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For my parents
Acknowledgements
This book started life as a footnote in an undergraduate essay. In its journey from there to here, it has racked up countless debts. I will only be able to acknowledge some of them here.
The School of History at UEA has provided a supportive home for many years. There is not enough room to thank all of my floor 4 colleagues, but they have provided exemplary models of how to be exceptional scholars: I have learnt so very much from them all. There are a few colleagues I would like to mention. Stephen Church, Thomas Otte, and Peter Waldron have, at various points, taken time out of their work to talk about mine. I have benefited a great deal from the advice and support of Antony Howe and Emma Griffin. Both have been supportive colleagues, who have commented on numerous draft chapters: thank you. Geoff Hicks has encouraged this project more than anyone else. I am so grateful for his enthusiasm, critical eye, and friendship. It is still not as easy as it should be to be a female academic and I am indebted to Cathie Carmichael and Jess Sharkey for finding me some extra time when I was juggling maternity leave and book deadlines. Since my appointment to UEA, I have had the very good fortune to share an office with Jayne Gifford: she—and Jess—have been the best of friends.
Further afield, this book has benefited from the intellectual generosity of several academics. I am indebted to Angus Hawkins for his interest in the project and his comments and questions on the various drafts he read without complaint. John Vincent always responded to my letters seeking yet more obscure details about the Derbys. I am grateful to the four readers of the original submission, and the final version, for their constructive criticism and engagement with the work. Over the years, the research in this book has been presented at the following seminars and conferences: the British International History Group; Women’s History Network; Politics Before Democracy at UEA; Modern British History Conference at St Andrews; German Institute of Historical Research; and the Institute of Historical Research. I am grateful to the participants and audience members for their questions.
Searching for Lady Derby in the archives has not been easy. Countless archivists have answered my never-ending questions with patience and insight. In particular, I would like to thank: Robin Harcourt-Williams and Vicki Perry at Hatfield House, and Stephen Lloyd at Knowsley Hall. I thank the following for allowing me permission to use material from their collections: the Master and Fellows of Balliol College, the Marquis of Salisbury, Lord Derby, the Botherwick Institute, the Rothschild Archive, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and Durham University Library.
The initial research for this book was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and would not have been possible without their financial support. The Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of East Anglia, provided funds to cover the image rights. Sarah Whale at Hatfield House, and Stephen
Acknowledgements
Lloyd and Ashleigh Griffin at Knowsley Hall, helped with the images for this book. I am grateful to Sally Osborn for all her help in the final stages of editing.
The team at Oxford University Press have been unfaltering in their support. Robert Faber found a lost email and commissioned this book: his belief in the project was hugely important. Cathryn Steele has been a wonderful editor for this first-time author; I thank her for her enthusiasm, patience, and professionalism. My greatest debts are to my family. Andy Willimott has shown more interest in Victorian aristocrats than is perhaps healthy for a historian of the Russian Revolution. His love and support have made this book possible. Our daughter was born as I was finalizing the first draft of this book—together, father and daughter have made life while finishing a book full of joy and happiness. My siblings, Kate and James, do not care for Disraeli or Gladstone, but do care for their sister: thank you. My parents have always told me you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time; turns out they were right. Thank you for all your love and support. This is for you.
