Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865), known as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman and politician who served as

British foreign policy

from 1830 to 1865, when Britain stood at the height of its imperial power.

He held office almost continuously from 1807 until his death in 1865. He began his parliamentary career as a Tory, defected to the Whigs in 1830, and became the first prime minister from the newly formed Liberal Party in 1859. He was highly popular with the British public. David Brown argues that "an important part of Palmerston's appeal lay in his dynamism and vigour".^[5]

Temple succeeded to

Cabinet rank in 1827, when George Canning became prime minister, but he resigned from office one year later. He was Foreign Secretary

1830–1834, 1835–1841 and 1846–1851. In this office, Palmerston responded effectively to a series of conflicts in Europe.

In 1852,

home secretary. As home secretary Palmerston enacted various social reforms, although he opposed electoral reform. When Aberdeen's coalition fell in 1855 over its handling of the Crimean War, Palmerston was the only man able to sustain a majority in Parliament, and he became prime minister. He had two periods in office, 1855–1858 and 1859–1865, before his death at the age of 80 years, a few months after victory in a general election in which he had obtained an increased majority. Palmerston is considered to have been the "first truly popular" prime minister. He remains the most recent British prime minister to die in office.^[6]

Palmerston masterfully controlled public opinion by stimulating British nationalism. Although Queen Victoria and most of the political leadership distrusted him, he received and sustained the favour of the press and the populace, from whom he received the affectionate sobriquet "Pam". Palmerston's alleged weaknesses included mishandling of personal relations, and continual disagreements with the Queen over the royal role in determining foreign policy.^[7]

Historians rank Palmerston as one of the greatest foreign secretaries, due to his handling of great crises, his commitment to the balance of power (which provided Britain with decisive agency in many conflicts), and his commitment to British interests. His policies in relation to India, China, Italy, Belgium and Spain had extensive long-lasting beneficial consequences for Britain. However, Palmerston's leadership during the Opium Wars was questioned and denounced by other prominent statesmen such as William Ewart Gladstone.^[8] The consequences of the conquest of India have been reconsidered by more recent scholarship weighing the burdens placed on India in colonial rule and British uncertainty on proper governance.^[9] The consequences of his policies towards France, the Ottoman Empire, and the United States proved more ephemeral.

Early life: 1784–1806

Henry John Temple was born in his family's

country estate in the north of County Sligo in the northwest of Ireland.^[12]

He was educated at Harrow School (1795–1800). Admiral Sir Augustus Clifford, 1st Bt., was a fag to Palmerston, Viscount Althorp and Viscount Duncannon and later remembered Palmerston as by far the most merciful of the three.^[13] Temple was often engaged in school fights and fellow Old Harrovians remembered Temple as someone who stood up to bullies twice his size.^[13] Henry Temple's father took him to the House of Commons in 1799, where the young Palmerston shook hands with the prime minister, William Pitt the Younger.^[14]

Temple was then at the University of Edinburgh (1800–1803), where he learnt political economy from Dugald Stewart, a friend of the Scottish philosophers Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith.^[15] Temple later described his time at Edinburgh as producing "whatever useful knowledge and habits of mind I possess".^[16] Lord Minto wrote to the young Palmerston's parents that Henry Temple was well-mannered and charming. Stewart wrote to a friend, saying of Temple: "In point of temper and conduct he is everything his friends could wish. Indeed, I cannot say that I have ever seen a more faultless character at this time of life, or one possessed of more amiable dispositions."^[17]

Henry Temple succeeded his father to the title of

MA without examinations, but Palmerston wished to obtain his degree through examinations. This was declined, although he was allowed to take the separate college examinations, where he obtained first-class honours.^[19]

After war was declared on France in 1803, Palmerston joined the

South-West Hampshire Local Militia from March 1809 to April 1816. Based at Romsey the regiment assembled for two weeks' training each year.^[21]

Early political career: 1806–1809

In February 1806, Palmerston was defeated in the election for the University of Cambridge constituency.^[22] In November he was elected for Horsham but was unseated in January 1807, when the Whig majority in the Commons voted for a petition to unseat him.^[23]

Due to the patronage of

Duke of Portland.^[24] He stood again for the Cambridge seat in May, but lost by three votes after he advised his supporters to vote for the other Tory candidate in the two-member constituency so as to ensure a Tory was elected.^[25]

Palmerston entered Parliament as Tory MP for the

pocket borough of Newport on the Isle of Wight in June 1807.^[26]

On 3 February 1808, he spoke in support of confidentiality in the working of diplomacy, and of the bombardment of Copenhagen and the capture and destruction of the

Treaty of Tilsit to build a naval alliance against Britain, including using the Danish navy for invading Britain.^[28]

Pre-empting this, the British offered Denmark the choice of temporarily handing over its navy until the war's end or the destruction of their navy. The Danes refused to comply and so Copenhagen was bombarded. Palmerston justified the attack by peroration with reference to the ambitions of Napoleon to take control of the Danish fleet:

it is defensible on the ground that the enormous power of France enables her to coerce the weaker state to become an enemy of England... It is the law of self-preservation that England appeals for the justification of her proceedings. It is admitted by the honourable gentleman and his supporters, that if Denmark had evidenced any hostility towards this country, then we should have been justified in measures of retaliation... Denmark coerced into hostility stands in the same position as Denmark voluntarily hostile, when the law of self-preservation comes into play...Does anyone believe that Buonaparte will be restrained by any considerations of justice from acting towards Denmark as he has done towards other countries? ... England, according to that law of self-preservation which is a fundamental principle of the law of nations, is justified in securing, and therefore enforcing, from Denmark a neutrality which France would by compulsion have converted into an active hostility.[29]

In a letter to a friend on 24 December 1807, he described the late Whig MP Edmund Burke as possessing "the palm of political prophecy".^[30] This would become a metaphor for his own career in divining the course of imperial foreign policy.

