bought a house near Hindhead, in Surrey. The wild scenery and the
heather-covered moors reminded Lady Russell of her native country. Her
interest in politics was very keen, and she supported Mr. Gladstone’s
Irish policy with sympathy and approval. Her letters and journals are
full of defence of Home Rule, and in 1893 she would have made short
work of the House of Lords, for she writes in almost prophetic tones:
“I would simply declare it, by Act of the House of Commons, injurious
to the best interests of the nation and for ever dissolved. Then it may
either show its attachment to the Constitution by giving its assent
to its own annihilation, or oblige us to break through the worn-out
Constitution and declare their assent unnecessary.”
Lady Russell’s health, never very robust, began to fail about 1892; in
1897 she had an illness from which she only partially recovered. Early
in January 1898 she suffered from influenza; bronchitis supervened, and
she died at the age of eighty-three on the 17th. She was buried on the
21st at Chenies, beside her husband.
A memorial to her, erected in the Free Church, Richmond, the place of
worship she attended in her later years, by a few personal friends,
was unveiled by Frederic Harrison on 14th July 1900.
A word may fitly be said here in regard to Lady John Russell’s
religion. Brought up in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, she became
in the latter part of her life a Unitarian. She disapproved of any
doctrine that ascribed to the clergy spiritual functions or privileges
different from those of other men. She shared her husband’s dislike
of the Oxford movement. All her written and oral utterances on the
subject of religion prove that for her it meant love both of God and
man. Once in conversation Herbert Spencer assured her that the prospect
of annihilation had no terrors for him, and Lady Russell confesses
that she was thinking all the time that without immortality life was
“all a cheat, and without a Father in heaven, right and wrong, love,
conscience, joy, sorrow, are words without a meaning, and the Universe,
if governed at all, is governed by a malignant spirit who gives us
hopes and aspirations never to be fulfilled, affections to be wasted,
a thirst for knowledge never to be quenched.” In those thoughts we may
read her Confession of Faith.
She was always for tolerance in religion, and even encouraged
independence of mind in such matters in her children, for she
recognised that the voice of God might not sound the same to the
child as it did to the father and mother, and that a child should
never be afraid to speak freely to its parents. The only book she
ever published--though her letters and journals and the occasional
verses written for family events show literary aptitude and something
more--was _Family Worship_ (1876), a small volume of selections from
the Bible and prayers for everyday use.
Lady John Russell used her very considerable intellectual gifts not for
herself but for others, for her husband, her children, her friends. Her
mind was intensely receptive and ever eager for information. Thinking
always more of others than of herself, she could throw herself into
their thoughts and feelings. Although her lot had been thrown in the
world’s most crowded ways, she was unworldliness itself, and she
seems to have had little belief in the value of experience. When her
eldest son, Lord Amberley, became engaged to be married at the age of
twenty-one, she owned that she might have wished him to wait till he
was a little older, but she continued:
“On the other hand, there is something very delightful in his marrying
while heart and mind are fresh and innocent and unworldly, and I even
add inexperienced--for I am not over-fond of experience. I think it
just as often makes people less wise as more wise.”
Scattered through her letters and diaries are many wise reflections,
and many pointed observations on the great people she knew. Of
Disraeli, when she met him in 1858, she said he was a sad flatterer,
and less agreeable than so able a man of such varied pursuits ought to
be. Speaking of Gladstone’s visit to Scotland in November 1879, she
said: “There is always something that makes me sad in such tremendous
hospitality.” Of a book by her sister-in-law, the _Life and Letters of
Sir Gilbert Elliot, First Earl of Minto_, she wrote: “There are no lies
in it, and therefore you must not expect a great sale.”
She thought much of the position of women, and although as early as
1870 she earnestly wished for legal and social equality for them, she
could not shut her eyes to what woman had already been, “the equal,
if not the superior, of man in all that is highest and noblest and
loveliest.” She strongly disapproved of setting the sexes against one
another, and considered that equal justice should be done to both
without any spirit of antagonism.
