chancellors of the Exchequer are shown in italics and First Lords of 'the
Treasury arc indicated by*.

THE HOUSE AT THE BACK

c. i673-c. 1676

1677-90

1690-1708

1708-20

1720-32

No. 10 DOWNING STREET

1735-42

1742-43

1743-44

1745-53

1753-54

1754-61

1762

1762-63

1763-65

1765-66

1766-67

1767-70

1770-82

1782

1782-83

1783

1783-1801

1801-04

1804-06

1806-07

1807

1807-09

1809-12

1810

Duke of Buckingham

Earl and Countess of Lichfield

Lord Overkirk

Lady Overkirk

Count Bothmar

Sir Robert Walpok*

Samuel Sandys

Lord Sandys

Earl of Lincoln

Lewis Watson

Henry Bilson-Legge

Thomas Pelham

Sir Francis Dashwood

George Grenville*

William Dowdeswell

Charles Townshend

Lord North

Lord North*

Lord John Cavendish (doubtful)

William Pitt

Duke of Portland

William Pitt*

Henry Addington*

William Pitt*

Lord Grenville*

Duke of Portland*

Spencer Perceval

Spencer Perceval*

Chas. Arbuthnot

441

NO- ID DOWNING STREET

1812-23 Nicholas Vansittart

1 8^3—27 F.J. Robinson

1827 George Canning*

1827-28 Lord Goderich*

1828-30 Duke of Wellington*

1830 Earl Bathurst

1830-34 Earl Grey*

1835 Sir Thomas Freemantle, Peel's secretary

1838 The Hon. William Cowper and G. E. Anson

1^39-40 G. E. Anson and the Hon. Mrs. Anson

1 842 Edward Drurnmond

1843 Edward Drummond and W. H. Stephenson

1844—46 W. H. Stephenson and George Arbuthnot

1847 CoL the Hon. George Keppel

Charles S. Grey

R. W. Grey

( The residential part of No. i o was untenanted for thirty years)

1877-80 Benjamin Disraeli*

1880-85 W. E. Gladstone*

1885-86 Sit Stafford Northcote*

1886 (Feb. to July) W. E. Gladstone*
1886-91 W. H. Smith*

1891-92 Arthur James Balfout

1892-94 W. E. Gladstone*

1 894 (March) Earl of Rosebery*

1895-1905 Arthur James Balfour*

^ Balfour became Prime Minister in August 1902. From that date
onwards all Prime Ministers have lived at No. 10 Downing Street. None
of them has combined with it the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.)

1905-07 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman

1907-16 Herbet Henry Asquith

1916-22 David Lloyd George

1922-23 Andrew Bonar Law

1923-24 Stanley Baldwin

19^4 (Jan-) James Ramsay MacDonald

1924 (Nov.)-i929 Stanley Baldwin

442

NO. IO DOWNING STREET

1929-35 James Ramsay MacDonald

1 93 5—3 7 Stanley Baldwin

I937-40 Neville Chamberlain

1940-45 Winston S. Churchill

1945-51 Clement R. Attlee

1951-55 Sir Winston S. Churchill

1955—56 Sir Anthony Eden

1957-601* Harold Macmillan

f The house was vacated on ist August 1960 for extensive repairs and rebuilding.
443

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445

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447

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159. Thoughts and Adventures by Winston* S. Churchill (Thornton Butter-
worth, 1932).

160. Great Contemporaries by Winston S. Churchill (Thornton Butterworth,

1937).

161-166. The Second World War by Winston S. Churchill, 6 vols. (Cassell,
1948-54).

161. The Gathering Storm.

162. Their Finest Hour,

163. The Grand Alliance

164. The Hinge of Fate.

165. Closing the Ring.

1 66. Triumph and Tragedy.

167. Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Elizabeth Ncl (Hoddcr & Stoughton, 1958).

168. As It Happened by C. R. Attlee (Odhams, 1954).

169. A Prime Minister Remembers. War and Post-War Memories of Earl Attlee
by Francis Williams (Heinemann, 1961).

170. Herbert Morrison: Autobiography (Odhams, 1960).

171. Government and Parliament by Herbert Morrison (Oxford, 1954).

172. Call Back Yesterday by Hugh Dalton (Muller, 1953).

173. The Fateful Years by Hugh Dalton (Muller, 1957).

174. High Tide and Afterwards by Lord Dalton (Muller, 1962).

175. King George VI by John Wheeler-Bennett (Macmillan, 1958).

176. The Eden Memoirs: Full Circle by Sir Anthony Eden (Casscll, 1960).

177. The Dictionary of National Biography.

178. The Encyclopedia Britannica.

179. Seven Gardens and a Palace by Richard Burlington, Earl of Boyle.
Edited by E.V.B. (John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1900).

180. Memoirs of Pitt by Henry Cleland (Cundee, 1807),

181. Wilkes and Liberty by George Rude* (Oxford University Press, 1962).

182. Crossroads of Power by Sir Lewis Namicr (Hamish Hamilton, 1962).

451

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I&3. The Eden Memoirs: Facing the Dictators by the Earl of Avon (Cassell,
1962).

184. The Marconi Scandal by Frances Donaldson (Hart-Davis, 1962).

185. The Great Hunger by Cecil Woodham-Smith (Hamish Hamilton, 1962).

INDEX

Aberdeen, 4th Earl of, 210, 256-7, 260
Abyssinia, Italian attack on, 401
Addington, Henry (later Viscount

Sidmouth), sees Pitt's duel, 135-6;

Ministry of, 140-6, 165, 172-3;

Canning's quips on, 142, 187-8;

makes peace with France, 143;

made peer, 150; resigns, 151; in

Ministry of All the Talents, 156-7;

in Home Office, 174; angered at

prorogation of Parliament, 220;

mentioned, 148, 153, 190, 224
Addington, John Hiley, 144-5, 173
Addison, Dr. Christopher (later Lord

Addison), 354, 414, 418
Addison, Joseph, 54
Adelaide, Queen of William IV, 217,

224, 235-6

Adenauer, President, 423
Adrianople, 287
Afghan Wars, 288-9, 292, 295
Africa, European annexation of land

in, 3 13

Alabama, the, 264

Albania, naval demonstration off, 292
Albemarle, Duke of (General Monk),

16,25,31

Albemarle, George Thomas Keppel,
6th Earl of, 250, 253, 255

Albert, Prince Consort, 244-5;
Queen's mourning for, 273-6

Albert Memorial, 274

Alexander I, Tsar of Russia, 188

Alexander, Field-Marshal Earl, 412

Alexandra, Queen, 334

Alexandria, attack on, 293

Aliens Act, 133

Althorp, Lord (later Earl Spencer),
Liberal leader, 211; Chancellor of
Exchequer, 215; Factory Act of,
227-8; and Irish question, 229-30;

453

resigns, 231; in Melbourne's Mini-
stry, 233; succeeds father, 235;
mentioned, 222, 256
Alvanley, Lord, 248
Alvard, Thomas, 23
Amelia, Princess, 168
American Civil War, 264
American colonies, Puritan, 8-10;
Britain loses, 73, 88, 109-11; taxing
of, 74-6, 82, 103 ; Walpole's conces-
sions to, 75 ; Congress assembles in,
76, 107; import duties levied on, 86,
91; repealing of duties except on
tea, 91-2; resent presence of
British army, 103 ; Irish immigrants
in, 138; William IV in, as prince,
217

American War of Independence,
104-5, 107-11; starting point of,
75; negotiations to end, 115-16;
mentioned, 138, 217
Amhcrst, Lord, 91
Amiens, Peace of, 133, 143-4, 173
Amory, D. Hcathcoat, Budget of, 427
Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 368
Anne, Queen, 32-3, 39-41
'Annexe, The', 409, 411, 413
Anson, George, 243-6
Anti-Corn Law League, 249
Antwerp, expedition to (1914), 35^-3
Apsley House, 198, 207; King and
Queen at, 209; attacked by mob,
212-13

Arab struggle with Israel, 423
Arbuthnot, Charles, 174, 200, 207
Arbuthnot, George, 248
Arbuthnot, Harriet, 198, 205, 207
Argyll, 8th Duke of, 297, 305
Armistcad, Mrs., 121
Army, British, Pitt's reduction of,
133; purchase of commissions in,

INDEX

Anny-owf.

167, 277, 328; in South African
War, 326; Haldane's reorganiza-
tion of, 332; strengthening of
(l937), 401; reserves called up, 405

Ashley, Lord (later 7th Earl of
Shaftcsbury), 228

Asquith, Raymond, 335

Asquith, Violet - see Bonham-
Carter, Lady Violet

Asquith, Anthony ('Puffin'), 336,
338-9, 345

Asquith, Elizabeth (later Princess
Elizabeth Bibcsco), 350

Asquith, H. R (later Lord Oxford
and Asquith), 335-6; moves vote of
no confidence on Salisbury, 314,
336; Chancellor of Exchequer, 330;
and votes for women, 333 ; Camp-
bell-Bannerman thanks, 335; Mini-
stry of, 335-42, 343-51, 352-4;
starts Old Age Pensions, 336;
opens election on People's Budget,
337-8; and reform ot Lords, 338-
42; and Marconi scandal, 347; and
outbreak of war, 349; wartime
Coalition Government of, 353;
resigns, 354; defeated at election,
361; entertains King and Queen,
404; mentioned, 315, 368

Asquith, Margot (later Lady Oxford
and Asquith), 335-6; on No. 10,
343-5'» on outbreak of war (1914),
350-1; and end of Asquith's
Ministry, 354

Astbury, Mr. Justice, 382

Aswan dam, withdrawal of loan for
building, 424

Attlce, Clement (later Earl), 385;
Under-Secretary of State for War,
371; on Committee to consider
unemployment, 338; and Edward
Vm's marriage, 395; refuses to
serve under Chamberlain, 406;
Deputy Prime Minister under
Churchill, 407, 420; Ministry of,
413-18; on amendment of Parlia-
ment Act, 415; ill-health of, 415,

454

418; on entertaining at No. 10,
415-16; quietness of, 417; resigns,
418; retires, 421; mentioned, 393,
427

Auckland, 1st Lord, 136, 142

Austerlitz, Battle of, 154

Austria seeks to acquire Bavaria, 127;
at war with French, 131-2, 152,
178; British subsidy for, 134;
freeing Italy from, 264; anti-
Turkish attitude of, 283; economic
crisis in, 388; Hitler seizes, 402

Axe, the (brewhouse), 2, 25-6

Baldwin, Betty, 369, 378
Baldwin, Mrs. 369-70, 374. 383
Baldwin, Oliver, 369, 382
Baldwin, Stanley (later ist Earl), 369,
379, 382-4; demands end of
Coalition, 364; Chancellor of
Exchequer, 366-8; in Washington,
367; first Ministry of, 368-70;
resigns, 370, 383; second Ministry
of, 378-84; woos the workers, 379;
and General Strike, 380-2; loses
popularity with Party, 382; and
National Government, 389-91;
Lord President of Council, 391;
Press criticism of, 393; and re-
arming of Britain, 394; third
Ministry of, 394; and Abdication
crisis, 394-6; resigns and goes to
Lords, 397; entertains King and
Queen, 404

Baldwin, Wyndham, 369, 378
Balfour, Arthur James (later ist Earl),
312-13; in Fourth Party, 301, 312;
Gladstone approaches on Home
Rule, 304; in No. 10, 312, 314, 322;
Leader of Commons, 312-14, 322;
visits Gladstone on bicycle, 323;
on idea of war with U.S., 323 ;
acting Prime Minister, 324-5; and
Boer War, 325-6; motor-car of,
326; Prime Minister, 327; Camp-
belkBannerman attacks, 332-3;
opens election campaign on
'People's Budget', 337; and reform

INDEX

of Lords, 340; visits Asquiths, 346;
in Coalition Government, 353;
Foreign Secretary, 354-5; loyal to
Lloyd George, 365; mentioned,
348, 368

Balkans, at war with Turkey, 282-3

Balmoral, 274, 292

Bank of England, encourages specula-
tion, 183; planned run on, 224;
cannot save pound, 389

Banks, panic run on, 183

Barbay, Louis, 48

Baring, Francis, 249, 253

Barkstcad (regicide), 20

Barre, Colonel Isaac, 75, 105

Barric, Sir James, 357, 387

Barrington, 2nd Viscount, 107

Barry, Sir Charles, 241

Bastille, storming of, 172

Bath, 4th Marquess of, 281

Bathurst, 3rd Earl, 207-8

Bavaria, 127, 132

Beaconsficld, Benjamin Disraeli, ist
Earl of, hears Canning, 192;
changes Party, 226; opposes Peel,
250; Chancellor of Exchequer,
255-6; Leader of House, 256; on
Aberdeen's Ministry, 257; criticizes
Palmerston, 262; on Russell and
Reform Bill, 267; effective head of
Government, 268-9; Queen's
attachment to, 269, 280-1, 286-7;
regarded as outsider by both
parties, 269-70, 280; first Ministry
of, 269-72; rivalry with Gladstone,
270; Reform Bill of, 271-2;
opposes abolition of established
Church of Ireland, 272; wife of,
272-3; novels of, 273; refuses
Premiership, 278; second Ministry
of, 278, 279-89; loses wife, 279-80;
failing health of, 281, 284; accepts
peerage, 281; buys Suez Canal
shares, 281-2; supports Turkey
against Russia, 283-4, 287; n oves
into No. to, 284-7, 373; quarrel
with Gladstone over furniture for
No. n, 285; primroses for, 286;

at Congress of Berlin, 287-8;
death o£ 289; annexes Transvaal,
289, 324; mentioned, 303, 310, 332
Beaconsfield, Mary Anne, Viscoun-
tess, 272-3, 279-80
Beauchamp, 6th Earl, 281
Beaverbrook, Max Aitken, Baron,
and Lloyd George Ministry, 3 54-5 ;
on Labour Government, 371-2;
papers of, criticize Baldwin, 393;
supports Edward VIII, 396; in
Cabinet, 411
Bechuanaland, 313
Bedford, 4th Duke of, 95
Beer, duty on, 291, 352
Belgium, French designs on, 127;
French occupation of, 143; separ-
ates from Holland, 210; indepen-
dence of, 229; Germany invades,
350, 406
Bell inn, 2