Secretary at War: 1809–1828

The British Empire at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815

Palmerston's speech was so successful that Spencer Perceval, who formed his government in 1809, asked him to become Chancellor of the Exchequer, then a less important office than it was to become later. But Palmerston preferred the non-cabinet office of Secretary at War, charged exclusively with the financial business of the army. He served in that post for almost 20 years.^[31]

On 1 April 1818, a retired officer on half-pay, Lieutenant David Davies, who had a grievance about his application from the War Office for a pension and was also mentally ill, shot Palmerston as he walked up the stairs of the War Office. The bullet only grazed his back and the wound was slight. After learning of Davies' illness, Palmerston paid for his legal defence at the trial, and Davies was sent to Bethlem Royal Hospital.^[32]

After the suicide of

Lord Liverpool, who was Prime Minister had to hold together the Tory Cabinet which began to split along political lines. The more liberal wing of the Tory government made some ground, with George Canning becoming Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons, William Huskisson advocating and applying the doctrines of free trade, and Catholic emancipation emerging as an open question. Although Palmerston was not in the Cabinet, he cordially supported the measures of Canning and his friends.^[33]

Upon the retirement of Lord Liverpool in April 1827, Canning was called to be prime minister. The more conservative Tories, including Sir

Lord Goderich, which barely survived the year.^[33]

The

Earl of Dudley in the government

he subsequently formed. However, a dispute between Wellington and Huskisson over the issue of parliamentary representation for Manchester and Birmingham led to the resignation of Huskisson and his allies, including Palmerston. In the spring of 1828, after more than twenty years continuously in office, Palmerston found himself in opposition.

On 26 February 1828, Palmerston delivered a speech in favour of Catholic emancipation. He felt that it was unseemly to relieve the "imaginary grievances" of the Dissenters from the established church while at the same time "real afflictions pressed upon the Catholics" of Great Britain.[34] Palmerston also supported parliamentary reform.^[35] One of his biographers has stated that: "Like many Pittites, now labelled tories, he was a good whig at heart."^[16] The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 finally passed Parliament in 1829 when Palmerston was in the opposition.^[36] The Great Reform Act passed Parliament in 1832.

Opposition: 1828–1830

Following his move to opposition Palmerston appears to have focused closely on foreign policy. He had already urged Wellington into active interference in the Greek War of Independence, and he had made several visits to Paris, where he foresaw with great accuracy the impending overthrow of the Bourbons. On 1 June 1829 he made his first great speech on foreign affairs.^[33]

Lord Palmerston was no orator; his language was unstudied, and his delivery somewhat embarrassed; but generally he found the words to say the right thing at the right time, and to address the House of Commons in the language best adapted to the capacity and the temper of his audience.
— "Lord Palmerston", Encyclopaedia Britannica 13th Edition

in September 1830, Wellington tried to induce Palmerston to re-enter the cabinet, but he refused to do so without Lord Lansdowne and Lord Grey, two notable Whigs. This can be said to be the point in 1830, when his party allegiance changed.^[37] In November 1830 he accepted an offer from Lord Grey to join his new government as Foreign Secretary.

Foreign Secretary: 1830–1841

Palmerston entered the office of Foreign Secretary with great energy and continued to exert his influence there for twenty years; he held it from 1830 to 1834 (his apprentice years^[38]), 1835 to 1841, and 1846 to 1851. Basically, Palmerston was responsible for the whole of British foreign policy from the time of the French and Belgian Revolutions of 1830 until December 1851. His abrasive style would earn him the nickname "Lord Pumice Stone", and his manner of dealing with foreign governments who crossed him, especially in his later years,^[39] was the original "gunboat diplomacy".^[40]^[41]

Crises of 1830

The

infant princess on the throne. Poland was in arms against the Russian Empire, while the northern powers (Russia, Prussia, and Austria) formed a closer alliance that seemed to threaten the peace and liberties of Europe.^[33] Polish exiles called on Britain to intervene against Russia during the November Uprising of 1830.^[43]

Palmerston's overall policy was to safeguard British interests, maintain peace, keep the balance of power, and retain the status quo in Europe. He had no grievance against Russia and while he privately sympathised with the Polish cause, in his role as foreign minister he rejected Polish demands. With serious trouble simultaneously taking place in Belgium and Italy, and lesser issues in Greece and Portugal, he sought to de-escalate European tensions rather than aggravate them, favouring a policy of universal non-interventionism.[44] He therefore focused chiefly on achieving a peaceful settlement of the crisis in Belgium.^[45]

Belgium

William I of the Netherlands appealed to the great powers that had placed him on the throne after the Napoleonic Wars to maintain his rights. The London Conference of 1830 was called to address this question. The British solution involved the independence of Belgium, which Palmerston believed would greatly contribute to the security of Britain, but any solution was not straightforward. On the one hand, the reactionary powers were anxious to defend William I; on the other, many Belgian revolutionaries, like Charles de Brouckère and Charles Rogier, supported the reunion of the Belgian provinces to France, whereas Britain favoured Dutch, not French influence, on an independent state.^[46]

The British policy which emerged was a close alliance with

Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the widower of a British princess, was placed upon the throne of Belgium.^[33] Fishman says that the London Conference was "an extraordinarily successful conference" because it "provided the institutional framework through which the leading powers of the time safeguarded the peace of Europe."^[49]^[50]

Thereafter, despite a Dutch invasion and French counter-invasion in 1831, France and Britain framed and signed a treaty settlement between Belgium and the Netherlands, inducing the three reactionary powers to accede to it as well;^[47] while in Palmerston's second period of office, as his authority grew, he was able to finally settle relations between Belgium and Holland with a treaty in 1838-9 - now asserting his (and British) independence by leaning rather more towards the Netherlands and the reactionary powers, and against the Belgium/French axis.^[51]

France, Spain, and Portugal, 1830s

In 1833 and 1834, the youthful Queens

Don Carlos of Spain, who were the closest males in the lines of succession. Palmerston conceived and executed the plan of a Quadruple Alliance of the constitutional states (Britain, France, Spain & Portugal) to serve as a counterpoise to the reactionary alliance. A treaty for the pacification of the Peninsula was signed in London on 22 April 1834 and, although the struggle was somewhat prolonged in Spain, it accomplished its objective.^[33]^[52]

France had been a reluctant party to the treaty, and never executed its role in it with much zeal.