PART I. THE POLITICS OF HOME
1. ‘History will judge us right’: A Political
2. ‘It is the next best thing to a “chat” in St J squ’: Politics by Letter
‘We’ve kept the envelopes, not the letters’: Mary’s Archive
‘I dare say you have much better information than I’: Mary’s Letters
‘The best informed lady on political subjects in England’:
3. ‘The most attentive hostess in the world’: Politics at Home
The Landscape of Political Culture
‘I heard so often about Hatfield and its Châtelaine’: Political entertaining as Marchioness of Salisbury
‘I deeply regret the affairs of last night’: Mary and the Politics of Reform
‘There was a lot of political interest in’: Entertaining at Knowsley and 23 St James’s Square
PART II. THE POLITICS OF WESTMINSTER
4. ‘That Miserable Party Spirit’: Mary and the Conservative Party
‘The lifelessness, utter stagnation’: In Opposition, 1868–1874
‘Breaking the Ground’: Mary and the Formation of the 1874 Cabinet
‘Cabinet’s drift into policy’: In Government, 1874–1878
5. ‘Begin afresh’: Mary and the Liberal Party
‘Bring useful men together’: Mary’s Political Isolation 1878–1880
‘Making some great mistake or gaucheries’: Derby’s Political Neutrality
‘An act likely and intended to influence voters’: Mary and the Elections of 1880
‘Got themselves into trouble’: The Politics of Ireland 110 ‘Wd do better in an emergency’: Derby’s Appointment to Gladstone’s Cabinet, 1882
6. ‘Amphibious Agents’: Aristocratic Women and Diplomatic Culture
‘I have not heard of it! What was it?’: Mary’s Diplomatic Apprenticeship
‘Putting your views before the F Secy’: Mary’s Diplomatic Methods
‘What diplomacy was about’: Mary’s Diplomatic Ideas
7. ‘I am behind the Scenes’: The Eastern Crisis I
‘I have never been able to see a ray of light’: The Bulgarian Horrors
‘I see the hideous complications of red tape & diplomacy’: The Constantinople Conference
‘My small efforts’: The March Protocol
‘Morbid depression and melancholy’: Political and Personal Anxieties, Spring 1877
8. ‘I Should be open to the still graver charge of betraying H. M. Govt.’: The Eastern Crisis II
‘We all seem to be holding our breaths & waiting’: Uncertainty and the Russo-Turkish War
‘Je me refuse d’être warned’: Gossip and Rumour during Christmas 1877
‘Not of the slightest consequence’: The Politics of 1878
0.1. The West family.
Introduction: Aristocratic women and Victorian political culture
On the morning of 19 December 1877, Mary Catherine went on a walk around St James’s Park with her second husband, the fifteenth Earl of Derby. With the ground frozen and thick white fog hanging in the air, the pair shared their plans for the next few days.1 While Derby would spend a few days in London, tying up his political business—he was Foreign Secretary, and Britain was in the midst of a major diplomatic crisis—Mary would travel to their country estate, Knowsley Hall in Lancashire, to begin the preparations for Christmas. She did not know then that her plans for a quiet break from the febrile atmosphere of political London would be short-lived. On 27 December, Mary heard a whisper of the gossip that had been whipping its way around the country. The tongues of political society were all telling the same story: that the Queen believed that Mary had committed treason. It cannot have been comfortable listening. The following day, the Queen’s chaplain confirmed the gossip, as Mary told a friend: ‘I have got it all chapter & verse from the Dean of Windsor—the Queen has complained & says she knows it is I who have told all the secrets . . . ’2 With Britain and Russia on the verge of war, political society had been speculating about how details of cabinet discussions were making their way to St Petersburg. The Queen’s accusation made it clear: the monarch, like many others, believed Mary was the ‘great culprit’.3
This remarkable episode is just one example of the central role Mary played in the politics of Victorian Britain. Yet, it is an episode that has only received lip service from historians. When the rumours that surrounded Mary appear in accounts of the politics and diplomacy of 1877, it has often been as a tantalizing aside. The lack of substantive engagement with Mary’s political activity and function in 1877 reflects a wider feature of the historiography of Victorian politics that has seen Mary and her political activities largely overlooked. Despite occupying a significant position in political society for four decades, Mary’s activities and influence have received little attention. Save for two edited collections of her letters and an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, her call to be ‘judged right’
1 Derby diary, 19 January 1877, in J. Vincent (ed.), A Selection from the Diaries of Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby, between September 1869 and March 1878, (London, 1994) p. 466.
2 Mary to Thomas Sanderson, undated 1877, Derby MSS.
3 Disraeli to Salisbury, 24 December 1877, Salisbury MSS, ff. 265–267.
2
Mary, Countess of Derby, and the Politics of Victorian Britain by history has gone unanswered.4 The desire to restore Mary back to the position she occupied in Victorian politics is one of the aims of this book. To do so, it reconstructs the political culture in which Mary operated and explores how Mary was able to exert influence at the centre of Westminster politics. At its heart, this book offers an answer to one question: what does a life in politics tell us about political life in Victorian Britain?
