The Prince of Wales, to whom he communicated news of his engagement before the public announcement, wrote warm congratulations and wishes for dispersal of the overhanging trouble. Mr. Gladstone, who had frequent occasion to write to him on public business, in one of these political letters added congratulations on the engagement, though he had made no allusion to the Divorce Court proceedings. But Mr. Gladstone's chief private secretary, Sir Edward Hamilton, had written at the first publication of them this assurance:
'You may depend upon it that your friends (among whom I hope I may be counted) are feeling for you and will stand by you; and, if I am not mistaken, I believe your constituents will equally befriend you; indeed, I am convinced that the masses are much more fair and just than the upper classes. Anything that interfered with your political career would not only be a political calamity, but a national one; and I do not for a moment think that any such interference need be apprehended.'
This letter represented the attitude that was generally observed towards
Sir Charles Dilke by political associates till after the first trial.
Mr. Chamberlain's support was unwavering, though there were some who anticipated that the misfortunes of the one man might disastrously affect the political career of the other.
It is true that by the amazing irony of fate which interpenetrated this whole situation the Tories gained in Mr. Chamberlain their most powerful ally, and that Sir Charles had to encounter all the accumulated prejudice which the 'unauthorized programme' had gathered in Tory bosoms. But none of these things could be foreseen when Chamberlain, then in the full flood of his Radical propaganda, invited Sir Charles to make his temporary home at Highbury. Here, accordingly, he stayed on through August and the early part of September, breaking his stay only by two short absences. There still lived on at Chichester old Mr. Dilke's brother, a survivor of the close-knit family group, preserving the same intense affectionate interest in Charles Dilke's career. To him this blow was mortal. Sir Charles paid him in the close of August his yearly visit: ten days later he was recalled to attend the old man's funeral in the Cathedral cloisters.
In the middle of September he crossed to France, and waited at Saint Germain for Mrs. Pattison, who reached Paris in the last days of the month. On October 1st Sir Charles crossed to London; she followed the next day, and on the 3rd they were married at Chelsea Parish Church. Mr. Chamberlain acted as best man.
III.
Return to England meant a return to work. The General Election was fixed for November; and from August onwards Dilke had been drawn back by correspondents and by consultations with Chamberlain into the stream of politics, which then ran broken and turbulent with eddies and cross- currents innumerable. Chamberlain, sustaining alone the advanced campaign, wrote even before the marriage to solicit help at the earliest moment; and from October onwards the two Radicals were as closely associated as ever—but with a difference. Circumstances had begun the work of Sir Charles's effacement.
When the election came, his success was personal; London went against the Liberals, his old colleague Mr. Firth failed, so did Mr. George Russell in another part of the borough, which was now split into several constituencies; but Chelsea itself stood to its own man. The elections were over on December 19th. Before that date it was apparent that the Irish party held the balance of power, and Mr. Gladstone had already indicated his acceptance of Home Rule. [Footnote: Chapter XLV., p. 196.]
Parliament met early, and by January 28th, 1886, the Tory Government had resigned. Mr. Gladstone, in framing his new Administration, thought it impossible to include a man suffering under a charge yet untried, and wrote: