Ensconced in Buckinghamshire, Disraeli began brooding on defeat. He received few visitors, and spent most of his days in his library or walking with Monty Corry. There was some consolation that he had finally been able to reward this most loyal secretary and confidant by seeing him elevated to ‘Baron Rowton’. (‘There has been nothing like it since Caligula created his horse a consul’ was Gladstone’s ungenerous response to the news.)