In order to answer that question, this book explores Mary’s political activities during the middle decades of the Victorian era, from the early 1850s through to the 1880s. During these years, high politics dominated Mary’s life. Unlike some of her contemporaries, it was the politics of Westminster, rather than the politics of the constituency, which occupied Mary’s time. For four decades, she worked alongside some of the most influential politicians of the time, from political grandees to emerging MPs, from eminent British diplomats to European royalty. Such friendships facilitated her involvement in the processes and practices of high politics and diplomacy. In varying ways, and to varying degrees of success, Mary found herself involved in many of the key political events of the mid nineteenth century. These included the passing of the Second Reform Act of 1867, the formation of Disraeli’s 1874 government, the Eastern Crisis of 1875–1878, and Gladstone’s 1880–1885 government. Exploring Mary’s involvement in the intricacies of parliamentary government offers up new ways of thinking about aristocratic political culture. It not only foregrounds the importance of informal methods and spaces in rendering formal politics possible but also illuminates the ability of some individuals to exercise considerable political influence despite constitutional restrictions.
Rather than offer a straightforward biographical account of Mary’s life, this book uses Mary’s political activities as a guide to explore aspects of Victorian political culture. It is concerned with how one woman was able to anchor herself in the daily practices of Westminster life, and thus, in contrast to much of the work on the political activities of Victorian women, the focus here is almost entirely on the processes of high politics. In examining Mary’s activities, this study stresses the importance of informal practices and informal influence to the workings of Westminster politics. In doing so, it offers a critical intervention in two historiographical discussions. The first has focused on Victorian political culture, while the second has charted the political activity undertaken by nineteenthcentury women.
4 Mary discusses her desire to be ‘judged right’ here: Mary to Carnarvon, 21 December 1877, Carnarvon MSS, 60765, ff. 147–8. In the early twentieth century, Lady Burghclere, one of Lord Carnarvon’s daughters, edited two collections of Mary’s letters: A Great Man’s Friendships. Letters of the Duke of Wellington to Mary, Marchioness of Salisbury 1850–1852, (London, 1927) , and A Great Lady’s Friendships: Letters to Mary, Marchioness of Salisbury, Countess of Derby, 1862–1890, (London, 1933); P. Ghosh, ‘Stanley [née Sackville-West], Mary Catherine, countess of Derby [other married name Mary Catherine Gascoyne-Cecil, marchioness of Salisbury]’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, first published online 23 September 2004.
VICTORIAN POLITICAL CULTURE
One of the contentions of this book is that by paying close attention to the interaction between Mary and the processes of governance in Victorian Britain, we are afforded a fuller picture of Victorian political culture than might otherwise be the case. Throughout her career, Mary interacted with some of the key institutions of Victorian high politics: the cabinet, the House of Commons, and the House of Lords. She also engaged with other aspects of political culture, working alongside journalists, civil servants, and canvassers. Her political activities offer, then, a guide to the daily experience of high politics in the middle decades of the nineteenth century.
That Mary is largely absent from these narratives of high politics has its roots in the development of political history. Most of the political history written in the mid twentieth century was concerned with the activities of the governing class and brought to the fore the structures of political institutions and the preoccupations of political leaders.5 This sort of approach has suffered, in places, mischaracterization.6 But it is undoubtedly the case that these were historical narratives dominated by men. The (perceived) sole focus of this work on the apex of power left some to question the purpose of political history, what it should be and what it should do. The ‘new political history’ that followed sought to expand understandings of Victorian political life, stressing the importance of political languages, subjectivities, and cultures.7 One of the central considerations of this work was the nature of popular politics and, in turn, the relationship between extra-parliamentary politics and high politics. Here again, the historical narrative was often dominated by men.8 Surveying the landscape of nineteenth-century political historiography today, one is struck by the depth and breadth of work, but also by the fractured nature of the discipline. As David Craig and James Thompson have emphasized, ‘political histories have tended to evolve along different routes, exacerbating sub-disciplinary identities’.9 As we will see, one of these sub-disciplines is the history of female political activity. Before we turn to consider that topic, a little time should be spent considering the political world Mary inhabited.
