Do I identify more with the Duke of Omnium, or with Lord Silverbridge, as the Duke tells Isabelle Boncassen, "My boy's wife shall be my daughter in very deed"? Would I be so close to tears when he gives her his late wife's ring, if I had not known Glencora through the previous five novels of the Palliser series? The Duke's Children stands up very well on its own, but its force is clearly enhanced by its predecessors. While the characters from previous novels may be received as old friends in new stages of their lives, their children may be presented as various mixtures of their parents' personalities. The reader greets the children in the process of making the transition to adulthood with the pleasure of recognition of the character traits of the parents.
Lady Glencora, Duchess of Omnium, has died in the interval between The Prime Minister and The Duke's Children, but her influence persists. She has sanctioned the suit of Francis Tregear, an impoverished commoner, for the hand of her daughter Lady Mary without the Duke's knowledge. So here is a variation on the theme of Glencora's love for the worthless Burgo Fitzgerald, which she never pretended to give up after her arranged marriage to Plantagenet Palliser. We find her daughter Lady Mary perhaps less reckless but even more persistent, and successful, in her chosen love. Tregear has apparently gotten over his previous love for Lady Mabel Grex, whom the Duke favors for his son's wife, and Tregear shows himself to be a more worthy individual than the dissolute Burgo.
Lord Silverbridge sows his wild oats as one would expect of Glencora's son, but like Prince Hal, he grows appropriately into recognition of his responsibilities. The reader sees, before the Duke brings himself to acknowledge it, that Silverbridge makes a wise choice in his selection of the American Isabelle Boncassen as the object of his affections.
Gerald, the younger son, plays a lesser role but manages to repent of some relatively minor offenses: he manages to continue with college studies, and his gambling debts do not compare in magnitude to those of his older and more richly endowed brother.
New blood is brought into the family, new faces appear in the story. The woman who brings a bit of spice is Lady Mabel Grex. She has loved her childhood friend, Francis Tregear, but she decided that since they were both penniless, each had better marry for money. (Shades of Lady Laura Standish!) Tregear goes on to better things, as bees flit from flower to flower, but Lady Mabel never loses her love. She reveals herself when she confides to her older companion Miss Cassewary that Lord Silverbridge would have proposed to her if she had given him any encouragement, but "I spared him;—out of sheer downright Christian charity! I said to myself, 'Love your neighbours.' 'Don't be selfish.' 'Do unto him as you would he should do unto you,'—that is, think of his welfare. Though I had him in my net, I let him go. Shall I go to heaven for doing that?"
Isabel Boncassen, her successor in the Duchess of Omnium sweepstakes, faces different challenges from those that confront Lady Mabel. Frankly in love with Silverbridge, her disadvantage is one not readily appreciated on this side of the Atlantic: she is American. As Lady Mabel is revealed in the above passage, so we see Isabel as she walks with Silverbridge among the old graves at Matching and hears him tell her how Sir Guy ran away with half a dozen heiresses.
"Nobody should have run away with me. I have no idea of going on such a journey except on terms of equality,—just step and step alike." Then she took hold of his arm and put out one foot. "Are you ready?"
The action of the story is all carried out by the young people. They gamble and lose, they fall in love, they run for office, they scheme and dally, they sin and reform. But the story is really about the one person who doesn't do anything: the Duke of Omnium. Grieved by the sudden loss of his wife and forced to deal with issues she would have addressed—basically, the children—he is forced to learn that where the children are concerned, even the Duke is far from omnipotent. One who had stated that he would prefer the House of Commons to the House of Lords, he is found defending the order and telling his children of their obligation to marry within their rank. He instructs Miss Boncassen on the opportunity that the poorest man in England has to rise by merit to the highest office in the land, and he has long conversations with Isabel on the advantages of a decimal coinage system, but it never occurs to him that her wit and beauty should outweigh the rank of Lady Mabel Grex as qualifications for becoming his son's wife.
Lest the reader miss the irony, Trollope spells it out in telling the reader that in his heart of hearts the Duke kept his own family and his own self entirely apart from his grand theories. "That one and the same man should have been in one part of himself so unlike the other part,—that he should have one set of opinions so contrary to another set,—poor Isabel Boncassen did not understand."
The Duke must decide whether to give his blessing to two marriages to which he has been unalterably opposed. And his guide and counselor in these issues is his late wife's best friend, Mrs. Phineas Finn, the former Madame Max Goesler. Stubborn and taciturn, he is not an easy pupil. And she must first overcome his anger when he discovers that she had not come immediately to him when Lady Mary told her of her engagement to Mr. Tregear. Of course his late wife had first sinned in this way, but Marie Goesler Finn is the scapegoat for Glencora just as Alice Vavasor had been when Glencora insisted on walking in the priory ruins on a cold night, despite Alice's objections, and caught cold. Mrs. Finn refuses to be shunned by the Duke, becomes his confidante, and she continues in her role as the only character in the entire Palliser series who is always right. Married to Phineas Finn, who had once refused her own proposal of marriage to him, we see very little of their interaction in married life. But in her role as best friend to Glencora, we saw her as a voice of reason when Glencora was flighty, and later as one who would rouse the phlegmatic Duke to deal appropriately with Silverbridge's and Lady Mary's choices.