Lord Lyons: A Record of British Diplomacy, Vol. 2 of 2

by Baron Thomas Wodehouse Legh Newton

His nature was certainly lonely, and I believe from quite early in life he was conscious of suffering from loneliness. I have been told of a letter of his written from school in which this was quite clearly set forth. In later life he would never have expressed so much. What he felt and thought on any intimate question can, I think, only be inferred by his comments on life in general, or on the sorrows and joys of others. Once only I believe did he take any part in directly influencing the lives of young people in the critical question of marriage. The daughter of an old friend, with a courage in her confidence which seems to me almost phenomenal, told him the story of a mutual affection existing between her and a young man who did not seem to her parents to be a sufficiently good match. Lord Lyons listened with the utmost attention, and eventually interceded with his old friend, speaking of the terrible danger of causing irremediable pain to two young hearts, and was the means of making these young people happy. Was there, perhaps, in this action some reminiscence of a possible past happiness lost by himself? No one can even make the faintest surmise as to whether this was the case. He made no allusion to his own past when telling the story.

Of his childhood I know little, but there is a toy preserved in the family that gives a curious and characteristic foretaste of what he was to become. It is a miniature escritoire fitted with pen and paper and seals, and also soap and towels, etc. All this was supposed to belong to the children's dog, who was promoted in their games to the position of an Ambassador, and described as 'His Excellency.' There are still existing despatches written to and by 'His Excellency' in the handwriting of the four children.

I think he must have been too old to have joined in his sister Minna's bit of naughtiness when at Malta she put snuff in the guitar of a young exquisite who had provoked their mirth, and whose name was Benjamin Disraeli.

He used to say that among his most vivid recollections of his boyhood while at Malta, was the unexpected return of his father and the fleet. The children had been deeply engaged in preparing theatricals which were postponed on account of their father's arrival. He remembered his guilty feeling that he ought to be glad, and that he was not glad at all!

It was not at first intended that Bickerton Lyons should enter the diplomatic service; he began life in the navy. But Bickerton, unlike his brother Edmund, had no vocation for the sea. The sorrow of Edmund's loss, who died at Therapia, from a wound received when commanding his ship in the Sea of Azoph during the Crimean war, was a shadow that never passed from the lives of the other three. Bickerton was deeply attached to both his sisters and their families. Annie married Baron Wurtzburg, and Minna married Lord Fitzalan, afterwards Duke of Norfolk. Other relations with whom he was in close intimacy all his life were his aunt, Mrs. Pearson and her children, especially her daughters, Mrs. Lister Venables and Mrs. Little, who both survived him.

All his life Lord Lyons was devoted to children, and especially so to the large family of the Duchess of Norfolk, with whom he was able to indulge his domestic tastes and his love of fun. He spent with them the greater part of every holiday, and in the last twenty-five years of his life they were frequently with him in Paris. My mother, Lady Victoria, the eldest of the family, married very young, and my aunt Minna, the second daughter, became a Carmelite nun. Mary, the eldest of the sisters who remained at home, was Lord Lyons's constant companion and secretary. I think she was the only person who did not experience the strong sense of his reserve which so impressed those who had to do with him even in everyday intercourse. In a very serious state of health which followed his work at Washington he depended greatly on the companionship of his nieces. I have been told that for months he could not raise his head, and the only thing he could do by himself was to play with glass balls on a solitaire board. During this interval in his career, before he accepted the Embassy at Constantinople, he had more leisure than usual for the society of his sister's family, but he had always been devoted to them when they were quite little children, and was once described as 'an excellent nursery governess.' He said to his sister: 'I could never have married; it would not have been right, as I could never have loved my own children as much as I love yours.'

Into this near association with him my sisters and I were more closely drawn after the death of our parents. We had lost our mother in the winter of 1870, and my father, James Hope-Scott, died in the spring of 1873. It was then that my grandmother took us to live with her at Arundel, and we were added to the large family party who had often stayed with him in Paris. My own earliest recollections of my great-uncle are tinged with an awe which no amount of time spent with him ever quite overcame; but it did not prevent great enjoyment of all the fun we had with him. He was certainly very indulgent to the younger members of the family circle, particularly my brother, who was some years younger than the rest of us, and this was especially the case when we were his guests.

I think that what inspired awe was the immense strength of character, the reserved force, the severely controlled natural irritability. He had, too, a humorous vehemence of expression which seemed at times to be a safety valve to the forces he had under control, and was a reminder of their existence.

I suppose that nothing could be imagined more stately and more regular than life at the Embassy in those days. The Ambassador himself lived in a routine of absolute regularity and extremely hard work. He got up at seven, had breakfast at eight, and was, I think, at work by nine o'clock. His very small leisure, when he was alone, was mostly spent in reading. And this was carefully classified in three divisions. In the morning he read history or science, in the evening, between tea and dinner, biography; while, for an hour before he went to bed he read novels. While in France he never left the Embassy. Once a year he did leave it for his annual holiday—generally spent in England. He used to boast how many nights in succession—I think in one year it amounted to over 300—he had slept in the same bed. Every afternoon when we were with him, he drove with my grandmother, generally in the Bois de Boulogne, and in the warm weather we always stopped at some café for us children to have ices. He also took us to the circus once during each visit until, in later life, he became afraid of catching cold. He still occasionally went to the theatre, to which he had been much devoted as a younger man. We all dined downstairs, and he used to like my youngest sister and my brother to sit at a little table near the big one and have dessert. He insisted on this, and was rather pleased than otherwise at the scolding he received from an English friend for keeping them up so late. In later life he used to speak of the pretty picture the two children had made.

I recollect the extraordinary general sense of importance as to his movements in those days, partly on account of their phenomenal regularity. I could not imagine him ever acting on impulse, even in the matter of going up or downstairs. I cannot picture him strolling into his own garden except at the fixed hour. This without intention added to the dignity of his life which seemed to move like a rather dreary state procession.