Bellingham, John, 170
Bentinck, Lord George, 250
Berlin, Congress of, 287-8, 312
Berlin, Treaty of, 287-8, 292
Bessborough, 9th Earl and Countess

of, 403

Bessborough, Lady, 273
Bevan, Aneurin, 414, 417-18
Bevin, Ernest, 4H-I5, 417-18
Bibesco, Princess Elizabeth (nle

Asquith), 350

Bilson-Leggc, Henry, 64-5, 95
Birch, Nigel, 427
Birkcnhead, Lord (F. E. Smith), 341,

365, 378-9

Birmingham, representation of, 200;
Political Union forms in, 210;
without municipality, 245 ; demon-
strations in, on defeat of Reform
Bill, 271 ; republicanism in, 276

Birrcll, Augustine, 331

Bismarck, Prince, 287, 292

'Black and Tans1, 362

Blake, William, 133

Bloemfontein, 326

Boer War, 324-7. 33<5

Boers, 292, 324-5

455

INDEX

Bolingbrokc, Henry St. John, Vis-
count, 39, 54, 55
Bondfield, Margaret, Minister of

Labour, 385
Bonham Carter, Lady Violet (nte

Asquith), 335-6, 357; room of, in

No. 10, 345
Boston, mob violence in, 76;

'Massacre', 92; 'Tea Party', 103-4;

closure of port of, 104
Boswell, James, 48, 70-1
Bodunar, Count, 33, 42, 46
'Boy Patriots', 73
Boycott, Captain, 296
Boyle, Sir Edward, 425
Bracken, Brendan, 411
Brazil, Portuguese Royal family in,

161
Bright, John, 291, 293; opposed to

Home Rule, 304-6
Bristol, rioting in, on Reform Bill,

222

Bristol, Earl of, 101

Britain, weakness of (1784), 121, 126;
prosperity of, under Pitt, 121;
French declare war on (1793), 132;
threatened by invasion, 134, 144,
147, 149, 152; post-war hardship
in, 178; later periods of great
hardship in, 183, 210-12, 249;
violence in, at rejection of Reform
Bill, 222, 224, 271; 'Hungry
Forties' in, 249, 254; strengthening
coastal defences of, 264; and
American Civil War, 264; narrow-
ly escapes war, 264, 323-4; at war
with Germany, 348-52; depression
of, in 19208, 363, 379-8i; U.S.
loan to, during war, 367; economic
depression in (1930-1), 388-90;
inadequate defences of, against
Hitler menace, 393-4; prepares for
war, 402, 404; near oankruptcy
after war, 414; and Suez crisis,

424-6
British Empire, expansion of, under

Salisbury, 313; Rosebery and, 322
British Gazette, 381

456

British Museum, 182

Broadlands, Romscy (Hants), 258

Brougham, Lord, supports Parlia-
mentary Reform, 211, 222; in
Grey's Ministry, 215, 218-20;
suggests creation of peers, 221, 223 ;
on quarrels in Cabinet, 230-1;
and Melbourne, 235, 244; men-
tioned, 177

Brunswick, Duke of, 131-2

Buccleuch, 5th Duke of, 247, 249

Buckingham, George Grenville, 1st
Marquess of, 74, 158-9

Buckingham, George Villiers, 2nd
Duke of, 25, 28, 30-1

Buckingham and Chandos, Richard
Grenville, 2nd Duke of, 249

Buckingham and Cliandos, Richard
Grenville, 3rd Duke of, 270

Buckingham House, 79

Buckingham Palace, 5; King offers
as new House of Parliament, 236

Buckinghamshire, Countess of (nfe
Eleanor Eden), 136, 150, 180

Buckinghamshire, 4th Earl of, 136,
150-1, 180

Bulganin, M., 423

Bulgarian atrocities, 283

Buller, General Sir Redvcrs, 325-6

Burgoyne, John, 102

Burke, Edmund, 81-2; on Grenville,
74; attacks North's American
policy, 105; in Rockingham's
Government, 113-14; on Pitt,
115; votes against reform, 119; and
impeachment of Hastings, 122-3 ;
opposes French Revolution, 130-1,
142, 187; mentioned, 84, 120, 124,
1 86

Burke, T. H., 297

Burleigh, William Cecil, Lord, 301

Burma, 415

Burns, John, 350

Bute, 3rd Earl of, 67; persecutes
Whigs, 68, 80; resigns, 72; suggests
Grenville's appointment, 72; failure
of design of, 73; bribery by, 74;
North and, 96; mentioned, 70, 85

INDEX

Butler, R. A., 426-7
Byron, Lord, 233
Byvoets, Miss, 370, 374

Cabinet Economy Committee, 389
Campbell, General Sir Colin, 196
Campbell,]. R., 377
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry,
328; supports renewal of Crimes
Bill, 299; Ministry of, 327, 329-34;
marriage of, 328-30; heart attacks
of, 330, 333-4; and Lords' power
of rejection, 331-2; approves votes
for women, 333; death of, 3 34, 3 3 5 ;
mentioned, 3i5,g320, 33$, 367, 374
Canada, British gains in, from Seven
Years War, 65, 68, 74; rebellion in
(1837), 251-2; granted independ-
ence, 252; and Suez crisis, 426
Canning, 1st Earl (Charles), 191, 239,

262

Canning, George, 186-93; Under-
secretary for Foreign Affairs, 137;
on Pitt and Addington, 142, 144-5*
187; Foreign Secretary under Port-
land, 159-61, 188; duel of, with
Castlereagh, 161-2; refuses to serve
under Liverpool, 174; resigns, 179;
Foreign Secretary under Liverpool,
184, 189-90; Prime Minister, 184-5,
190-3; quips of, 187-8; illness of,
191, 193; appearance and speech
of, 192; death of, 193; Palmerston
and, 259; mentioned, 149/1, 151,
182, 209, 234, 246, 255
Canning, Harriet, 191
Canning, Joan hi& Scott), 187, 191-3
Canning, Stratford, 186
Canning, William Pitt, 191
Canton, bombardment of, 262
Cape Colony, 324-5
Cape of Good Hope, 134, 143
Cardwell, Edward, 239, 328
Carlingford, Lord, 305
Carlton Club meeting, 364, 398
Carmarthen, Lord-see Leeds, Duke of
Carnarvon, 4th Earl of, 284, 287, 303
Caroline, Queen of George II, and

457

Walpole, 44, 50-1, 54, 61 ; death of,
56; question of allowance for, 61

Caroline, Queen of George IV (Prin-
cess of Wales), 165, 179, 188, 215

Carson, Sir Edward, 348, 353, 354,

357

Castilain, John Baptist, 26

Castlereagh, Viscount (later 2nd Mar-
quess of Londonderry), refuses to
serve under Addington, 141 ; serves
under Pitt, 149, 151; refuses
Premiership, I49«, 156; Secretary
for War, 160-1; duel with
Canning, 161-2; Leader of Com-
mons, 174; at Congress of Vienna,
177-8; suicide of, 184, 189; foreign
policy of, 189; Wellington and
Nelson meet in waiting-room of,
198-9; mentioned, 180, 188

Catherine the Great, of Russia, 128

Catholics - see Roman Catholics

Cave, Edward, 97-8

Cavendish, Lady Frederick, 297-8,
306

Cavendish, Lord Frederick, 291, 297-8

Cavendish, Lord John, 113-14

Cecil, Lady Gwcndolin, 302

Cecil, Lord Hugh, 341

Ceylon, 143, 4*5

Chamberlain, Sir Austen, 316; in
Asquith's Coalition Government,
353; his loyalty to Lloyd George,
363-4, 365, 398; Foreign Secretary,
378, 3 83; death of, 398

Chamberlain, Joseph, republicanism
of, 276; serves under Gladstone,
291, 299; opposed to Home Rule,
304-6, 316, 398; Liberal Unionists
of, 307; serves under Salisbury,
322-3; campaigns for Tariff Re-
form, 327

Chamberlain, Neville, 398-9; Post-
master-General, 366; Minister of
Health and Housing, 378, 383?
Chancellor of Exchequer, 391, 399;
Prime Minister, 397, 401-6; in No.
10, 399-401, 403-4, 407; pursuit of
peace by, 401-2; meets Hitler, 402;

INDEX

Chamberlain, Neville - cent
and Churchill, 403; and outbreak
of war, 404-5 ; fails to form National
Government, 406; serves under
Churchill, 407
Chamberlain, Mrs. Neville, 399-401.

403-4

Chambers, Sir William, 117
Charles I, King, 6; in Civil War, 10-
ii ; children of, housed on site of
No. 10, 24; and Buckingham, 30;
mentioned, 7, 26

Charles II, King, Downing works
against return of, 13-14; Downing
approaches, 15-17; restoration of,
17, 18-19, 25; employs Downing,
19, 21, 27; daughters of, 31-2;
Parliament under, 37-8; descend-
ants of, 83,96,244

Charlotte, Princess, daughter of
George IV, 168; death of, 179, 230;
husband of, 229; prote'ge' of, 253
Chartists, 277
Chatham, Countess of, 148
Chatham, William Pitt (the Elder),
ist Earl of, 53-4 J attacks Walpole,
55-6; family of, 65; and Seven
Years War, 65, 68; resigns, 68;
relations with Grenville, 73, 80;
George in approaches, 79; upholds
resistance of colonies to taxation,
82; last Ministry of, 83-6, 91; ac-
cepts peerage, 83, 281; illness of,
86; fortune left to, 90, 114;
denounces policy against America,
93, 105, 108; demands reversal of
decision on Wilkes, 94; opposes
North, 95-6; challenges rights of
East India Company, 101 ; death of,
109; means of, 114; interested in
Parliamentary reform, 118-19,211;
aggressive attitude of, 127-8; men-
tioned, 63-4, 81, 157, 180
Chatham, 2nd Earl of, 134, 141
Chelmsford, Lord, 371
Chequers, 364, 411
Cherwell, Lord, 408
Chesterfield, 4th Earl of, 54, 100

458

Chicken, Mr., cottage of, 34, 416,

430-1

China, war with, 262
Cholmondeley, Marchioness of, 400,

422

Churchill, Charles, 70
Churchill, Major John, 407, 421
Churchill, Mary (nie Walpole), 52
Churchill, Mary, 407. 4*9
Churchill, Mrs. (later Lady), 408, 413,

419, 421

Churchill, Lord Randolph, in Salis-
bury's first Ministry, 301; Fourth
Party of, 301, 309, 312; approaches
Parnell, 303; Gladstone's mistrust
of, 303 ; on Gladstone's Home Rule
BUI, 306-7, 316; Chancellor of
Exchequer and Leader of Com-
mons, 307; resignation of, 309-10,
349; death of, 323
Churchill, Randolph, 407
Churchill, Winston (later Sir Win-
ston), hears Gladstone on Home
Rule, 315-16; at Omdurman, 324;
taken prisoner by Boers, 325;
elected to Parliament, 326; Presi-
dent of Board of Trade, 336;
and conflict between Houses, 337,
341; attacked by suffragettes, 338;
hurt in debate on Home Rule, 348;
prepares for war, 349-5 1; expedi-
tions suggested by, in First World
War, 352-3; dropped from Gov-
ernment (1915), 354; visits Lloyd
George, 357-9; Minister of Muni-
tions, 358; on North Russian ex-
pedition 361-2; urges war against
Turkey, 364; joins Conservatives,
366, 378; presents books to library
at No. 10, 374; Chancellor of
Exchequer, 378-9, 383 ; edits British
Gazette, 381; critic of National
Government, 392-3 ; head of King's
Party in Parliament, 395-6; on
Chamberlain, 401; and Munich
crisis, 402-3; in War Cabinet
(i939)» 405-6; Prime Minister and
Minister of Defence, 406-7; in No.

INDEX

10, 407-12, 419; wartime working
day of, 407-9; in bombing of No.
10, 410; difficulties of working for,
411; defeated at election, 412; at-
tacks Lords, 41 5«; second Ministry
of, 418, 419; seeks to undo the
socialization of Attlee's Govern-
ment, 420; visits abroad of, 420-1;
receives Garter, 421; retires, 421;
cats of, 422; consulted by Queen,
426; mentioned, 422

Cider tax, 80, 90

Cinque Ports, Wardens of, Pitt, 134,
147; Liverpool, 173; Wellington,
207;W. H. Smith, 311

Civil War, 9-12, 30

Clanricarde, ist Marquess of, 191

Clarendon, Lord Chancellor, 19,
21

Clark, Sir Andrew, 294

Clarke, Mrs. Mary Anne, 167

Cleveland, President, of United
States, 323

Clive, Lord, of Plassey, 101-2, 122,
173

ClyncsJ.R., 371

Coal industry, depression in, 379-81;
subsidy to, 380-1; nationalization
of, 380,414

Coal Mines Bill, 387

Cobbett, William, 226

Cobden, Richard, 192, 264

Cobham, Lord, 157

Cockpit, the, 4-6, 22, 23; theatre, 6,
25; lodgings, 23-5,27, 46

Colenso, Battle of, 325

Coleraine, Richard Law, Lord, 366

Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice, 248

College Mews, 263

Colonial Preference, 327

Combination Laws, repeal of, 227

Commissions, purchase of, 167, 277

Commons, House of, meets in St.
Stephen's Chapel, 3; Whig con-
trol of, 38, 44; Walpole adds to
power of, 45 ; orders prosecution of
Wilkes, 78-9; expels Wilkes, 94;
Opposition facing Pitt in, 120, 149;

459

Pitt seeks freedom for entry of
Catholics into, 139; O'Donnell
elected to, 201; new, after passing
of Reform Bill, 226; Gladstone
introduces Home Rule Bill in, 306,
315-16; conflict with Lords
brought to head, 337; scene in, on
reading of mauled Parliament Bill,
341 ; violence in, during debate on
Home Rule, 348; uproar in, on
Suez attacks, 425 - see also Lords,
House of; Parliament

Communists, Churchill wants expedi-
tion against, 361-2 ; *Zinovieff letter*
and, 377

