in danger of becoming unpopular in the County from being thought FINE and not ready enough to invite, and notice, and visit the old habitues among the Althorp neighbours — that you and Althorp [the Red Earl] seemed to prefer the YOUNG people and neglect the old; and that HIS popularity and yours might suffer ...’
Now I need not say what is most entirely true that I don’t suppose y’ore fine or proud! Moreover your manner to the people of inferior rank is ALWAYS quite REMARKABLY good — and I know that you wish to do all your duty as a country lady most honestly.
At this point, having deployed insult and hypocrisy, Sarah switches to condescension:
It is, however, a duty which must be quite new to you and may often be very irksome. But it is quite worth your while to do it THOROUGHLY and in a manner which except during Althorp’s dear Mother’s time never has been practised in earnest.
Throughout all the material I have read about Charlotte, I have never come across any reference to her having been anything other than the epitome of considerate hospitality. It appears that ‘Aunt Sarah’ wanted to vent her spleen at her young, beautiful, highly capable niece, for running the Spencer homes with such aplomb. This calculated attack was her way of inflicting pain while appearing considerate.
Charlotte spent much of the 1860s and 1870s imposing her taste on Althorp. In doing this, she drew on her childhood experiences, making the Northamptonshire gardens mirror the sophistication and detail that she had known when growing up at Ickworth, instead of maintaining the more rural look favoured by the previous two generations of Spencers. Intricate flower beds were cut into the lawns, and cypress trees were planted on the north and west sides of the mansion. Inside, the cloakroom to the right of the main entrance was transformed into a breakfast room, and it was planned to move the dining room from the current South Drawing Room to a purpose-built extension.
In all these improvements, Charlotte showed herself to be exactly what was hoped for from a Victorian aristocrat’s wife: an apparently effortless hostess with superior taste and an eye for perfect detail. Between them the Spencers were seen to possess the gifts and qualities that would lead to responsibilities far removed from the confines of their London and Northamptonshire residences.
The Spencer family knew the Gladstones through George William, Fourth Baron Lyttelton, son of the lady who had written so hurtfully to Charlotte about her perceived failings as chatelaine. The Fourth Baron Lyttelton married Mary Glynne, whose sister, Catherine, was married to William Gladstone.
Mary and Catherine’s father, Sir Stephen Glynne, ran into huge financial difficulties in 1847 after an unsound business venture collapsed. He was left with debts amounting to £450,000, and the probability that he would have to sell the family estate of Hawarden, on the Welsh border.
It was agreed that, although approximately half of the debt would be met through the disposal of Hawarden land, such a sale should take place within the confines of the family. Then, if the Glynne family could recoup its lost money, buying back the land would not be difficult. William Gladstone and his father bought half the land, while Lyttelton agreed to purchase the rest. However, to his embarrassment, Lyttelton found himself unable to raise the necessary sum, and turned to his uncle Frederick, Fourth Earl Spencer, for help. Frederick obliged, buying that part of the estate known as Queen’s Ferry.
Despite the Spencers’ acquaintance with the Gladstones, there was still general astonishment when the Red Earl was selected by William Gladstone, during his first premiership, to be the Lord Lieutenant — or Viceroy — of Ireland. True, the Red Earl was a man of undoubted integrity, and his wife was an accomplished hostess, so the basic requirements for occupying Dublin Castle on the monarch’s behalf were both met in full. However, Spencer had held no official post previously, and he had no knowledge of Ireland. It later emerged that the Red Earl was only the third choice for the Lord Lieutenancy.
The two main Irish issues revolved around the questions of religion and of the relationship between native farmers and their predominantly English landlords. The former was not an area of expertise for the Red Earl: he was a solid, unquestioning, member of the Church of England. Perhaps Gladstone hoped that Spencer’s reputation as a conscientious landowner might help with the second sphere of his duties?
