Victoria of the United Kingdom: Encyclopedia II - Victoria of the United Kingdom - Gladstone and Disraeli

Victoria of the United Kingdom - Gladstone and Disraeli

In 1868, the Conservative Benjamin Disraeli entered office. He would later prove to be Victoria's favourite Prime Minister. His ministry, however, soon collapsed, and he was replaced by William Ewart Gladstone, a member of the Liberal Party (as the Whig-Peelite Coalition had become known). Gladstone was famously at odds with both Victoria and Disraeli during his political career. She once remarked that she felt he addressed her as though she were a public meeting. The Queen disliked Gladstone, as well as his policies, as much as she admired Disraeli. It was during Gladstone's ministry, in the early 1870s, that the Queen began to gradually emerge from a state of perpetual mourning and isolation. With the encouragement of her family, she became more active.

In 1872, Victoria endured her sixth encounter involving a gun. As she was alighting from a carriage, a seventeen-year old Irishman, Arthur O'Connor, rushed towards her with a pistol in one hand and a petition to free Irish prisoners in the other. The gun was not loaded; the youth's aim was most likely to alarm Victoria into accepting the petition. John Brown, who was at the Queen's side, knocked the boy to the ground before Victoria could even view the pistol; he was rewarded with a gold medal for his bravery. O'Connor was sentenced to penal transportation and to corporal punishment, as allowed by the Act of 1842, but Victoria remitted the latter part of the sentence.

Disraeli returned to power in 1874, at which time an imperialist sentiment was espoused by many in the country, including the new Prime Minister and the Queen, as well as many in Europe. In 1871 the German Empire had been proclaimed, and Victoria's eldest daughter was married to its heir, so the daughter would someday become an Empress, outranking her far-more-powerful mother the Queen. To prevent such a diplomatic anomaly, in 1876 a new Royal Titles Act of Parliament gave the Queen the additional title "Empress of India". Victoria rewarded her Prime Minister, accelerating the customary award of an Earldom to a former prime minister, by creating him Earl of Beaconsfield while he was still in office.

Lord Beaconsfield's administration fell in 1880 when the Liberals won the general election of that year. Gladstone had relinquished the leadership of the Liberals four years earlier and the Queen invited Lord Hartington, Liberal leader in the Commons, to form a ministry. However Lord Hartington declined the opportunity, arguing that no Liberal ministry could work without Gladstone and he would serve under no-one else, and Victoria could do little but appoint Gladstone Prime Minister.

The last of the series of attempts on Victoria's life came in 1882. A Scottish madman, Roderick Maclean, fired a bullet towards the Queen, then seated in her carriage, but missed. Since 1842, each individual who attempted to attack the Queen had been tried for a misdemeanour (punishable by seven years of penal servitude), but Maclean was tried for high treason (punishable by death). He was acquitted, having been found insane, and was committed to an asylum. Victoria expressed great annoyance at the verdict of "not guilty, but insane," and encouraged the introduction of the verdict of "guilty, but insane" in the following year.

Victoria's conflicts with Gladstone continued during her later years. She was forced to accept his proposed electoral reforms, including the Representation of the People Act 1884, which considerably increased the electorate. Gladstone's government fell in 1885, to be replaced by the ministry of a Conservative, Lord Salisbury. Gladstone returned to power in 1886, and he introduced the Irish Home Rule Bill, which sought to grant Ireland a separate legislature. Victoria was opposed to the bill, which she believed would undermine the British Empire. When the bill was rejected by the House of Commons, Gladstone resigned, allowing Victoria to appoint Lord Salisbury to resume the premiership.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Gladstone and Disraeli", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki