In December 1851 Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, required Lord Palmerston to resign his office of Foreign Secretary, on the ground that he had exceeded his authority as Secretary of State in his communications on his own authority to France with reference to the recognition of the coup d’état of Louis Napoleon. Lord Palmerston had personally expressed his approval of the action to the French ambassador in London. The affair has passed into history and only concerns us here because Lady Palmerston fancied her husband was the victim of a conspiracy. She wrote angrily to this effect to Lord John, whom she had known since 1830, and who was one of her oldest friends. In his reply he told her that the tone of her letter would justify him in not answering it, but it was necessary for him to assure her that there had been no conspiracy, that he had acted alone to save others from responsibility. He further said that the loss of Lady Palmerston’s friendship added to the weight of his regret at the whole business. As a matter of fact, Lord Palmerston was soon asked to go back, and it is quite certain that it was Lady Palmerston who contrived to let it be known in the proper quarter that he was willing and anxious to do so. In 1868 Lady Palmerston asked Lord John, as Palmerston’s oldest and best friend—the italics are hers—to unveil the statue and window to Lord Palmerston’s memory in the town and abbey of Romsey. Lord John was only prevented from acceding to her request by the death of his brother-in-law, Lord Dunfermline. So that the difference between Lady Palmerston and Lord John was not very serious or lasting.
Lady Palmerston thought her husband always in the right, and when he resigned in 1853 because he did not consider the Government’s policy towards Russia sufficiently decided, she wrote to Charles Greville to explain his reasons. Greville called on her, and found her in high good humour, and pleased at the testimonies of approbation her husband had received. But she was again careful to make it known in the right quarters that he had acted hastily and was ready to return, and thus it was in great measure due to her that the difficulty was adjusted. She had written to Monckton Milnes on 2nd December 1853: “Nobody looks very comfortable here; the Turkish question worries a great many, and Reform others, and I believe both might have been avoided.” She used to say that every event in which her husband was concerned left him standing higher than he did before. She was immensely proud of him, liked him to be first, was provoked at Gladstone’s enormous success in 1853, and always hated the idea of her husband being out of office. Therefore, notwithstanding the far harder work entailed both on himself and on herself, she was greatly elated when he became Prime Minister for the first time in 1855. Yet later on she confessed, “I would rather that my husband was only Foreign Minister or Home Secretary, for since he became Prime Minister I see nothing of him. He never comes to bed till four or five o’clock.” Except on Saturdays and Sundays, he hardly ever dined with her. He had his dinner at three p.m., went down to the House at four, and except some tea had nothing till he came home, seldom before one a.m.
Every Saturday evening in the season Lady Palmerston held a reception. In 1858 they left Carlton Gardens for Cambridge House, 94 Piccadilly,[31] and both she and Lord Palmerston took the greatest interest in fitting up and arranging their new abode. At her parties were to be met the best society, consisting almost entirely of distinguished people, for in those days there were not more than about five hundred persons who were what is known as “in Society.” Indeed, Lady Palmerston always wrote the name of the guest on the invitation cards with her own hand, so that she really did know who came to her receptions. Yet, in spite of these precautions, there occasionally appeared a few people who had not been invited. She never betrayed herself, and used to say that, if it amused them to come, they were quite welcome. She was good-natured and patient with bores. But if any member of his own party spoke or voted against Palmerston in the House, he would receive no invitation, and his name would not be replaced on the list until he had thought better of his disloyalty. She could also be very angry with any one who caballed against Lord Palmerston or overstepped the bounds of fair party warfare in attacking him. But even so her anger was shortlived, and she was quick to pardon. Lady Palmerston took much trouble to please the wives of those it was politic to conciliate. Disraeli in Sybil ironically summed up the general rules by which political hostesses were guided when he wrote: “Ask them (i.e. Members of Parliament) to a ball, and they will give you their votes; invite them to a dinner, and if necessary they will rescind them; but cultivate them, remember their wives at assemblies, and call their daughters if possible by their right names, and they will not only change their principles or desert the party for you, but subscribe their fortunes, if necessary, and lay down their lives in your service.”
If there happened to be a political crisis the greatest excitement would prevail at these parties. Sometimes the lion of the evening would be a man who was not generally to be met at fashionable gatherings. In 1859 Cobden was present one evening, and the fashionable ladies stared at him through their glasses as if he had been some strange curiosity, and brought up their friends to stare also.
The Palmerstons also gave dinners which were noted for the sumptuousness of the fare and the distinction of the guests. The only drawback was the extraordinary unpunctuality of the host and hostess. It was useless to arrive at the time stated in the invitation; neither would be ready, not even if it was a big diplomatic dinner. How the cook managed to send up an excellent meal all the same seemed a miracle to the waiting and long-suffering guests, but it is to be supposed that Lady Palmerston named one hour to her guests and another to her cook. A guest relates how, on arriving at 8.30 p.m., he found Lord Palmerston just going out for a ride before dinner in Rotten Row. The grey horse that Palmerston always rode was his wife’s despair, for she had four grey carriage horses, and feared lest people should think he rode one of them. Similar unpunctuality was practised by the Palmerstons when they dined out. At a dinner given by Guizot, when he was Ambassador in London, Lady Holland was a guest. It happened that she had had no lunch and was dying with hunger. All the guests were assembled except the Palmerstons. Lady Holland was at first out of temper, then in despair, and lastly subsided into inanition. When at last the defaulters arrived and a move was made, Lady Holland asked Lord Duncannon to take care of her, as she was sure she should not reach the dining-room without fainting.
Perhaps the social side of Lord and Lady Palmerston was seen at its best in the country-house parties at Broadlands. Broadlands is near Romsey in Hampshire. The house is situated in a fine park, and the river Test flows through the grounds, passing near the house, and adding greatly to the charm of the view from the windows. The architecture is Elizabethan, one room still preserving the beautiful oak panelling, but in the eighteenth century the front was cased in classic architecture with huge porticoes. The interior is commodious and comfortable, and the rooms, which are all of a pleasant size and shape, are full of treasures. The present owner, Mr. Wilfrid W. Ashley, M.P., great-grandson of Lady Palmerston, has arranged the library as it was in Lord Palmerston’s day, with the high desk—he always wrote standing up—and other articles by which the great statesman was habitually surrounded. A billiard-room is a feature of the house, for Palmerston was very fond of the game, and liked to win if his wife was looking on.
In the country Lady Palmerston was a perfect hostess. She understood that foreigners expected to be entertained and not to be left more or less to their own devices, as is the English custom, and was always ready to drive or walk with them. The habit of leaving guests in a country house to look after themselves has grown now almost to an abuse, and sometimes, except that there is no bill to settle at the end, it often seems almost as if one had been staying at an hotel where one chanced to know a few of the other visitors. The parties must have been very interesting. Among the guests at different times were all the ambassadors to Great Britain and their wives, members of all the great English families, and writers like Laurence Oliphant, Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton), and Mrs. Augustus Craven, author of Récit d’une sœur.
The same unpunctuality, however, prevailed at Broadlands as in London. Dinner was nominally at eight, but was seldom on the table before nine. This indifference to time seems to have been innate in Lady Palmerston’s family, for even at Panshanger in 1841, when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were on a visit there, it is recorded that though there was an agreeable absence of formality, everything was immensely unpunctual, and the poor Queen was made to wait for dinner and drives “till anybody but herself would be furious.”
Besides managing the household at Broadlands and Cambridge House, Lady Palmerston had her own property to look after: Brocket, left to her by her brother, Lord Melbourne, and her Scottish estates. She saw into everything herself, inspected all the accounts, and never left anything to servants that was not properly within their province. This gave her constant occupation, and the business connected with her possessions was often of an arduous character. In 1860 there was a good deal of correspondence and trouble over the sale of a mill at Brocket, and in 1862 she paid a visit to her “Scotland estates,” which she had not looked over for nine years. She described it as “something like the treadmill,” with the talking, “walking, inspecting farms and fields and mines, making the agreeable, and listening to all the various conflicting reports on the same subject.” Her labours, she declares, were much increased by “all the glorification and popularity of Palmerston, which burst out on every opportunity.”
In 1861 Palmerston was made Warden of the Cinque Ports. Lady Palmerston evidently went to Walmer Castle, the residence belonging to the office, before her husband had seen it, for she wrote to him that the place was splendid, “so large a house and such a quantity of gardens and trees. I am sure you will be delighted with the place, and the sea is covered with shipping and a beautiful setting sun to light them up.” The beauty of the gardens at Walmer Castle is proverbial.