Compton, Sir Spencer (later Lord
Wilmington), 61-2

Conscription (1916), 353; (i939),
404; end of, 427

Conservative Party, Tory Party
becomes known as, 226; minority
Government of, under Peel, 238,
240; in power (1841), 245-6;
Derby joins, 255; opposes Russell's
Reform Bill, 267; Disraeli leads,
280; divided on war with Russia,
284; make pact with Parnell, 303;
and Home Rule, 303-4; Whig
families drift into, 305; Liberal
Unionists work with, 322 ; on Tariff
Reform, 327, 370; House of Lords
supports, 332; ideas of, on reform
of Lords, 340; splits on Lords
reform, 341; opposes Home Rule
Bill, 348; supports conscription,
353; in wartime Coalition, 353-5,
361, 363-4; restive under Lloyd
George, 363-4; loyalty to Lloyd
George in, 363-4, 365; returned in
1922, 366; Baldwin loses popularity
with, 382; and Churchill, 403 ; loses
election in 1945. 412; propaganda
by, during Labour Government,
414, 416-17; returned to power
(1951), 418; loses by-elections, 427;
wins three elections running, 428 -
see also Tory Party

Conspiracy to Murder Bill, 263

INDfiX

Constantinople, Russian advance on,
284; British fleet ordered to, 287,
310

Co-operative movement and Labour
Party, 372

Copenhagen, bombardment of, 188

Corbet (regicide), 20

Corn Amendment Bill, 192

Corn Law (1815), 181, 192; demon-
strations against and repeal of,
249-50, 255; Free Trade and repeal
of, 392

Cornwallis, Marquess, in, 141

Corry, Montagu (later Lord Rowton),
282

Corunna, Battle of, 161

Corsica, 95

Coupon election (1918), 360-1

Courts of Law, Westminster, 3-4

Couse, Kenton, 84

Cowper, sth Earl, widow of, 260

Cowper, 7th Earl, 296

Cowper, Spencer, 241

Cowper, Hon. William Francis (later
Cowper-Temple, Baron Mount-
Temple), 241-3; lines of religious
instruction, 331

Cranborne, Lord - see Salisbury, 3rd
Marquess of

Crawford and Balcarres, Earl of,
428

Credit squeeze, 422

Creevey, Thomas, on Pitt, 144, 150;
on retention of Tories by Regent,
168-9; Grey writes to, on Welling-
ton, 196; Sefton writes to, 210; on
Wellington, 212; Treasurer of
Ordnance, 215-16; on Grey's Re-
form Bill, 216-20, 223, 225; further
quotations from, 145, 229-31

Crewe, ist Marquess of, 340, 346, 351

Crimean War, 256-7, 261

Cripps, Sir Stafford, 415

Croker, John Wilson, on Canning-
Castlereagh duel, 161; on 'Pros-
perity Robinson', 181; on Peel's
Ministry, 239; Peel's letter to, 240-
i; mentioned, 167, 203

460

Cromwell, Oliver, Downing and,
11-13; death of, 14-15; lives on
site of No. 10, 24-5; imprisons
Buckingham, 31; Parliamentary
reform of, 38; mentioned, 26, 137

Cromwell, Richard, 15

Crosby, Brass, Lord Mayor of
London, 98-9

Cumberland, Duke of, visits No. 10,
177; and Catholic Emancipation,
202-3 ; and Reform Bill, 223

Currency Act, 75

Curzon, ist Marquess, visits No. 10,
346; in wartime Coalition, 353; in
War Cabinet, 3 54 ; Foreign Minister,
366; disappointed of Premiership,
368; Lord President of Council,
379; on speech of Baldwin, 379

Cyprus, Britain acquires, 288-9;
Gladstone wants to give, to Greece,
292; struggle for independence in,
423 ; granted independence, 427

Czechoslovakia, 402-3

Dacre, Lady (Mrs. Brand), 260

Daily Herald, 372

Daily Mail, printers of, trigger
General Strike, 381

Daily Worker, 382

Daladier, M., 402

Danish fleet, capture of, 188

Dardanelles, Disraeli sends troops to,
283 ; British fleet proceeds through,
287; expedition to (1915), 353

Dashwood, Sir Francis (Lord Lc
Despenccr), 68-71, 78, 80, 174

D'Auverquerque, Mr. - see Ovcrkirk,
Lord

De Valcra, Eamon, 362-3

De Witt, Jan, 19-20

Declaration of Independence, 109-10

Deputy Prime Minister, 420

Derby, Reform Bill riots in, 222

Derby, I3th Earl of (Edward Stanley),
219, 255; Chief Secretary tor
Ireland, 229-30; refuses to serve
with Wellington, 238-9, 255;
refuses to serve under Peel, 249;

INDBX

Ministries of, 255-A ^63, 266,
268-9; on country's need for
Palmerston, 260; on Russell's
foreign policy, 266-7; supports
Reform, 271-2

Derby, I4th Earl of (Lord Stanley),
267; Foreign Secretary, 268, 270,
280; against war with Russia, 284;
resigns, 287

Derwentwater, Earl of, 42
Devonshire, 4th Duke of,65, 80-1, 160
Devonshire, 6th Duke of, 193

Devonshire, 7th Duke of (Lord
Hartington), opposed to Glad-
stone's policy on Turkey, 284;
offered Government, 289, 307;
presses for action in Sudan, 294-5;
and murder of Cavendish, 297-8;
threatens to resign, 298-9; at inter-
party negotiations, 299; opposed
to Home Rule, 304, 306, 316; Lord
President of Council under Salis-
bury, 322; mentioned, 291

Devonshire, Georgina, Duchess of,
215, 228

Devonshire House, 186

Dilke, Sir Charles, 299, 305

Dino, Duchess dc, 217-18

Disraeli, Benjamin - see Beaconsfield,
Earl of

Divan Club, 69

'Doctor's Mandate', 390

Dominions, opposed to King's mor-
ganatic marriage, 395

Dorchester, 1st Baron, 95

Douglas, Lady Frances (later Lady
MUton), 275

Dover Volunteer Corps, 134, 147

Dowdcswcll, William, 81-2, 84, 86,
102

Downing, Charles, 34-5

Downing, Emmanuel, 7-9, n, 27, 35

Downing, Sir George, 7-1?; educa-
tion of, 9 ; early career of, 10 ; works
for Cromwell, 11-14; marriage of,
12; approaches Charles II, 15-17,
18-19; knighted, 17; acquires site
of Downing Street, 18, 21, 26;

461

captures regicides, 19-21 ; baronetcy
for, 21 ; builds Downing Street,
26, 28-9, 31, 34. 47; wealth of, 27;
family of, 34-5; portrait of, 416

Downing, Sir George, 2nd Bt., 34

Downing, Sir George, 3rd Bt., 35

Downing, James, 8

Downing, Lucy (nfe Winthrop), 7-9,

ii, 27, 35

Downing College, Cambridge, 35

Downing Square, 34

Downing Street, site and environs of,
1-6, 25 ; Downing acquires site, 18,
21, 26; building of, 26, 28-9, 31*
34; in 1720, 34; in 173 5, 48;
Boswell in, 70-1; rioting in, 99,
no-ii; Colonial Office in, 198-9;
Foreign Office in, 260-1 ; macadam-
ized, 261 ; Treasury in, 269 ; motor-
car brought to, 326; Suffragettes in,
333-4; crowds in, at outbreak of
war, 350; crowds in, on Armistice
Day, 1918, 358; crowds in, after
Munich agreement, 402

No. 10, houses on site of, 23-9;
early residents of houses later form-
ing, 30-5; combined into one
house, 33-4, 46; Walpole's altera-
tions to, 46-8, 54; garden of, 46-7,
345, 404; Cabinet Room in, 47.
117-18, 261, 263, 430; foundations
of, 47, 429-31 ; Walpole in, 49-&>",
Horace Walpole on, 59-<fo. to;
Chancellors of Exchequer in, 62,
64-5, 68-71, 81. 83, 86-7, 89, I73J
furnishing of, 62-3, 225, 285-6, 290,
314, 372-3* 385-<5> 413, 422, 432;
in use as Prime Minister's residence,
72-3, 286, 315, 42i; restricted
living space in, 81, 165-6, 345, 3<*9;
repairs and reconstruction of (1766),
82-3, 117; attacked by rioters, 99,
no-ii ; visitors to, in Lord North's
day, 100-2; Pitt in, 113-14, 117-18,
142, 146, 147-9, 152-4; Portland
in, 116, 159-60; repairs and altera-
tions to (1783), 116-18; alteration
to Horse Guards front, 118; cost of

INDEX

Downing Street - cant.
repairs and alterations to, 118, 157,
183, 225, 285-7, 315, 400, 429;
Addington in, 142, 146; Lady
Hester Stanhope in, 147-9; dinner
in honour of Queen's birthday at,
154; repairs to (1806), 157; Gren-
ville in, 157, 159; Percevals in, 160,
162, 165-6, 170, 173 ; Regent dined
by Perceval at, 168; Vansittart
in, 173-4; visitors to Vansittart
in, 177-8; Robinson (Goderich) in,
181-3, 194; Soane's alterations to,
182-3, 423", dining-room of, 182,
358-9, 386, 415* 423, 430;
breakfast-room of, 183, 356, 386,
423, 430; Canning in, 190-3;
Wellington in, 198-9, 202-3, 207;
Bathurst in, 207-8; Grey in, 216,
225, 228 ; visitors to Grey in, 217-
20; repairs to (1832), 225; drawing-
rooms of, 225, 284-5, 377, 386-7,
400, 422-3, 430; unoccupied during
Melbourne's Ministry, 234; Fre-
mantle in, 239; Prime Minister's
secretaries lodged in, 241, 243-4,
246-8, 250, 251-3, 255; used only
for offices, 255-7, 258-9, 263,272-3,
280; larger windows in Cabinet
Room, 261 ; Palmerston works in,
261, 265; stables of, 263; shacks in
courtyard of, 263, 431; Disraeli
moves into, 284-7; cost of furni-
ture for Disraeli and Gladstone,
286, 290; decorations and repairs
to (1877-8), 285-7; Gladstone in,
290, 302, 314-15; Herbert Glad-
stone in, 290-1 ; secret negotiations
between Parties in (1884), 299;
Northcote in, 302, 308; question
of Home Rule discussed at, 303-4,
306; Iddesleigh collapses in, 308;
W. H. Smith in, 309, 311; Balfour
in, 312, 314, 322, 373 ; alterations to
(1892), 3H-I5; Gladstone an-
nounces resignation to Cabinet in,
317-18; Rosebery in, 320, 322;
Campbell-Bannerman in, 328-9,

462

333-4, 419; Ponsonby moves into,
333; suffragettes in, 334; Edward
VII in, 334; Asquiths in, 335-6,
338-9, 343-6, 354; lift in, 339, 43i ;
Mrs. Asquith on, 343-5, 373', hall
porter in, 344; room above front
door, 345, 358, 374, 384, 386; bath-
rooms of, 345, 375, 431; visitors of
Asquiths in, 346, 404; huts in
garden of, 352, 355, 363; Lloyd
Georges in, 354-9, 363-4, 373;
President Wilson visits, 355, 361;
dogs buried in garden of, 356, 416;
weddings from, 356-7, 421; Welsh
housekeeper in, 357, 359; pictures
and portraits in, 358-9, 373, 386, 415
-i 6, 422, 432; talks with De Valera
in, 363 ; tape machine installed in,
365; Bonar Law in, 366; Mussolini
dines at, 366; Baldwin in, 368-70,
378, 383-4, 464; office-keeper's
flat in, 369, 374; attic bedrooms of,
369, 375, 399; Ishbel MacDonald
shown over, 370-1; MacDonalds
in, 371-5, 377, 378, 385-7, 397,
419; Library at, 373-4; floors
giving way in, 377, 4OO, 403; 'a
colony of bed-sitting rooms', 386;
Gandhi at, 393; living in, during
national crises, 396; Chamberlain
in, 399-401, 403-4, 407; alterations
to (i937), 399-400; staircases of,
399, 428; second floor becomes
residential section, 399, 407; kitchen
in, 400, 409-10, 420, 430; new
decorations and furnishing of
(i937), 400-1; Kings and Queens
entertained at, 404, 421 ; Churchills
in, 407-12, 419-21; garden-room
in, 409; war damage to, 409-11,
413; air-raid shelter at, 409, 430;
wartime visitors to, 411-12; Attlees
in, 413-16; self-contained flat in,
413-14, 416, 419; Attlee's love for,
416; Public Relations Office in,
416; first floor bedroom used,
419; Edens in, 421-3, 426; credit
squeeze prevents period furniture

INDEX

for, 422; altered lighting to Cabinet
Room, 422; visitors to Edens in,
423; decisions on Suez crisis in,
424-6; Macmillans in, 427-8;
found to be unsafe, 428; recon-
struction of (1960-), 428, 429-33;
sanitation and water supply of,
430-1; enlargement of, 43<>-*'»
heating of, 432; objects found
during excavations under, 432

No. n, Disraeli works in, 269,
272; Gladstone occupies, 269, 290;
furnishing of, 285; Asquith in, 330;
Lloyd Georges in, 338-9, 35<5;
communications between No. 10
and, 338-9, 356; Bonar Law in,
354; Baldwin in, 366; Cabinet
meeting in, 381; Snowden in, 385;
Chamberlain in, 400; reconstruc-
tion of, 429, 431

No. 12, 32; Gladstone in, 291;
reconstruction of, 429, 43 *
Drummond, Edward, 246-8
Drummond, Mrs. ('The General'),

Dublin, university for, 278; Phoenix
Park murders in, 297; troops
moved to Ulster from, 348; Easter
Rising in, 353

Dudley, 4th Viscount, 200

Duff Cooper, Alfred, 401* 4°3

Dulles, Foster, 423-4

Dundas, Henry - see Viscount
Melville

Dunkirk, 407

Durham, Lady, 218

Durham, Lord, 21 8*r, son of, 218,
225 ; difficulties with, in Parliament,
229, 252; Governor-General of
Canada, 251-2; mentioned, 222

East India Company, question of
Government taking over lands of,
101; nearly bankrupt, 102; and
Boston Tea Party, 104; payment
by, to Hastings, 123; replaced by
Government department, 229;
mentioned, 65

463

Easter Rising, Dublin, 353
Eden, Sir Anthony (later Earl of
Avon), Parliamentary Under-
secretary to Foreign Office, 391;
Foreign Secretary, 401-2, 420;
resignation of, 402; Deputy Prime
Minister, 420; Ministry of, 421,
423-6; alters lighting of Cabinet
room, 422; and Suez crisis, 423-6;
resignation of, 426
Eden, Hon. Eleanor (later Countess

of Buckinghamshire), 136, 150
Eden, Emily, 236
Eden, Hon. Isabelle (later Mrs.