Lady John Russell herself is an abiding example of the best type of
woman, quick to sympathise, ready to counsel, who, while admiring her
husband as a statesman and giving him every assistance in his public
career, admired the man more than the politician. After the birth of
their eldest son, she wrote:
“Millions thy patriot voice attend,
Mine, only mine, thy gentler tone;
With thee in blissful gaze to bend
This flow’ret o’er is mine alone.”
It was the quiet, retired life she loved and preferred. Sir Henry
Taylor met her in 1852--she was approaching forty--for the first time
since her girlhood, when he had known her very well indeed. Of their
meeting he wrote: “I recollect some years ago, in going through the
heart of the city, somewhere behind Cheapside, to have come upon
the courtyard of an antique house, with grass and flowers and green
trees growing as quietly as if it was the garden of a farmhouse in
Northumberland. Lady John reminds me of it.” The words fitly sum up
Lady Russell’s character.
IV
LADY PALMERSTON
“Full of vivacity, she surprises and interests; she finds
her chief pleasure in conversing with persons of worth and
reputation, and this not so much to be known to them, as to
know them.”
Lady Palmerston was one of the favourites of fortune. Born of a
distinguished family, sister of one Prime Minister and wife of another,
the trusted confidante of both, endowed by nature with beauty and
charm, with keen intelligence and sprightly wit, she was a queen of
society from eighteen to eighty, and for the last thirty years of that
period an important factor, through her husband, in the great political
affairs of the world.
[Illustration: LADY PALMERSTON
_After Swinton_]
Emily Mary Lamb was born in 1787. She was the only daughter of
Peniston, first Viscount Melbourne, by his wife, Elizabeth Milbanke, a
remarkable woman who exercised a great influence over the members of
her family and of her immediate circle. Lord Byron had great respect
and admiration for her. “If she had been a few years younger,” he
used to say, “what a fool she would have made of me had she thought
it worth her while.” As it was, she remained a valuable and most
agreeable friend to him. Emily Lamb’s brother William, who was later,
as the second Lord Melbourne, to play so great a part in his country’s
history, was eight years her senior. Her education was chiefly directed
to perfecting her in those accomplishments that would add to her charm
and gracefulness, and render her fit to take her place in society.
To dance well, to sing, and to play some musical instrument, to read
aloud in a pleasantly intelligent manner, to have knowledge enough
of books to be able to converse easily on most subjects, to write a
letter in a clear hand and with grace of expression, to understand
the use of the needle and the keeping of simple accounts, would be
deemed sufficient. All this could be accomplished by a governess of
modern attainments, but the best education of girls highly placed in
society was obtained from the conversation of those around them, of the
distinguished men and women who frequented their parents’ houses, and
that sort of education Emily Lamb had in perfection. The young people
of that day had a merry time. At Brocket, the Melbourne’s country
house, there were plenty of outdoor amusements and occupations; the
girls did not play hockey and cricket like their twentieth-century
descendants, but they rode and hunted, fished and walked. In the early
years of the nineteenth century there were the new dances, waltzes and
quadrilles, to be learned, and Emily Lamb must have joined the parties
given at Devonshire House or in her own home, Melbourne House, for the
purpose of practising them. They would assemble at three o’clock in
the afternoon at what was called a “morning” dance, with a cold dinner
laid in one of the back drawing-rooms. The Tango teas of the twentieth
century are not quite such an innovation as has been supposed.
In those days girls married young, and on 21st July 1805 Emily Lamb
was married to the fifth Earl Cowper. Though only eighteen she at once
took her place as one of the leaders of society. The others who with
her ruled the world of fashion were Lady Tankerville, Lady Jersey, and
Lady Willoughby. They all lived to be over eighty, and were friends to
the last. These ladies had such power as leaders of society that it
was said they could even get an important debate in the House postponed
if one of them had fixed a grand dinner on that evening. Lady Cowper
was beautiful, intelligent, and accomplished, and soon became the
most popular of the Lady Patronesses of Almack’s, the most exclusive
and brilliant of fashionable assemblies. When the number of hostesses
entertaining on a large scale was comparatively small, need was felt of
some way of meeting more often, and so in 1764 a man known as William
Almack built a suite of Assembly Rooms in King Street, St. James’s,[24]
where for a subscription of ten guineas a series of weekly balls were
given for twelve weeks. But only those who knew the saints who guarded
its heaven could pass through “Almack’s holy gate.” A contemporary
writer thus describes the Committee which ruled affairs at Almack’s,
and bestowed happiness by granting the vouchers of admission, or
despair by withholding them, as:
“That most distinguished and despotic conclave, composed of their High
Mightinesses the Ladies Patronesses of the balls at Almack’s, the
rulers of fashion, the arbiters of taste, the leaders of _ton_, and the
makers of manners, whose sovereign sway over ‘the world’ of London has
long been established on the firmest basis, whose decrees are laws, and
from whose judgment there is no appeal.”