One of the most dominant narratives in the political history of modern Britain concerns the arrival of liberal democracy. While Whig teleology has largely fallen out of fashion, the trajectories of gradual modernization still punctuate presentations of the nineteenth century. In such a fashioning, the calls for political reform,
5 For a discussion of development of political history see: S. Pedersen, ‘What is political history now?’ in D. Cannadine (ed.), What is History Now? (London, 2002), pp. 36–56.
6 The mischaracterization of political history is explored in D. Craig, ‘High Politics and the New Political History’, The Historical Journal, 53/2, (2010) pp. 453–75.
7 For example of this approach see: G. Stedman Jones, Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1832–1982 (Cambridge, 1983); P. Joyce, Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Class, 1848–1914, (Cambridge, 1991); J. Vernon, Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture, c. 1815–1867, (Cambridge, 1993).
8 An exception can be found in A. Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class, (Berkeley, 1995).
9 D. Craig and J. Thompson, ‘Introduction’, in D. Craig and J. Thompson (eds) Languages of Politics in Nineteenth-Century Britain, (Basingstoke, 2013) p. 8.
Mary, Countess of Derby, and the Politics of Victorian Britain the widening of the franchise, the development of political parties, and the increasing importance attached to the vote serve as the preface to twentieth-century democracy. Undoubtedly, these were significant features of Victorian political culture. Yet, their existence should not obscure the other abiding feature of Victorian political life: it was a culture where the aristocracy still retained their status. Throughout the century, the House of Lords maintained its authority over the House of Commons, and seven of Queen Victoria’s prime ministers sat in the upper chamber. Landed interests dominated the House of Commons for the best part of the nineteenth century, with their dominance only threatened and superseded after the Second Reform Act of 1867.10 Equally, it is very hard to find cabinet ministers who were not part of the landed elite. It is a similar picture for the growing Whitehall departments, who tended to recruit from a select socio-economic group of men.11 For the most part, then, high politics was the preserve of the aristocracy.
That the aristocracy dominated the political institutions of the Victorian state also led to an intimacy between aristocratic culture and political life. The close relationship between the cultural worlds of the aristocracy and the practice of high politics was a continuation of eighteenth-century practices. As the processes of governance shifted following the Glorious Revolution, so too did the social and cultural worlds of eighteenth-century politicians. As Parliament began to cement its authority, it sat more frequently and for much longer.12 In turn, the aristocracy began to make annual pilgrimages to London for the duration of the parliamentary sessions. As the eighteenth century progressed, the ‘season’ emerged as a crucial feature of the capital. As Hannah Greig has stressed, ‘elite metropolitan presence became seen as essential to good government’.13 That the aristocracy were spending more time in London led to a transformation of the social, cultural, and economic life of the city. By the end of the eighteenth century, the West End had been refashioned. Townhouses became centres for political meetings, while a whole host of entertainments emerged—from the opera to the pleasure garden—to keep Britain’s political class occupied during the parliamentary session. These forums for ‘social politics’ were, as Elaine Chalus has illuminated, crucial to eighteenthcentury political practice.14 How far these practices of social politics were maintained through into the nineteenth century is a matter of some debate. From some, the decline of female aristocratic power occurred earlier than the political demise of the aristocracy as a whole. In these renderings, aristocratic women are a fading light
10 For a breakdown of the socio-economic status of MPs during the nineteenth century see D. Krein, ‘The Great Landowners in the House of Commons, 1833–85’, Parliamentary History, 32/3 (2013), pp. 460–76.
11 As the nineteenth century wore on, Whitehall departments did seek to recruit employees from a broader range of socio-economic backgrounds. Some departments, however, clung onto their desire for ‘exclusivity’, see: T. G. Otte, The Foreign Office Mind: The Making of British Foreign Policy, 1865–1914, (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 7–17.
