Lady Holland’s girlhood at Battle Abbey—Her “court” at Holland
House—Her relationship to myself—Her ways—Her insolence—
Anecdotes—Lady Palmerston—Cobden and Lord Palmerston—Lord
John Russell—Lady Jersey and Lady Londonderry—Their social
inluence exerted in favour of Mr. Disraeli—Letters from Lady
Beaconsfield—Her dinners—Lord Lyndhurst and Mr. Disraeli—
Interesting letter from the latter—His difficulties in early
life—His opinion of Mr. Gladstone—An ingenuous diplomatist.
Battle Abbey was purchased by the Duke of Cleveland, then Sir Harry
Vane, in 1857, but within the last few years it has once more become the
property of the Webster family, the present Sir Augustus Webster, with
admirable devotion to the traditions of his line, having repurchased it
when it was put up for sale.
At Battle Abbey once lived the celebrated Lady Holland, who, as
Elizabeth Vassall, daughter of a rich Jamaica planter, became the wife
of Sir Godfrey Webster, the fourth baronet. As a matter of fact, young
Lady Webster was prevented from living in the Abbey itself by Sir
Godfrey’s mother, the Dowager, being made to reside with her husband in
a little house close by; and with the intention of driving away her
mother-in-law, the bride, it is said, attempted to frighten the old lady
by arranging ghostly manifestations and sounds in the Abbey. These,
however, proved of no avail, and merely increased the quarrel between
the old and the young Lady Webster. In the end, indeed, matters reached
such a pitch that Sir Godfrey took his wife abroad, with the result that
at Florence she met Henry Fox, third Lord Holland and the nephew of
Charles James Fox, with whom she eventually eloped.
Old Lady Holland at one time held a sort of “court” at Holland House.
Owing to her elopement, as may well be understood, she was never
received at St. James’s; nevertheless, she was made a great deal of by
the leading ladies of the Whig party, who used to crowd to her evening
receptions, and her youthful escapade was in latter years almost totally
forgotten or overlooked. I well remember being taken to see her, and, on
the occasion of these visits, though imbued with great awe, I did not
find her the terrible old woman of whose sternness I had heard so much;
she was, as a matter of fact, very nice to me. The old Duchess of
Cleveland used, very amusingly, to tell how, as a girl, she once paid a
visit to Holland House, and was treated with the greatest sternness by
its mistress, who cross-examined her (so she would declare) exactly as
if she had come straight out of a charity school, and expressed the
strongest disapproval on learning that her young visitor was allowed a
sitting-room as well as a bedroom in her father’s house. “I think it the
greatest of mistakes,” said Lady Holland, “to allow girls so many
luxuries—unless you marry well you will feel the difference.” In
after-years the Minerva of Holland House sent a message to the Duchess
to come and see her “as an old acquaintance,” but the latter, mindful of
the snubs she had received as a young girl, bluntly refused to go. To
me, as I have said, Lady Holland was most affable; my sister and myself,
however, it should be added, had gone to see her at her special request,
my brother being just engaged to marry Lady Holland’s grand-daughter,
Miss Pellew, whose mother, Harriet, was the daughter born of her first
marriage with Sir Godfrey Webster. In order to prevent her child from
being claimed by its father after her divorce, Lady Webster, as Lady
Holland then was, had caused it to be hidden away; she then pretended it
was dead, and actually had a funeral service performed over the body of
a kid, after which Harriet Webster returned to her mother’s house as an
adopted child. The sham burial is alluded to by Byron, who wrote:—
Have you heard what a lady in Italy did,
When to spite a cross husband she buried a kid?
Many were the stories of her dictatorial ways and passion for
interfering with and upsetting everybody. At times, indeed, she was
positively insolent. She was declared, for instance, on one occasion
when a very shy young man was sitting next her at dinner, to have
plunged her hand into his pocket, drawn out his handkerchief, and, with
a sniff of disgust, given it to the servant behind her chair, with the
words, “Take that to the wash!” In Count D’Orsay, however, Lady Holland
met her match, for, seated next him at dinner during the early days of
his residence in England, she kept letting her napkin slip from her lap,
expecting that the awestruck young foreigner would continue to keep
picking it up, as a commanding motion of the hand on each occasion
directly indicated. Polite at first, he soon wearied of what he
discerned to be no accident but a mere piece of impertinence, which was
effectually checked by the words, “Should I not do better, Madam, to sit
under the table in order to keep passing you your napkin more quickly?”
Lady Holland’s passage-of-arms with the Belgian minister, M. Van de
Weyer, is probably better known. With characteristic bad taste she
jeered him about the Belgians, saying, “Les Belges! Qu’est ce que les
Belges? I never heard of them.” “Madam,” was his grave reply, “it was
some one called Julius Cæsar, a pretty clever fellow, as you may have
heard, who called them by that name.”