The prime role of the Lord Lieutenant was to control a trouble-some province, and with this responsibility went real power. Lord Carnarvon, who held the post in the mid-1880s, opined in his diary: ‘It is remarkable how all government of the whole country centres in the Lord-Lieutenant.’
Although pageantry and lavish hospitality were important adjuncts of the viceregal position, London was relying on its man in Dublin to exercise authority as swiftly and as thoroughly as the situation deserved.
The Spencers’ first term at Dublin Castle was relatively undemanding. They proved to be generous hosts, far exceeding their £20,000 allowance from the public purse, giving dazzling balls and overseeing opulent gatherings. A ‘drawing room’ was regularly held, where up to 1,000 of Ireland’s grandest and most influential citizens assembled to pay their respects to their Lord Lieutenant. Part of Spencer’s duties involved kissing all the ladies presented to him at a drawing room, which forced the Red Earl to retire periodically to have his beard brushed clean of all the glitter and make-up that accumulated in its bushiness.
The Red Earl found himself popular with the leisured classes who largely shared his passion for foxhunting. He even paid for several of his old hunting friends to come out from England’s Midlands for a taste of the sport, Irish style. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s beauty and charm won over all who met her, the newspaper Freeman’s Journal giving a typically positive report of her in January 1874: ‘The Countess looks her best — amiable, graceful, dignified — a presence as fair and gracious as ever shone within the walls of Dublin Castle.’ She became affectionately known as ‘the Lady Lieutenant’.
The Spencers quickly became aware of the very real problems faced by the less privileged sectors of Irish society. Charlotte wrote to her sister, Augusta, in 1869:
The atmosphere seems tainted with the breath of injustice — everything is crooked and out of joint. The marvel is how things can have gone on as they are so long. I don’t for a moment pretend to say that the Church question is the cry of the poor, but I believe nevertheless that it is at the root of all the troubles of this country.
The Red Earl tried to oversee a fairer system of landlord-tenant relationships, sending reports direct to Gladstone. The Prime Minister, for his part, thought Spencer’s recommendations were too interfering, and did not give him the support necessary if the cabinet was to follow the Red Earl’s recommendation as how best to settle the rampant problem of agrarian crime.
Gladstone also refused to listen to Spencer’s argument that a simple way of gaining more control over Ireland would be for a member of Queen Victoria’s direct family to reside there in an official capacity. In July 1871 the Red Earl submitted a report which concluded:
I have frequently expressed my opinion that the effect of a Royal Residence in Ireland on the people would be excellent. It would remove a sense of neglect which they undoubtedly feel; it would give a good example to those Irish proprietors who do not live in the Country; it would make the Irish people realise by acquaintance the good qualities of the Royal family and it would enable the Royal family to know the true character of the people.
It was too bold a suggestion, and Gladstone’s cabinet decided to postpone a decision indefinitely on the matter.
Overall, though, Gladstone appreciated the qualities that the Red Earl brought to the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, writing to him towards the end of his first administration: ‘It has been a great thing for us to have in the Viceroyalty that remarkable union of striking excellence, high position, and every popular quality, with solid judgement and indefatigable industry, which have been exemplified in your person ...’ On being replaced as Prime Minister in 1874, Gladstone offered Spencer an
elevation from the title of earl to marquess, but the Red Earl preferred his earldom, and declined the honour.
Gladstone headed four administrations, with Spencer having a prominent role in all of them. The Red Earl twice served in the important but relatively uninteresting post of Lord President of the Council, but his talents were destined for Ireland again. During a meeting of the Privy Council in 1882, he found himself in the bizarre position of publicly announcing his own reappointment to the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. In her diary that night, Queen Victoria noted that Spencer appeared ‘much impressed with the difficulties of the task before him. He hoped he was right in undertaking it ...’