12 For details of the changes to the parliamentary calendars in the eighteenth century see: F. O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century: British political and social history (London, 1997); P. Jupp, The Governing of Britain 1688–1848: The executive, Parliament and the people (London, 2006); P. Langford, Public Life and Propertied Englishmen, 1689–1798 (Oxford, 1991).
13 H. Greig, The Beau Monde: fashionable society in Georgian London, (Oxford, 2013), p. 7.
14 E. Chalus, Elite Women in English Political Life c. 1754–1790, (Oxford, 2005), p. 5.
in the politics of the early nineteenth century.15 This book offers an alternative argument. It suggests that some eighteenth-century sociopolitical practices continued well into the nineteenth century, allowing aristocratic women the opportunity to pursue political careers.
Indeed, just as aristocratic power in the eighteenth century was supported by a range of auxiliary social institutions, so too was nineteenth-century aristocratic power. The vast array of social entertainments and spaces which had become synonymous with eighteenth-century political life continued their popularity and utility well into the nineteenth century. The season still dictated the patterns of aristocratic life, and its entertainments, such as the opera and the theatre, were still popular aristocratic pastimes. Significantly, some aspects of social politics were in fact strengthened in the nineteenth century. Members’ clubs had begun to populate London’s West End in the latter half of the eighteenth century, but in the nineteenth century, overtly political clubs began to emerge. Institutions such as the Carlton Club and the Reform Club became crucial to the social politics of parliamentary parties, supporting the business of Westminster by providing space for informal discussion.16 These were political spaces, much like the formal institutions they supported, which were ‘exclusively male environs’.17 Another inheritance from the eighteenth century joined this landscape of auxiliary institutions: the semi-public space of the aristocratic home. Unlike the majority of clubs in the West End, the social spaces offered up by the aristocratic home were not fraternal spaces but were often the preserve of aristocratic women. Many accounts of Victorian politics feature these spaces in passing, as part of the backdrop to the practice of high politics. Yet, there have been few attempts to integrate the spaces in which aristocratic women practised their politics into the history of the practice of politics itself. This book suggests that the politics that happened in the drawing rooms and the ballrooms of the West End and the weekends spent at country estates were an integral part of political life. In turn, it argues that we gain a fuller picture of how high politics operated by broadening our understandings of the spaces in which political power and influence were wielded.
That there were some continuities between the practice of eighteenth-century politics and the practice of nineteenth-century politics should not obscure the significant ways in which the practice of high politics was shifting. Mary’s political career coincided with an era of reform which introduced important changes to how high politics operated. While some of the key institutions of Victorian political power remained dominated by the aristocracy, those same institutions found themselves having to consider a broader range of political pressures. The growth in
15 For example, see the interpretations of female political activity in: J. S. Lewis, Sacred to Female Patriotism: gender, class, and politics in late Georgian Britain, (New York, 2003); and P. Mandler, ‘From Almack’s to Willis’s: aristocratic women and politics, 1815–1867’, in A. Vickery (ed.) Women, Privilege, and Power: British politics, 1750 to the Present (Stanford, 2001), pp. 152–67.
16 The relationship between the male-only clubs of London’s West End and the processes of politics has been explored in S. Thévoz, Club Government: How the Early Victorian World was Ruled from London Clubs, (London, 2018).
17 A. Hawkins, Victorian Political Culture: Habits of Heart & Mind (Oxford, 2015), p. 121.
Mary, Countess of Derby, and the Politics of Victorian Britain
the franchise, the growing importance of public opinion, and the development of party politics all altered the focus and behaviour of Britain’s political elite.18 How these changes played out for aristocratic women has received little attention. That Mary’s career overlapped with some of these key developments raises questions about how she, and perhaps other aristocratic women, adapted to the demands of the new political settlement. From her correspondence, it is clear that Mary was not ignorant of the shifting political sands. In particular, as we will see, she was critical of the growing importance of party and public opinion. After 1867 these two features of political life grew in prominence, as did Mary’s intolerance for both of them. For her, the settlement of 1867 brought with it the slow demise of the autonomous politician. From Mary’s experience, it seems possible that the changes to political culture after 1867 mattered more to the practice of female aristocratic politics than the reforms of the 1830s.
