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The Continuation of War by other means: Party and Politics, 1855–1865*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

P. M. Gurowich
P. M. Gurowich
Affiliation:
St John's College, Cambridge
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Extract

In the familiar triptych of British political history between the first and third Reform Acts, whose panels are neatly divided by the years 1846 and 1867, the confused and uninspiring iconography of the large central canvas contrasts sharply and puzzlingly with that of its flanking pieces. In 1855 Gladstone lamented that

The Session of 1845 was the last of those that witnessed party connection in its normal state. Throughout the decade which preceded that year it was in full and brilliant blossom. Since then we have had properly speaking…none in the best sense of the term: none compact and organized after the ancient manner.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , September 1984 , pp. 603 - 631
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 Gladstone, , unpublished article, ‘Party as it was and is’ (1855)Google Scholar, Gladstone papers, B.L. Add. MS 44,745, fo. 173r.

2 Lowell, A. L., ‘The influence of party upon legislation in England and America,’ Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1901, I, 331Google Scholar.

3 Smellie, K. B., A hundred years of English government (London, 1950), p. 54Google Scholar.

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7 Gash, N., Aristocracy and people: Britain, 1815–1865 (London, 1979), p. 267Google Scholar, and chapter heading.

8 For instance,Beer, S. H., Modern British politics (London, 1965), p. 50Google Scholar: after 1846 parties ‘resembled the bloc system of continental parliaments far more than the two-party system’; Southgate, D., The passing of the Whigs (London, 1962), p. 290Google Scholar: ‘The fifties in many ways resemble the pre-1830 dispensation’.

9 For instance, Blake, Disraeli, p. 272. Anderson, Olive, A Liberal state at war (London, 1967)Google Scholar, finds, in addition to ‘a weakening of party feeling’ (p. 46), ‘exceptionally large numbers of “loose fish”’ (p. 49).

10 Berrington, Hugh, ‘Partisanship and dissidence in the nineteenth century House of Commons’, Parliamentary Affairs, xxi (1968), 338fCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Blake, , Disraeli, p. 272Google Scholar.

11 Russell, Lord John in 1858, quoted as if to be taken at face value, in Cromwell, Valerie, ‘The private member of parliament and foreign policy in the nineteenth century’, Etudes présentëes á la Commission Internationale pour fhistoire des Assemblies d'Etats’, xvII (Louvain and Paris, 1965), p. 196Google Scholar.

12 Greville, C. G., Journal of the reign of Queen Victoria 1852–60 (London, 1887), 1, 168Google Scholar (25 June 1854); similarly, idem, 1, 180 (14 Aug. 1854), 11, 40 (3 Apr. 1856); also White, William, weekly column, ‘The inner life of parliament’, The Illustrated Times (hereafter cited as I.T.) xii, 396 (22 06 1861)Google Scholar, idem, 11 (n.s.), 118 (21 Feb. 1863); and the weekly parliamentary sketch in The Illustrated London Mews (hereafter I.LM), XL, 333 (5 Apr. 1862).

13 To the extent that they do embody serious judgements at all, they tend to reflect the widespread misconception that the party system had been at its apogee in the previous century, and that the effect of political reforms and social change was inevitably to undermine it and to promote independence: hence a natural tendency to interpret temporary problems as symptoms of terminal decline. For instance, Greville, , Journal, 1, 172–5 (14 08 1854)Google Scholar; Todd, Alpheus, On parliamentary government in England (2 vols., London, 1867–1869), II, 334f.Google Scholar; Grey, Lord, Parliamentary government considered with reference to reform (London, 2nd edn, 1864), e.g. pp. 111–12Google Scholar.

14 Bagehot, , The English constitution, ed. Crossman, R. H. S. (London, 1963), p. 158Google Scholar.

15 For instance, Brand to Palmerston, 4 July 1863, Broadlands papers, National Registry of Archives, GC/BR 19 – counts 302 Conservatives, 342 Liberals, II Irish independents; and Taylor to Disraeli n.d. [August 1861], Hughenden papers, microfilm in Cambridge University Library, B/XX/T 144 – 308 Conservatives, 13 Irish independents, 7 ‘independents’, the rest Liberals.

16 Beales, D. E. D., ‘Party politics and the “independent” member’, Robson, Robert (ed.), Ideas and institutions of Victorian Britain (London, 1967), pp. 1–19, esp. p. 12Google Scholar.

17 Watt, R. G., ‘Parties and politics in mid-Victorian Britain 1857–59’ unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Minnesota, 1975Google Scholar; Bylsma, J. R., ‘Political issues and party unity 1852–57’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Iowa, 1968Google Scholar.

18 Vincent, J. R. (ed.), Derby, Disraeli and the Conservative party: the political journals of Lord Stanley 1849–69 (Hassocks, 1978)Google Scholar, introduction, p. xv: Stewart, R., The foundation of the Conservative party 1830–67 (London, 1978), e.g. p. 278Google Scholar.

19 Aydelotte, William O., ‘Voting patterns in the British House of Commons in the 1840s’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, v (1963), 134–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Gladstone, MS article of 1855, B.L. Add. MS 44,745, fo. 195V.

21 Duke of Buckingham, , Memoirs of the courts and cabinets of William IV and Victoria, (London, 1862), 11, 253Google Scholar.

22 Close, D. H., ‘The formation of a two-party alignment in the House of Commons between 1832 and 1841,’ English Historical Review, xciv (1969),. 257–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Fisher, D. R., ‘The opposition to Sir Robert Peel in the Conservative party 1841–46’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1970Google Scholar.

23 Fisher, ‘Opposition to Peel’, e.g. pp. 384–5.

24 About 120 Conservatives supported Peel's policy in 1846, a similar number after the 1847 elections. By 1857 there had been ‘for a long time past… not a dozen’ MPs classifiable ‘by any possibility’ as Peelites:Greville, , Journal, 11, 105 (4 04 1857)Google Scholar. Mostly Peelite ‘losses’ (not out of parliament) were to Derby. About a third moved by 1852 – the presence in Derby's first ministry of such ex-Peelites as Kelly, Thesiger and Pakington matched a shift in voting of thirty or so backbenchers; another third (roughly) were still ‘doubtfuls’; reliable Peelites numbered between twenty-five and forty: see Conacher, B. J., The Peelites and the party-system, 1846–52 (Newton Abbot, 1972), pp. 109, 119–22Google Scholar. Comparison of the voting tables (pp. 220–35) with those in Conacher's Aberdeen coalition suggests a partial reversal of the drift to Derby in 1853 – mainly an increase in numbers of doubtfuls (see below, nn. 32 and 50). This was only temporary. (Some Conservatives, however, long remained ‘doubtfuls’ – a few even into the 1860s, see below, nn. 62 and 96.) As I hope to show elsewhere, what took place was not disintegration of a Peelite ‘party’: the Peelites ‘pure’ who acted systematically together never numbered more than two or three dozen, and mostly stayed together. It was, rather, a series of shifts among the numerous Conservatives who did not in 1846 closely align themselves with either Peelites or Protectionists, but’ wished to stand well with both sides, and looked forward to a reconciliation’ Stanley, , Journals, p. 13 (03. 1850)Google Scholar – towards Derby, as his leadership gradually emerged (with a setback in 1853), as the only likely basis of a Conservative government.