The Committee was presided over by Lady Jersey, and included, besides
Lady Cowper, the Ladies Castlereagh, Sefton, and Willoughby, and the
Princesses Esterhazy and Lieven. Almack’s was the “seventh heaven” of
the fashionable world, and people would almost sell their souls to gain
admission. Its exclusiveness will be understood when it is realised
that of the three hundred officers of the Foot Guards only six were
admitted.[25] Quadrilles were first danced there in 1815. The rules as
to punctuality and the costume to be worn, especially by the gentlemen,
were extraordinarily strict, and had to be obeyed by all, without
respect of person. One of the rules, that seems, however, to have been
relaxed later, was that no one was to be admitted after 11 p.m. One
night shortly after its enactment that hour had already struck when
an attendant announced that the Duke of Wellington was at the door.
“What time is it?” asked Lady Jersey. “Seven minutes after eleven,
your ladyship.” She paused a moment, and then said with emphasis and
distinctness, “Give my compliments--give Lady Jersey’s compliments to
the Duke of Wellington, and say that she is very glad that the first
enforcement of the rule of exclusion is such that hereafter no one can
complain of its application. He cannot be admitted.” This occurred in
1819. Lady Jersey is described in Disraeli’s _Sybil_, under the name
of Lady St. Julians, as one of the great political ladies who “think
they can govern the world by what they call their social influences.”
Almack’s made a very brilliant scene: the halls were large, beautifully
lighted, and the music and the floor of the best. All the arrangements
tended to ease and comfort, there was no ceremony, no regulations or
managing--that is to say, once within the charmed circle, there were
no hindrances to perfect enjoyment and perfect freedom within the
limits of good breeding. It may be mentioned here that Lord Palmerston,
considered to be something of a dandy in the second decade of the
nineteenth century, was at that time one of the leading lights of
Almack’s, and a special favourite of Lady Jersey and Lady Cowper.
Bulwer, the novelist, who as a young man was a frequenter of Almack’s,
wrote a poem entitled “Almack’s, a Satiric Sketch”[26] in which he
pays testimony to the beauty and charm of Lady Cowper in the following
lines:
“But lo! what lovely vision glides
So graceful through the charmed throng?
Oh, ne’er did Daughter of the tides
The yielding waters float along
With shape as light and form as fair
As those which spell the gazer there.
Enchanting C*w**r, while I muse
On thee--my soul forgets awhile
Its blighted thoughts and darken’d hues,
And softens satire to a smile.”
Both at Panshanger, the Cowper country seat, and in London, Lady
Cowper gathered round her a varied and interesting coterie; among her
guests were the Princess Lieven, the Duchesse de Dino, Talleyrand,
Pozzo, Alvanley, Luttrell, Lord and Lady Holland, Panizzi, and Lord
Palmerston, who from 1809 to 1828 was Secretary-at-War, but without
a seat in the Cabinet. It was not until 1830 that he became Foreign
Secretary and a Cabinet Minister. Lady Cowper was, in fact, his Egeria.
He was attracted by her grace and charm, her intelligence and quick
perception. The letters he wrote to her at this time were chiefly on
political matters, and it is known how he relied and acted on her
judgment. Her brother, Lord Melbourne, whose career she followed with
the deepest interest,--indeed he had few political thoughts apart from
her,--had an equally high estimate of her discernment and sagacity, and
he too asked and acted on her counsel. Thus she was, from the first,
intimately acquainted with politics and affairs.