Louis Philippe was accused of secretly favouring the Carlists – the supporters of Don Carlos – and he rejected direct interference in Spain. It is probable that the hesitation of the French court on this question was one of the causes of the enduring personal hostility Palmerston showed towards the French king thereafter, though that sentiment may well have arisen earlier. Although Palmerston wrote in June 1834 that Paris was "the pivot of my foreign policy", the differences between the two countries grew into a constant but sterile rivalry that brought benefit to neither.^[33]^[53]

Balkans and Near East: defending Turkey, 1830s

Palmerston was greatly interested by the Eastern question. During the Greek War of Independence he had energetically supported the Greek cause and backed the Treaty of Constantinople that gave Greece its independence. However, from 1830 the defence of the Ottoman Empire became one of the cardinal objects of his policy. He believed in the regeneration of Turkey, as he wrote to Henry Bulwer (Lord Dalling): "All that we hear about the decay of the Turkish Empire, and its being a dead body or a sapless trunk, and so forth, is pure unadulterated nonsense."^[54]

His two great aims were to prevent Russia establishing itself on the Bosporus and to prevent France doing likewise on the Nile. He regarded the maintenance of the authority of the Sublime Porte as the chief barrier against both these developments.^[54]

Palmerston had long maintained a suspicious and hostile attitude towards Russia, whose autocratic government offended his liberal principles and whose ever-growing size challenged the strength of the British Empire. He was angered by the 1833 Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi, a mutual assistance pact between Russia and the Ottomans, but was annoyed and hostile towards David Urquhart, the creator of the Vixen affair, running the Russian blockade of Circassia in the mid-1830s.^[55]

For his part, David Urquhart considered Palmerston a "mercenary of Russia" and founded the "Free Press" magazine in London, where he constantly promoted these views. The permanent author of this magazine was Karl Marx, who stated "from the time of Peter the Great until the Crimean War, there was a secret agreement between the London and St. Petersburg offices, and that Palmerston was a corrupt tool of the Tsar's policy"^[56]

Despite his popular reputation he was hesitant in 1831 about aiding the Sultan

under threat from Muhammad Ali, the wali of Egypt.^[57] Later, after Russian successes, in 1833 and 1835 he made proposals to afford material aid, which were overruled by the cabinet. Palmerston held that "if we can procure for it ten years of peace under the joint protection of the five Powers, and if those years are profitably employed in reorganizing the internal system of the empire, there is no reason whatever why it should not become again a respectable Power" and challenged the metaphor that an old country, such as Turkey should be in such disrepair as would be warranted by the comparison: "Half the wrong conclusions at which mankind arrive are reached by the abuse of metaphors, and by mistaking general resemblance or imaginary similarity for real identity."^[58] However, when the power of Muhammad Ali appeared to threaten the existence of the Ottoman dynasty, particularly given the death of Sultan Mahmud II on 1 July 1839, he succeeded in bringing the great powers together to sign a collective note on 27 July pledging them to maintain the independence and integrity of the Turkish Empire in order to preserve the security and peace of Europe. However, by 1840 Muhammad Ali had occupied Syria and won the Battle of Nezib against the Turkish forces. Lord Ponsonby, the British ambassador at Constantinople, vehemently urged the British government to intervene.^[54] Privately, Palmerston explained his views on Muhammad Ali to Lord Granville thus: "Coercion of Mehemet Ali by England if war broke out might appear partial and unjust; but we are partial; and the great interests of Europe require that we should be so....No ideas therefore of fairness towards Mehemet ought to stand in the way of such great and paramount interests."^[59]^[60] Having closer ties to the wali than most, France refused to be a party to coercive measures against him despite having signed the note in the previous year.^[61]

Palmerston, irritated at France's Egyptian policy, signed the

Lord Melbourne, that he would resign from the ministry if his policy were not adopted.^[54]

The London Convention granted Muhammad Ali hereditary rule in Egypt in return for withdrawal from Syria and Lebanon, but was rejected by the pasha. The European powers intervened with force, and the bombardment of Beirut, the fall of Acre, and the total collapse of Muhammad Ali's power followed in rapid succession. Palmerston's policy was triumphant, and the author of it had won a reputation as one of the most powerful statesmen of the age.^[62]

In September 1838, Palmerston appointed a British consul in Jerusalem, without the conventional consultation of the Board of Trade, and gave instruction to assist with the construction of an Anglican church in the city, under the prompting influences of Lord Shaftesbury, a prominent Christian Zionist.^[63]

China: First Opium War

Treaty of Nanjing, China paid an indemnity and opened five treaty ports to world trade. In those ports there would be extraterritorial rights for British citizens. Palmerston thus achieved his main goals of diplomatic equality and opening China to trade. However his angry critics focused on the immorality of the opium trade.^[65]

Palmerston's biographer, Jasper Ridley, outlines the government's position:

Conflict between China and Britain was inevitable. On the one side was a corrupt, decadent and caste-ridden despotism, with no desire or ability to wage war, which relied on custom much more than force for the enforcement of extreme privilege and discrimination, and which was blinded by a deep-rooted superiority complex into believing that they could assert their supremacy over Europeans without possessing military power. On the other side was the most economically advanced nation in the world, a nation of pushing, bustling traders, of self-help, free trade, and the pugnacious qualities of John Bull.^[66]

An entirely opposite British viewpoint was promoted by humanitarians and reformers such as the Chartists and religious nonconformists led by young William Ewart Gladstone. They argued that Palmerston was only interested in the huge profits it would bring Britain, and was totally oblivious to the horrible moral evils of opium which the Chinese government was valiantly trying to stamp out.^[67]^[68]

Meanwhile, he manipulated information and public opinion to enhance his control of his department, including controlling communications within the office and to other officials. He leaked secrets to the press, published selected documents, and released letters to give himself more control and more publicity, all the while stirring up British nationalism.^[69] He feuded with The Times, edited by Thomas Barnes, which did not play along with his propaganda ploys.^[70]^[71]

Marriage

Emily Lamb, then Countess Cowper, by William Owen

, ca. 1810

In 1839, Palmerston married his mistress of many years, the noted Whig hostess

Emily Lamb, widow of Peter Leopold Louis Francis Nassau Clavering-Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper (1778–1837) and sister of William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, prime minister (1834 and 1835–1841). They had no legitimate children, although at least one of Lord Cowper's putative children, Lady Emily Cowper, the wife of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, was widely believed to have been fathered by Palmerston.^[72] Palmerston resided at Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire, his wife's inheritance. His London townhouse was Cambridge House on Piccadilly in Mayfair.^[73]

Emily's son-in-law, Lord Shaftesbury wrote: "His attentions to Lady Palmerston, when they both of them were well stricken in years, were those of a perpetual courtship. The sentiment was reciprocal; and I have frequently seen them go out on a morning to plant some trees, almost believing that they would live to eat the fruit, or sit together under the shade."^[74]

Young Queen Victoria found it unseemly that people in their 50s could marry, but the Cowper-Palmerston marriage according to biographer Gillian Gill:

was an inspired political alliance as well as a stab at personal happiness. Harry and Emily were supremely well-matched. As the husband of a beautiful, charming, intelligent, rich woman whose friends were the best people in society, Palmerston at last had the money, the social setting, and the personal security he needed to get to the very top of British politics. Lady Palmerston made her husband happy, as he did her, and she was a political power in her own right. In the last and most successful decades of Palmerston's life, she was his best advisor and most trusted amanuensis. Theirs was one of the great marriages of the century.^[75]

Opposition: 1841–1846

Within a few months

Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 with the United States.^[54] It resolved several Canadian boundary disputes with the United States, particularly the border between New Brunswick and the State of Maine and between Canada and the State of Minnesota from Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods. Much as he criticised it, the treaty successfully closed the border questions with which Palmerston had long been concerned.^[76]

Palmerston's reputation as an interventionist and his unpopularity with the Queen were such that

Lord John Russell's attempt in December 1845 to form a ministry failed because Lord Grey refused to join a government in which Palmerston would direct foreign affairs. A few months later, however, the Whigs came to power and returned Palmerston to the Foreign Office (July 1846).^[54] Russell replied to critics that Palmerston's policies had "a tendency to produce war" but that he had advanced British interests without a major conflict, if not entirely peaceably.^[16]

Foreign Secretary: 1846–1851

Palmerston's years as foreign secretary, 1846–1851, involve dealing with violent upheavals all over Europe – he has been dubbed "the gunpowder minister" by biographer David Brown.[77]

France and Spain, 1845

The French government regarded the appointment of Palmerston as a certain sign of renewed hostilities. They availed themselves of a dispatch in which he had put forward the name of a Coburg prince as a candidate for the hand of the young queen of Spain as a justification for a departure from the engagements entered into between Guizot and Lord Aberdeen. However little the conduct of the French government in this transaction of the Spanish marriages can be vindicated, it is certain that it originated in the belief that in Palmerston France had a restless and subtle enemy. The efforts of the British minister to defeat the French marriages of the Spanish princesses, by an appeal to the

Treaty of Utrecht and the other powers of Europe, were wholly unsuccessful; France won the game, though with no small loss of honourable reputation.^[54]^[78]

`

Historian David Brown rejects the traditional interpretation to the effect that Aberdeen had forged an entente cordiale with France in the early 1840s whereupon the belligerent Palmerston after 1846 destroyed that friendly relationship. Brown argues that as foreign secretary from 1846 to 1851 and subsequently as prime minister, Palmerston sought to maintain the balance of power in Europe, sometimes even aligning with France to do so.[79]^[80]

Irish Famine

As an

Great Irish Famine that ravaged Ireland in the late 1840s.^[81] He financed the emigration of starving Irish tenants across the Atlantic to North America^[82] as did Petty-Fitzmaurice (Lord Lansdowne) to equal notoriety. Palmerston asserted that "... any great improvement in the social system of Ireland must be founded upon an extensive change in the present state of agrarian occupation [through] a long continued and systematic ejectment of Small holders and of Squatting Cottiers."^[83]

Support for revolutions abroad

The Revolutions of 1848 spread like a conflagration through Europe, and shook every throne on the Continent except those of Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Spain, and Belgium. Palmerston sympathised openly with the revolutionary party abroad.^[54] In particular, he was a strong advocate of national self-determination, and stood firmly on the side of constitutional liberties on the Continent. Despite this, he was bitterly opposed to Irish independence, and deeply hostile to the Young Ireland movement.^[84]

Italian independence

No state was regarded by him with more aversion than

Italian independence. He supported the Sicilians against King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, and even allowed arms to be sent them from the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. Although he had endeavoured to restrain King Charles Albert of Sardinia from his rash attack on the superior forces of Austria, he obtained for him a reduction of the penalty of defeat. Austria, weakened by the revolution, sent an envoy to London to request the mediation of Britain, based on a large cession of Italian territory. Palmerston rejected the terms he might have obtained for Piedmont.^[54] After a couple of years this wave of revolution was replaced by a wave of reaction.^[85]^[86]

Hungarian independence

In

Hungary, the 1848 war for independence from the Austrian Empire, ruled by the Habsburg dynasty, was defeated by the joint army of Austrian and Russian forces. Prince Schwarzenberg assumed the government of the empire with dictatorial power. In spite of what Palmerston termed his judicious bottle-holding, the movement he had encouraged and applauded, but to which he could give no material aid, was everywhere subdued. The British government, or at least Palmerston as its representative, was regarded with suspicion and resentment by every power in Europe, except the French republic.^[87] Even that was shortly afterwards to be alienated by Palmerston's attack on Greece.^[54] When Lajos Kossuth, the Hungarian democrat and leader of its constitutionalists, landed in England in 1851 to wide applause, Palmerston proposed to receive him at Broadlands, a design which was only prevented by a peremptory vote of the cabinet.^[88]

Royal and parliamentary reaction to 1848

This state of things was regarded with the utmost annoyance by the British court and by most of the British ministers. On many occasions, Palmerston had taken important steps without their knowledge, which they disapproved. Over the

Prince Consort did not conceal their indignation at the fact that they were held responsible for Palmerston's actions by the other courts of Europe.^[54]^[89]

When Benjamin Disraeli attacked Palmerston's foreign policy, the foreign minister responded to a five-hour speech by Thomas Chisholm Anstey with a five-hour speech of his own, the first of two great speeches in which he laid out a comprehensive defence of his foreign policy and of liberal interventionism more generally. Arguing for domestic political effect, Palmerston declaimed:

I hold that the real policy of England... is to be the champion of justice and right, pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the

Quixote of the world, but giving the weight of her moral sanction and support wherever she thinks that justice is, and whenever she thinks that wrong has been done.^[90]

(...)

Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.[91]

Russell and the Queen both hoped that the other would take the initiative and dismiss Palmerston; the Queen was dissuaded by her husband Prince Albert, who took the limits of constitutional power very seriously, and Russell by Palmerston's prestige with the people and his competence in an otherwise remarkably inept Cabinet.

Don Pacifico affair

In 1847, the home of

Don Pacifico, a Gibraltarian merchant living in Athens, Greece, was attacked by an antisemitic mob, which included the sons of a Greek government minister. The Greek police did not intervene in the attack, despite being present.^[92] Because Don Pacifico was a British subject, the British government expressed concern. In January 1850, Palmerston took advantage of Don Pacifico's claims on the Greek government, and blockaded the port of Piraeus in the Kingdom of Greece. As Greece was under the joint protection of three powers, Russia and France protested against its coercion by the British fleet.^[93]^[94]

After a memorable debate on 17 June, Palmerston's policy was condemned by a vote of the House of Lords. The House of Commons was moved by John Arthur Roebuck to reverse the rebuke, which it did on 29 June by a majority of 46, after having heard from Palmerston on 25 June. This was the most eloquent and powerful speech he ever delivered, wherein he sought to vindicate not only his claims on the Greek government for Don Pacifico, but his entire administration of foreign affairs.^[95]

It was in this speech, which lasted for five hours, that Palmerston made the well-known declaration that a British subject ought everywhere to be protected by the strong arm of the British government against injustice and wrong;

civis romanus sum ("I am a citizen of Rome") speech. After this speech, Palmerston's popularity had never been greater.^[96]

Crossing the Queen and resigning, 1851

Notwithstanding his parliamentary triumph in the Don Pacifico affair, many of his own colleagues and supporters criticised the spirit in which the foreign relations of the Crown were carried on. The Queen addressed a minute to the Prime Minister in which she recorded her dissatisfaction at the manner in which Palmerston evaded the obligation to submit his measures for the royal sanction as failing in sincerity to the Crown. This minute was communicated to Palmerston, who accepted its criticisms.[95]^[97]

On 2 December 1851, Louis Napoleon – who had been elected President of France in 1848 – carried out a coup d'état by dissolving the National Assembly and arresting the leading republicans. Palmerston privately congratulated Napoleon on his triumph, noting that Britain's constitution was rooted in history but that France had had five revolutions since 1789, with the French Constitution of 1848 being a "day-before-yesterday tomfoolery which the scatterbrain heads of Marrast and Tocqueville invented for the torment and perplexity of the French nation".^[98] However, the Cabinet decided that Britain must be neutral, and so Palmerston requested his officials to be diplomatic. Palmerston's widespread support among the press, educated public opinion, and ordinary Britons caused apprehension and distrust among other politicians and angered the Court. Prince Albert complained Palmerston had sent a dispatch without showing the sovereign. Protesting innocence, Palmerston resigned.^[99] Palmerston was weakened because Parliament, where he had great support, was not in session. Palmerston continued to have wide approval among the newspapers, elite opinion, and the middle class voters. His popularity led to distrust among rivals and especially at the Royal Court. His fall demonstrates the lack of power of public opinion in a pre-democratic era. However, Palmerston kept his public support and the growing influence of public opinion steadily increased his political strength in the 1850s and 1860s.^[100]

Home Secretary: 1852–1855

After a brief period of

House of Commons). It was regarded as impossible for them to form a government without Palmerston, so he was made Home Secretary (28 December 1852). Many people considered this a curious appointment because Palmerston's expertise was so obviously in foreign affairs.^[101] A story recounts that after a great wave of strikes swept Northern England, the Queen summoned Palmerston to discuss the situation. When she enquired after the latest news, Palmerston allegedly replied: "There is no definite news, Madam, but it seems certain that the Turks have crossed the Danube".^[102]

Social reform

Palmerston passed the Factory Act 1853, which removed loopholes in previous

Vaccination Act 1853 into law, which was introduced as a private member's bill, and which Palmerston persuaded the government to support. The Act made vaccination of children compulsory for the first^{[citation needed]} time. Palmerston outlawed the burying of the dead in churches. The right to bury the dead in churches was held by wealthy families whose ancestors had purchased the right in the past. Palmerston opposed this practice on public-health grounds and ensured that all bodies were buried in a churchyard or public cemetery.^[103]

Penal reform

Palmerston reduced the period in which prisoners could be held in

Parkhurst gaol and conversed with three boy inmates, he was impressed by their behaviour and ordered that they be sent to a reformatory school. He found the ventilation in the cells unsatisfactory and ordered improvement.^[107]

Palmerston strongly opposed Lord John Russell's plans for giving the vote to sections of the urban working-classes. When the Cabinet agreed in December 1853 to introduce a bill during the next session of Parliament in the form which Russell wanted, Palmerston resigned. However, Aberdeen told him that no definite decision on reform had been taken and persuaded Palmerston to return to the Cabinet. The electoral Reform Bill did not pass Parliament that year.^[108]

Crimean War

Palmerston's exile from his traditional realm of the Foreign Office meant he did not have full control over British policy during the events precipitating the Crimean War of 1853–1856. One of his biographers, Jasper Ridley, argues that had he been in control of foreign policy at this time, war in the Crimea would have been avoided.^[102] Palmerston argued in Cabinet, after Russian troops concentrated on the Ottoman border in February 1853, that the Royal Navy should join the French fleet in the Dardanelles as a warning to Russia. He was overruled, however.