Lady Holland could not brook the slightest opposition to her wishes, and
would ever attempt to overcome any obstacles which might stand in the
way of her will. On one occasion, whilst at Tunbridge Wells, she heard
that no stranger was ever allowed to visit Eridge Castle—which, I
believe, up to my cousin’s father’s day was actually the case.
Accordingly, she never rested till she obtained leave to inspect it, and
when this was accorded, marched through the place in triumph with a
large party, in which her maid was even included. Her behaviour, indeed,
even when staying at other people’s houses, was dictatorial in the
extreme. Once, when at Brocket on a self-given invitation to a party
with old Lord Melbourne, she completely upset the household and
installed herself exactly as if she were at home. Her room, as it
happened, chanced to be on the first floor, the windows completely
surrounded by the magnificent flowers of a splendid magnolia. Lady
Holland, however, did not appreciate their scent, which, as she
afterwards casually told Lord Melbourne, was too strong; and, without
asking permission, ordered every blossom to be cut off within
twenty-four hours of her arrival.
In spite of these very unlovable traits of character old Lady Holland, I
believe, had many good points, the chief of which was that she never
bore malice against those who refused to submit to her iron rule.
Indeed, the contrary rather was the case, and those who firmly stood up
to her in no way fell into her bad graces. A staunch and faithful
friend, she was long remembered with gratitude and regret by those who
had known her well, and, in spite of all her faults and her dictatorial
ways, she contrived to make Holland House the resort of the most
cultivated, learned, and clever society of her day.
Although Lady Holland did not owe her position as presiding genius at
Holland House to any especial distinction as a brilliant
conversationalist or wit, she occasionally made some very trenchant and
clever criticisms. Of two old people (a devoted couple who, it was
notorious, had been lovers for many years whilst the wife’s first
husband was yet alive) she said: “Is it not pretty to watch them—they
almost make adultery respectable!”
Lord Holland—a mere cypher in the household—was a man of great
geniality and charm, and no doubt this largely contributed to the
attraction of his wife’s parties. He, poor man, would as soon have
thought of asking any one to dinner without first consulting her as of
attempting to fly. This, perhaps, was no bad thing, for he was so
good-natured that had he been allowed to invite people as the fancy
seized him, Holland House would have been perpetually suffering from a
very invasion; as it was, the dinners there were far too crowded, many
of the guests having to find places at a side-table. Lady Holland, who
liked to do out-of-the-way things, very often chose to dine about two
hours earlier than any one else, alleging her weak health as an excuse,
but, as Talleyrand said, there was probably another reason—to upset
everybody; this she loved to do, not from caprice, but in order to show
her power.
Wielding great social influence, though of a totally different kind from
that exercised by Lady Holland, Lady Palmerston is still remembered by
those who knew her as the most admirable hostess possible to conceive.
At Cambridge House in old days she used to give the most charming
parties imaginable—indeed, I liked them best of all those which I
remember. There is no doubt that her tact and her advice were often of
great political service to her husband.
Lord Palmerston himself was a most adroit man of the world, and besides
this there was in his character a certain not unpleasant mixture of
French levity combined with English familiarity. His social qualities
served him in excellent stead in his political life, for he had a manner
of speaking to people, even to those he did not know, which conveyed the
impression that their name, constituency, and even their family were
perfectly well known to him. By these tactics, and also by asking the
wives of M.P.’s to his parties, he was able to do a great deal in the
way of retarding the passage of any measures which, for a time at least,
he might not be anxious to see pressed forward.
Mr. Bernal Osborne was often a terrible thorn in the flesh to Lord
Palmerston, although nominally a strong supporter of that statesman,
under whom he served as Secretary of the Admiralty in 1857. Towards the
close of his tenure of this office Mr. Osborne, however, became very
dissatisfied, and used to complain that his post had been reduced to
something very like a mere head-clerkship, his duties being limited to
registering minutes of the Board by day and furnishing silent notes by
night. Mr. Osborne, of course, was by nature opposed to control of any
sort, and being, above all, a political free-lance, the holding of
office in any form was quite unsuitable to his disposition, interfering
as it did with those onslaughts for which he was so well known in the
House of Commons. Later on in life he became a trifle more restrained in
his utterances, age causing him to regard everything with more patience.
His long experience of politics, he once said, had sobered him so much
that he could spy good qualities in every one—even in bishops.