She bore Lord Cowper three children--one son and two daughters. The
eldest daughter, Emily,--both the girls were beautiful, but especially
the younger, Frances,--married, 9th June 1830, Lord Ashley, eldest son
of the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. All the men, we learn, were in
love with Lady Emily, and it took her some time to make up her mind
to accept Lord Ashley, who was handsome and attractive. Lady Cowper
liked him immensely, indeed she declared in joke that she was more in
love with him than her daughter was, and the girl’s indecision caused
her mother much perturbation of soul. “I shall really break my heart,”
she said, “if she decides against him.” One of Lady Emily Cowper’s
accomplishments as a girl seems to have been recitation, and Princess
Lieven complained how, when on a visit to Panshanger in 1828, one
evening Emily was shouting “Bethgelert” three rooms off,--the Princess
was playing whist,--and that as she had already had to hear “cette
terrible Chanson,” containing thirteen stanzas, twice, she had no wish
to hear it again.
Naturally, Lady Cowper had many admirers, among whom, however, Lord
Palmerston held the chief place, and it was inevitable that a certain
amount of gossip should get about. One day a curious incident caused
Lady Cowper to overhear a conversation about herself. She had, because
the house was full, turned her dressing-room into a bedroom for Rogers.
Luttrell, another guest, came in to talk to Rogers, and neither
realising who was in the next room, began to discuss Lady Cowper and
her “beaux.” Rogers’s voice was too weak for her to hear what he said,
but she heard distinctly Luttrell’s replies, two of which were: “Oh,
come, come, women will have their beaux.” “Well, I really don’t know,
but I have loved her from a child.” It is a warning to guests not to
discuss their hostess when on a visit to her, even in the privacy of
their bedchambers.
Lord Cowper died on 27th June 1837.
No one was greatly surprised when Lady Cowper’s engagement to Lord
Palmerston was announced. Her children disliked the idea of the
marriage, but were ultimately reconciled to it, and became devoted to
their stepfather. The wedding took place on 16th December 1839.
It was only now that Lady Palmerston fully entered into her own, as it
were, and became a real force in public and political life. True, she
was fifty-two years of age, but she had in marvellous fashion preserved
her beauty and even her youth. Indeed, old age itself when it came
scarcely impaired her qualities of mind and heart or her beauty. Moore
records meeting her in June 1839, at a large party, in the sentence,
“Lady Cowper looking as young and handsome as _any_ daughter,” and Lady
Lyttelton, who met her at Windsor in October 1840, mentions that Lady
Palmerston was “in beauty and in great agreeableness and grace.” That
kind of testimony meets us in all the letters and memoirs of the time.
Everybody found her handsome and intelligent and interesting, and to
many men she was associated with their first _beaux jours_ and early
tickets for Almack’s. Her beauty and charm appear in all her portraits,
from the delightful picture of her as a girl by Lawrence to photographs
taken of her as an old woman.
She had fair hair and bright blue eyes, with a clear pink-and-white
complexion. Her expression showed her good-nature and kindliness of
temper. Lady Palmerston had no idea of making herself of importance.
She was deeply and sincerely in love with her husband--to the end
of his life she began her letters to him, “My dearest love,” and
thought it a terrible thing to be separated from him even for a few
days--and it was his career alone that filled her mind. It and it
only was the fixed purpose of her life. She spent herself in helping
him, in furthering his interests and upholding his political views
and acts. She employed her wit and charm and good taste to justify
all he did, and sometimes to soften the bitterness his acts provoked.
She conciliated those whom it was well for him to have on his side,
and sought where possible to render opposition less hostile. Lord
Palmerston took his bride to Carlton Terrace, and in March 1840 he
writes: “We have been giving some dinner and evening parties which
have had a very good political effect, have helped the party, and have
pleased many individuals belonging to it.”
Disraeli, in his striking fashion, has described the difference between
society in Lady Palmerston’s day and in the last decade of the
nineteenth century:
“The great world then, compared with the huge society of the present
period, was limited in its proportions, and composed of elements more
refined though far less various. It consisted mainly of the great
landed aristocracy, who had quite absorbed the nabobs of India, and
had nearly appropriated the huge West Indian fortunes. Occasionally
an eminent banker or merchant invested a large portion of his
accumulations in land, and in the purchase of parliamentary influence,
and was in time duly admitted into the sanctuary. But those vast
and successful invasions of society by new classes which have since
occurred, though impending, had not yet commenced. The manufacturers,
the railway kings, the colossal contractors, the discoverers of
nuggets, had not yet found their place in society and the senate. There
were then, perhaps, more great houses open than at the present day,[27]
but there were very few little ones.