25 ‘The Whigs and Radicals sit together and are called by the generic term “Liberals”’: White, , I.T. viii, 38 (17 07 1858)Google Scholar. They were still something of a confederation of semi-independent elements rather than a party with Whig and Radical ‘wings’. The term ‘Whig’ properly describes only one, diminishing element of the party: seej. Vincent, R., The formation of the British Liberal party (London, 1966), e.g. p. 41Google Scholar.

26 Greville, , Journal, I, 176 (14 08 1854)Google Scholar.

27 Greville, , Journal, I, 45 (1 03 1853)Google Scholar; ibid. I, 158 (7 May 1854): the government ‘backed by no great party… scrambles on with casual support’.

28 Gladstone, MS article of 1855, B.L. Add. MS 44,745, fo. 219V.

29 Greville, , Journal, 1, 184 (11 09 1854)Google Scholar. On Whig/Peelite quarrels see, for instance, Stanley, Journals, p. 117 (25 Jan. 1854), and ibid., p. 126 (22 June 1854). Peelite backbenchers had, similarly, disliked supporting Russell's 1846–52 government, though Peel himself consistendy did so: Southgate, Passing of the Whigs, pp. 228–9.

30 Greville, , Journal, 1, 169 (9 07 1854)Google Scholar.

31 Greville, , Journal, I, 158 (7 05 1854)Google Scholar; ibid. 1, 166 (25 June 1854); ibid. 1, 180f. (14 Aug.1854)

32 See Conacher, J. B., The Aberdeen Coalition 1852–5 (London, 1968), pp. 555f.Google Scholar, appendices A and B. Independent and Peelite Conservatives, in fourteen major divisions, gave the coalition an average of thirty-four votes.

33 Malmesbury to Derby, 19 May 1853, Knowsley papers, Queen's College, Oxford (consulted by courtesy of Lord Blake), box 144/1.

34 Shortly before this, Russell had resigned office: his followers comprised the ‘strongest element in the victorious majority’ (apart from the Tories):Greville, Journal, 1, 235 (4 02. 1855)Google Scholar. The majority totalled no less than 157.

35 Greville, , Journal, I, 48, 83 and 99 (3 03, 2 Sept. and 16 Oct. 1853Google Scholar); and 141 (27 Feb. 1854) – the reform bill ‘a political duel between Lord John and Palmerston’.

36 The Peelites remaining in office included Argyll, Canning, F. Peel, Viscount Sydney, Lord E. Bruce and Lord Drumlanrig: only four junior officials went out with the cabinet Peelites (Sir John Young, Lord Elcho, Lord A. Hervey and H. Fitzroy); and four Peelites actually joined Palmerston's ministry (Lord Harrowby, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Monck and J. S. Wortley).

37 Greville, , Journal, 1, 246 (23 02 1855)Google Scholar: their ‘uproarious delight’.

38 Greville, , Journal, 1, 190 (2 10 1854Google Scholar).

39 Malmesbury, Lord, The memoirs of an ex-minister (London 1885), p. 368Google Scholar (14 July 1855); Greville, , Journal, 1, 274 (19 07 1855Google Scholar ). Vincent, , ‘The parliamentary dimension of the Crimean war’. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, fifth series, XXXI (1981), 44fGoogle Scholar. suggests that Russell connived at his departure from office. This is hard to square with the circumstances of his fall, which were, as Greville rightly notes (loc. cit.), ‘as mortifying as possibly could be’. If Russell's aim was reinstatement as leader, he could hardly have chosen a worse way of furthering it.

40 Diary of E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen M. P. Brabourne papers, East Kent Record Office, 1, 14–15 (30 July 1858).

41 Even the Greville, Whig admitted that with the Peelites went ‘the greater part of the brains of the Cabinet’: Journal, I, 246 (23 02. 1855)Google Scholar. Disraeli, naturally, was more emphatic – ‘exclusively a Whig and family party’: Monypenny, W. F. and Buckle, G., The life of Benjamin Disraeli earl of Beaconsfield, (2 vols., London, 1929) 1, 1387Google Scholar. See also, e.g. Saturday Review, v, 433–4 (1 05 1858)Google Scholar: National Review, VII (1858), 232Google Scholar; I.L.N. XXXII, 171 (13 02 1858Google Scholar ).

42 Greville, , Journal 1, 238 (6 02 1855)Google Scholar, describes ‘the Brooks's Whigs’ as Russell's particular partisans. Charles Wood told Russell ‘the men who do adhere to you most steadily are the remains of the old Whig party’, though he warned of their aversion to Russell's cherished parliamentary reform plans (letter 7 Dec. 1854, Halifax papers, B.L. Add. MS 49,531, fo. 90). In the later 1850s, references to ‘the Palmerstonian Whigs’ became frequent: e.g. Greville, , Journal, 11, 186 (16 04 1858)Google Scholar, Stanley, , Journals, p. 154 (20 02. 1858)Google Scholar; and Malmesbury wrote of the great Whig families, who have just regained their natural influence', as identified with Palmerston, not Russell (and, again, opposing the latter's reform plans): Malmesbury to Derby, 13 Apr. 1857, Knowsley papers, 144/1. William White in 1858 saw Russell as the favourite of the Reform club, not of ‘Old lady Brookes’ (sic: White, I.T. vi, 270 (10 Apr. 1858).

43 Derby to Disraeli, 24 Apr. 1857, Hughenden papers, B/XX/S 148: rightly continuing: ‘with whom, however, he will never obtain a cordial acceptance’.

44 Edinburgh Review, GV (1857), 553Google Scholar. On ‘Manchester party’ dislike of Palmerston's government, see for instance Stanley, , Journals, p. 139 (11. 1855)Google Scholar.

45 A group of 120 independent Liberals, under the chairmanship of Headlam, T. E., decided to keep Derby in; they even appointed two whips: White, I.T. vi, 346 (15 05 1858)Google Scholar. Other sources mention the ‘Independent Party’, e.g. diary of SirTrelawny, J. M.P. (Trelawny papers, odleian Library, Oxford), III, 8 (17 03 1859)Google Scholar. Disraeli to Derby, 21 Apr. 1858, Knowsley papers 145/5, refers to communication with ‘Independent Liberals’. Leading figures werej. A. Roebuck and W. S. Lindsay. The latter's constituents disapproved strongly: see Hughenden papers, B/XXI/L 189–217.

46 Stanley, , Journals, p. 134 (11. 1855) andGoogle ScholarGreville, , Journal, 11, 40 (3 04. 1856)Google Scholar, both make both these points. Because of the uncertain position of the Peelites, the exact numerical state of the parties would be extremely difficult to establish.

47 Stanley, , Journals, p. 139 (11. 1855)Google Scholar, Greville, , Journal, 11, 40 (3 04. 1856Google Scholar ).

48 Russell voted at all in only 29 out of 193 divisions in 1856, and so rarely against Palmerston in 1857–8 that by Watt's test for a Russellite ‘faction’ he emerges as one of Palmerston's most loyal supporters: Watt ‘Parties and polities’, p. 138.

49 See Stanley, , Journals, p. 134 (11. 1855)Google Scholar, on an improvement in 1855. In 1856 the Kars vote of 1856 was the crucial event of the session, ‘a great triumph for the Government’. Palmerston before it summoned ‘his supporters … harangued them with great success and managed to rally them round him’ – something Aberdeen could never have done. His position thereafter was ‘certainly improved’: Greville, , Journal, 11, 44 5 (4 05 1856)Google Scholar. White, , I.T. 11, 326 (10 05 1856)Google Scholar.

50 See Conacher, Aberdeen coalition, pp. 555ff. It suited a Peelite to draw attention to the existence of these ‘gentlemen who declined to follow the Peelite leaders to the ministerial benches when Lord Aberdeen assumed the government, but who decline to enrol themselves in the party of Lord Derby’, since actual Peelites were so few: Gladstone, MS article of 1855, B.L. Add. MS 44,745, fo. 209V. Conacher's figures do not bear out Gladstone's view (or hope), expressed in the prosperous early days of the coalition, that they numbered as many as fifty to eighty: Brooke, J. and Sorensen, M. (eds.), W. E. Gladstone, autobiographica, III (London, 1978), 143Google Scholar (memo, of 15 Apr. 1853).

51 Gladstone described the Peelites in 1855 as not a ‘body’ but ‘rather, a collection of unattached politicians’: MS article of 1855, B.L. Add. MS 44,745, fo. igsr. Informal relations, however – among them and between individuals and friendly backbenchers – could be put to political use: Gladstone to Lord Henry Lennox, 3 Mar. 1857, Hylton papers, Somerset Record Office, 18/V 69 shows Gladstone assisting Conservative party managers with nine named backbenchers on the China vote.

52 Greville, , Journal, II, 93 (27 02. 1857)Google Scholar, ‘entirely without a following’ idem, p. I53(16 jan. 1858), ‘far from’ capable o f forming a party of his own'. Knatchbull-Hugessen, E. H., who entered Palmerston's second ministry on Russell's coat-tails as a whip, claimed to have been ‘practically acting for him in that capacity’ already: Hugessen, diary, 1, 23 (28 01. 1860)Google Scholar; there is, however, no evidence of his doing more than acting sometimes as a teller in 1859. Russell may well have tried to set up his own standard in 1858–9, but Greville, , Journal, chs. XVI–XVIII, pp. 171–275Google Scholar, shows Whigs and Liberals not flocking to it but waiting for him and Palmerston to come to terms.

53 Bylsma, ‘Political issues’, p. 192; Watt, ‘Parties and polities’, p. 138.

54 Virtually all M.P.s continued to enter politics bearing one of the major parties' labels. The several dozen ‘Liberal Conservatives’ were mostly regular Conservatives in political practice: a few were Peelites who had effectively joined the Liberals. They in no sense comprised a category outside or ‘between’ the parties: see Lowell, ‘Influence of party’, p. 326; Watt, ‘Parties and polities’, pp. 120f. Only the Irish tried, as they had before and were to do again (but with less success) to act as a separate group: see Whyte, J. H., The independent Irish party (London, 1958Google Scholar ).

55 Even Aberdeen's ministry in practice, as Conacher notes, ‘lack[ed] a clear majority’: Aberdeen coalition, p. 124. Only Palmerston's first ministry in the last ten months of its life had one.

56 Quarterly Review, XCIX, 521–70.

57 On the latter point see Blake, Robert, The Conservative partyfrom Peel to Churchill (London, 1970), e.g. p. 84Google Scholar; Stewart, Conservative party, p. 222.

58 Stanley to Disraeli, 4 July 1855, Hughenden papers B/XX/S 618; H. Bailie to Disraeli, n.d. (1861), ibid. B/XXI/318 – ‘dread of a dissolution … very strong’; H. Stracey to Disraeli, 5 June 1862, ibid. B/XXI/S 600 – ‘never … so many of a party fearing a dissolution'. Candidates’ payment of election expenses gave the threat an added edge: Saturday Review, xi, 314 (30 03. 1861)Google Scholar – Palmerston's power to dissolve also a power to impose 'a fine on average of five hundred pounds apiece on each Member'. Bagehot, English constitution, p. 158, and Grey, Parliamentary government, p. 104, accord much significance to the threat of dissolution.

59 ‘What deters some of our men from answering … is the fear of a change of government' & another weak Derby ministry’: Disraeli to Jolliffe, 9 Jan. 1855, Hylton papers C/2165 6: See Stanley, , Journals, p. 166 (11 02. 1861)Google Scholar, on Tories who would not support an attack on the ministry which they ‘thought premature’.

60 Lord Grey deprecated a new laxity in application of the rule (never, in fact, inflexible) that ‘ministers ought to retire whenever they meet with a parliamentary defeat’: Parliamentary government, p. 113. ‘After every check and defeat, they seem as comfortable and unconscious of their situation as it is possible to conceive’: I.L.N. XL, 333 (5 Apr. 1862).

61 Quarterly Review, XCIX (1856), 528Google Scholar, praising ‘the high moral effects of a spirit of discipline’.

62 Taylor to Jolliffe, n.d. [3 Apr. 1860], Hylton papers, 24/XXII 37; similarly, Cecil, Lord Robert, Saturday Review, XII, 136 (10 08 1861)Google Scholar; and see below, n. 96.

63 On Irish hostility to Palmerston's second ministry see below, n. 90. Peelite-influenced Conservatives were little more than a handful; the Irish independents perhaps two handfuls about twenty voted against Palmerston on the great Danish vote of 1864: Trelawny, diary, VII, 99 (9 July 1864).

64 This phrase apparently entered general use after a speech by Lord Stanley at King's Lynn, 22 Nov. 1861. See a perceptive article with it as tide in the Home and Foreign Review, 1 (1862), 36ffGoogle Scholar.

65 Buckingham, Courts and cabinets, II, 426.

66 Newdegate to Jolliffe, 21 Oct. 1861, Hughenden Papers, B/XX/J 87a.

67 A Liberal majority of sixty is said to have resulted from the 1859 elections, in Craig, F. W. S., British parliamentary election results 1832–85 (London, 1977), p. 622CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Contemporary observers put Palmerston's majority at fifteen or less, e.g. Bagehot, , John-Stevas, N. St. (ed.), The collected works of Walter Bagehot (12 vols., London, 1974), VI, 120 (6 07 1861)Google Scholar; Cecil, , Saturday Review, VII, 190 (13 07 1859)Google Scholar; I.L.N. XXXVIII, 216 (9 03 1861)Google Scholar – or nothing at all, e.g. White, , I.T., 268 (27 04 1861)Google Scholar. Irish independents and a few ‘loose fish’ make absolute precision meaningless. Clearly, however, continuous account had to be taken of what Trelawny called the ‘nicely balanced’ state of parties diary, v, 27 (17 May 1861); see the junior whip Hugessen's frequent notes, e.g. diary, 1, 31 (28 Jan. 1860), 1, 71 2 (16 Feb. 1862), 11, 3 (6 May 1864). Derby's government went out in 1859 on a defeat by thirteen votes: some independent Liberals may thereafter have returned to the official fold, but the ministry quickly began losing seats on petitions and at by-elections – see below, n. 76.

