The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli

by Richard Aldous

THE DOOR OF the Billiard Room flew open. From inside came rushing a pretty young chambermaid in a state of wild panic. Running through the house calling for help, she tried hastily to rearrange her clothes. What happened next is anyone’s guess. No doubt she found a senior member of the household staff who went back with her to the Billiard Room to assess the situation. What confronted them could hardly have been more obvious: sprawled across the green baize of the table was the lifeless body of an elderly gentleman in a state of considerable undress. Quick thinking was needed. The butler was immediately called, his duty to eradicate all evidence of the circumstances of this untimely demise. Together with the valet, he hurriedly reassembled his master’s clothes and hauled the corpse upstairs to the bedchamber. From there these loyal servants proceeded quickly to the lady of the house to report the sad news: Lord Palmerston had died ‘peacefully in bed’, just two days short of his eighty-first birthday.