“The season then was brilliant and sustained, but it was not flurried.
People did not go to various parties on the same night. They remained
where they were assembled, and, not being in a hurry, were more
agreeable than they are at the present day. Conversation was more
cultivated; manners, though unconstrained, were more stately; and the
world, being limited, knew itself much better.”
Lady Palmerston’s salon became the headquarters of the Liberal party
and the best barometer as to affairs. She took care, however, that,
while her gatherings retained their exclusiveness, they should not
be limited to politicians of her husband’s party. Distinguished
foreigners, the whole of the diplomatic circle, a sprinkling of men of
letters, were to be seen at her Saturday evening receptions as well
as at Broadlands, Lord Palmerston’s country seat. Lady Palmerston’s
drawing-rooms were neutral ground where men and women of all shades
of opinion met in friendly intercourse. It was this neutrality that
foreigners found so remarkable. A French diplomatist once said to
Disraeli at Lady Palmerston’s reception, “What a wonderful system of
society you have in England! I have not been on speaking terms with
Lord Palmerston for three weeks, and yet here I am; but you see I am
paying a visit to Lady Palmerston.”
She knew all the State secrets, and often acted as her husband’s
private secretary, copying the private letters with her own hand.
The work was enormous, but she never flinched from it. Such was
her discretion that there was no fear of revelations, though she
would sometimes quarrel with the ambassadors or their wives. On one
occasion[28] Persigny, the French ambassador, had to apologise to
her. She talked quite freely about affairs, and wrote of them to her
friends, but always with great astuteness. Thus she would reveal just
enough in order to draw her interlocutor on, knowing full well how and
in what direction the information she gave would work. Many discussions
took place in her drawing-rooms that influenced European affairs. Her
tact and intuition were infallible, and Lord Palmerston always paid
attention to her suggestions.
She had, moreover, keen insight into character. People soon came to
know her influence with her husband, and when they wanted anything of
him, tried to accomplish it through her. She said impatiently in 1846
that they had nothing to give, but were tormented with applications.
Yet she was sometimes instrumental in obtaining posts for those who
sought them. It did happen now and again that her outspoken comments
on current affairs gave annoyance. In 1860, when the Paper Duties Bill
was under discussion, she was present in the gallery during the debate,
and openly expressed her wishes that it might be rejected by a large
majority. Her language so shocked some of the Whigs that the Duke of
Bedford was asked to remonstrate with her on the way she talked. But
there was method in her madness, for when her husband thought as she
did, and was debarred from speaking openly, she voiced his opinions as
her own, and so gained a hearing for them. It will be remembered that
the rejection of the Bill by the House of Lords caused a collision
with the Commons, and Palmerston had, as his biographer puts it, to
vindicate “the rights of the Commons while sparing the susceptibilities
of the Lords.” The duties were repealed in 1861.
In 1841 Lady Palmerston’s daughter, Lady Frances Cowper, who was a
great beauty, and had been one of the train-bearers at Queen Victoria’s
coronation, became engaged to Lord Jocelyn, eldest son of the Earl
of Roden, a clever handsome young man of twenty-eight and a great
traveller. He had been in love with her for three years. He sent his
proposal from Calcutta, but could not wait for the reply, as he had
to start at once for Chusan. He did not return until a year and a
half later, and reached Liverpool without knowing whether he might
not find her married to some one else. But his fair lady had loyally
waited. Lord Jocelyn’s father was a great Tory, but Lady Palmerston
did not allow herself to be disturbed by what she called a trifle,
since she put her daughter’s happiness first, and declared that “love
and politics do not go together.” The marriage took place on 25th
April, and the same year Lady Jocelyn was appointed extra Lady of the
Bedchamber to Queen Victoria. It meant, of course, that the bride and
bridegroom would be much separated, but the Queen promised that the
waiting should be as much as possible in London.