68 Trelawny, diary, VII, 8(13 Apr. 1864).

69 For instance, W. Miles to Jolliffe, n.s. [1856], Hylton papers, 24/IX 98.

70 Derby to Disraeli, 4 Aug. 1865, Hughenden papers, B/XX/S 335.

71 Vincent rightly notes (Stanley, , Journals, p. 142)Google Scholar that the ‘Palmerstonian reaction’ in public opinion was most marked in the early '60s: a similar conservatism prevailed, however, in the late 1850s (see, e.g., G. A. Hamilton to Jolliffe, 27 Dec. 1856, Hylton papers, 24/XI 17 – country ‘never was so conservatively disposed’ – and below, p. 616): the ‘quite different ideas’ mentioned by Vincent may have ‘governed’ intellectual circles but not the country or the Commons as a whole.

72 Palmerston to Brand, Hampden papers, House of Lords Record Office 12 Dec. 1862. The Radical Trelawny had, sadly, to agree, blaming the American civil war for discrediting the democratic cause: diary, v, 114 (20 Mar. 1862).

73 Malmesbury to Derby, 7 Dec. 1856, Knowsley papers, 144/1.

74 Bagehot, , English constitution, p. 224Google Scholar.

75 Saturday Review, XV, 193 (14 02 1863)Google Scholar.

76 Palmerston to Brand, 14 Aug. 1863, Broadlands papers GC/BR 28. They would have mattered less had by-elections not occurred in the early and mid-Victorian period with a frequency of more than thirty per annum. On petitions and at by-elections, 1859 – 65 – according to calculations from Craig, British election results, and Walker, B. M. (ed.), Parliamentary election results in Ireland, 1801–1922 (Dublin, 1978)Google Scholar – Conservatives made twenty-nine gains from Liberals, and Liberals only ten from Conservatives. Most of the net gain, of nearly forty votes on a division, was won in the first half of the ministry's life.

77 Bagehot's phrase: Collected works, VI, 145 (26 08 1871)Google Scholar. See e.g. I.L.N. XXXVIII, 192 (2 03 1861)Google Scholar – parliament occupied by ‘practical’ legislation, not ‘party questions’ – and White, , I.T. XI, 133 (1 09 1860)Google Scholar. Smith, Toulmin in his Parliamentary Remembrancer, I–IX (1857–1865)Google Scholar, details these measures, taking violent objection to most. O n Stanley's speech see above, n. 64.

78 I.L.N. XLV, 342 (1 10 1864)Google Scholar.

79 According to one notoriously outspoken old Tory ‘Lord Derby and Mr Disraeli have led the Conservative party to adopt every measure which they opposed as Radical ten years ago’: Henry Drummond, enclosure, Jolliffe to Disraeli, 16June 1859, Hughenden papers, B/XX/J 73. Conversely, from advanced Liberals, Derby's government got ‘credit for several strokes of work’: Trelawny, diary, II, 141 (18 Feb. 1859). Yet, as was noted by Hugessen, who also gave it credit for Liberal measures, there was, despite grumbling on the Tory benches, no question of rebellion: Hugessen, diary, 1, gff. (30 July 1858). Indeed the party's discipline was excellent: see below, n. 175.

80 On the shifting preoccupations of reformers see Leys, C., ‘Petitioning in the nineteenth an d twentieth centuries’, Political Studies, III, (1955), especially pp. 59f.Google Scholar: petitions about parliamentary reform, the ballot, local government reform, became fewer in the fifties, those about Sabbatarianism, church rates, etc. correspondingly more common.

81 National Review, VII (1858), 225Google Scholar: ‘The Tories are no longer the foes of progress. The Liberals are no longer blind to the truth of Conservancy.’

82 Trollope, , An autobiography (Oxford, 1950), p. 291Google Scholar.

83 Article of this title, Collected Works, VI, 8if. See also for instance, ‘Th e unseen work of parliament’, idem, pp. 45–9; English constitution, p. 153.

84 Lord Grey believed ‘the most important questions upon which parties were formerly divided have been finally settled’, Parliamentary government, p. 112. See also, e.g. London University Magazine, 11 (1857), 65 and 557Google Scholar; National Review, VN (1858), 224fGoogle Scholar; Edinburgh Review, CV (1857), 552fGoogle Scholar.

85 Radical ‘insincerity’, particularly on parliamentary reform in 1860, was generally noted: see, for instance, Trelawny, diary, in, 149 (23 Apr. 1860) – ‘their principles…a mere pretence & stepping stone to seats’; Ritchie, J. E., British senators (London, 1868), p. 140Google Scholar; Hugessen, , diary, I, 32 3 (24 01 1860) and 63–4 (26 02 1861)Google Scholar.

86 Stanley, , Journals, p. 203 (1 12 1863)Google Scholar, quoting Disraeli.

87 Disraeli, speech, 1 08 1862, Monypenny and Buckle, Disraeli, 11, 113Google Scholar.

88 Krein, David, The last Palmerston government (Iowa, 1978), p. 5Google Scholar.

89 Derby to Lord Dalhousie, 27 Dec. 1856, Knowsley papers, 183/2 (copy).

90 Trelawny, diary, IV, 93 (6 Feb. 1861). Its drawback, the violent alienation of Catholic Irish opinion and Irish independents in the Commons, thus scarcely warranted its abandonment. In the circumstances, Palmerston's unconciliatory treatment of the Irish was perhaps less inept than Vincent, suggests (Liberal party, p. 88)Google Scholar. As Lord Stanley saw, in the absence of a reversal of the Italian policy, nothing Palmerston could have done would have pleased the Irish catholics, so he lost nothing by denying them all government favour – indeed, he gained: Irish protestants, more numerous in the Commons than catholics, were delighted, and Disraeli was tempted into ‘coquetting’ with ‘the Pope's party’ which ‘roused a good deal of suspicion’ among Tories: Stanley, , Journals, p. 177 (17 11 1861)Google Scholar. Thus, for instance, the opposition attempt to exploit Irish fury at the cancellation of the Galway Packet Company's subsidy backfired, because backbench Tories disliked co-operating with Irish Radicals: Hugessen, diary, 1, 71–2 (16 Feb. 1862); Stanley, , Journals, p. 171 (30 05 1861)Google Scholar.