Vansittart), 173
Eden, Lady (nle Clarissa Churchill),

407, 421

Eden, Nicholas, 422
Eden, William, 168
Edinburgh, Prince Philip, Duke of,

258/1, 416, 420-1, 428
Education Bill, Birrell's, 331-2
Edward VII, King (Prince of Wales),
Gladstone's plans regarding, 274,
277; profligacy of, 276; visits
India, 282; sends for Campbell-
Bannerman, 327; angry at Lloyd
George's speech, 332; in Biarritz
at change of government, 336;
concerned at batde between Houses,
336; on creation of new peers, 338;
death of, 338; mentioned, 329.

3*5 . .

Edward VIII, King - see Windsor,

Duke of

Egmont, Lord, 52

Egypt, Napoleon bottled up in, 134;
given back to Turkey, 143 ; Anglo-
French protectorate over, 289, 293 ;
British occupation of, 293-4 J Sudan
rises against, 294; settlement of
(1930), 388; takes over Canal,
423-4; Israel attacks, 425-6

Eisenhower, General Dwight, visits

No. 10, 411, 423, 428; and Suez

crisis, 425 ,

Elba, France seizes, 144; Napoleon

in, 175. 254; escape from, 176-7

INDEX

Eldon, ist Earl of, Lord Chancellor,
174, 184; resigns, 190; opposes
Wellington, 196

Elibank, Master of, allegations against,

347

Eliot, Edward, 125^, 136
Eliot, Harriet (nit Pitt), 125^, 136, 148
Eliot, Lord, 269
Elizabeth. I, Queen, 6, 26, 137; 'prime*

Minister of, 58, 301
Elizabeth II, Queen, 25 8n ; entertained

at No. 10, 416, 421; accession of,

420-1 ; sends for Macmillan, 426
Elizabeth, Queen of George VI

(Duchess of York), 377, 404
Elizabeth, Princess (daughter of James

I), 24, 33

Ellenborough, Earl of, 200

Ellis, Charles, 161

Emergency Powers Bill, 405

Empire Parliamentary Association,
401

Entente with France, 350

Erith, Raymond, 429-31

Europe, Pitt's balancing of power in,
127

Evans, Lady Olwen Carey {nee Lloyd
George), 356-7

Evans, Stanley, 425

Evans, Dr. Thomas Carey, 356-7

Evelyn, John, 20-1

Everard, Everard, 26

Expeditionary Force, Haldanc's pro-
vision for, 332

Factory Acts, 227-8, 235

Fairfax, Lord, 10-11, 31

Falkland Islands, 96

Falmouth, Lord, 204-5

Farquhar, Caroline (later Mrs. Grey),

275

Fashoda, 324
Fawkes, Guy, 24
Fenians, 272-3, 282
Feisal, King of Iraq, 423
Finland, Stalin's war on, 406
Fitzgerald, Sir Maurice, 201
Fitzgerald, Lord William Vesey, 200

464

Fitzherbert, Mrs., 122, 165, 215

Fitzpatrick, Colonel, 187

Fitzroy, Lady Charlotte (later
Countess of Lichfield), 28-9, 31-2,
244

Fitzroy, H., 261

Florida, 144

Foreign Office building, 260-1

Forster, W. E., 297

Fort George, 76

Fourth Party, 301, 309, 312

Fox, Charles James, North wins over,
96; gaming by, 100-1; attacks
North over American policy, 105,
in; attacks Germain, 108; in
Buckingham's Government, 113-
14; on Pitt, 115, 119, 144, 155; in
coalition with North, 115-16, 120;
Secretary of State, 116; votes
against Reform, 119; and attack on
Pitt, 121 ; and Prince of Wales,
121-3 ; supports French Revolution,
130-1, 133 ; on Addington Ministry,
142; joins with Grenville, 145;
George HI excludes from Govern-
ment, 146, 149, 151; in Ministry of
all the Talents, 156-8; death of,
159. 193; Russell and, 254; men-
tioned, 124, 149, 164-5, 186, 214

France, in alliance with Spain, 56;
loses American colonies, 74; seizes
Corsica, 95; joins America against
Britain, 108-10, 115; peace negotia-
tions with, 115-16; aesigns of, on
Holland and Belgium, 127; Revo-
lutionary war in, 131-4; reign of
terror in, 132; Paine in, 133 ; threat-
ens invasion of England, 134, 144,
147, 149, 152; loscsremaining colon-
ies, 134; Pittready to negotiate with,
136-7; Addington makes peace
with, 143-4; occupies Spain and
Portugal, 161; British invasion of,
175; fresh revolution in, 209-11;
threat to India from, 322; African
encroachments of, 322, 324; British
treaty with, 350; Germany declares
war on (1914), 350; evacuates

INDEX

Ruhr, 376; Britain needing credits
from, 389; at war with Germany
(i939)» 405; fall of, 407; and Suez
crisis, 424-6. See French Revolution

Francis, Sir Philip, 93, 122

Franciscans, Brotherhood of, 69,

174-5
Frederick, Prince of Wales, 56, 66-7,

69, 89
Frederick the Great, King of Prussia,

64-5, 68
Frederick William, King of Prussia,

127, 131

Free Trade, Peel turns to, 248-9, 254;
Russell works for, 254; Aberdeen's
Ministry in favour of, 256; Liberal
adherence to, 327; Asquith sup-
ports, 336; Liberals resign from
National Government on loss of,
392

Fremantlc, Admiral Sir Charles,

239-40
Fremantle, Sir Thomas (later Lord

Cottesloe), 239
French Revolution, 129; side effects

of, 121 ; sympathy for, in England,

130-1; wars provoked by, 131-4
Fuldyer, Sir Samuel, 260

Gage, General, 104

Gaitskcll, Hugh, 421, 424-5

Gandhi, Mahatma, 393

Garbo, Greta, 423

Gaulle, General dc, 408

General Strike, 380-2

Gentleman's Magazine, Parliamentary
reports in, 97-8

George I, King, 33, 38, 41-3

George II, King, Parliamentary influ-
ence of, 38; succeeds father, 43-4;
leaves country in care of Whigs,
45; offers No. 10 to Walpole, 46;
and Walpolc, 57, 60; death of, 66;
on North, 89; mentioned, 33, 61,
64-5, 421

George III, King, control of Parlia-
ment by, 38, 88-9, 95» "9J acces-

465

sion of, 66-8; his dislike of Grcn-
ville, 79-80; madness of, 80, 123-4,
141, 168; appoints Rockingham,
80-1; selects own Ministers, 88-9,
114; North and, 89, 94-5, 106-7,
109-12; on expulsion of Wilkes,
93; his attitude to American
colonies, 103-4; son's quarrel with,
122; creates new peers, 124; and
French Revolution, 131-2; anti-
Catholic feeling of, 139, 141, 159;
chooses successor to Pitt, 140; and
return of Pitt, 145-6; refuses to
have Fox in Government, 146,
149, 151-2; forms Coalition, 156;
and Lord Grenville, 157, 159;
death of, 179; creates son Duke of
Clarence, 217; scandalous behav-
iour of sons of, 276
George IV, King (Prince of Wales,
Prince Regent), Fox and, 121-2;
restrictions on Regency of, 123-4,
141; Perceval incurs enmity of,
165; and investigation of Duke of
York's conduct, 167; becomes
Regent, 168; retains Perceval,
168-9; stoned by crowd, 178;
Coronation of, 179; on Goderich,
181; appoints Canning, 184-5,
189-91; divorce proceedings of,
1 88; Canning visits, 193; appoints
Goderich, 194-5; and Wellington,
195-6, 202-3, 207; and Catholic
Emancipation, 202-3, 206; declin-
ing health of, 207; death of, 209;
his dislike of Grey, 215; and Lady
Melbourne, 233; his dislike of
Palmcrston, 259; scandalous be-
haviour of, 276

George V, King, 338; and conflict
between Houses, 339-4*; agrees to
make new peers, 340-1; Corona-
tion of, 341; summons Bonar Law,
365; and Baldwin, 368, 370; and
Labour Prime Minister, 371, 375-<*.
389; and National Government,
390; death of, 394; entertained at
No. 10, 404

INDEX

George VI, King (Duke of York),
wedding of, 368; at concert at No.
10, 377; accession of, 396-7; enter-
tained at No. 10, 404; wartime
dinners at No. 10, 409; death of,
420; mentioned, 387

George, Lloyd - see Lloyd George

Germain, Lord George (formerly
Sackville), 105, 108, in

Germany, Britain near war with, over
Jameson Raid, 323; strengthening
Navy to meet threat from, 337;
threat of war with, 348-50; and
outbreak of First World War,
350-1; invades Belgium, 350;
indemnity from, 360; Polish Corri-
dor across, 361; joins League, 383;
economic crisis in, 388 ; threat from
Nazis, 393-45 leaves League, 394;
Britain again at war with, 404-5;
invades Norway, Holland and
Belgium, 406

Ghana, 427

Gibbon, Edward, on Lord North, 90

Gladstone, Catherine (nle Glynnc),
275, 277, 297, 3U; influence of,
over husband, 317

Gladstone, Florence, 373

Gladstone, Herbert, 292, 304; in No.
10, 290-1; Home Secretary, 330

Gladstone, Mary, 299, 306

Gladstone, Thomas, 226

Gladstone, William Ewart, elected
for rotten borough, 226; maiden
speech of, 227; supports Coercion
Act, 229; in Peel's Ministry, 239;
Chancellor of Exchequer, 256,
290-3; criticizes Palmerston, 262;
sympathizes with South, in Ameri-
can Civil War, 264; Leader of
Commons, 267; prepares and
upholds Reform Bill, 267-8; ora-
tory of, 268; leader of Liberals,
270; in rivalry with Disraeli, 270;
Irish policy of, 272-4, 296-7, 299;
first Ministry of, 272-8; his rela-
tions with Queen, 273-7, 280, 291,
298-300, 315; obscurity of style

466

and diction of, 274, 291 ; romances
of, 275 ; letter of sympathy of, to
Disraeli, 279; anti-Turkish speeches
of, 283-4, 288; quarrels with
Disraeli over furniture for No. n,
285; Midlothian campaign of,
288-9; second Ministry of, 289,
290-300; foreign policy of, 292-6,
324-5; health of, 293-4; and
Mahdi's rising, 294-5; vote of
censure on, 295; and murder of
Cavendish, 297-8; 'whistle-stop'
speeches of, 299; resigns, 300, 317-
18; and Northcote, 302; deter-
mines on Home Rule, 303-7; third
Ministry of, 304-7; Queen Vic-
toria on, 304, 3 14-15 ; fourth Minis-
try, 314-18; on Queen, 315; intro-
duces Home Rule Bill, 306, 3x5-16;
Churchill's praise for, 316; wants
'Peers versus People' election, 316;
dominated by family, 317; his
farewell to Victoria, 317-18; and
Rosebery, 319; Balfour visits on
bicycle, 323; mentioned, 328

Glasgow, demonstrations in, on
defeat of Reform Bill, 271

Glasgow Orpheus Choir, 377

Glynne, Catherine - see Gladstone,
Catherine

Goderich, Frederick Robinson, Vis-
count (later Earl of Ripon), J49«,
180-1; Chancellor of Exchequer,
179, 181-4; loses daughter, 183;
unable to deal in Lords with Grey
and Wellington, 191-2, 194; Min-
istry o£ 194-5, 234; resigns from
Grey's Ministry, 231; offers Ex-
chequer to Palmerston, 259;
mentioned, 190, 246, 305, 331

Goderich, Viscountess (n& Lady
Sarah Hobart), 180, 183-4

Godley, Arthur (later Lord Kil-
bracken), 292, 320

Godolphin, Lord, 39-40

Gold Coast, 313

Gold standard, return to, 379; Britain
goes off, 390

INDEX

Gordon, General Charles George,

294-5

Gordon, Lord George, no
Goring House, 5
Government of India Bill, 393
Grafton, Duke of, 83; and Towns-

hend, 85-6; Ministry of, 91-4;

Junius attacks, 92-3; and Wilkes,

93-4

Graham, Sir James, 231, 238

Grant, Charles, 200

Grantham, Thomas Robinson, 1st
Baron, 57, 180

Grantham, 2nd Baron, 180

Grantham, Earl of, 34, 51

Granville, ist Earl, 273

Granville, 2nd Earl, 273 » 277; opposed
to Gladstone's Turkish policy, 284;
offered Government, 289; an-
nounces submission of Turkey, 292;
presses for action in Sudan, 294;
and Home Rule, 303, 305

Gray, Thomas, 53

Greece, liberation of, 189; Turkey's
concessions to, 292; army of, in
Turkey (1922), 364; Britain pre-
pared to fight for independence of,
404

Greenwood, Arthur, 406

Grenvillc, George, 72-4; angers
American colonists, 73-6; prose-
cutes Wilkes, 76-9; relations with
George III, 79-80, 157; Pitt ridi-
cules, 80, 90; defends taxation of
colonies, 82-3 ; cuts down land tax,
86; North's defence against, 91

Grcnville, Lady (nte Anne Pitt),

157-79

Grcnville, Lord, Foreign Secretary,
137; opposed to Addington, 141-2;
on terms of Peace of Amiens,
143; urges Pitt to unite against
Addington, 145; refuses to join
Pitt's Ministry, 149, 151; and death
of Pitt, 154; Ministry of, 156-9,
214; Canning and, 186-7; Mel-
bourne and, 234

Grenville, William, 74

467

Grcville, Charles, 209; on Bathurst,
208; on 1833 Parliament, 226, 230;
on Wellington taking over for
Peel, 238; on opposition to Peel,
240; on William IV, 241; on
assassination of Drummond, 247;
on Queen's dislike of Palmerston,
260

Grey, General the Hon. Charles,

252-3, 274-6

Grey, Charles Samuel, 250, 253

Grey, Countess (»& Elizabeth Pon-
sonby), 216, 218, 220; Princess
Lieven on, 225

Grey, 1st Earl, 214

Cjrcy, 2nd Earl, 214-16; attacks
Canning, 190-2; on Wellington's
Ministry, 196; Wellington and,
209; and Parliamentary Reform,
211, 215-17, 219-26; Ministry of,
214-16, 217-31, 255; decides on
dissolution of Parliament, 215^-20;
resigns, 223 ; King gives in to, 224;
measures passed during Ministry of,
226-8; relations of, with Princess
Lieven, 228; and Irish question,
228-9; unable to control Cabinet
and resigns, 230-1; difficulties with
son-in-law of, 252; sons of, 252-3,
275; mentioned, 255, 259

Grey, 3rd Earl (Lord Howick), 227,
252

Grey, Sir Edward (later Viscount
Grey of Fallodon), 330, 349-51, 353

Grey, Ralph William, 250, 251-2

Grosvcnor, Lord, 268

Guilford, Earl of, 89-90, 95

Gunn, Sir James, 428

Gunpowder Plot, 24, 40

Gurncy, Harriet, 243

Haig, Field-Marshal Earl, 355
Haldane, Viscount, 332, 338, 371
Halifax, 2nd Earl of, 54, 95, 99
Halifax, Earl of (Lord Irwin), 393,

402, 406-7
Halsbury, Earl of, 341-2, 353

INDEX

Hambledon, Viscountess (Mrs. W. H.

Smith), 310-11
Hamilton, Lord George, 309
Hampden, John, 26
Hampden, Richard, 26
Hampden House, 23, 26, 28-9
Hanover, defence of, 64-5, 68
Hansard, 'Journals °f ^e House of
Commons' and 'Parliamentary
Debates' of, 100
Harcourt, Sir William, 317, 320-2,

328, 368

Hardie,Keir, 314
Hardinge, General Sir Henry, 200,

204-5, 224

Hardwicke, ist Earl of, 55
Harewood, 6th Earl of, 404
Harley, Robert (later Earl of Oxford

and Mortimer), 39-40, 42
Harriman, Averell, 408
Harrington, Lord, 55
Harrowby, ist Earl of, 152, 154
Hartington, Lord - see Devonshire,

7th Duke of
Harvard College, 9
Haselrig, Sir Arthur, 10-11
Hastings, Warren, Governor-General
of India, 102; impeachment of,
122^3, 164
Hawkesbury, Lord - see Liverpool,

2nd Earl of

Health insurance scheme, 337
Heligoland, 313
Hell Fire Club, 69-70, 77, 174
Henderson, Arthur, in Cabinet, 353;
in War Cabinet, 354; defeated,
361 ; Home Secretary, 371 ; Foreign
Secretary, 385; American relations
excluded from control of, 387; and
terms of settlement in Egypt, 388;
leader of Opposition to National
Government, 390
Henry Vin, King, 2-6
Herbert, Sidney, 239
Henries, John, 178, 182; Chancellor

of Exchequer, 195, 259
Hervey, Lord, 57; on Horatio Wai-
pole, 53 ; on Lord Wilmington, 62

468

Hill, Mrs. Kathleen, 407-8, 411
Hill, Rowland, penny post of, 253
Hinsley, Cardinal, 403
Hitler, Adolph, menace of, 393 ; and
Mussolini, 401 ; Chamberlain's
efforts to appease, 402-3; seizes
Czechoslovakia, 404; launches out
on war, 404-5
Hoare, Sir Samvel, 401
Hobart, Sir John, 26
Hobhouse, Sir John (later Lord

Broughton), 236
Holbein Gate, 5

Holland, Downing in, 12-17, 19-20,
27; joins America in war against
Britain, 109, 115; French designs
on, 127; French occupation of, 132,
134, 143 ; Belgium separates from,
210; German invasion of, 406
Holland, ist Baron, 96
Holland, 3rd Baron, 211
Home Rule, Parnell demands, 296;
Gladstone and, 303-7; Carnarvon
suggests, 303 ; Bills introduced into
Commons, 306-7, 315-1^. 348;
thrown out by Lords, 316; Rose-
bery upholds, 320; becomes law
under Asquith, 348, 353; civil war
threatening over, 348
Hopkins, Harry, 408
Hides-Beach, Sir Michael, 304
Hood, Admiral, 134
Hore-Belisha, Leslie, 401, 405
Horse Guards, 4
Houghton, 33 45-6 400, 422
House, Colonel, 358
Household Suffrage, 271-2, 298
Howard, Tom, 14-16
Howard, Sir William, 12
Howe, Admiral Lord, 126-7, *34
Howick, Lord (later 3rd Earl Grey),

227, 252
Hume, Dr., on Wellington's duel,

204

Hume, Joseph, 227
'Hungry Forties', 249, 254
Huskisson, William, works on Robin-
son's Budgets, 182; in Wellington's

INDEX

Ministry, 199-200; resigns, 200,
206; death of, 212; and Free Trade,
249; mentioned, 193, 195, 209
Hussein, King, of Jordan, 423

Iddcsleigh, Stafford Northcotc, ist
Earl of, 299, 301-2, 308, 310

Imperial Conference (1911), 346

Imperial War Cabinet, 361

Income tax, introduction of, 134-5;
extension to Ireland, 273; Glad-
stone promises abolition of, 278;
raising of, 291, 337; doubled in
First World War, 352; reduction

of (1958), 427

India, British gains in, from Seven
Years War, 65, 68; East India
Company and, 101-2; Govern-
ment department takes over, 229;
Palmcrston repels threat to, 262;
Queen becomes Empress of, 282;
Russia strikes towards, 288, 295-6;
and Greco-Turkish War, 364;
Dominion status for, 392-3;
granted independence, 415; and
Suez crisis, 425
Indian Mutiny, 262
Indo-China, French, 322
Industrial Revolution, 121, 178
Ireland, problem of, 137-8, 268, 282;
Pitt's attempt to solve, 138-9;
united to England, 138-9; Catholic
Emancipation and, 201, 228;
trouble in, on paying of tithes,
228-9, 245; famine in, 229, 254;
quarrels in Cabinet over, 230;
potato crop fails in, 249; Fenian
outrages in, 272, 282; abolition
of Established Church in, 272-3;
Gladstone's attempts to solve prob-
lem of, 272-4, 296-7; extension of
income tax to, 273; question of
Queen's home in, 274; terrorist
outrages in, against landlords,
296-7; local self-government
for, 299; Salisbury's Ministry
discusses question of, 302-4;
Balfour Chief Secretary for, 313;

469

civil war threatening in, 348-9;
1916 troubles in, 353; granted
Home Rule, 353 ; independence for,
362-3, 367 - see also Home Rule;
Ulster

Irish Coercion Bills and Acts, 229-30,
250, 299, 304

Irish Crimes Bill and Act, 296, 299

Irish Free State, 362-3, 367

Irish Land Act (1870), 277

Irish Land Bill (1881-2), 296-7

Irish Nationalist Party, 296, 313, 338,
348, 3<52

Irish Party, in 1833, 226; demands
repeal of Act of Union, 229;
supports Russell, 240; supports
Melbourne, 245; supports Glad-
stone, 270; helps defeat Gladstone,
299-300; Conservative pact with,
303; and Home Rule, 306-7;
supports Liberals, 330

Irish Republican Army, 362

Isaacs, Godfrey, 347

Isaacs, Sir Rufus (later Marquess of
Reading), 347

Ismay, Lord, 408

Israel, 423, 4*5

Italy, Napoleon III invades, 264;
ready to co-operate with Glad-
stone, 292; attacks Abyssinia, 401

James I, King, 6, 26, 137

James II, King (Duke of York), 13,

32,37

Jameson, Dr., 323

Japan, captures Port Arthur, 324;
agreement with, on naval con-
struction, 387; leaves League of
Nations, 394

Jemappes, Battle of, 132

Jenkins, Captain, 56

Jcnner, Sir William, 274, 276

Jersey, Lady, 260

Jervis (later Earl of St. Vincent),
Admiral, 134

Jews' Relief Bill, 206, 270

'Jingoism', 284

Johannesburg, 326

INDEX

Johnson, Samuel, 54; Parliamentary
reporting of, 98, 100; Wilkes's
'Letter' to, 99

Jones, Inigo, 6

Jordan, Mrs. Dorothy, 217

Joseph II, Emperor of Austria, 127

Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain, 175,
188

Juliana, Queen of Holland, 412

Junius, Letters of, 93, 99

Junot, General, 161

Kalifa, the, 324

Kandahar, 292

Kendal, Duchess of, 42

Kennedy, Joseph, U.S. Ambassador,

403

Kenny, Annie, 333

Kent, William, work of, in con-
struction of No. 10, 33, 37/1, 46-7,
182; work of, at Houghton, 45-6,
422

Kenya, 313

Keppcl, Lieut.-Colonel George
Thomas (later Earl of Albemarlc),
250, 253, 255

Khaki Election, 326

Khartoum, fall of, 294-5

Kilbradken, Arthur Godley, Lord, 292

Kimberley, 325-6

King, Mackenzie, 387

King Street, 5, 21, 25

Kitchener, Lord, 324, 326, 346, 352-3

Knevett (Knyvet), Sir Thomas, 21,
23-4, 26

Korean War, 418

Kruger, President, 323, 325-6

Krushchev, N., 423

Labouchere, Henry, 320

Labour Party, 372; first Member,
314; in 1905 Parliament, 330;
supports 'People's Budget', 338;
supports national insurance scheme,
346; in wartime Coalition Govern-
ment, 353-5; resigns from Coali-
tion, 360; becomes Opposition,
366, 379; increase in Commons of,

370; first Government of, 370-2,
375-7; conflict in, 376; depends on
Liberal support, 376, 385; defeated
in 1924, 377; second Government
of, 383, 387-90, 393; bitterness of,
at MacDonald, 390; refuses to
join National Government, 390,
392; gains strength, 394; opposed
to morganatic marriage, 395; pre-
pared to serve -under Churchill,
403; majority for, in 1945, 412;
pledges of, 414; austerity under
Government of, 414, 416; dis-
affection in, 417; returned with
minute majority (1950), 417-18

Ladysmith, 325-6

Lamb, Lady Caroline, 233-4

Lamb, Sir Matthew, 233

Lambton, Charles, 21 8«, 225

Land reform, 346

Land taxes, 86, 96, 337

Landemarc, Mrs., 410

Lansbury, George, 388

Lansdowne, 20th Baron, 34

Lansdowne, 1st Marquess of - see
Shelburne, Earl of

Lansdowne, 2nd Marquess of, 191,
21 1 ; mentioned, 256

Lansdowne, 3rd Marquess of, 211

Lansdowne, 4th Marquess of, 234-5

Lansdowne, 5th Marquess of, 296,
336, 340-2

Lauder, Harry, 357

Laval, Pierre, 401

Law, Andrew Bonar, and Home Rule,
348; in Coalition Government,
353i 355; Chancellor of Exchequer,
354; runs Parliament for Lloyd
George, 355, 360, 367; successor to,
363; urges end of Coalition, 364;
Ministry of, 365-8, 398; death of,
368; pledge of, on tariff reform,
369; mentioned, 399

Law, Kitty, 356, 366

Law, Mary, 366

Law, Richard (later Lord Coleraine),
366

Le Brun, President, of France, 403

470

INDEX

Leaf, Marjorie, 403

League ot Nations, 361, 383, 393-4

Lecky, William, on Dashwood's

Budget, 70
Lee of Fareham, Lord (Sir Arthur

Lee), 364, 3<55
Leeds, demonstrations in, on defeat

of Reform Bill, 271
Leeds, Duke of, 128
Legg, Henry- JceBilson-Legge, Henry
Leopold, Emperor of Austria, 131
Leopold I, King of the Belgians,

229-30, 244, 248, 267
Leveson-Gower, Granville (later ist

Earl Granvillc), 273
Lexington, Battle of, 104-5
Liberal Party, Whigs become, 263,
270/7; divided on Russell's Reform
Bill, 267; divided on war against
Russia, 284; opposition to Glad-
stone's Irish policy in, 296-7, 299;
splits on Home Rule, 304-7;
returned to power (1905), 327» 33°;
loses large majority, 338; and
reform of Lords, 338-42; in
Coalition, 353-5. 3<5*; opposed to
conscription, 353; division in, on
resignation of Asquith, 354, 3^6;
reunite for Free Trade, 370; and
Co-operative movement, 372;
Labour dependent on support of,
37<*t 385; no longer effective force,
377, 379? improve position, 383;
and National Government, 392;
prepared to serve under Churchill,

403

Liberal Unionists, 307, 314, 322
Licensing Bill, 336
Lichfield, Earl and Countess of,

28-9, 31-2, 244
Lichfield, Lord, Postmaster-General,

253
Licven, Princess, 213, 223, 225, 228,

231

Life Peerages Act, 428
Lincoln, Abraham, 264
Lincoln, Earl and Countess of, 63
Littleton, Edward, 230

471

Liverpool, ist Earl of, 139, 160, 172-3

Liverpool, 2nd Earl of (Lord Hawkes-
bury), 172-3; refuses Premiership,
156, 173; at War Office, 162;
Ministry of, 172-4, 177-9. 183-4,
198, 227; death of, 184; mentioned,
141, I49«, 1 86, 190, 193, 208