The relative dominance of the aristocracy in the processes of Victorian high politics also informed another significant characteristic of Mary’s political world. It was a world which saw political influence exercised through select networks of social relations. As in the eighteenth century, nineteenth-century political society was a tight-knit community, primarily comprised of landowners. In such a world, the social relations between a handful of individuals were crucial to the practice of politics. Those relations were often forged in the auxiliary social spaces that supported political life. Small networks of social relations were often critical to the conduct of political business. Such an admission might suggest a return to a Namierite picture of politics, where dynastic ambition and familial interest trumped all else.19 But, such a picture does not clearly present itself when mapping Mary’s political world, nor would it accurately encapsulate Victorian aristocratic political culture. Nineteenth-century politics did not allow for the naked pursuit of familial or natal influence: extra-parliamentary forces mattered, as did ideology. Instead, this book contends that social relations gave male and female elite politicians a way to navigate the changing political world. To be sure, there were intimate political networks, where familial relationships overlapped with partisan alliances: take, for example, Mary’s connections with the ministers in Disraeli’s 1874 cabinet, which included her husband and stepson, alongside new and old friends. These intimate political networks continued to be crucial to the practice of high politics, but they were subject to restrictions. It would have been rare for a social relationship to overcome ideological impulse. However, the existence of informal practices also allowed some to manipulate social relations for their own purposes. In recognition of the changing political landscape, Mary sometimes sought to form social relations with
18 For a discussion of some of these factors see: T. A. Jenkins, Parliament, Party and Politics in Victorian Britain, (Manchester, 1996). J. Lawrence and M. Taylor (eds), Party, State and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain since 1820, (Aldershot, 1997); J. Thompson, British Political Culture and the Idea of ‘Public Opinion’, 1867–1914, (Cambridge, 2013).
19 That the study of aristocratic women might lead to a return of Namierite politics is discussed in: P. Mandler, ‘Namier in Petticoats? Review of K. Reynolds, Aristocratic Women in Victorian Political Society’, Reviews in History, 63, (1999) (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/63). Elaine Chalus developed the discussion here: Elite Women in English Political Life, pp. 10–12.
people outside aristocratic political society. In this vein, her attempts to form political alliances with newspaper editors, electoral agents, and, to a lesser degree, Members of Parliament, all stand as evidence of both the importance of informal practices and her own awareness of the limits to aristocratic influence.
In Victorian Britain, aristocratic political culture contained a number of features which facilitated women like Mary pursuing some kind of political career. The continued dominance of the aristocracy at the level of national politics combined with the informal methods of conducting particular aspects of political business allowed unelected or unappointed individuals the chance to influence political proceedings. Incorporating the activities of aristocratic women back into narratives of Victorian high politics illuminates two connected themes. First, it highlights how aristocratic politicians engaged with the political process, and second, it demonstrates how the processes of high politics functioned.
VICTORIAN POLITICAL FEMININITY
Any consideration of Mary’s political activities brings us to the subject of Victorian political femininity. During the nineteenth century, understandings of political influence and political citizenship were gendered in complex ways. On the one hand, Victorian statutory and legal legislation offered women little in the way of rights or representation. The doctrine of coverture and the ubiquity of primogeniture among the aristocracy left women with few legal or property rights.20 Statutory legislation that qualified who could be part of the nation’s political franchise also reflected these gendered legal practices. In 1832, the ‘Great’ Reform Act defined the political citizen as someone who was male and propertied. For some historians, this constitutional development forms part of a broader narrative which stresses the growing masculinization of citizenship.21 Certainly, legislation such as the 1832 Reform Act served as an exclusionary device. Regardless of wealth, women were unable to participate in national elections, just as their gender remained a barrier to holding national political office. Yet this constitutional exclusion did not prevent political inclusion elsewhere.