91 Matthew, H. C. G. (ed.), The Gladstone diaries (vols. V, VI, Oxford, 1978), V, XXXIGoogle Scholar.

92 Hugessen, diary, 1, 61 and 65 (9 Aug. 1860 and 17 May. 1861).

93 Disraeli to Derby, 16 May 1858, Knowsley papers, 145/5, calls the independent Liberals ‘Gibsonites’; see also Stanley, , Journals, p. 96 (14 01 1853)Google Scholar; Tail's Edinburgh Magazine, XXV (1858), 129Google Scholar.

94 Gibson was (from July 1859) president of the Board of Trade; a fellow Radical in cabinet was C. P. Villiers, at the Poor Law Board. Radicals given junior office included T. E. Headlam (see above, note 45), C. Gilpin and G. Clive.

95 l.L.N. xxxv, 37 (9 07 1859)Google Scholar.

96 Gladstone and the other Peelites could still sway also a few Conservative votes, by ‘the mischievous imposture that there is a Conservative party in the cabinet, on which the Peelites intrigue…trying to break up our ranks’: Disraeli to Derby, 8 Jan. 1860, Knowsley papers, 146/1: see also the chief whip on a ‘Peelite ingredient’ in his flock (above, n. 62).

97 Morley, J., The life of Wiliam Ewart Gladstone, (3, London, 1903), 11, ch. III, 42–54Google Scholar, ‘The battle for economy’ Williams, W. E., The rise of Gladstone to the leadership of the Liberal party 1859 to 1868 (Cambridge, 1934), ch. iv, 35–58Google Scholar, ‘…The struggle for economy…’.

98 Morley, , Gladstone, II, 43Google Scholar.

99 Matthew, (ed.), Gladstone diaries, v, xxxiGoogle Scholar.

100 Brand to Palmerston, 12 Nov. 1862, Broadlands papers GC/BR 16.

101 Berrington, ‘Partisanship and dissidence’, pp. 338ff.

102 Derby to Malmesbury, 15 Dec. 1856, Knowsley papers 183/2 (copy).

103 Palmerston had even encouraged speculation as to his joining the Tories. That he had any intention of doing so under any likely circumstances may be doubted: crossing the floor of the House was not something he or anyone could undertake lightly – see Stanley, Journals, 77 (28 07 1852)Google Scholar and 239 (3 Nov. 1865), Greville, , Journal, I, 94 (4 10. 1853)Google Scholar – and there was much more to be gained by staying where he was. But the speculation, as Greville noted, ibid. p. 83 (28 Aug. 1853), ‘enhancef[d] his value to his friends and increas[d] his power’.

104 S. Herbert to Sir J. Graham, 27 Jan. 1857, quoted by Southgate, D., ‘The most English minister…’. The policies and politics of Palmerston (London, 1966), 416–17Google Scholar.

105 Palmerston's citation in 1863 in a divorce case was, as Disraeli commented ‘a little embarrasing for the Low Church Party which had acknowledged him as “the Man of God” but so was King David, and he behaved even worse’ Disraeli to Derby, 30 Sept. 1863, Knowsley papers, 146/1.

106 Chadwick, O., The Victorian Church (2 London, 1970), 471Google Scholar; Church, Palmerston's policy was ‘the origin of so much of the popularity enjoyed by the present administration’: I.T. iv, 268 (25 04 1857)Google Scholar.

107 See speech, N. Kendall's of 3 Mar. 1857, Hansard's parliamentary debates, third series cxuv, cols, 174ifGoogle Scholar. and e.g. Derby tojolliffe, 4 Mar. 1857, Hylton papers, 18/II 8:Saturday Review iii, 221 (7 03. 1857)Google Scholar.

108 Low church Tories in 1857 particularly detested the possibility of Peelites taking office in a Derby cabinet. In the early 1860s, low churchmen were prominent in the group of ‘in all about 24’, Tory malcontents who ‘habitually and systematically thwarted’ Disraeli's leadership in the Commons – Derby to T. S. Estcourt, 22 June 1862. Knowsley papers, 189/1 (copy) – which had the sympathies of many Tories: Stanley, , Journals, 208 (19 02 1864)Google Scholar. The most prominent of these dissidents was George Bentinck; C. N. Newdegate was another; Lord Robert Cecil was a high church malcontent.

109 See above, n. 90; e.g., Marindin, G. E. (ed.), The letters of Lord Blachford (London, 1896), 250Google Scholar.

110 Palmerston's preference for Palladian over Gothic, which gave posterity the classic facade of the Foreign Office against its architect's wishes, may have been deliberate policy – certainly, high churchmen favoured Gothic, and most M.P.s disliked both it and them.I T. ix, 106 (13 08 1859); White, , I.T. viii, 118 (19 02 1859)Google Scholar; and Benson, A. C. and Esher, Lord (eds.), The letters of Queen Victoria (3vols. London, 1908), iii, 443Google Scholar (Palmerston to Victoria, 8 July 1861): Gothic preferences the result of ‘erroneous views in religion and taste’.

111 White, , I.T. v, 422 (19 12 1857)Google Scholar.

112 Pakington tojolliffe, 22 July 1855, Hylton papers, 24/IX 103.

113 Jolliffe to Disraeli, 15 Feb. 1855, Hughenden papers B/XX/J 18.

114 Stewart, , Conservative party, p. 316Google Scholar.

115 For votes 1855–7 see Stewart, , Conservative party, pp. 312–13Google Scholar; on the great confidence vote of 1859 see Beales, D. E. D., England and Italy 1859–60 (London, 1961), 82ffGoogle Scholar. Lowell's figures (‘Influence of party’, pp. 367ff.) show that in the nine votes of i860 in which more than two-thirds of the c. 305 conservatives took part, the following numbers gave dissident votes: 15, 17, 39, 9, 14, 15, o, 1, 14-an average of almost exactly 6% of the average total of Conservatives voting (just under 230). Conservative discipline was tested less often after i860, but the greatest party battle of the 1860s was that of July 1864 on the Danish question. In this there were only three Tory defections out of 298 votes – Hugessen, diary, II, 6 (20 July 1864) – and ‘a few’ abstentions by low churchmen: Marindin, (ed.), Blachford letters, p. 250Google Scholar.

116 W. Miles to Disraeli, 16 June 1860, Hughenden papers, B/XXI/M 387.

117 See the infrequency with which the opposition whips acted as tellers – the normal procedure on a whipped vote – (three times in 1863, once in 1864, and not at all in 1865); also the rarity of appearances of the Commons party leader Disraeli in the lobbies (eight in 188 divisions in 1863, seventeen in 156 in 1864, nine in 104 in 1865): official division lists.

118 Even the most recent consideration suggests this: Stewart, , Conservative party, pp. 273ff., 289ff., 310ffGoogle Scholar. Vincent, introducing Stanley, Journals, p. xiv, indicates a different view but does not elaborate; similarly, Hawkins, A. B. ‘British parliamentary party politics, 1855–59,’ unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1979, e.g. p. 158Google Scholar: idem, ‘Gladstone and the politics of finance during the 1850s’ Victorian Studies, xxvi (1983), pp. 286–320.

