The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli

by Richard Aldous

appeared weak and irresolute. With Russell on the verge of retirement from public life, Gladstone’s position to succeed him, which until the previous months had seemed inevitable, was now in serious doubt. Gladstone’s reputation had rested both on his competence and his authoritative presence. During the reform debates he had appeared to possess neither. Senior Liberals began to wonder if someone else might do the job better. That autumn Brand predicted that ‘Granville will be the next prime minister’. Granville himself thought Sir George Grey was the man. Clarendon wanted anyone other than Gladstone who seemed to him close to a nervous breakdown. He gleefully reported to Russell, his brother-in-law, the bizarre story of Gladstone buying the entire contents of a toyshop, and Mrs Gladstone having to rush to the store to cancel the order. ‘I have heard of her having had to do this several times within the last few months,’ he wrote unkindly, ‘a melancholy proof of his tendency and of what [those] who knew him well always told me would be his destiny if he lived long enough and gave himself no rest.’