Despite the statutory and legal restrictions they faced, many Victorian women were able to participate in political life. Over the last twenty years, scholars have begun to map what Sarah Richardson has termed the ‘wide space of debatable ground’ that Victorian women were able to operate within.22 Focus has fallen on the political landscapes and activities of middle-class women who, often by virtue
20 An outline of the legal position of Victorian women can be found in B. Griffin, The Politics of Gender in Victorian Britain: Masculinity, Political Culture and the Struggle for Women’s Rights, (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 9–14. For details of primogeniture, see: P. M. Lawrence, The Law and Custom of Primogeniture, (Cambridge, 1878). For the impact these legal conditions had on the structure of the English economy, see: A. Erickson, ‘Coverture and Capitalism’, History Workshop Journal, 59, (2005), pp. 1–16.
21 For a discussion of this analysis see: C. Hall, K. McClelland, and J. Rendall, Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform Act of 1867, (Cambridge, 2000), p. 36.
22 S. Richardson, The Political Worlds of Women: Gender and Politics in Nineteenth Century Britain, (Abingdon, 2013), p. 2.
Mary, Countess of Derby, and the Politics of Victorian Britain of their status, had the time, space, and opportunity to engage with national, regional, or local political culture. Particular features of Victorian political life facilitated such activity. The importance of associational politics, the politicization of the domestic sphere, the popularity of pressure-group politics, the growth in civic society, and the everyday workings of community politics all helped facilitate middle-class female political activity.23 Of course, such activity was not without its tensions. Middle-class women were often ‘borderline citizens’ who operated at the intersections of overlapping spheres, which could both enable and restrict political activity.24 In different ways, and to different ends, working-class women also found their political life defined by the spaces in which they lived.25 The politics of the parish or the politics of the community often shaped their political worlds and, like their middle-class counterparts, they found themselves working within, and sometimes against, linguistic and legal understandings of political citizenship.26 In looking across the landscape of working- and middle-class female political activity, two themes emerge. First, that the separations between the public world(s) of politics and the private world(s) of the home emerge as fluid ‘ideological constructs, utilised in different ways for particular purposes, rather than fixed, unchanging entities’.27 Second, it points to the importance of traditional methods in facilitating political activity among women: the use of the home, petitioning, and familial networks suggest a reliance on older forms of political engagement. Despite the growing historiography of female political activity before suffrage, the political activities of aristocratic women remain understudied, particularly when compared to the literature on the political lives of aristocratic men. Perhaps this is because, in percentage terms, they made up a very tiny proportion of
23 For work on middle-class female political activity, see: L. Holcombe, ‘Victorian wives and property: reform of the Married Women’s Property Law 1857–1882’, in M. Vicinus (ed.), A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women, (Bloomington, 1977), pp. 3–28; L. Billington and R. Billington, ‘ “A burning zeal for righteousness”: women in the British anti-slavery movement, 1820–1860’, in J. Rendall (ed.), Equal or Different: Women’s politics 1800–1914, (Oxford, 1987), pp. 82–111; C. Midgley, Women against slavery: the British campaigns, 1780–1870, (London, 1992); S. Morgan, ‘Domestic economy and political agitation: women and the Anti-Corn Law League, 1839–1846’, in K. Gleadle and S. Richardson, Women and British Politics, 1760–1860: The Power of the Petticoat, (London, 2000) pp.115–133; S. Morgan, A Victorian woman’s place: public culture in the nineteenth century, (London, 2007); K. Gleadle, Borderline Citizens: Women, Gender, and Political Culture in Britain, 1815–1867, (Oxford, 2009); Richardson, The Political Worlds of Women
24 For a discussion of borderline citizens, see: Gleadle, Borderline Citizens.
25 Research on working-class politics is an expansive field. The following offer interesting interjections and perspectives: J. Bohstedt, ‘Gender, household and community politics: women in English riots, 1790–1810’, Past and Present, 120 (1988), pp. 88–122; B. Harrison, ‘Class and gender in modern British Labour history’, Past and Present, 124 (1989), pp. 121–58; A. Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class, (Berkeley, 1995); H. Rogers, ‘ “What right have women to interfere with politics?”: The address of the Female Political Union of Birmingham to the women of England (1838)’, in T. G. Ashplant and G. Smyth (eds), Explorations in cultural history, (London, Pluto, 2001), pp. 65–100; K. Navickas, Protest and the Politics of Space and Place, 1789–1848, (Manchester, 2015).