119 Specifically, the views of Disraelian partisans like T. E. Kebbel (quoted, in Stewart, , Conservative party, p. 274)Google Scholar, who naturally tended to glorify Disraeli at the expense of his predecessor; and of Whig opponents – above all Greville (as Saintsbury, George noted in The earl of Derby (London, 1892), p. 196)Google Scholar, whose highly influential Journal reflects not merely party animus but a deep personal hostility to Derby – to which he once admitted: Journal, II, 179 (20 03 1858)Google Scholar.

120 Derby, to Malmesbury, , 15 12 1856, Malmesbury, Memoirs, p. 385Google Scholar.

121 No one before him, and only Gladstone after him accepted the premiership more often. His party leadership, c. mid-1846 to Feb. 1868, was more than a year longer than either Gladstone's, Dec. 1867 – Feb. 1874 and Apr. 1880 – Mar. 1894, or Attlee's, Oct. 1935–Dec. 1955. (Salisbury was sole Conservative leader only from 1885 to 1902.)

122 On Derby's aggressive intentions in, for instance, 1853–8, see (in the diaries of two politicians personally close to him):Stanley, , Journals, p. 122 (28 02. 1854)Google Scholar; Malmesbury, , Memoirs, pp. 305 (16 04 1853)Google Scholar, 348 (2 Feb. 1855), 361 (6 May 1855), 367 (12 July 1855), 379 (26 Apr. 1856), 389 (6 Feb. 1857), 416 (17 Feb. 1858). claim, Stewart's, Conservative party, p. 318Google Scholar, that after leaving office in 1859 ‘not until Palmerston's death…did the Conservatives again set their sights on office’ is incorrect: see e.g. Stanley, , Journals, p. 206 (27 01 1864)Google Scholar – Derby ‘full of projects for his cabinet, which he expects to be required to form during the course of the present session’. Dr Stewart ignores the Danish crisis, ‘our life and death struggle’ (Palmerston to Moncrieff, 11 Oct. 1864, Broadlands papers, PM/J 1). Indeed, despite his ‘1830–67’ rubric, he ignores the years 1861–66 in toto.

123 See, e.g. Malmesbury, , Memoirs, p. 551 (26 01 1862)Google Scholar; Derby to Disraeli, 6 Aug. 1863, Hughenden papers, B/XX/S 314; Stanley, , Journals, pp. 203 (10 12 1863)Google Scholar, 205 (3 Jan. 1864); Taylor to Jolliffe, 11 Jan. (1865), Hylton papers, 18/XII 65. Derby's utterances during fits of gloom and gout, e.g. those retailed in Stanley, Journals, in the months after the fall of his first government, do not typify his general attitude.

124 White, . I. T. II (n.s.), 390 (6 06 1863)Google Scholar. The reference drew a certain risqué topicality from recent exposures of the polygamous practices of a religious sect dwelling in what was termed an agapemone, in Surrey.

125 See Stewart, , Conservative party, pp. 352ffGoogle Scholar. on the party orientation of Conservative reform plans. As early as 1854, Derby and Disraeli sketched out advantageous franchise adjustments: Stanley, , Journals, p. 125 (13 06 1854)Google Scholar.

126 See Conacher, , Peelites, pp. 72fGoogle Scholar., 89, 152; Hawkins, ‘Gladstone in the 1850s’, esp. pp. 301–2. The latter perhaps underplays Derby's capacity to brazen out anti-Peelite sentiment when he chose. see e.g. Malmesbury, , Memoirs, p. 391 (28 02 1857)Google Scholar – also his desire to get Gladstone: that Derby should make an offer of cabinet office in Feb. 1858 (repeated in May) when it was so far from being in his interest to deal with Gladstone (pp. 302–3) hardly makes sense unless it was more than just a ‘formality’ (p. 316).

127 Blake, , Disraeli, pp. 355fGoogle Scholar. argues that Disraeli anticipated modern opposition and ‘the doctrine that it is the duty of the Opposition to oppose’. But Disraeli sometimes claimed even in the 1850s to think that ‘as a general rule…an opposition should never attack a Government & reserve their power for resistance to measures’, and that ‘silence & inertia are our wisest course’: Disraeli to Derby, 19 Jan. and 7 Nov. 1855 (and similarly 21 April 1857), Knowsley papers, 145/3. In the 1860s such remarks grew more frequent, and his behaviour visibly bore them out: see Stanley, , Journals, esp. pp. 182, 208, 227(23 01 1862Google Scholar, 19 Feb. 1864, 11 Feb. 1865); Bagehot, , Collected works, vi, 65 (2 01 1875)Google Scholar.

128 Palmerston to Brand, 14 Aug. 1863, Broadlands papers, GC/BR 28.

129 Derby to Disraeli, 15 Nov. 1857, Hughenden papers, B/XX/S 150: Conservatives had always disliked factiousness in opposition – see e.g. Clark, G. S. R. Kitson, Peel and the Conservative party, 1832–41 (London, 1929), p. 339Google Scholar – and could not be relied on to support attacks indiscriminately: see e.g. Stanley, , Journals, p. 166 (11 02 1861)Google Scholar. There were always voices urging that ‘our true policy…is to wait, watch events, rather supporting than opposing Palmerston till a proper opportunity presents itself in his foreign or home policy which will justify us in the eyes of the country in taking action’: Hamilton to jolliffe, 27 Dec. (1856), Hylton papers, 24/XI 17. Significantly, the whips frequently argued thus in the 1850s, when Disraeli was advocating a different line: see Taylor to Jolliffe, 31 Dec. 1853, 19 Jan. 1855, 13 Dec. 1857 (in this letter, almost frantically), Hylton papers, 24/VII 102 and 28, 24/XXI5. On the question of what contemporaries considered legitimate behaviour in opposition, and the ways in which Derby, like Peel before him, shaped his rhetoric and action accordingly, see my forthcoming doctoral dissertation.

130 Stanley, , Journals, p. 91 (20 12 1852)Google Scholar. Derby was, of course, to decide himself what was action ‘in a Conservative spirit’.

131 See, for instance, Derby to S. Walpole, 30 Jan. 1853, Knowsley papers, 182/1 (copy).

132 Stanley, Journals, p. 94 (24 12 1852)Google Scholar.

133 Derby to Jolliffe, I4 Jan. 1853, Knowsley papers, 183/1 (copy).

134 Derby to Disraeli, 24 Apr. 1857, Hughenden papers, B/XX/S 148; (largely in Monypenny, and Buckle, , Disraeli, I, 1480–1481)Google Scholar. George Hamilton next day urged ‘not dividing against’ Palmerston ‘unless he gives proper occasion’ similarly ‘with a view to destroy Palmerston and to acquire power’: Hamilton to Disraeli, 25 Apr. 1857, Hughenden papers, B/XX/ H 62.