This was, as the Red Earl had so rightly anticipated, a posting far removed from the one he had previously experienced in Dublin. Ireland was seething with discontent, the terrorist movement of the Invincibles causing particular concern. It whipped up nationalist feeling against the British, promising from its formation, in 1881, to concentrate on the assassination of British officials in Ireland. There was also grave dissatisfaction in the ranks of the Royal Irish Constabulary, as well as a mutiny in the Metropolitan police force. As The Times recorded in 1882: ‘Over half of the country the demoralisation of every class, the terror, the fierce hatred, the universal distrust, had grown to an incredible pitch ... The very foundations of the social order were rocking.’
On 6 May 1882, Spencer arrived in Dublin Castle, Lord Lieutenant again after an absence of eight years, leaving Charlotte in England to follow later. In the Red Earl’s retinue, as his chief secretary, was one of his closest friends from his schooldays at Harrow, Lord Frederick Cavendish, a direct descendant of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and a Spencer cousin. Along with their assistant, Mr Burke, the two kinsmen held a meeting in the castle after lunch that day, after which the Red Earl decided to ride back to the viceregal lodge across Dublin’s Phoenix Park, with his mounted escort. The other two elected to walk.
As Cavendish and Burke ambled back, past a polo match, they were suddenly attacked by a group of Invincibles with knives, and were stabbed to death a few yards apart. The cuts in Burke’s gloves, and the agonized look on his face when his body was retrieved, showed that he had tried to defend himself, but Cavendish can have known little about his death, his expression one of peaceful sleep rather than of conscious terror.
The Red Earl later recorded:
When I reached the lodge I sat down near the window, and began to read some papers. Suddenly I heard a shriek which I shall never forget. I seem to hear it now; it is always in my ears. The shriek was repeated again and again. I got up to look out. I saw a man rushing alone. He jumped over the palings and dashed up to the lodge, shouting, ‘Mr Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish are killed’.
The news that reached England was garbled, and Charlotte feared that her husband had also been caught up in the grisly outrage’. She called the time between receiving the first news of the deaths and confirmation that her husband was safe, ‘the most terrible and longest day of my life’.
Spencer wrote a letter to Charlotte later that day, disjointed with shock:
We are in God’s hands. Do not be filled with alarm and fear. I was alone and have no apprehension.
God knows how I feel, this fearful tragedy — two such men at such a time.
I dare not dwell on the horror for I feel I must be unmanned.
I am very calm.
Do not, loved one, come unless you feel more unhappy in London than here.
There is no danger really whatever.
The last point was clearly unrealistic. Above all, there was a suspicion that it was Spencer himself who had been the true target of the assassination, since he and Cavendish looked alike, with similarly lush facial hair, and this added greatly to the consternation felt by those charged with protecting British officials in Ireland.
At the same time there was widespread public revulsion at the cowardliness of the attack on two unarmed officials by terrorists. Solidarity with the victims’ families was demonstrated by all parties of the House of Commons — 300 of whose Members, including Gladstone, trekked to Chatsworth for Cavendish’s funeral.
It was decided to try to crush those who had brought about the so-called ‘Phoenix Park murders’. Several of the Invincibles stood trial and were hanged. The ringleader of the murderers, James Carey, traded evidence against his co-conspirators for the sparing of his own life, taking advantage of Spencer’s own controversial witness protection scheme. But it did him little good, for he was recognized by a fellow Irishman on his way to a new life in South Africa, and was shot dead by his compatriot on the ship taking him from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth.
Spencer was confronted with a bitter dilemma. Brought up a Whig, his instincts were to be liberal in all matters, and yet the crisis British rule now faced in Ireland demanded extremely tough measures. He was reviled by many in Ireland for his perceived harshness at this time, the extreme Parnellites accusing him of ‘striking murderous blows at the people’, and of having a ‘cruel, narrow, dogged nature’.
However, Spencer was applauded by those who believed he had no alternative but to be vigorous in his seeking out and destruction of dangerous dissident elements. Lord Morley judged that the Red Earl:
brought the most inflexible determination to stamp out murder and outrage, a calm disdain of the fiercest and foulest personal attacks levelled against a public man in our generation, and an unswerving desire to do good to Ireland. He conquered by his character and his bearing. He punished the guilty. He saw the thing through.