In May 1853, the Russians threatened to invade the principalities of

Bosphorus or the Black Sea, they would have been deterred.^[110] In Cabinet, Palmerston argued for a vigorous prosecution of the war against Russia by Britain, but Aberdeen objected, as he wanted peace. British public opinion supported the Turks, and with Aberdeen becoming steadily unpopular, Lord Dudley Stuart in February 1854 noted, "Wherever I go, I have heard but one opinion on the subject, and that one opinion has been pronounced in a single word, or in a single name – Palmerston."^[111]

On 28 March 1854, Britain and France declared war on Russia for refusing to withdraw from the principalities. The war progressed slowly, with no Anglo-French gains in the Baltic and slow coalition gains in Crimea at the long Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855). Dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war grew amongst the public in Britain and in other countries, aggravated by reports of fiascos and failures, especially the mismanagement of the heroic Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava (25 October 1854). The health and living conditions of the British soldiers became notorious and the press, with correspondents in the field, made the most of the situation. Tories demanded an accounting of all soldiers, cavalry and sailors sent to the Crimea and accurate figures as to the number of casualties. When Parliament passed a bill to investigate by a vote of 305 to 148, Aberdeen said he had lost a vote of no confidence and resigned as prime minister on 30 January 1855.^[112]

Prime Minister: 1855–1858

Appointment and cabinet

Queen Victoria deeply distrusted Palmerston and first asked

Lord Lansdowne but (aged 74) he was too old to accept: so she asked Russell; but none of his former colleagues except Palmerston wanted to serve under him. Having exhausted the possible alternatives, the Queen invited Palmerston to Buckingham Palace on 4 February 1855 to form a government.^[113]

Aged 70 years, 109 days, Palmerston became the oldest person in British political history to be appointed Prime Minister for the first time. As of 2024 no Prime Minister entering 10 Downing Street for the first time since Palmerston has surpassed his record. Clarendon continued at the foreign office and William Gladstone was appointed to the Exchequer. The War Department was reorganised and the position of "Secretary at War" was merged with the position of Secretary of State for the Colonies. However, when a committee of inquiry chaired by MP John Roebuck was established to examine the misdirection of the war in Crimea became evident, Palmerston was forced to "practically accept" it and this immediately led to the resignations of Lord Herbert, Gladstone and Clarendon. In turn their position were taken over with G. C. Lewis at the Exchequer, Sir Charles Wood as First Lord of the Admiralty and Russell at the Foreign Office.^[114]

Ending the Crimean War

Palmerston took a hard line on the war; he wanted to expand the fighting, especially in the Baltic where

Sweden and Prussia were willing to join, Russia would stand alone. However, France, which had sent far more soldiers to the war than Britain, and had suffered far more casualties, wanted the war to end, as did Austria.^[115] In March 1855 the old Tsar died and was succeeded by his son, Alexander II, who wished to make peace. However, Palmerston found the peace terms too soft on Russia and so persuaded Napoleon III to break off the peace negotiations until Sevastopol could be captured, putting the allies in a stronger negotiating position. In September Sevastopol finally surrendered and the allies had full control of the Black Sea theatre. Russia came to terms. On 27 February 1856 an armistice was signed and after a month's negotiations an agreement was signed at the Congress of Paris. Palmerston's demand for a demilitarised Black Sea was secured, although his wish for the Crimea to be returned to the Ottomans was not. The peace treaty was signed on 30 March 1856. In April 1856 Palmerston was appointed to the Order of the Garter by Victoria.^[116]

Arrow controversy and the Second Opium War

In October 1856, the Chinese seized the pirate ship Arrow, and in the process, according to the local British official

Harry Smith Parkes, insulted the British flag. When the Chinese Commissioner Ye Mingchen refused to apologise, the British shelled his compound. The commissioner retaliated with a proclamation that called on the people of Canton to "unite in exterminating these troublesome English villains" and offered a $100 bounty for the head of any Englishman. The British factories outside the city were also burned to the ground by incensed locals. Palmerston supported Parkes while in Parliament the British policy was strongly attacked on moral grounds by Richard Cobden and William Ewart Gladstone. Playing the patriotism card, Palmerston said that Cobden demonstrated "an anti-English feeling, an abnegation of all those ties which bind men to their country and to their fellow countrymen, which I should hardly have expected from the lips of any member of this House. Everything that was English was wrong, and everything that was hostile to England was right."^[117] He went on to say that if a motion of censure was carried it would signal that the House had voted to "abandon a large community of British subjects at the extreme end of the globe to a set of barbarians – a set of kidnapping, murdering, poisoning barbarians."^[117] The censure motion was carried by a majority of sixteen and the election of 1857 followed. Palmerston's stance proved popular among a large section of the workers, the growing middle classes and the country's commercial and financial interests. With the expanded franchise, his party swept on a wave of popular feeling to a majority of 83, the largest since 1835. Cobden and John Bright

lost their seats.

In China, the Second Opium War (1856–1860) was another humiliating defeat for a Qing dynasty,^[118] already reeling as a result of the domestic Taiping Rebellion. In 1858, British troops led by Lord Elgin bombarded the city of Canton and the conflict was concluded at the Treaty of Tientsin. In 1860, following a reconciliation with Napoleon III and strengthening of Anglo-French relation, a joint expedition was launched into China by British and French forces under the commands of General Sir Hope Grant and Count Palikao. After a series of successful battles, Peking was captured.^[119]

Domestic policy

Lord Palmerston Addressing the House of Commons During the Debates on the Treaty of France in February 1860, as painted by John Phillip (1863)

After the election, Palmerston passed the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, which for the first time made it possible for courts to grant a divorce and removed divorce from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts. The opponents in Parliament, who included Gladstone, were the first in British history to try to kill a bill by filibuster. Nonetheless, Palmerston was determined to get the bill through, which he did.