135 Derby to Disraeli, 24 July 1865, Hughenden papers, B/XX/S 334.

136 Derby to Malmesbury, 4 Dec. 1860; Malmesbury, , Memoirs, p. 532Google Scholar.

137 Chichester Fortescue, diary, Carlingford papers, Somerset Record Office, 358/4, 30 May 1860; I.L.N. (leader), XXXVI, 495; Hugessen, diary, 1, 58f. (9 Aug. 1860); I.L.N. XXXVIII, 416 (4 05 1861)Google Scholar; Saturday Review, XIII, 137 (10 08 1861)Google Scholar.

138 Palmerston certainly did not back Gladstone firmly, in the Commons: Trelawny, diary, IV, 42–3 (5 July 1860); but did finally permit inclusion of all budget measures, including paper duties abolition, in one bill which the Lords dared not reject.

139 Fortescue, diary, 30 May 1860.

140 Originally an an hoc understanding of spring 1860 by which ‘many of the cabinet & more of their supporters’ who ‘wish[ed] to “burke” the Reform Bill’ were reassured that, if the bill was killed, Russel resigned, ‘followed of course by the desertion of Bright & the Radicals’, then Palmerston ‘could depend on our reasonable support for the rest of the Session’: Malmesbury to Derby, 23 Apr. 1860, Knowsley papers, 144/2A; see also Malmesbury, , Memoirs, pp. 521–3 (13 May, 1 and 2 06 1860)Google Scholar; it was renewed in 1860–1: Derby to Malmesbury, 26 Dec 1860, Malmesbury, , Memoirs, p. 534Google Scholar; Malmesbury to Derby, 2 Jan. 1861,21 Feb. 1861, Knowsley papers, 144/2B. It remained secret from Tory backbenchers. There is no evidence of its further extension.

141 The agreement of May 1860 promised ‘reasonable support’ if Russell andthe Radicals defected: Malmesbury to Derby 13 May 1860, Knowsley papers, 144/2A; Malmesbury, diary, Malmesbury papers, Hampshire Record Office, 9/M/73, 12 May and 2 June 1860 (here more detailed than the Memoirs based on it). That relating to 1861 is variously reported: Benson, and Esher, (eds.) Letters of Victoria, III, 429 (Palmerston to Victoria, 27 01. 1861)Google Scholar, records Malmesbury promising limited support if, again, there were Cabinet resignations (particularly Gladstone's) and if Palmerston did not bring Britain into war with Austria. Malmesbury to Derby, 26 Jan. 1861, Knowsley papers, 144/2B, reports, however, a promise of ‘general support’ on the latter condition alone. Malmesbury to Palmerston 29 Jan. 1861, Broadlands papers GC/MA 196 stipulates abstention from a reform bill. Stanley, , Journals, p. 170 (20 04 1861)Google Scholar mentions ‘articles’ relating to foreign policy, church rates and Gladstone's finance. The agreement was certainly meant to have some impact on the latter: Malmesbury to Derby, 23 Jan. 1860 (sc. 1861), Knowsley papers, 144/2A, and 21 Feb. 1861, idem, 144/2B.

142 Derby to Disraeli, 27 Jan. 1861, Hughenden papers, B/X/S 280.

143 E.g. Derby to Malmesbury 27 Jan. 1861, Knowsley papers, 188/2 (copy); Disraeli to Derby, 25 May 1862, Knowsley papers, 146/1; ibid. August 1863, Knowsley papers, 146/1A.

144 Stanley, Journals, pp. 186–7 (3 06 1862)Google Scholar; White, , I.T. 1 (n.s.), 106 (14 06 1862)Google Scholar; and Derby letter book, items of June 1862, Knowsley papers 189/1 (esp. Derby to Estcourt, 22 June 1862). It was a brilliant coup for Palmerston, over which his chief whip had every reason to crow: Brand to Palmerston, 7 June 1862, Broadlands papers, GC/BR 13.

145 Income tax cuts, to the lowest level ever, pleased even Tories: Stanley, , Journals, p. 212 (8 04 1864)Google Scholar.

146 Expressed to Derby personally via Lord Clarendon, see Derby to Clarendon, 20 June 1862, Knowsley papers, 189/1 (copy).

147 On Tory enthusiasm for the attack, Stanley, , Journals, pp. 217–18 (3 06 1864)Google Scholar; on the absence of defections on the crucial vote, above, note 115.

148 Lowe succumbed to opposition to ‘mutilation’ of schools inspectors' reports, Stansfeld to violent criticism of his Mazzinian connexions, Westbury to censure of his administration of legal patronage: on the partisan nature of the attacks involved, see e.g. White, , I.T. IV (n.s.), 198, 262 (26 Mar. and 23 04 1864)Google Scholar, VII, 6, (8 Jul y 1865).

149 The opposition was behind these attacks also: Trelawny, diary, V, 118–20 (28 Mar. 1862); I.L.N. XL, 333 (5 04 1862)Google Scholar; Saturday Review, XVI, 142 (1 08 1863)Google Scholar; and others, see e.g. Trelawny, , diary, VIII, 60– 1 (2 05 1865)Google Scholar; not all were successful, of course, see e.g. l.L.N. XLIV, 614 (25 06 1864)Google Scholar.

150 Home and Foreign Review, 1 (1862), 40Google Scholar. Disraeli in 1862 described the opposition's aim as ‘Rather to discredit than defeat’: Monypenny and Buckle, Disraeli, II, 46. Cf. Derby to Jolliffe, 14 Jan. 1855, Knowsley papers 183/1 (copy), ‘keeping individual instances of mismanagement and blundering prominently before the Public… far more advantageous to us politically than one great onslaught’.

151 Malmesbury to Derby, 5 Feb. 1862, Knowsley papers, 144/2A; I.T. (leader), 1 (n.s.), 265 (23 Aug. 1862). Monypenny and Buckle swallowed this claim whole: Disraeli, II, 112, ‘… control so brilliantly and so successfully exercised…’.

152 Home and Foreign Review, 1 (1862), 40Google Scholar.

153 Edmund Yates (‘The lounger at the clubs’), I.T. XIII, 315 (16 11 1861)Google Scholar, claiming to retail the views of ‘an ancient Nestor of the Conservative party’.

154 Disraeli, , reported in Stanley, Journals, p. 165 (29 01 1861)Google Scholar.

155 Delane, , reported in Stanley, Journals, p. 195 (11 01 1863)Google Scholar.

156 Derby to Lord Normanby, 9 Apr. 1863, Derby papers 189/2 (copy). Cf. Trelawny, , diary, V, 60 (17 06 1861)Google Scholar: ‘government hangs by a thread - Lord Palmerston' life. Nothing else keeps out Lord Derby’.