Lloyd, Selwyn, 425, 427

Lloyd George, David (later Earl

Lloyd George), in Campbell-Ban-

nermans Ministry, 33°-i; an£

House of Lords, 331, 340; 'People's

Budget* of, 337, 34<5; and Marconi

scandal, 347; opposes further

strengthening of Navy, 349; War

Memories of, 349; opposes war,

349; at Ministry of Munitions,

353; at War Office, 354; Prime

Minister, 354-5. 358^9. 3<5°~4; in

No. 10, 354-9; divides Liberals,

354, 3<54» 3<55; scarab given to,

359, 432; at Peace Conference, 36;

achieves settlement in Ireland,

362-3; end of Premiership, 3$3~4;

grandchildren of, 3<$3J resigns,

365; supporters of, 366; Bonar Law

367; and Neville Chamberlain,

399; mentioned, 33<5, 339, 389

Lloyd George, Megan (later Lady),

338-9; her memories of No. 10,

356-7
Lloyd George, Mrs, David, 35&-7»

359

Locarno Treaties, 383

Lockhart, Sir William, 153

London, mob carries Walpole's effigy,
do; City of, in 1770. 9<5-7; rioting
in, on imprisonment of Crosby and
Oliver, 98-9; Gordon riots in,
xxo-xi; supports Pitt, 120, 123;
rioting in, after Napoleonic War,
178-9; rioting in, on Robinson's
Corn Act, 181; violence in, on
delay in Parliamentary Reform,
224, 271; strikes in, 37$ J evacuation
of women and children from, 405

Londonderry, 138

Londonderry, 3rd Marquess of, 190

INDEX

Lords, House of, in I5th and i6th
centuries, 3 ; orders prosecution of
Wilkes, 79; members of, in Pitt's
Cabinet, 120, 149; creation of new
peers for political purposes, 124,
222-4, 338, 340-2; and Catholic
Emancipation, 203-4, 206; rejects
Reform Bill, 219-25; conquered
by threat to create new peers, 224;
question of survival of, 298-9,
320-1 ; rejects Home Rule Bill, 3 16,
322; Rosebery's plan for reform of,
320-1; 'filling the cup* of, 321;
Rosebery calls for annihilation of,
322; powers of rejection of, 330;
rejects Education Bill, 331; rejects
Liberal Bills, 331-2; restriction of
powers of, 332-3, 338; rejects
Licensing Bill, 336; rejects 1909
Finance Bill, 337; mauls Parliament
Bill, 340-1; 'Diehards' of, 341-2,
353; passes Finance Bill of 1909,
346; vetoes granting of Home Rule
(1916), 353 ; and Labour's post-war
legislation, 414-15; veto of, limited
to one year, 415; step towards
reforming, 427-8
Loughborough, Lord, 139
Louis XIV, King of France, 41
Louis XVI, King of France, 132
Louis XVin, King of France, 177
Louis Philippe, King of France, 219
Louisiana, 74, 144
Luttrcll, Colonel, 94, 96
Lyndhurst, Lord, 203, 223
Lyons, J, A., Australian Prime Minis-
ter, 403

Macaulay, Lord, 219, 291
MacDonald, Alister, 372
MacDonald, Ishbel, shown round

No. 10, 370; in No. 10, 374-5, 385;

her memories of life in No. 10,

386-7, 396
MacDonald, J. Ramsay, 372; leader

of Labour Party, 346, 361 ; visitor

to No. 10, 357; pall-bearer to

472

Bonar Law, 368; first Ministry of,
370-2, 375-7; Foreign Secretary,
371. 375-6; his difficulties in
furnishing No. 10, 372-4; Kong's
help and advice to, 375; second
Ministry of, 385, 387-90; makes
international agreement on ratio of
naval construction, 387; resigns,
390; leads National Government,
390-1 ; passes leadership to Baldwin,
394; mentioned 33071 382, 420

MacDonald, Joan, 386

MacDonald, Malcolm, 372, 386

MacDonald, Margaret (»& Gladstone),
372

MacDonald, Sheila, 386

Macedonia, 287-8

McKenna, Reginald, 336

Macmillan, Harold, 426; presents
books to No. 10 library, 374;
Minister of Housing, 420; Prime
Minister, 426-8; visits abroad, 427-
8 ; moves to Admiralty House, 428

Macmillan, Lady Dorothy (nle
Cavendish), 426-7

Macmillan, Maurice, 426

Macnaghten, Daniel, 247-8

Macnaghten Rules, 248

Macpherson, Sir John, iio-n

Maf eking, 325—6

Mahdi risings, 294-5

Mahon, Lord (later Earl Stanhope),
109, 147-8

Malaya, 427

Malmesbury, ist Earl of, 140, 142,
152, 180

Malmesbury, 2nd Earl of, 242

Malt tax, abolition of, 291

Malta, 143

Manchester, demonstrations in, over
defeat of Reform Bill, 271; Fenian
outrages in, 272

Manchuria, 324

Manners, Lord John, 270-1

Marconi scandal, 346-7

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France,
131-2

Markievicz, Countess, 362

INDEX

Marlborough, ist Duke of, 39-41

Marlborough, yth Duke of, 270

Marlow, Sir John, 14

Martin, Admiral Byam, 126

Mary, Queen of George V (Princess
May), 310, 404; and Abdication
crisis, 396

Mary, Princess-Royal, Countess of
Harewood, 404

Massachusetts, 76, 103; revision of
Charter of, 104

Mazarin, Cardinal, 12

Medmenham, 69-70, 77, 174

Melbourne, ist Viscount, 233

Melbourne, William Lamb, 2nd
Viscount, 233-4; refuses office
under Wellington, 209; in Grey's
Ministry, 215, 219/1, 222; goes to
see King, 231-2; first Ministry of,
234-7; dismissed by King, 237;
second Ministry of, 241, 245, 253 ;
involved in divorce suit, 242;
advises nephew, 243 ; keeps Prince
Consort politically informed, 244;
Queen's dependence on, 245-6,
321; resigns, 245; reduces dudes,
249; failing health of, 250; sends
Durham to Canada, 251-2; and
Palmerston's indiscretion, 260; and
Disraeli, 269-70; mentioned, 219

Melbourne, Viscountess, 233-4

Melville, Henry Dundas, Viscount,
123, I45«; impeachment of, 150-1

Menzies, R. G., 403, 4^4

Mctternich, Prince, 177

Mexico, 189

Middlcton, Sir Charles, 126

Midlothian Campaign, 288-9

'Ministry of all the Talents', 156-9

Minto, Lord, 141

Mollet, M., 423

Molotov, V. M., 412

Monk, General (later Duke of
Albemarle), 16

Montagu, Admiral Sir Edward (later
Earl of Sandwich), 17

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 51

Montenegro, 283, 292

473

Montgomery, Field-Marshal Vis-
count, 412

Moore, Sir John, 161; on Nelson, 199

Morice, Sir William, 21

Morley, John (later Lord), 317, 322,
346, 350

Mornington, Earl of, 197

Morpeth, Lord, 35

Morrison, Herbert (later Lord), 385,
414-15, 417, 420

Moscow, retreat from, 175

Mosley, Sir Oswald, 388

Mote, the, 2, 4

Mount-Temple, Baron, 243

Mulgrave, Lord, 152

Munich, 402

Municipal Corporations Bill, 245

Munitions, Ministry of, 353-4

Murray, General Sir George, 200, 224

Mussolini, Benito, 366, 401-2

Mustapha Kenial, 364

Napier, General Sir Charles, 196
Napoleon I, Emperor of France
(Bonaparte), 133; temporary peace
with, 143 ; invasion preparations of,
144, 147, 149, 152; proclaimed
Emperor, 149; victories of, against
Third Coalition, 152, 154; places
embargo on British goods, 167,
169, 188; marches to and from
Moscow, 174-5; defeat and abdica-
tion of, 175; escapes from Elba,
176; places brother on Spanish
throne, 188; Bathurst and, 208;
at St. Helena, 208 ; Russell visits, 254
Napoleon HI, Emperor of France,

254, 263-4
Napoleonic War, 131-3. *6o;

temporary end to, 13 3. 143-4 ;

Third Coalition to fight, 152, 154;

in Portugal and Spain, 161-2, 166,

169, 175; paying tor, 166-7, 175-8
Narvik, 406
Nasser, Colonel, 423-4
Natal, 325
National Gallery, 182; pictures from,

in No. 10, 373. 386, 400, 422

INDEX

National Government, 388-91; elec-
tion victory for, 390; under
MacDonald, 391, 392-4J Con-
servative complexion of, 392;
under Baldwin, 394-7 J Chamber-
lain fails to form, 406

National Health Service, 415. 4*0 ;
imposition of charges, 418

National Insurance, Lloyd George's
scheme for, 337* 34<$; Labour's
post-war scheme for, 415

National Labour Party, 392

National Liberal Federation, 291

National Liberal Party, 392

Nationalization, of telegraph services,
268-9; Labour's post-war legisla-
tion on, 414-15, 420

Navy, Royal, in 1770, 96; recon-
struction of, by Pitt, 126-8, 132-3;
victories of, in war with France,
133-4; mutinies in, 134; need to
strengthen, 144, 337, 349; Glad-
stone opposes expansion of, 317;
in Norwegian expeditions, 406;
Churchill mobilizes, 349-5°; new
cruisers for, as cure for unemploy-
ment, 376-7

Nelson, Horatio, Admiral Lord, victo-
ries of, 134, 143, 152, 239; Welling-
ton meets, 199 ; and William IV, 217

Nepal, King of, 428

New England, colonization of, 8

New Gate, 5, 21, 25-6

New York, Congress in, 76; suspen-
sion of functions of assembly, 86;
William IV in (as prince), 217

Newcastle, Thomas Pelham Holies,
Duke of, Parliamentary control of,
38, 44; his clashes with Walpole,
55-6; quarrels with Pelham, 63;
Prime Minister, 64-5, 66-7; senility
of, 81 ; mentioned, 54, 160, 180

Newspaper strike, 421

Nigeria, 313, 427

Nile, Battle of the, 134

Nootka Sound, ships seized in, 128

North, Lady (nfa Anne Speke), 90,
105

474

North, Lord, 89-91; in No. 10, 84,
89, 112, 113-14; Chancellor of
Exchequer, 88, 91; similarity of,
to King, 89; subservient attitude
of, 89, 95, 105; daughter of, 90,
181 ; repeals American duties except
tea, 91-2; and Wilkes, 94, 98-9;
Ministry of, 94-5, 105; attacks on,
in Commons, 96, 105, 111-12;
attacked by mob, 98-9, iio-n;
and Johnson, 99-100; Ranger of
Bushey Park, 100; and Clive,
101-2; anti-American measures of,
104-5; decline in appearance and
demeanour of, 105, no; tries to
resign, 106, 109; debts of, 106-7,
I25«; resigns, 111-12; in coalition
with Fox, 115-16, 122; Secretary
of State, 116; and repairs to No. 10,
117; votes against reform, 119;
mentioned, 120

North Briton, 71, 77-8

Northbrook, Lord, 305

Northcliffe, Lord, 346

Northcote, Sir Stafford (later Earl
of Iddesleigh), 299, 301-2, 308

Norton, Mrs. Caroline, 236, 242-3

Norway, British expeditions to, 406

Nottingham Castle, burning of, 222

Nugent, Lord, 101

Nuri es-Said, 423

Nutting, Anthony, 425

Nyasaland, 313

O'Connell, Daniel, election of, 201,
206, 21 1 ; arrest of, 216; leads Irish
Party, 226; demands repeal of Act
of Union, 229; and Coercion Act,
230; supports Russell, 240; men-
tioned, 235

OczakofF, 128

Okey, Colonel, 10, 19-20

Old Age Pensions, 336-7

Oliver, Alderman, 98-9

Omdurman, Battle of, 324

Orange Free State, 324

Orangemen, 348

INDEX

Ord, Elizabeth, Crecvey's letters to,

216, 225
Orford, Earl of - see Walpole, Sir

Robert

Ormonde, Marquis, 16
O'Shea, Captain and Mrs., 313
Ottawa Conference (1932)* 39^
Ovcrkirk, Lord and Lady, 32

Paine, Tom, 133, 164; Rights of Man
of, 131

Pakistan, 415

Palmcrston, 3rd Viscount, 258-9;
Secretary at War, 184, 190, 259;
in Wellington's Ministry, 200; in
Grey's Ministry, 215, 219, 222;
Foreign Secretary, 235, 254, 259;
marriage of, 241, 260; dismissed,
25 5 ; asked to join Derby's Ministry,
256; Home Secretary under Aber-
deen, 256; Ministries of, 257,
260-4; becomes Whig, 259;
Queen's hostility to, 260; love
affairs of, 260; offensive manner of,
263-4; defeated, 263; death of,
264-5; mentioned, 252, 266-7, 281

Palmerston, Viscountess (nle Emily
Lamb later Lady Cowpcr), 241,
258, 260

Pankhurst, Mrs., 333

Parliament, King's control of, 38,
88-9, 95» **9*» distribution of seats
in Stuart and Hanoverian, 38-9;
expulsion of Walpole from, 40,
94«; abolition of three-year, 44;
expulsion of Wilkcs from, 94;
publication of debates of, 97-100;
Pitt's attempts at reform of, 118-19;
burning of Houses of, 236; re-
building of Houses of, 241 ; Victoria
refuses to open, 274; five-yearly,
3 49*1 ; first woman elected to, 362;
first woman Cabinet Minister, 385;
King's Party in (1936), 395-6.
See also Commons, House of;
Lords, House of

Parliament Bill and Act (1911), 340-2;
Asquith prepares, 338-9; passed by

475

Lords, 342; results of, 348, 349/1;
amendment to, 415

Parliamentary Reform, public de-
mand for, 210-12, 219, 222, 224;
Radical aims regarding, 226; secret
ballot at elections, 277; Gladstone's
Bills for, 298-9. See also Reform
Bills

Parmoor, Lord, 371

Parnell, Charles Stewart, 296-7, 313

Passchendaele, Battle of, 355

Peacock, the, 21-2

Peel, Sir Robert, 190; Home Secre-
tary, 183-4, 196; opposed to
Catholic Emancipation, 184; re-
signs, 190; opposed to Parlia-
mentary Reform, 200, 224; agrees
to support Catholic Emancipation,
201-2, 224; police force of, 210;
Wellington on, 221; in 1833
Parliament, 226; Wellington 'holds
the fort' for, 237-8, Ministries of,
238-40, 246, 248 ; 'ultras' hostile to,
245; wishes to dismiss Queen's
ladies, 246; family of, 269; Drum-
mond killed in mistake for, 247-8;
death of, 248; repeals Corn Law,
249-50; defeat and resignation of,
250, 251; re-introduces income
tax, 273; mentioned, 220, 256, 303,

332

Peking, expedition to, 262

Pelham, Henry, 63-4

Pembroke, Earl of, 24

Peninsular War, 161-2, 166, 254

Penny post, 253

Pepys, Samuel, 15-17; quotations
from Diary of, 20

'People's Budget', 337, 346

Perceval, Mrs. (nee Wilson), 163-6,
173

Perceval, Spencer, 163-5; Under-
secretary for Foreign Affairs, 137;
on Pitt and Addington, 142, 144-5;
Foreign Secretary in Portland's
Ministry, 159-61; in No, 10, 160,
165-6, 168; Prime Minister, 162,
166-70, 259; Regency Bill of, 168;

INDEX

Perceval, Spencer - cont.
initiates searching of neutral ships,
169-70; murder of, 170-1; men-
tioned, I49«, 190, 193, 208

Persia, seizes Harat, 262

Peter, King of Yugoslavia, 412

Peters, Hugh, n

Pheasant Court, 21

Philadelphia, 107-8

Phoenix Park murders, 297-8

Pickering, Sir Henry, 35

Pitt, Lady Harriet (later Eliot), 125,
136, 147

Pitt, Thomas, 269

Pitt, William (the Elder) - sec
Chatham, Earl of

Pitt, William (the Younger), 114-15;
in No. 10, 113-14, 117-18, 142,
146; Chancellor of Exchequer,
114-16; refuses Premiership, 116;
Reform Bills of, 119, 124; first
Ministry of, 119-20; successful
economic policy of, 121; attacked
by roughs, 121; and Hastings, 122-
3; and restrictions on power of
Regent, 123 ; uses creation of new
peers, 124; debts of, 125-6, 134,
155; character of, 125; country
house of, 126; foreign policy of,
126-9; attitude of, to French
Revolution, 129, 130-3, 142; as-
sured position of, 130; raises money
for war against France, 134-5, 150;
Warden of Cinque Ports, 134; duel
of, 135-6, 164; love affair of, 136;
always ready to negotiate with
France, 136-7; on object of war,
137; Irish policy of, 138-9; and
Catholic Emancipation, 139, 141;
resigns, 139, 143 ; loyalty of, to Ad-
dington Ministry, 141-2, 144; ora-
tory of, 144; second Ministry of, 146,
149-53; Ming health of, 146, 151;
niece makes home with, 147-9 J war
policy of, 151-2; forms European
alliance against Napoleon, 152;
daily life of, 152-3; last speech of,
153 J death of, 154-5 ; Grenville and,

476

157; on need for war of patriotism,
161; and Perceval, 164-5; and
Vansittart, 172-3; and Canning,
187; and Aberdeen, 256; men-
tioned, 109, 158, 193, 198, 208,
214

Plural Voting Bill, 330-1

Poland, plea for reunification of, 177;
German attack on, 404-5

Polish Corridor, 361

Political State, The, 97

Ponsonby, Arthur, 333

Ponsonby, General, Secretary to
Queen Victoria, 299, 304-5, 320

Pope, Alexander, 55

Port Arthur, 324

Port Said, 293

Portland, Duchess of (nie Lady
Dorothy Cavendish), 160

Portland, 3rd Duke of, i5<H5o; in
Rockingham's Government, 81,
160; first Ministry of, 116, 119; in
No. 10, 116-17; brings Old Whigs
over to Pitt, 133; against conces-
sions to Catholics, 139; in Adding-
ton's Ministry, 141, 160; second
Ministry of, 159-62, 165, 259;
political influence of, 160; death of,
162; Perceval and, 166; mentioned,
193, 208-9

Portland, 4th Duke of, 190

Portugal, campaign in, 161 ; Napoleon
and, 1 88; defence of, against Spain,
189. See also Peninsular War

Potter, Thomas, 77

Powell, Enoch, 427

Press, the, demand for liberty of, 79;
Labour a Government without
backing of, 371-2; Baldwin and,
393; and Abdication crisis, 395-6;
and Munich crisis, 403; supports
Conservatives, 417
Press gangs, 13 5

Pretenders: Old, 40-1; Young, 67-8,
Pretoria, 326
Privy Garden, 4
Privy Steps, 2
Probyn, Dighton, 305

INDEX

Proctor, William, 18

Property tax, 176

Prussia, Pitt forms alliance with, 127;

and war with France, 131, 152, 178;

subsidy for, 134
Public Worship Act, 281
Publick Advertiser, 93
Pulteney, William, 97
Puritans, restrictions on, 7
Pye, Sir Robert, 26
Pynsent, Sir William, 90, 114

Radical Party, 226, 270; members in
Cabinet, 291, 299; opposed to
Home Rule, 305

Railway, opening of Manchester-
Liverpool, 212

Reading, Rufus Isaacs, Marquess of,

347, 357

Redistribution Bill, 298-9

Redmond, John, 253

Reform Act (1832), 225-6; (1867), 272

Reform Bills, Pitt's, 118-19, 124;
Russell's, 200, 219; Grey's, 215,
219-26; Lords reject, 221-4.; passed,
224-5; Gladstone's, 267-8, 271;
Disraeli's, 271-2. See also Parlia-
mentary Reform

Regency, arrangements for, 80, 123-4,
141, 168; Bill, 168

Religious tests, abolition of, in uni-
versities, 277

Representation of the People Act and
Bill (1884), 298 -,(1918), 360

Rhodes, Cecil, 325

Rhodesia, North and South, 313

Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Federation

of, 427

Richmond, 5th Duke of, 23 1
Richmond, 6th Duke of, 270
Rigby, Richard, 105
Rights of Man (Paine), 131, 133
Ripon, ist Earl of - see Goderich,

Viscount
Ripon, ist Marquess of, 184, 305, 317,

331
Ritualism, control of, 280-1

477

Roberts, Field-Marshal Earl, 292, 326
Robinson, Frederick - see Goderich,

Viscount
Robinson, John ('Prosperity'), 106,

Robinson, Mrs. Mary (Perdita), 122
Robinson, Sir Thomas (later Lord

Grantham), 51
Rochester, Lord - see Somerset,

Earl of

Rockingham, ist Marquess of, 80
Rockingham, 2nd Marquess of, 80-1,

first Ministry of, 81, 85, 160;

refuses to serve under Pitt, 83 ; in

Opposition, 95 ; second Ministry of,

113-15

Roman Catholics, excluded from
Parliament, 5571, 200-1; easing of
restrictions against, no; Pitt's
concessions to Irish, 138-9; feeling
in England against, 139; question of
emancipation of, 139, 141, 156, 159,
165, 184, 189, 201-4; emancipation
of, 206; in universities, 277-8

Rome-Berlin Axis, 401

Romilly, Sir Samuel, 163

Rose, George, 143, 145

Rose and Crown, the, 48

Rose inn, 2

Rosebery, Countess of (nie Hannah
de Rothschild), 319

Rosebery, 5th Earl of, 319; on
Wilmington, 62; on Pitt, 125, 151;
supports Gladstone, 305-6; Foreign
Secretary, 315; expects Gladstone's
resignation, 317; Ministry of, 318,
319-22, 368; foreign policy of,
321-2; on Entente Cordiale, 350;
mentioned 336

Rosenberg, Rose, 375

Rothermcre, ist Viscount, 393

Rothermere, 2nd Viscount, 396

Rothschild, Lionel, 282

Rothschild, Baron Mayer de, 319

Rothschild, James, 177-8

Rothschild, Nathan, 177-8, 182

Round Table Conference, First, 393

Rowton, Montagu Corry, Lord, 282

INDEX

Royal Air Force, 358

Royal Irish Constabulary, 362

Ruhr, French evacuation of, 376

Rumania, 404

Russell, Lord John (later Earl Russell),
219, 254; Reform Bills of, 200, 211,
267-8; in charge of Parliamentary
reform under Grey, 215, 219, 253;
and Ireland, 230, 235, 255 ; and Tol-
puddle Martyrs, 235; William IV's
dislike of, 237; opposes Peel, 240;
presses for reduction of corn tax,
249; Ministries of, 250, 251-5, 266-
8; secretaries of, 250, 251-3, 372;
family of, 253; in Aberdeen's
Ministry, 256-7; criticizes Palmer-
ston, 262; demands neutrality in
American Civil War, 264; Foreign
Minister, 266-7; retires, 270; men-
tioned, 190, 231

Russia, seizes Turkish Black Sea port,
128; in alliance against France, 152;
at war with France, 178; at war
with Turkey, 282-4, 287, 310;
India threatened by, 288, 295-6,
322; ready to collaborate with
Gladstone, 292; leases Port Arthur,
324; Germany declares war on,
350; Revolution in, 355; Com-
munist menace in 361; British
Expeditionary Force in N., 362;
recognition of Soviet, and resump-
tion of Trade, 376; question of
loan to, 377; Hitler comes to terms
with, 404; presents for Churchill
from, 412

Sacheverell, Dr. Henry, 40
Sackvillc, Lord George - see Germain,

Lord George.

St. George's Fields, Massacre of, 93
St. James's Palace, 5-6
St. James's Park, 28; fields on site of,

3 ; making of, 5 ; buildings abutting

on, 23, 25, 34; peacocks of, 345;

Prime Ministers walk in, 404, 416
St. John, Henry - see Bolingbroke,

Viscount

478

St. Margaret's Westminster, 3, 5

St. Stephen's Chapel, 3

Salisbury, Robert Cecil, ist Earl of,
302

Salisbury, 3rd Marquess of (Lord
Cranborne), at Indian Office, 268,
280; opposes Reform, 271-2, 298-9 ;
Disraeli's letter to, on High Church
Ministers, 281; opposed to war on
Russia, 284; Foreiga Minister, 287,
323; first Ministry of, 301-4, 312;
family of, 301-2; Gladstone offers
to support, on Home Rule, 304-5;
second Ministry of, 307, 308-14;
on W. H. Smith, 311-12; expan-
sionist imperial policy of, 311;
Queen seeks advice of, 321; third
Ministry of, 322-7; failing health
of, 324, 326

Salisbury, 4th Marquess of, 341, 414,
420

Salisbury, 5th Marquess of, 426

Samuel, Sir Herbert (later Viscount),

34<5-7, 389-92

San Stefano, Treaty of, 287-8
Sandwich, ist Earl of, 17
Sandwich, 4th Earl of, 70, 78-9, 101
Sandys, Samuel, 57, 62-3
Sankey, Lord, 390-1
Saratoga, Battle of, 107-8
Sassoon, Sir Philip, 400
Saxony, Elector of, 131
Scarlett, Sir James, 220
Schools, religious instruction in, 331
Schweitzer, Dr. Albert, 423
Scotland, Gladstone's speeches in,

288-9, 299
Scotland Yard, 2
Scott, Sir Walter, 192, 201
Scroop, John, 34
Sebastopol, capture of, 261
Sefton, Earl of, 210, 218
Selbourne, Lord, 305
Septennial Act, 44, 314, 349
Servia, 283; Austrian ultimatum to,

349

Seven Hours Act, 382
Seven Years War, 65, 67-8, 70, 74

INDEX

Sfcvres, Treaty of, 364

Seymour, Minnie, 165

Shaftesbury, 7th Earl of, 228

Shelburne, Earl of (later Marquess of
Lansdowne), 81, 91, 113; Ministry
of, 114-15, 180, agin

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, in Rock-
ingham's Government, 113-14;
opposes Pitt, 120, 1 3 5 ; and Hastings'
impeachment, 122; on Grenville,
158; on retention of Perceval, 168;
mentioned, 1 86

Siam, 322

Simon, Sir John, and German inva-
sion of Belgium, 350; against
conscription, 353; and General
Strike, 382; Leader of National
Liberals, 392; on Commission of
Enquiry on Indian question, 393;
Home Secretary, 396; Chancellor
of Exchequer, 401

Simpson, Mrs, Wallis (later Duchess
of Windsor), 394-6

Singapore, 427

Sinn Feiners, 362-3

Slavery and slave trade, limitation of,
124, 158, 169; abolition of, 227, 255

Smith, F. E. (later Lord Birkenhead),

341

Smith, W. H., 309-12

Smollet, Tobias, 48

Smuts, General Jan, 357, 4*2

Smyrna, 292

Snowdcn, Philip (later Viscount),
Chancellor of Exchequer, 371, 385,
390; threatens to resign, 387-8;
supports National Government,
390; goes to Lords, 391 ; resigns, 392

Soane, Sir John, 182, 386

Sons of Liberty, 76

'Souls, The', 312

South Africa, Union of, 330

South African War, 324-7, 33<$

South America, rebels against Spanish
rule, 183, 189

South Sea Company, 42-3

Southcy, Robert, 192

Spain, War with (1739). 5<5-7"» «*

479

Seven Years War, 68; seizes
Falkland Islands, 96; joins America
in war against Britain, 109-10, 115;
claims Pacific coast of America,
128; given back colonies, 143;
enters war against Britain (1804),
150; French troops take possession
of, 161, 188; revolt of colonies of,
183, 189. See also Peninsular War

Spanish Civil War, 401

Spencer, 5th Earl, 299, 305

Stamfordham, Lord, 365, 371

Stamp Act, 75-6, 92, 103 ; repeal of,
82, 86

Stanhope, General James, 52

Stanhope, 3rd Earl (Lord Mahon),
109, 147-8

Stanhope, James, 154

Stanhope, Lady Catherine, 319

Stanhope, Lady Hester, 147-9, 154;
on daily life of Pitt, 152-3; on
Grenville, 157

Stanley, Edward - see Derby, I3th
Earl of

Stanley, Lord - see Derby, I4th Earl of

Stapleton, Augustus, 192

Steel, nationalization of, 415, 420

Steele, Sir Richard, 54

Stephenson, W. H., 248

Stockmar, Baron, 244

Sudan, Mahdi rising in, 294-5;
Kitchener's campaign in, 324

Suez Canal, Disraeli buys shares in,
281-2, 289/1, 293; Nasser seizes,
423-4; fighting near, 425; lost to
Britain, 426

