- Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1868, Vol. X ed. by Michel W. Pharand et al.
Correction:
The editor for the book review on Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1868, Vol. X should read Michel W. Pharand, not Michael W. Pharand.
By the beginning of 1868, Benjamin Disraeli had finally established himself as the heir apparent to Lord Derby’s leadership of the Conservative Party. His triumph in passing the 1867 Reform Bill, after the Liberals had failed to do so, had demonstrated that he alone had the skill in debate and the command of parliamentary procedure that the Party’s next leader would need. So when, in mid-February, Derby was forced to retire due to ill health, Disraeli became England’s fortieth Prime Minister. Most of these letters are concerned with the struggle for power that ensued as his jealous archrival, William Gladstone, sought to dislodge him from office immediately by the only means at hand: some resolutions in the House of Commons calling for the disestablishment of the Irish Church.
The letters in this volume are of special interest, however, not just for what they reveal about Disraeli’s response to Gladstone’s unusual parliamentary tactic, but also for what they tell us in detail about the way Disraeli shaped his rather extraordinary relationship with the Queen, about the strategy he used in holding together his fractious Cabinet, and about the workings of the Prime Minister’s office. These, of course, are all related matters. [End Page 137]
Disraeli made the struggle with Gladstone one of high drama: when he chose not to resign after the first of the Irish Church resolutions was adopted, he had to persuade his Cabinet colleagues of the necessity and wisdom of remaining in office in the face of the opposition’s hostility. The strategy for doing that was to obtain and use the Queen’s sanction of his views. He believed that the attack on the Irish Church was the thin edge of a wedge that would ultimately undermine the Church of England as well, and so he argued that an issue of such constitutional importance should be put before the electorate created by the new franchise, the registration for which wouldn’t be ready until mid-November. In the meantime he proposed to stay on as Prime Minister, knowing that he did not have the confidence of the House of Commons.
The Queen was concerned not to set such a constitutional precedent, but she accepted Disraeli’s reasoning that an immediate election on the old franchise would be improper, understanding that he would request a dissolution as soon as an election was practicable. The Cabinet was far from unified over this way of proceeding, with many members in favor of their immediate resignations. To avoid this and to avoid handing the government directly over to Gladstone (who, also in a minority position, would be dependent on a Liberal-Radical-Irish coalition), Disraeli used the chivalric rhetoric of an obsolete conception of the constitution. In so doing, he insisted that he and the members of the Cabinet were duty bound not to abandon the Queen in an hour of peril.
Disraeli defined his government’s defense of the Queen and the Church as “the great Protestant struggle” (301–302). It was therefore ironic (and very much to Gladstone’s chagrin) that in 1868 there were an extraordinary number of vacancies in the hierarchy of the Church of England, which required the appointment of more than a dozen bishops, deans, and canons, including the highest position of all, that of the Primate, Archbishop of Canterbury. Such ecclesiastical patronage was in reality the gift of the Prime Minister, but custom required that he make recommendations to the Queen as the Head of the Church and that she approve his choice. As these letters show in fascinating detail, Disraeli found this process complicated by a tension between spiritual and temporal values that led to a tussle of wills...
