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

by Baron Thomas Wodehouse Legh Newton

His recollections of the society of his youth in these houses had some amusing details. I think it was at the Duchess of Bedford's that there was a Christmas tree, off which each young man visitor was given a piece of flowered silk for a waistcoat. Early next morning, at Mr. Lyons's suggestion, one of the young men, provided with a list of the names and addresses of the tailors employed by the others, went up to London and brought back all the waistcoats made up in time to be worn at dinner that evening. He used to speak with some amusement of the ungraciousness of Rogers, the poet, whom he met at the Derbys'. On one occasion Rogers had lost his spectacles, and Mr. Lyons went a long way in the big house to find them. Rogers who was drinking tea took the spectacles, but did not thank him, and, a moment later, when he heard Mr. Lyons refusing sugar, he observed to the company: 'That young man, having nothing else to be proud of, is proud of not having sugar with his tea!'

I don't suppose that he talked much as a young man, and probably he followed the rule he always preached, that young men should speak 'little but often.'

Among the few serious sayings to be quoted from him was that the great axiom in diplomacy was 'Never do anything to-day that can be put off till to-morrow.'

In speaking of Leo XIII. and his successful policy with Bismarck, he said: 'Those very clever men succeed by doing what no one expects. My success has been made by always doing what was expected of me. I always did the safe thing.'

In conversation he enjoyed a Johnsonian style of repartee. One retort of his had an excellent practical result. He acted as a special constable in London during the Chartist Riots. Hearing a woman in the dense crowd cry out, 'Let me faint, let me faint,' he turned to her at once, and said: 'Pray do, madam,' whereupon she recovered immediately.

Soon after the Berlin Conference when the Disraeli party were making the most of the accession of Crete, a visitor at the Embassy, gushing over its charms concluded with the assertion that Crete was the loveliest island in the world. Whereupon Mr. William Barrington (now Sir William Barrington) said drily: 'Have you seen all the others?' This amused Lord Lyons immensely, and some years afterwards when a young lady who was and is still famous for her powers of conversation had talked at him for some time, he adopted the same method. After a good many other sweeping assertions she said of some work that had just come out: 'It is the best written book that has appeared this century.' 'Ah,' he said, 'have you read all the others?' Being alone with her soon afterwards I was not surprised at her inquiring of me dubiously whether I liked my great-uncle.

It need hardly be said that, in the matter of his personal religion, Lord Lyons was very reticent. He was absolutely regular in his attendance at the Sunday service in Paris and in England. He was very fond of the singing of English hymns.

He never had any sympathy with the ritualist party in the Church of England, and was inclined to be sarcastic as to those whom he designated 'Puseyites,' as was then the custom.

One who knew him very well told me that for a time he was somewhat unsettled in the matter of definite religious belief. There is also evidence that in middle life the idea of joining the Catholic Church had been present to him as a possibility. As far as can be known it was during the last summer of his life that he began to consider the question practically. It is not surprising that Lord Lyons, when he took the matter up, showed the same characteristics in its regard that he had shown in any serious question throughout his life, namely, the greatest thoroughness and care in studying the Catholic religion and in carrying out its practical side, reserve as to deep sentiment, not without humorous touches which were intensely characteristic. Newman's works formed the chief part of his study during those summer months. A letter written in that August says of him, 'He is always reading Newman.' It was not until shortly before his death that he spoke on the matter to any of the family. A note in the writing of his secretary and intimate friend—Mr. George Sheffield—says that he spoke of it six weeks before his death. Lord Lyons had known Bishop Butt for many years when he was parish priest at Arundel, and it was to him that he applied for advice. He studied the Penny Catechism most carefully, learning the answers by heart, like a child. He began to fulfil the practices of a Catholic with great regularity. He went to Mass daily at ten o'clock, and adopted little habits of self-denial and showed greater liberality in almsgiving. The last honour he ever received was the offer of an earldom on his retiring from the Paris Embassy. He suggested to Dr. Butt that it would be a good act of mortification to refuse this honour, but the Bishop would not advise him to do so. He began, against his usual custom, to give money to crossing-sweepers or beggars in the streets, and I am told by my aunt, Lady Phillippa Stewart, that, after returning from my wedding, he said to her: 'Is it not customary after an event of this kind to give money in alms?' He then suggested that he should make some offering to the hospitals and asked her to write out the names of those she thought would be the most suitable. It was about ten days before my marriage in November, 1887, that I first heard of his intentions. I learnt it in a fashion very characteristic of him. I was not staying in the house, but I had been dining with him when he remarked casually: 'Really, my austerities are becoming alarming. I have given up soup for dinner and jam for breakfast.' This struck me as a novel proceeding, as I knew his fondness for jam and that the ordinary routine of dinner beginning with a clear soup was a fixed ceremonial with him. That night I questioned my aunt, who told me that he had been for some weeks preparing to join the Church. It was at this time that he said to one of the family: 'I am now ready to be received as soon as the Bishop likes.' He also characteristically consulted his nephew, the Duke of Norfolk, as to whether he ought to inform Lord Salisbury of his intention of becoming a Catholic. He did not, during these weeks, know that he was in any danger. The last time I saw my great uncle was at my wedding. He had a stroke about ten days afterwards, and to all appearance became unconscious. Dr. Butt, knowing what his intentions had been, had no hesitation in giving him conditional Baptism and Extreme Unction. I was at the funeral at Arundel, and saw the coffin lowered into the vault in the Fitzalan Chapel, where his sister Minna had been placed two and a half years earlier.

I feel most strongly as I conclude these very imperfect notes, how entirely Lord Lyons belonged to a generation of Englishmen now long passed away. The force of will, the power of self-devotion, the dignity, the reticence, the minute regularity, the sense of order, the degree of submission to authority and the undoubting assertion of his own authority towards others—all were elements in a strong personality. There are, no doubt, strong men now, but their strength is of a different kind. Englishmen to-day are obliged to be more expansive and unreserved. No fixed routine can be followed now as then; no man can so guard his own life and his own personality from the public eye. Lord Lyons was not of the type that makes the successful servant of the democracy. Fidelity, reticence, self-effacement, are not the characteristics that are prominent in the popular idea of the strong man to-day. But no one who knew Lord Lyons can doubt that those qualities were in him a great part of his strength. He was and must always be to those who knew him very much of an enigma, and it certainly would not have been his own wish that any great effort should be made to interpret his inner life to the world at large.