26 For example, British radicals often presented citizenship as a masculine possession. See: A. Clark, ‘Gender, Class, and the Constitution: Franchise Reform in England 1832–1828’, in J. Vernon (ed.), Re-reading the Constitution: New Narratives in the Political History of England’s Long Nineteenth Century, (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 230–53.
27 Richardson, The Political Worlds of Women, p. 3.
the overall female population. Aristocratic women were, by rank if nothing else, extraordinary. While the social and cultural lives of the female aristocracy have been a popular subject for research, there remain very few studies of the political worlds aristocratic women might have inhabited.28 One study which has sought to address this absence is Kim Reynolds’ exploration of aristocratic women and Victorian political society.29 Using the activities of over fifty women, Reynolds maps their political terrains. In common with the work on working- and middleclass women, Reynolds draws attention to the importance of locality in shaping female political influence. In the case of aristocratic women, it was often the locality of the estate. Alongside estate management, this work also illuminates how elite women interacted with the royal court and how they were involved in certain political practices, from the political salon through to electioneering efforts. In this presentation, there are clear similarities, and indeed continuities, with the sorts of activities eighteenth-century aristocratic women were engaged with.30 For historians interested in uncovering the political role of aristocratic women, ‘social politics’ has been vital.31 In this vein, the salon, election campaigning, and estate management have all been understood as key sites of aristocratic female agency. This book extends this landscape and explores how aristocratic women interacted with the daily processes of high politics.
For many, the role aristocratic women played in Victorian political culture was axiomatic. Contemporary accounts, from letters and diaries to newspapers and periodicals, suggest that some saw the political involvement of aristocratic women as an ordinary, although not necessarily legitimate, feature of political life. When fiction sought to depict the politics of the era, aristocratic women and their social activities loomed large. This is particularly evident in the political world Trollope depicted in his Palliser novels.32 Over the course of the six novels, published between 1864 and 1880, Trollope takes the reader around a fictionalized political world that had a close similarity to the reality of Victorian political culture.33 To this end, Trollope explores some of the key features of Victorian political life, from the comings and goings of Parliament to the difficulties of cabinet government, and from the importance of club gossip to shifting political ideologies.34 Crucially,
28 See: P. Horn, Ladies of the Manor: Wives and Daughters in Country-House Society, 1830–1918, (Stroud, 1991); J. Gerard, Country House Life: Family and Servants 1815–1919, (Oxford, 1994); M. Morgan, Manners, Morals and Class in England, 1774–1858, (Basingstoke, 1994).
29 K. Reynolds, Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain, (Oxford, 1998).
30 For a discussion of eighteenth-century elite women, see: Chalus, Elite Women in English Political Life; Lewis, Sacred to Female Patriotism; A. Foreman, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, (London, 1998). There are striking similarities with the activities of early modern elite women. A good starting point is: B. J. Harris, English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550, (Oxford, 2002).
31 For example, see: Chalus, Elite Women in English Political Life
32 Can You Forgive Her? (1864); Phineas Finn (1869); The Eustace Diamonds (1873); Phineas Redux (1874); The Prime Minister (1876); and The Duke’s Children (1879).
33 The following offer useful starting points to Trollope and his writings: R. C. Terry (ed.), The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Trollope, (Oxford, 1999); C. Dever (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Anthony Trollope, (Cambridge, 2011).
34 For a discussion of the politics of Trollope’s writing see: J. Halperin, Trollope and Politics: A Study of the Pallisers and Others, (London, 1977); D. Craig, ‘Advanced conservative liberalism: party and principle in Trollope’s parliamentary novels’, Victorian Literature and Culture, 38 (2010), pp. 355–71;
