Palmerston: The People's Darling

by James Chambers

The outline of Palmerston's extraordinary career is well-known: his near forty years in Cabinet office, his lead in bringing the Crimean War to an end, his attempt to bluff Bismarck over Schleswig-Holstein. Also known is his swashbuckling, womanising reputation. But not explored until now are the powerful intellect, perception and subtle diplomacy that lay behind Palmerston's high-handed, blustering style, and which made him one of the most internationally influential statesman in British history.

James Chambers pays particular attention to the politician's early years, showing how his 'scandalous' private life and his long, frustrating apprenticeship at the War Office played their parts in turning the diffident 'Lord Cupid' into the notoriously over-confident 'Lord Pumicestone'. Instinctive and headstrong, he horrified his Cabinet colleagues with his brinkmanship. The apparent champion of the underdog and a pioneer in the exploitation of public opinion, 'the people's darling' became England's most popular and powerful politician since the elder Pitt. Even at the end of his career, Palmerston retained the nonchalance that had epitomised the bucks and dandies of his Regency youth. His levity irritated the redoubtable Queen Victoria, but a more astute observer, Florence Nightingale, saw through it. 'He was,' she said, 'so much more in earnest than he appeared.'

Genres: Biography, History

395 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 10, 2004

About the author

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Reviews

[Isidore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chambers somehow misses bringing Palmerston to life; perhaps the problem is his less than sparkling prose, and some unnecessary muddling of chronology, or perhaps the problem is Palmerston himself.

Chambers feels that Palmerston's reputation as a statesman is unfairly low, even as it was excessively inflated in his lifetime, but he has trouble convincing the reader any injustice has been done. Palmerston rarely acted out of principle, and was fond of making nobly progressive statements which he was careful not to follow up with concrete action. Often he was quite simply on the wrong side of history: opposing the extension of suffrage, paranoiac war-mongering about France while ignoring the danger posed by Prussia, appalling gunboat diplomacy in China and Japan, and on and on. His contemptuous dismissal of international law and belief in English exceptionalism have a depressingly modern flavour. It's difficult to warm to a subject who acted so shabbily, and Chambers resorts to making snarky comments about those who quite rightly opposed him, rather than evoking the roguish charm and personal flamboyance which might have made reading about Palmerston less distasteful.

[Tony Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

My prior knowledge of the career of the Victorian Prime Minister Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, KG, GCB, PC, FRS (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865) was sketchy. Obviously I knew by repute that his approach to foreign affairs was frequently to "send in a gunboat" whenever a despot or over ambitious potentate was trying the patience of the British Empire. I also knew that he and Queen Victoria were frequently at loggerheads, mostly because she tended to side with Germans and Austrians in any European dispute, Palmerston once having to tactfully remind her that she was "Sovereign of Great Britain". However only from reading this long 400 page biography do I really grasp the extraordinary role that this "Regency dandy" played in the relationship between Britain and the rest of the world through a critical art of the nineteenth century. He dominated the foreign office and foreign affairs (even when in opposition) for forty years, knew everyone who was anyone in the palaces and chancelleries of Europe and beyond, and had an extraordinary impact in many areas. His abhorrence of the slave trade was critical to it's eventual abolition in many countries, and his championing the rights of "democracy" in preference to absolutist monarchies helped immensely with keeping France stable and the creation of Italy. Palmerston was also a noted society figure, probably left lots of illegitimate children, but married one of the best hostesses in London, Countess Cowper. Although his outlook was frequently reactionary (he was against the Reform acts to make the commons more representative and widen the electorate), he was a mover and shaker in welfare and health reform (a friend and colleague of both Florence Nightingale and Lord Shaftesbury), notably with factory acts, improvements in poor relief, and on a wider front with improvements in sanitation and public health. Although his long term reputation has been tarnished a little, through a combination of under-estimating Bismark and political opportunism from Gladstone and Disraeli, he still remained politically active into his eightieth year, dying in office as Prime Minister in 1865, just after having secured a larger majority in an election.

I was a little amused by the parallels between his general approach to politics and that of our current (soon to depart Prime Minister). There are many differences - Palmerston was a big "details" man, Boris certainly is not. However their attitude to decision making, the "act now, talk your way out of it later" style is obviously similar. Palmerston was of a different age and calibre though, and his judgements were frequently taken by a perspective on the national or international (rather than personal) interest.

Indeed, his view of the role of Britain in the world (and my implication that of Her Majesty's Government) was summed up in this quote ..... "Our duty – our vocation – is not to enslave, but to set free; and I may say, without any vain-glorious boast, or without great offence to anyone, that we stand at the head of moral, social, and political civilization. Our task is to lead the way and direct the march of other nations. I do not think we ought to goad on the unwilling, or force forward the reluctant; but when we see people battling against difficulties and struggling against obstacles in the pursuit of their rights, we may be permitted to encourage them with our sympathy … and even, if occasion require, to lend them a helping hand".

Palmerston believed in his country. "Towards the end of his long life, remembered a time when ‘a Frenchman, thinking to be highly complimentary, said to Palmerston: "If I were not a Frenchman, I should wish to be an Englishman"; to which Pam coolly replied: "If I were not an Englishman, I should wish to be an Englishman".