Lord Palmerston was a politician in whom the country, as a whole,
reposed the utmost confidence. Though a Liberal, he was a regular John
Bull, and neither “retrenchment” nor “reform” was, I think, particularly
dear to him; whilst, as was well known, any slight to England would be
met with very spirited remonstrances during his tenure of office. There
were those indeed who assailed his Government as not being Liberal at
all. Bernal Osborne, for instance, roundly attacked the Army Estimates
in 1860, when he was particularly severe upon Aldershot, which he
described as “an indifferent preparatory school for forming indifferent
generals.” Later on, when the House had gone into Committee, Osborne
declared that Lord Palmerston (who had characterised his assailant’s
remarks as light and violent) was suffering from the effects of the
Mansion House dinner, combined with the larger doses of colchicum taken
to combat them. Lord Palmerston received this attack in a perfectly
bland manner, merely retorting that colchicum was sedative rather than
exciting, and consequently more suitable to the Honourable Member than
to himself. On another occasion Mr. Osborne applied to Lord Palmerston
the lines—
He frolics with the burden of four score,
adding that the Prime Minister’s fault, nevertheless, was not age but
youth, as was shown by his extravagance—a youthful folly. “He is
indeed,” added he, “never satisfied unless he is squandering the public
money.” This was a pleasantry which Lord Palmerston did not relish at
all, and, it was said, never forgot.
Mr. Cobden disliked Lord Palmerston as a politician, and would often say
to me, “Whatever I may do the old rascal will always insist upon calling
me his honourable friend.” As a matter of fact, Lord Palmerston once
offered the great Free Trader a baronetcy, an offer which was without
hesitation declined.
Lord John Russell was a totally different man, both in manner and
appearance, from Lord Palmerston—short, stumpy, and not at all
good-looking. I only recollect having met him once, on which occasion, I
must say, he was most agreeable. This was at a time when he had taken
Tennyson’s house near us in the country. A great friend of Lord John’s
happening to be one of our guests, it was suggested that we should all
go over in a party, which we did, and were most kindly received. I
especially remember some one pointing out to me a writing-table in the
library with two enormous stains of ink splashed on each side of the
blotting-book. “They are rather remarkable ink-stains,” said my guide;
“the Poet Laureate made one, and the Prime Minister has made the other.”
Bernal Osborne was always giving Lord John nicknames in the House of
Commons. One of these was “a political Mrs. Harris,” another “Dr.
Sagrado.” His Irish policy in particular provoked some extremely
sarcastic attacks from Mr. Osborne, who once declared that it differed
as little from that of the Conservatives as Tweedledum differed from
Tweedledee. “Drainage seemed to him the only thing upon which the
Liberal Cabinet was agreed—a set of Commissioners of Sewers was what it
really was.”
As a girl I was much at Lady Jersey’s house in Berkeley Square, having
been a great friend of her daughter’s. The great lady of her day, she
wielded considerable social influence, which she used, whenever
possible, in favour of Lord Beaconsfield, then plain Benjamin Disraeli,
and not particularly favoured by society in general. As a matter of
fact, Mr. Disraeli had rendered Lady Jersey an important service, having
taken great trouble to assist one of her relatives under peculiarly
delicate circumstances. This she never forgot, and did everything she
could to help him. Another great lady who also lent her aid to the young
politician was Lady Londonderry, who used to hold a sort of court at
Holdernesse House (now Londonderry House). Here she would receive her
guests sitting on a daïs under a canopy. To me she was always most
affable, but I could not with truth say that, as a general rule, she
took much trouble to entertain those who came to her receptions; indeed,
she exhibited great hauteur, and sometimes took little notice of them.
Some great ladies in old days (but not the very clever ones) gave
themselves great airs; small wonder, when they were brought up to think
they were the very salt of the earth. One there was whose behaviour at
her parties was so frigidly condescending that people used to ask one
another, “Are you going to see Lady —— insult her guests to-night?”
Nevertheless, as I have said, Lady Londonderry joined with Lady Jersey
in doing everything possible to assist and push on Benjamin Disraeli,
with the result that their efforts were eventually crowned with success.
I remember Lady Chesterfield (who, after Lady Beaconsfield’s death, was
a devoted friend of the great statesman; indeed he wanted, and I think
actually proposed, to marry her) saying to me how strange that she
should not have known Dizzy in old days. But it was not so strange after
all; for at the beginning of his career there were many who fought shy
of him, and later on certain people disliked his wife. Lady Beaconsfield
was, however, a dear friend of mine, and I was much grieved at her
death. Her handwriting was, I think I may say, the worst I ever saw, so
different from her husband’s, which was firm, clear, and easy to read.
Nevertheless, she wrote bright little letters, which gave one excitement
as well as pleasure, for to discover their meaning was much like
deciphering a cuneiform inscription. The following is a specimen of her
style:—
GROSVENOR GATE,
_May 9, 1859_.
MY DEAR DOROTHY—I have a portrait same as yours. Under mine is
written in old English letters: “Forti nihil difficile”—nothing
difficult to the brave—which I put because it is Dizzy’s motto,
and I think he has earned it. At the back of the
portrait—“Dizzy, 1859.” It stands on my table in one of the new
sort of frames. He will write his name on the portrait if you
prefer it. Town is going to be very gay, at least the Palace.
Comte Persigny comes here as Ambassador very soon, to our
party’s great dismay. Duc de Malakoff very sorry to go—kiss’d
Lord Malmesbury on each cheek! When are you coming to town?
Dizzy begs his love to you, and kind regards to Mr.
Nevill.—Affectionately yours,