During his first term as prime minister, Palmerston championed education reform. He supported attempts to review school curriculums and placed emphasis on the importance of making subjects such as science, modern languages and mathematics primary subjects in schools in order to make education more useful and innovative which would lead then relevantly cater to the "needs of the time". Palmerston also initiated a series of "modest" reforms at opening up and improving the Civil Service, through the introduction of competitive entry, which was recommended by the Northcote–Trevelyan Report of 1854.^[120]

Palmerston's government also passed the

exhumation for remains, and made it illegal to disturb a grave despite not make it illegal to steal a dead corpse and although constituted the opening of a grave as an offence.^[121]

Indian Mutiny of 1857

In June news came to Britain of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. On 19 May, mentions of the rebellion was raised by Lord Ellenborough during a debate in the House of Lords, in which he questioned whether the Secretary of State for War, Lord Panmure, on whether he "recently viewed" the news of the uprising. Panmure replied that "intelligence recently received from India had not been such as to create any apprehension in the minds of Her Majesty's Ministers for the safety of our Indian empire."^[122] Palmerston, who by now was highly popular among the British public and seen as "invincible" due to him leading the government through in times of crisis, did not took the rebellion seriously and was initially sceptical of British troops being defeated by what he considered "native rabble". He particularly opposed the Governor-General, Lord Canning's attempts divert troops heading to China back to India. When the severity of the situation began to unravel, Palmerston was immediate in sending troops to quell the revolt that many at home believed that it would leave no soldiers to defend Britain itself from invasion.^[123] Palmerston approved a suggestion to set a date for a day of "National Prayer and Humiliation" following a precedent established during the Crimean War. The Queen approved of the proposal and Palmerston planned the day alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Bird Sumner on October 7.^[124] Palmerston sent Sir Colin Campbell and reinforcements to India.^[125] Palmerston also agreed to transfer the authority of the East India Company to the Crown.^[126] Within three months of the rebellion around 30,000 troops were deployed to India.^[127] At the urging of the Queen, Palmerston consulted with the Duke of Cambridge on further measures and sent two regiments of foot to Madras and two companies of artillery to each province.^[128] Much of the fighting, prior to the arrival of reinforcements, were carried by the army stationed in India and within months Delhi was captured by company forces and reinforcements from the mutineers.^[129] A bill was introduced to Parliament to alter the governance of India, which by then have been under the rule of the EIC, that would bring the control of Indian affairs under the oversight of a Board of Control under the British government. The bill was passed by a unexpectedly large majority of 145. This was enacted in the Government of India Act 1858. This ended company rule in India which was established in 1757.^[130]^[131]

Orsini affair and resignation

After the Italian republican Felice Orsini tried to assassinate the French emperor with a bomb made in Britain, the French were outraged (see Orsini affair). The French demanded that no such people be granted asylum in the country and the French ambassador was ordered to make presentations regarding the incident to Parliament. In order to preserve good relations with France, Palmerston introduced a Conspiracy to Murder bill, which made it a felony to plot in Britain to murder someone abroad. The condemnation of British conduct was sharply criticised by the French media and the use of bitter tongue by French army officers when receiving the French emperor as a delegacy, led to anger among the British public. Lord Derby took the advantage of exploiting the resentment of the British people to propose a amendment to the bill.^[132] At first reading, the Conservatives voted for it but at second reading they voted against it. Palmerston lost by nineteen votes. Therefore, in February 1858 he was forced to resign.^[133]

Opposition: 1858–1859

The Conservatives lacked a majority, and Russell introduced a resolution in March 1859 arguing for widening the franchise, which the Conservatives opposed but which was carried. Parliament was dissolved and a general election ensued, which the Whigs won. Palmerston rejected an offer from Disraeli to become Conservative leader, but he attended the meeting of 6 June 1859 in Willis's Rooms at St James's Street, where the Liberal Party was formed. The Queen asked Lord Granville to form a government, but although Palmerston agreed to serve under him, Russell did not. Therefore, on 12 June the Queen asked Palmerston to become prime minister. Russell and Gladstone agreed to serve under him.^[134]

Prime Minister: 1859–1865

Historians usually regard Palmerston, starting in 1859, as the first Liberal prime minister.^[135]

Domestic policy

In his last premiership, Palmerston oversaw the passage of important legislation. The

Offences against the Person Act 1861 codified and reformed the law, and was part of a wider process of consolidating criminal law. The Companies Act 1862 was the basis of modern company law.^[136]^[137] Palmerston established the Newcastle Commission in 1859 which looked into the inadequacies of public education and led to increases in school funding in the Revised Code of 1862.^[138] The Union Chargeability Act 1865 which consolidated local parishes into unions and broadened bases that provided for the relief of the poor.^[139] Palmerston's policies toward Ireland was more based on practical sense rather than radical change. He was firmly opposed to a measure by Gladstone that would have created a legal fixture on land tenure. In 1860, Landlord and Tenant Law Amendment Act 1860 was extended to Ireland in which the landlord and tenant agreed that compensation could be fixed by a government valuer can be secured in the form of an annuity.^[140]

In 1860, provisions contained in the Factories Act were extended to bleaching and dyeing work, while authority was given to provide analysts of drink and food. An Act was passed that provided for the inspection of gas-works. Another Act provided for further mine-inspection while making it penal, as noted by one study, "to employ boys under twelve not attending school and unable to read and write." An Act of 1861 extended the mandatory provisions of the Factories Act to lace-works, while an Act was passed the following year for restricting the employment of women and children in open-air bleaching, along with an Act (as one study noted) "for making illegal a coal-mine with a single shaft, or with shafts separated by less than a specified space." A Bakehouses Registration Act included provisions such as specifying minimum age of employees occupied between certain hours, while another Act gave a magistrate authority, as one observer noted, "to decide on the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of food brought before him by an Inspector." In 1864, the Factories Act was extended to various additional trades.[141]