After the Phoenix Park murders, everyday life for the Spencers changed dramatically. They were forced to travel with armed guards wherever they went. A tour of west Ireland undertaken by the Red Earl in September 1882, which would previously have involved protection from a couple of policemen and a token cavalry officer, now involved an escort of eight hussars, eight mounted police, and four armed detectives. Even trips back to Althorp involved bodyguards sleeping near to the Red Earl, much to his chagrin. Despite his protests, this level of protection was realistic; the police believed even Dublin Castle might be attacked by nationalists at any time.
The castle became almost a prison, in total contrast to the pleasure palace of the Spencers’ first viceregal stint. Charlotte exercised by walking in the Pound of the Castle. This area could only be accessed via a guarded iron door, with a spiked metal gate, followed by a heavily guarded bridge, with yet more spikes and locks. She never complained about this depressing turn of events, mirroring the unflappability of her husband. As Gladstone remarked of the Red Earl in a letter to Queen Victoria from this time, ‘He possesses all the fine and genuine qualities of his excellent Uncle Althorp, and exercises them with heightened powers.’
Neither Prime Minister nor monarch ever understood how much Spencer hated dispensing harsh justice to the Irish people. Two decades later, extremely ill, the convalescent Red Earl sat talking with his half-brother, Bobby, about this period, when he felt obliged to send so many to their deaths:
We talked about the precautions for his safety that had been taken, an A.D.C. having to sleep in his dressing room. I reminded him of the police sleeping on his and my door mat in the Westfort Hotel. Then about our luncheon at Ryburn and Mrs Walsh kneeling before him praying for her son’s life, almost the most agonising thing that could happen. I recollect everything about it, 23 years ago. Spencer in the outer porch, framed by the porch. Mrs Walsh kneeling in front of him in agony of sorrow. Spencer tried to raise her, and with his reserve quite overpowered by the emotions of the Mother’s anguish.
After 1882, the Spencers remained in Dublin with ever decreasing enthusiasm, their private thoughts clouded with worries: their personal safety; the expense of being Lord Lieutenant, on an inadequate allowance; the virtual halving of their own income, through the agricultural depression in England; and the desire to be back at Althorp and Spencer House, which they felt they had neglected for too long.
The Red Earl
confided to his Devonshire cousin, the Marquess of Hartington, in June 1883:
In many ways it would be a great relief to be turned out of office and I sometimes wish for release from this place, but I don’t know that one ought to wish for it on public grounds ... it is a banishment from friends and associations, and at times the worry and responsibility are dreadful.
A year later, resigned to a life of continued public service, the Red Earl considered applying to become Viceroy of India, in the wake of Lord Mayo’s assassination. This was out of an understanding that such a position would be considerably less expensive than its Irish counterpart. Hearing of this possibility, Gladstone said: ‘Of course Lord Spencer has only to hold up his little finger in order to have it placed absolutely at his disposal.’ However, the thought of the heat and the risk of disease — the Red Earl was, like his mother, cursed with wretched health from an early age — eventually dissuaded Spencer from pursuing the idea, and he remained in Ireland. Charlotte was highly relieved, telling her mother: ‘I am thankful that Lord Northbrook has accepted, and that we have not had the option. I can imagine nothing more detestable — 5 years banishment and a hateful climate — with a chance of assassination or death from fever — and a terrible responsibility.’
Responsibility and risk from assassination remained constant factors in Dublin. From 1883 to 1885, Irish-American terrorists mounted a bombing campaign in England and Scotland which had symbolic targets — the Houses of Parliament and the Tower of London — as well as ones of a more practical nature, such as the Underground network. Scotland Yard countered by setting up a Special Branch, whose brief was to undermine and eradicate the terrorist organizations. Nevertheless, the Red Earl came gradually to despair that enforced British rule could ever prevail in Ireland.
The Spencer Family Page 30