Suffragette movement, 333-4, 338,3<5o

Sugar Act, 75-6

Sunday Referee, 403

Surrey, Earl of, 112

Sussex, Earl and Countess of, 51-2, 34

Suvarov, General, 133

Sweden, joins Napoleon, 188

Switzerland, France occupies, 144

Sydenham, Lord, 252

Sykes, Major-General Sir Frederick,
366

Sykes, Lady (nee Isabel Law), 366

INDEX

Talleyrand, Prince, 119, 177; at No.
10, 217-18

Tanganyika, 427

Tariff Reform, 327; Conservative
answer to unemployment, 369,
383 ; result of election on, 370

Taylor, Sir Robert, 118

Tel-el-Kebir, Battle of, 293

Temple, Richard Grenville, Earl, and
Wilkes, 77-8; wager of, 101;
refuses office under Pitt, 120;
mentioned, 157

Territorial Army, 332, 402

ThomasJ.H., 371,388, 390

Thomas, M., French Minister of
Munitions, 357

Thorneycroft, Peter, 427

Thrope, Robert, 18

Thurloe, John, 12-17

Thurlow, Edward (later Lord), Lord
Chancellor, 90

Tierney, George, attacks Pitt, 135,
137; Pitt's duel with, 135-6, 164;
opposes Vansittart, 176; in Can-
ning's Ministry, 191

Times, The, attacks on Pitt in, 144-5;
urges people to revolt, 224; on
burning of Houses of Parliament
236; Lord Randolph Churchill
announces resignation to, 310

Tolpuddle Martyrs, 235

Tomlinson, George, 415

'Tory democracy* of Churchill,
303

Tory Party, start of, 37-8; supports
Old Pretender, 41-2, 67; comes into
power with George m, 66-7; ends
Seven Years War, 68 ; in 1782, 115;
break up of, on appointment of
Canning, 189-90; name Conserva-
tive being applied to, 226; over-
whelming defeat of, 226; divided,
245; regards Disraeli as outsider,
269; opposed to extension of
franchise, 298. See also Conservative
Party

Townshend, Charles, 83-7, 88, 91,
102

480

Townshend, 2nd Viscount, 41, 83

Trades Disputes Bill and Act, 330,
382, 387

Trade Unions, Perceval and 169;
formation of, 210; made illegal by
Pitt, 227; rapid growth of, 235;
safeguards to funds of, 330; co-
operate in national insurance
scheme, 346; contribute to Labour
funds, 379

Trades Union Congress, and General
Strike, 380-1; Civil Service trade
unions to withdraw from, 382;
opposes cuts in dole, 389

Trafalgar, Battle of, 151-2, 188, 239

Trafalgar Square, use by demonstra-
tors, 336

Transvaal, annexation of, 289, 324;
returned to Boers, 292, 325;
Jameson Raid into, 323 ; Kruger's
policy in, 325

Treasury Passage, 34

Trent, British mail snip, 264

Trevelyan, Sir George, 305-6

Trevor, Sir John, 26

Trinidad, 143

Trondheim, 406

Turkey, Russian designs on, 128;
Egypt returned to, 143; Balkans
rebel against, 282-3 ; Russia at war
with, 284, 287; terms of Berlin
Treaty regarding, 287-8, 292;
dangers of war in (1922), 364

Uganda, 313

Uhn, Austrian defeat at, 152

Ulster, colonization of, 137-8; and
Home Rule, 306, 348; rebellion
threatening in, 348; excluded from
Home Rule, 353; separation from
rest of Ireland, 362-3

Ultra-Tories, 240, 245

Unemployment: in 1765, 76; due to
American trade boycott, 91; due
to War of Independence, no; after
Napoleonic War, 178; in 1820$,
183; in 1840$, 249; insurance
scheme, 337; in 19205, 363, 369,

INDEX

3?6, 379, 383. 388; a world prob-
lem, 288; reductions in relief of,

388-9

United Nations, and Suez crisis, 424-6
United States, buys Louisiana from
France, I44«; Britain at war with
(1812), 169-70, 174-6; Britain on
brink of war with, 264, 323 ; in
First World War, 355, 358 ; loan to
Britain from, during war, 367-8;
agreement with, on naval construc-
tion, 387; economic slump in 388;
Britain needing credits from 389;
post-war loan of, 414; and Suez
crisis, 424-5. See also American
colonies

Universities, abolition of religious
tests in, 277

Vanbrugh, John, 45

Vancouver, 128

Vansittart, Henry, 173, 175

Vansittart, Nicholas (later Lord Bex-
ley), 173-9* 190; Budgets of, 175-6,
181

Vansittart, Robert, 174-5

Venezuelan Boundary question, 323

Versailles Peace Treaty, 361, 383

Victoria, Queen, Leopold and, 230;
Melbourne and, 242-3, 244-6;
appoints Albert's secretary, 244;
admiration of, for Albert, 246; on
death of Drummond, 248; Peel
tenders resignation to, 251; dis-
approves of Palmerston, 254-5,
260; awards Garter to Palmerston,
261; worries about Indian Mutiny,
262; her attachment to Disraeli,
269, 280-1, 286-7; Gladstone's
relations with, 273-7, 280, 291,
298-300, 304-5, 307* 3H; her
continued mourning for Albert,
273-6; secretaries of, 274-6; refuses
to open Parliament, 274; unpopu-
larity of, 276; letter of sympathy of,
to Disraeli, 279; antipathy of, to
High Churchmen, 280-1; Empress

of India, 282; urges war against
Russia, 283-4, 287; anger of,
against Gladstone, 292, 295; urges
action in Sudan, 294; and
Churchill's 'Tory democracy', 303 ;
on Gladstone, 304, 314-15; W. H.
Smith and, 311; angry at giving
Heligoland to Kaiser, 313; Glad-
stone describes, 315; Gladstone's
farewell to, 317-18; makes choice
of Rosebery, 318, 320, 368; Rose-
bery suggests Lords reform to,
321; on South African War, 325;
death of, 326, 371; mentioned, 421
Vienna, Congress of, 176-7

Waldegrave, Lady, 160

Walpole, Edward (grandfather), 36

Walpole, Edward (son), 51

Walpole, Horace, parentage of, 49 ;
stepmother of, 51; at No. 10, 53;
on end of father's office and leaving
No. 10, 58-60, 62; on Bilson-Legge,
64; on Lady Dashwood, 70; on
Grenville, 73-4; on Dowdeswell,
81; on Townshend, 85, 87; on
George HI and North, 89; on
Portland, 160

Walpole, Horatio, 51-3

Walpole, Sir Hugh, 401

Walpole, Lady (nte Catherine
Shorter), 36, 49-5 i

Walpole, Lady (n&e Maria Skerrett),
51-2

Walpole, Lord, 51, 59

Walpole, Robert, 36"

Walpole, Sk Robert (later Earl of
Orford), 36-48, 49-<So; enlarges
No. 10, 33-4, 4^-7. ii 8; first wife
of, 36, 49-51; enters Parliament,
37; early career of, 37, 39-4-0; sent
to Tower and expelled from Parlia-
ment, 40, 94n; Chancellor of
Exchequer, 41-3; Ministry of,
43-5, 57-8; uses bribery, 44; lavish
expenditure of, 45-7; daughters of,
51-2, 60; second wife of, 51-2;
maintains peace, 54-5; battles with

INDEX

Walpole, Sir Robert -ant.
Commons and Cabinet, 55-60, 73 ;
forced into war, 56-8; accepts
peerage, 60; gains support of
Queen, 61-2; and Bilson-Legge,
64; concessions of, to American
colonies, 75; on ist Marquess of
Rockingham, 80; week-ends of, at
Richmond, 100; portrait of, 416;
mentioned, 400-1

War Cabinet (1916), 354'. (i939),
405-6; (1940), 406-7

Wardle, Colonel, 167

Warrant, general, 77-8, 99

Washington, British fire White House
in, 176

Washington, George, 107, 217

Waterloo, Battle of, 176, 178

Watson, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, 63-4

Watson-Wentworth, Thomas (later
1st Marquess of Rockingham), 80

Wavell, Field-Marshal Earl, 412

Wedderburn, Alexander, Solicitor-
General, 90

Welfare State, 416

Wellesley, Marquess (Lord Morning-
ton), friend of Pitt, 154, 198; on
Grenville's marriage, 158; Foreign
Secretary, 162, 169; Lord Lieuten-
ant of Ireland, 184, 230; on
Wellington's 'bold act of cowar-
dice', 213

Wellesley, Sir Arthur - see Welling-
ton, Duke of

Wellington, Duchess of («&'Catherinc
Pakenham), 197, 207

Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke
of, 197-8; Chief Secretary for
Ireland, 160-1; in Peninsular War,
161-2, 166, 169, 175; at Congress
of Vienna, 178; Master-General of
Ordnance, 184, 198; and Catholic
emancipation, 184, 189, 201-6;
opposed to Canning, 189, 191-3,
195 ; resigns on Canning's appoint-
ment, 190, 195; Prime Minister,
195-203, 206-9, 211-13, 234; mist-
ress of, 198, 205, 207; in No. TO,

482

198-9; meets Nelson, 199; brooks
no opposition, 200, 203 ; his manner
with George IV, 202, 207; duel of,
204-5; appearance and personality
of, 206-7; Lord Warden of the
Cinque Ports, 207; seeks to streng-
then his Ministry, 209; opposed to
Parliamentary Reform, 211-13,
221-2; unpopularity of, 212-13;
resignation of, 213 ; on Russell, 219;
fails to form Ministry, 223-4;
'holds the fort' for Peel, 237-8;
Foreign Secretary, 238; critical of
Peel, 245 ; supports repeal of Corn
Law, 250; mentioned, 240, 246,
255-6, 259
Wells, H. G., 361
Wesley, John, 107, 197
West, Sir Algernon, 317
West Indies, Federation of, 427
Westminster, Palace of, 3-4
Westminster Abbey, 2-3
Westminster Hall, 3-4, 40, 241
Westmorland, loth Earl of, 139
Whallcy, Colonel Edward, 26
Whig Party, start of, 37-8; controls
Parliamentary boroughs, 38, 44;
unpopularity of, 40; supports
Hanoverian succession, 41; break
in long period of influence, 67;
persecuted by Bute, 68, 80; divided,
81,115; split by French Revolution,
131, 133; Perceval's opposition to,
165; hopes to profit by Regency,
168; coalition between progressive
Tories and, 190; call for Parlia-
mentary Reform, 211; returns to
power under Grey, 214; returned
to power after passing of Reform
Bill, 226; turned out by William
IV, 239-40; Protectionists combine
with, 250; attitude to Disraeli, 269;
Liberals and, 270^
White Russian Cossack Choir, 383
Whitehall, Palace of, 4-6
Whitehall Gardens, 239, 280, 432
Wigram, Sir Clivc (later Lord), 390^7
Wilberforce, William, friend of Pitt,

INDEX

119, 123, 126; works for abolition
of slave trade, 124, 169, 227;
estranged from Pitt, 133; joins in
censure of Melville, 151
Wilhelm II, Kaiser, Heligoland offered
to, 313; congratulates Kruger, 323;
visits England, 333; demand for
prosecution of, 360
Wilkes, John, member of Hell Fire
Club, 70; attacks Bute, 71, 77;
prosecution of, 77-9, 94; Towns-
hend and, 84; elected to Parliament,
93-4, 100 ; takes himself to jail, 93;
elected City alderman, 96-7; and
publishing of Parliamentary reports,
98-9; enters Parliament, 100

Wilkinson, Ellen, 4H-I5

William, Prince of Orange, 13

William III, King, in house preceding
No. 10, 31-2; Whig support for,
37, 39; mentioned, 40, W

William IV, King, 209, 213; and
Parliamentary Reform, 216-17;
222-4; life of, before accession, 217;
prorogues Parliament in hurry,
219-20; asked to create new peers,
221-4; sends for Wellington, 223-
4; attack on carriage of, 224, 236;
and Melbourne, 234; offers Buck-
ingham Palace as House of Parlia-
ment, 236; changes in, 236;
dismisses his Ministers, 237-8;
sends for Melbourne, 240-1; death
of, 242

Williams, Francis (later Lord Francis-
Williams), 416

Williams, John, 170

Willoughby de Broke, Lord, 34i«

Wilmington, Earl of (Sir Spencer
Compton), 61-2, 163

Wilson, Harold, 418

Wilson, Sir James, 163

Wilson, President Woodrow, 355,
361

Winchilsea, loth Earl of, 203-6, 221
Windham, William, 140-1
Window tax, 28, 181
Windsor, Duke of (Prince of Wales,

Edward VIII), 368, 387; abdication

of, 394-<5

Windsor Castle, 260
Winthrop, John, 7-9, 92
Winthrop, John (the younger), 9-10
Wolseley, Lord (Sir Garnet), 293, 295,

309

Wolsey, Cardinal, 2, 4
Women, agitation for votes for,

333-4; excluded from Albert Hall

meeting, 338; given vote, 360, 383 ;

first elected to Parliament, 362;

first in Cabinet, 385; in Lords, 428
Wood, Sir Kingsley, 401
Wordsworth, William, 192
Workers9 Weekly, The, 377
World War, First, 352-8; Haldane's

reorganization of Army and, 332;

outbreak of, 348-52; end of, 358-9
World War, Second, outbreak of,

404-5; 'phoney', 405; No. 10 in,

407-12; end of, 412
Wostenholme-Elmy, Mrs., 333
Wraxall, Sir Nathaniel, on Pitt, 125
Wren, Sir Christopher, 28
Wyndham, George (later 3rd Earl of

Egremont), 234

Yarmouth, Countess of, 34
Yarmouth, Earl of, 161
York, Duke of, 145, 167, 184
York Place, 1-2
Yorktown, surrender at, in

Zanzibar, 313
Zeppelins, 352
'Zinovieffletter', 377
Zulu War, 288-9, 324

483

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