Disraeli: A Personal History. Christopher Hibbert

& no one can judge more harshly of my conduct for the last 2 months than I…I thank God no one can reproach me of anything but romantic folly…I cannot think for I am distracted & feel as if there were no resting place on earth for me.’

      Her life in society was over, and in May 1846 the death of the widow of Sir Francis Sykes was only briefly noticed in the newspapers.

      What is apparently the last letter she wrote to Disraeli was very different from those she had written in the torridity of their affair:

      What can I say sufficient to convey to you my deep admiration of your book [Henrietta Temple: A Love Story] and the extreme pleasure I felt in reading it. You know I am not very eloquent in expressing my feelings, therefore I must fail to convey to you a tythe part of the extreme gratification I have in your brilliant success…It is possible that I may go abroad with Francis – he is perfectly recovered and tolerably kind to me.²⁰

       9 THE REFORMING TORY

      ‘I am considered a great popular orator’

      

      THROUGHOUT THE TIME of his affair with Lady Sykes, Disraeli had lost no opportunity of seeking the approval of men of political standing and influence, such as the friendly Lord Lyndhurst.^*

      I dined on Saturday en famille with Lyndhurst [he told his sister on 4 November 1834]. A more amiable and agreeable family I never met. The eldest daughter is just like her mother and, although only thirteen, rules everything and everybody – a most astounding little woman…I saw Chandos [Lord Chandos, eldest son of the Duke of Buckingham] today, and had a long conversation with him on politics. He has no head, but I flatter myself I opened his mind a little…D’Orsay has taken my portrait.¹

      As well as with Lyndhurst and Chandos, Disraeli was closely in touch and in correspondence with Lord Durham, whom he asked to use his influence to persuade ‘young Hobhouse [Sir John Hobhouse, later Lord Broughton]’ to resign from the political contest in his favour. ‘My dear Lord,’ he wrote, ‘my affairs are black; therefore, remember me and serve me if you can. My principles you are acquainted with; as for my other qualifications, I am considered a great popular orator.’²

      Lord Durham, however, replied that he was not in a position to help: he did not know Hobhouse well enough to intervene. But these were times which required the ‘presence in Parliament of every true and honest politician’ and he trusted and hoped, therefore, that Disraeli would find his way there yet. ‘If an occasion offers when I can forward your views,’ he added, ‘I shall not fail to do so.’³

      These were certainly times of great political excitement; and, as Bulwer told Isaac D’Israeli, his son, Benjamin, was ‘restless and ambitious as usual’, but ‘such dispositions always carve out their way’.

      It was a lively season that winter of 1834! [Disraeli wrote in his novel, Coningsby] What hopes, what fears and what bets!…People sprang up like mushrooms; town suddenly became full. Everybody who had been in office and everybody who wished to be in office…were alike visible. All of course by mere accident; one might meet the same men every day for a month, who were only ‘passing through town’…The town, through November, was in a state of excitement; clubs crowded, not only morning rooms but halls and staircases swarming with members eager to give and to receive rumours equally vain; streets lined with cabs and chariots, grooms and horses…

      But, after all, who were to form the government, and what was the government to be? Was it to be a Tory government, or an Enlightenment-Spirit-of-the-Age…Liberal-Moderate-Reform government?…

      Great questions these, but unfortunately there was nobody to answer them. They tried the Duke [of Wellington]; but nothing could be pumped out of him. All that he knew, which he told in his curt, husky manner, was, that he had to carry on the King’s government…‘This can’t go on much longer,’ said Taper to Tadpole [typical party wire-pullers]…At last he [Sir Robert Peel] came; the great man in a great position, summoned from Rome [where he had been on holiday] to govern England. The very day that he arrived he had his audience with the King.

      In the subsequent election campaign of 1835, Disraeli decided to stand once more for High Wycombe and to do so as a Radical-leaning Tory, sworn enemy of the Whigs. ‘It is not enough to say of Mr Disraeli’, ran a letter in the Bucks Gazette, ‘that he delivered himself with his usual ability [on the day of nomination]. The difficulties that he had to encounter were most ably met and judiciously avoided; to steer between the shoals of Toryism on the one hand and the quicksands of Radicalism on the other (for he was supported by the two parties) required the utmost skill and well did he acquit himself.’

      ‘I stand astonishingly well at Wycombe,’ Disraeli himself assured Benjamin Austen, ‘and may beat the Colonel [Charles Grey] yet. Had I the money, I might canter over the County, for my popularity is irresistible.’⁴ It was, however, not irresistible enough: he received 128 votes as against 147 for Charles Grey and 289 for the Hon. Robert J. Smith.

      ‘I am not at all disheartened,’ Disraeli protested. ‘I do not in any way feel like a defeated man. Perhaps it is because I am used to it. I will say of myself like the famous Italian general, who, being asked in his old age why he was always victorious, replied, it was because he had always been beaten in his youth.’⁵

      I have fought our battle and have lost it; by a majority of fourteen, [he wrote to the Duke of Wellington in a less jaunty, even servile mood]. Had I been supported as I wished, the result was certain as I anticipated. Had Lord Carrington exerted himself in the slightest degree in my favour, I must have been returned. But he certainly maintained a neutrality, a neutrality so strict that it amounted to a blockade…It is some consolation to me, even at this moment, that I have at least struggled to support your Grace. I am now a cipher; but if the devotion of my energies to your cause, in and out, can ever avail you, your Grace may count upon me, who seeks no greater satisfaction than that of serving a really great man.⁶

      In writing in such terms to the arch-Tory Duke of Wellington, Disraeli was, at least, sincere in his conversion to the Conservative cause and his rejection of the radicalism with which he had endeavoured in the past to modify it. He now nailed his colours to the mast, so to speak, by asking Lord Strangford to propose him, and Lord Chandos to second him, as an applicant for membership of the Carlton Club, which had been founded in 1832 after a general election in which only 179 Tories were returned out of a total membership of the House of Commons of 658, the intention being to form a social club which could serve as a meeting-place for Conservatives anxious to restore the fortunes of their party.

      ‘They have opened a subscription for me at the Carlton [Club],’ Disraeli told Sarah on 27 April 1835. ‘Tomorrow is nomination day.’ He wrote from Taunton, for which he was now standing as a Tory candidate. ‘Not that I can win this time,’ he warned her, for Henry Labouchere (afterwards Lord Taunton) would surely do so, having been returned at the head of the poll in the general election of 1830 and having represented the borough ever since. ‘But come in at the general election I must,’ Disraeli continued, ‘for I have promises of two-thirds of the electors. I live in a rage of enthusiasm; even my opponents promise to vote for me next time. The fatigue is awful. Two long speeches today, and nine hours canvass on foot in a blaze of repartee. I am quite exhausted, and can scarcely see to write! I believe in point of energy, eloquence and effect I have far exceeded all my former efforts. Had I arrived twenty hours sooner the result might have been in my favour.’

      In Taunton, as elsewhere, his exotic appearance