Mutual dislike
In the general election of 1 April 1880, the Conservative party under Benjamin Disraeli was crushingly defeated by the Liberals (known as Whigs) - under William Gladstone. Lord Granville, a moderate Whig, wrote to Queen Victoria who would, he knew, be bitterly disappointed by the decision of the electorate:
'Lord Beaconsfield [Disraeli] and Mr Gladstone are men of extraordinary ability; they dislike each other more than is usual among public men. Of no other politician Lord Beaconsfield would have said in public that his conduct was worse than those who had committed the Bulgarian atrocities. He has the power of saying in two words that which drives a person of Mr Gladstone's peculiar temperament into a state of great excitement.'
'There is no doubt that the two statesmen hated each other.'
There is no doubt that the two statesmen hated each other. Disraeli referred to his rival in a letter to Lord Derby as '...that unprincipled maniac Gladstone - extraordinary mixture of envy, vindictiveness, hypocrisy and superstition'. And Gladstone more moderately said of his old enemy, 'the Tory party had principles by which it would and did stand for bad and for good. All this Dizzy destroyed'.
When Lord Granville wrote to Queen Victoria, Disraeli, born in 1804, had one more year to live; Gladstone, who was born in 1810, had another eighteen. They had been leaders of their respective parties since 1868, but were dominant figures long before that. They had very different social origins. Gladstone was a quintessential member of the rich upper middle class educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. Disraeli's parents were of Italian Jewish descent, his father was a distinguished man of letters, and the young Disraeli was brought up as an Anglican - 'the blank page between the Old Testament and the New', as he described himself.
Gladstone had always regarded the Church as his preferred profession, but was diverted by the offer of a safe Tory seat in 1832, though he remained deeply religious for the whole of his life. Disraeli was educated at obscure schools and never went to a university. As a young man he was dandified, debt-ridden, affected and extravagant. He wrote several bad novels to raise money to placate his creditors, and in 1838 he relieved his financial situation to some extent by marrying a rich widow. His youth was as disreputable as Gladstone's was respectable. Gladstone's role model was Sir Robert Peel, leader of the Conservative party; Disraeli's an amalgam of Burke, Bolingbroke and Byron. After several attempts as a radical he got into Parliament in 1837, as a Tory.
Published: 2001-06-01
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