Dedication
TO THE
ELECTORS OF THE MONTROSE BURGHS
I BEG LEAVE TO
INSCRIBE THIS BOOK
IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION
OF
THE CONFIDENCE AND FRIENDSHIP
WITH WHICH
THEY HAVE HONOURED ME
NOTE
The material on which this biography is founded consists mainly, of course, of the papers collected at Hawarden. Besides that vast accumulation, I have been favoured with several thousands of other pieces from the legion of Mr. Gladstone’s correspondents. Between two and three hundred thousand written papers of one sort or another must have passed under my view. To some important journals and papers from other sources I have enjoyed free access, and my warm thanks are due to those who have generously lent me this valuable aid. I am especially indebted to the King for the liberality with which his Majesty has been graciously pleased to sanction the use of certain documents, in cases where the permission of the Sovereign was required.
When I submitted an application for the same purpose to Queen Victoria, in readily promising her favourable consideration, the Queen added a message strongly impressing on me that the work I was about to undertake should not be handled in the narrow way of party. This injunction represents my own clear view of the spirit in which the history of a career so memorable as Mr. Gladstone’s should be composed. That, to be sure, is not at all inconsistent with our regarding party feeling in its honourable sense, as entirely the reverse of an infirmity.
The diaries from which I have often quoted consist of forty little books in double columns, intended to do little more than record persons seen, or books read, or letters written as the days passed by. From these diaries come several of the mottoes prefixed to our chapters; such mottoes are marked by an asterisk.
The trustees and other members of Mr. Gladstone’s family have extended to me a uniform kindness and consideration and an absolutely unstinted confidence, for which I can never cease to owe them my heartiest acknowledgment. They left with the writer an unqualified and undivided responsibility for these pages, and for the use of the material that they entrusted to him. Whatever may prove to be amiss, whether in leaving out or putting in or putting wrong, the blame is wholly mine.
J. M.
1903.
Book I
(1809-1831)
| Chapter | Page | |
| INTRODUCTORY | 1 | |
| I. | CHILDHOOD | 7 |
| II. | ETON | 26 |
| III. | OXFORD | 48 |
Book II
(1832-1846)
| I. | ENTERS PARLIAMENT | 86 |
| II. | THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND OFFICE | 116 |
| III. | PROGRESS IN PUBLIC LIFE | 131 |
| IV. | THE CHURCH | 152 |
| V. | HIS FIRST BOOK | 169 |
| VI. | CHARACTERISTICS | 184 |
| VII. | CLOSE OF APPRENTICESHIP | 219 |
| VIII. | PEEL’S GOVERNMENT | 247 |
| IX. | MAYNOOTH | 270 |
| X. | TRIUMPH OF POLICY AND FALL OF THE MINISTER | 282 |
| XI. | THE TRACTARIAN CATASTROPHE | 303 |
Book III
(1847-1852)
| I. | MEMBER FOR OXFORD | 327 |
| II. | THE HAWARDEN ESTATE | 337 |
| III. | PARTY EVOLUTION—NEW COLONIAL POLICY | 350 |
| IV. | DEATH OF SIR ROBERT PEEL | 366 |
| V. | GORHAM CASE—SECESSION OF FRIENDS | 375 |
| VI. | NAPLES | 389 |
| VII. | RELIGIOUS TORNADO—PEELITE DIFFICULTIES | 405 |
| VIII. | END OF PROTECTION | 425 |
Book IV
(1853-1859)
| I. | THE COALITION | 443 |
| II. | THE TRIUMPH OF 1853 | 457 |
| III. | THE CRIMEAN WAR | 476 |
| IV. | OXFORD REFORM—OPEN CIVIL SERVICE | 496 |
| V. | WAR FINANCE—TAX OR LOAN | 513 |
| VI. | CRISIS OF 1855 AND BREAK-UP OF THE PEELITES | 521 |
| VII. | POLITICAL ISOLATION | 544 |
| VIII. | GENERAL ELECTION—NEW MARRIAGE LAW | 558 |
| IX. | THE SECOND DERBY GOVERNMENT | 574 |
| X. | THE IONIAN ISLANDS | 594 |
| XI. | JUNCTION WITH THE LIBERALS | 621 |
| APPENDIX | 635 | |
| CHRONOLOGY | 654 |
Book I
1809-1831