157 As early as January 1855, Stanley thought it obvious that Palmerston's ‘health and strength were failing’: Journals, p. 132 (30 06 1855)Google Scholar; ‘…the beginning of the end’: Greville, , Journal, II, 85 (11 02 1857)Google Scholar; Derby to Disraeli, 24 Apr. 1857, Hughenden papers, B/XX/S 148; Disraeli, , reported in Stanley, Journals, p. 165 (29 01 1861)Google Scholar; ‘…the beginning of the end …’, Yates, , I.T. XII, 229 (13 04 1861)Google Scholar; ‘…very weak…doubtful whether he will be able to carry on’, Malmesbury, , Memoirs, pp. 551–2 (26 01 1862)Google Scholar. At no time did it not seem that a ‘return to office… cannot in the nature of things be very distant’: Rose to Jolliffe, 12 Dec. 1859, Hylton papers, 18/XV 37.

158 Saturday Review XIII, 698 (21 06 1862)Google Scholar.

159 See Cowling, M., ‘Disraeli, Derby and fusion’, Historical Journal, VIII (1965), 31–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

160 A brief article, the product of a pilot study for a larger investigation, has recently indicated the value of a more imaginative use of voting statistics: Cromwell, Valerie, ‘Mapping the political world of 1861: a multidimensional analysis of House of Commons division lists’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, VII (1982), 281–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A ‘clear party differentiation’ in voting emerges (pp. 291, 295).

161 Lowell, ‘Influence of party’, pp. 367–74. Lowell's test – whether 90% or more of members of a party were on one side – fails to allow for the independent status of the Irish repealers, and so exaggerates Liberal ‘dissidence’ (see above, n. 63).

162 Among others, Baines' and Locke King's franchise bills, Berkeley's ballot bill, Trelawny's church rates abolition bill, motions relating to religious tests, and to the Irish church – all repeatedly brought forward in the early sixties. Religious issues were particularly numerous and hotly contested between the parties: ‘What a convocation Parliament has become!’: Trelawny, diary, V, 167 (18 June 1862).

163 On Disraeli's championing the Church, see e.g. Monypenny and Buckle, Disraeli, II, 83–115; Derby, at first sceptical – see letter, 12 1860, Malmesbury, , Memoirs, p. 534Google Scholar – soon became enthusiastic, at least on the main issue, church rates: Derby to Taylor, 3 June 1861, Knowsley papers, 188/2 copy).

164 I.L.M. XL, 216 (1 03 1862)Google Scholar; also idem, XLII, 603 (30 May 1863); Saturday Review, XII, 137 (10 08 1861)Google Scholar.

165 l.L.N. XXXVIII, 576 (22 06 1861)Google Scholar.

166 See for instance Hugessen, diary, 1, 64 (26 Feb. 1861): Conservatives ‘really desirous’ to support ministers – Radicals becoming disaffected; idem, p. 65 (17 May 1861): Radicals ‘delighted’ by Gladstone's budget – Conservatives ‘angry and less disposed to support us than before’. Similarly, when action on the specific question of the Ashanti war suddenly developed into an attack on government policy generally – ‘“Oh,” said the Liberals, “a party question”’ – and a likely government defeat became a small majority: Hardy, A. E. Gathorne, Gathorne Hardy, first earl of Cranbrook: a memoir (2 vols London, 1910), 1, 164Google Scholar; also I.L.N. XLIV, 614 (25 06 1864)Google Scholar. White, , I.T. XII, 84 (9 02 1861)Google Scholar defines a Radical as ‘one who supports a Whig government in difficulties’.

167 Lowell, A. L., The government of England. (2 vols New York, 1908), 11, 79f.Google Scholar, and idem, ‘Influence of party’, 367f. Out of 181 divisions per session 1855–65 (average, from official division lists), 70% in the 1850s (Lowell, England, n, 81) and slightly over 60% in the early sixties (official division lists: sample, 1863–65 incl.) were government questions – so average 115–20 per session.

168 Many government defeats were by tiny margins – half in sessions 1863–5 by ten votes or less (official division lists).

169 See e.g. Hugessen, diary, 1, 69 and 79 (16 Feb. and 27 May 1862): Disraeli's dallying with the Economists' left Palmerston unscathed and ‘damaged him with his own party’ Stanley, , Journals, p. 185 (24 05 1862)Google Scholar; see also Cromwell, ‘Political world of 1861’, p. 295; and above, nn. 90, 109.

170 Commentators noted cross-voting, but also the small scale of the divisions involved: e.g. I.L.N. XLIV, 566 (11 06 1864)Google Scholar; and that ‘on a great occasion, when a vote of confidence was on’ all was changed: e.g. White, I.T. XII, 268 (27 04 1861)Google Scholarand 1 (n.s.), 42 (17 May 1862).

171 For instance, on the paper duties Bill, Puller's amendment, see e.g. Hugessen, diary, 1, 60f. (9 Aug i860); on the Churchward case, I.L.N. XLII, 558 (23 05 1863)Google Scholar; several votes in 1864, see e.g. White, , I.T. IV, 198, 294, 406 (26 03. 7 05, 25 06 1864)Google Scholar.

172 Gladstone, MS article of 1855, B.L. Add. MS 44,745, fo. 216r.

173 Buckingham, , Courts and cabinets, II, 425Google Scholar.

174 Buckingham, , Courts and cabinets, II, 425Google Scholar

175 Malmesbury to Disraeli, 6 July 1858, Hughenden papers, B/XX/HS 67. On the voting of the Tories 1858–9, which contrasted sharply with their performance in opposition, see Watt, ‘parties and polities’ pp. 109f.

176 See Vincent, , Liberal party, e.g. pp. 63ffGoogle Scholar. A symptom of the process was that Members were already in the 1850s tending to describe themselves as ‘Liberals’ rather than ‘Whigs’ or ‘Radicals’ Forty-four M.P.s changed their designation thus, 1852–9: Watt, ‘Parties and polities’, pp. 51f.

177 From the early 1850s, chief whips on both sides were assisted by a second junior whip: from the later 1850s, the first and second junior whips normally held lordships of the Treasury, and their functions became better defined, e.g. in the ‘telling’ of divisions (see official division lists).

178 I.L.N. XXXVIII, 512 (1 06 1861)Google Scholar: ‘All legislation is passing into the hands of the government’ see Glynn, J. K., ‘The private member of parliament 1832–68’ unpublished Ph.D. thesis, London University, 1949, pp. 232–9Google Scholar: of about 120 ‘private members’ bills introduced per session, on average, less than twenty normally survived, and in all the years 1846–68 only eight such bills passed into law that ministers had opposed at any stage.

179 See e.g. Hansard, third series, CLXII, cols 1490 f. (3 May 1861): government business gains priority on Thursdays. Peter Fraser, ‘The growth of ministerial control in the nineteenth century House of Commons’, E.H.R., LXXXV (1960), 444–63Google Scholar; Valerie Cromwell, ‘The losing of the initiative by the House of Commons 1780–1914’, T.R.H.S., 5th series, XVII (1968), 1–23Google Scholar. For further treatment of the question of the nature and development of party in this period, see my forthcoming doctoral thesis, ‘The theory and practice of party in the mid-Victorian House of Commons’.