Palmerston's second government was notable for its active and productive legislative work, which was able to absolved it of any charge of useless indolence, despite Palmerston and his cabinet not introducing far reaching innovative reform. The parliamentary budgets introduced by Gladstone were enough to demonstrate the effectiveness of the ministry and the annual Queen's Speeches at the end of each parliamentary session, showed promising modest reforms by both houses of parliament that were exceptionally useful such as prisons bills, partnership liability bills, crime chargeability bills and so on. His Lord Chancellor Lord Westbury, proved to be one of the "greatest of the modern reform Lord Chancellors" with rigorous attempts at reform the legal system, despite falling short on his ambitions with his plans for land transfers and title registration not being fully realised.^[142]

Unlike any of his reform-minded colleagues, Palmerston opposed further extending the vote, which lead many even in his own cabinet to accuse him of being a "Tory in disguise". According to biographer Lloyd Charles Sanders, the fact that Palmerston held "such a body of men together until his death, with less than average number of resignations, is perhaps the greatest of his feats as a parliamentary manager."^[143] Russell's support for lowering the voting franchise and redistribution of seats proved to be less urgent compared to the Gladstone's tense opposition to increasing military expenditure. Palmerston resolved the situation by allowing Russell to introduce a reform bill, which lowered the voting franchise from £10 to £6 and redistributed 25 parliamentary seats. However, a lack of public interest and disinterest from Parliament itself led to the bill's eventual demise in committee. Following the bill's failure, Benjamin Disraeli pointed that Palmerston was "not so much in support of, as about" the reform bill and in Palmerston's reports to the Queen he made "little or no attempt to conceal his satisfaction as its approaching demise."^[144]

Palmerston faced scandal over revelations of alleged abuses of patronage and scrutiny concerning a number of misdeeds done by Lord Westbury during his final months as lord chancellor.^[145] Several instances of patronage abuse were proven though the case against Westbury on charges of personal corruption fell short due to lack of evidence. The controversy did not impact the government which was shown during the election of 1865 when the public returned the government with a substantial majority. Palmerston's own handling of patronage—both secular and ecclesiastical—according to Lord Shaftesbury were "compelling". His appointments of bishops for ecclesiastical positions were controversial among the High church faction and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, who opposed Palmerston's appointments due to many of the bishops belonging to the Evangelical wing of the Church of England, known as "Shaftesbury bishops". In 1859, Palmerston's alliance with the Peelites led to his appointments becoming more inclusive which favoured candidates based on merit regardless of theological affiliation.^[146]^[147]

Foreign policy

Foreign policy continued to be his main strength; he thought that he could shape if not control all of European diplomacy, especially by using France as a vital ally and trade partner. However, historians often characterise his method as bluffing more than decisive action.^[148]

Prince Albert looking on as Queen Victoria presents a Bible

to an African ruler who is bowing down before her

Some people called Palmerston a womaniser; The Times named him Lord Cupid (on account of his youthful looks), and he was cited, at the age of 79, as co-respondent in an 1863 divorce case, although it emerged that the case was nothing more than an attempted blackmail.

Relationship with Gladstone

Although Palmerston and William Ewart Gladstone treated each other respectfully, they disagreed fundamentally over Church appointments, foreign affairs, defence and reform;^[149] Palmerston's greatest problem during his last premiership was how to handle his Chancellor of the Exchequer. The MP Sir William Henry Gregory was told by a member of the Cabinet that "at the beginning of each session and after each holiday, Mr Gladstone used to come in charged to the muzzle with all sorts of schemes of all sorts of reforms which were absolutely necessary in his opinion to be immediately undertaken. Palmerston used to look fixedly at the paper before him, saying nothing until there was a lull in Gladstone's outpouring. He then rapped the table and said cheerfully: 'Now, my Lords and gentlemen, let us go to business'."^[150] Palmerston told Lord Shaftesbury: "Gladstone will soon have it all his own way and whenever he gets my place we shall have strange doings". He told another friend that he thought Gladstone would wreck the Liberal Party and end up in a madhouse.^[151]

When in May 1864 the MP Edward Baines introduced a Reform Bill in the Commons, Palmerston ordered Gladstone to not commit himself and the government to any particular scheme.^[152] Instead Gladstone said in his speech in the Commons that he did not see why any man should not have the vote unless he was mentally incapacitated, but added that this would not come about unless the working class showed an interest in reform. Palmerston believed that this was incitement to the working class to begin agitating for reform and told Gladstone: "What every Man and Woman too have a Right to, is to be well governed and under just Laws, and they who propose a change ought to shew that the present organization does not accomplish those objects".^[153]

Royal Navy Dockyards and ports, which Palmerston vigorously supported. Objecting to the enormous expense, Gladstone repeatedly threatened to resign as Chancellor when the proposals were accepted. Palmerston said that he had received so many resignation letters from Gladstone that he feared that they would set fire to the chimney.^[154]

Finances

The financial policy of Palmerston's government was heavily centred around the budgets of Gladstone and was marked by tensions between Palmerston and Gladstone.

public spending and pursuing free trade principles.^[156] One of the major fiscal measures proposed by Gladstone was the repeal of paper duties, a proposal which encountered stiff opposition from Palmerston within the Cabinet, who was not in favour of removing such duties, and from the House of Lords, which ultimately rejected the measure. Palmerston privately viewed the rejection of the repeal as a beneficial act, stating that the Lords had "performed a good public service" by blocking the measure.^[157]

In addition to paper duties, Gladstone's budget of 1860 also introduced the first graduated income tax in Britain with renewing at varying rate (ten pence in the pound for incomes above £150 and seven pence for incomes above £100) and extended the license system to include wine-refreshment houses.^[158] The reform was in line with Gladstone's broader goal of reducing protectionist measures and promoting free trade policies. Gladstone expected increased receipts in the future from reduced duties, however, he retained full duties on sugar and tea was income tax placed at ten pence.^[155] However, the Budget was not without controversy. While Gladstone celebrated the measures within the budget as a triumph, Palmerston remained focused on national defence, which was at odds with Gladstone's fiscal austerity. The conflict between the two men was especially evident in their differing views on public expenditure. Palmerston wanted funding for ironclad warships and fortifications to protect Britain's coastal ports, such as Portsmouth and Plymouth, which he considered crucial for national security.^[159]^[160]

However, the budget was hailed as the greatest "free trade budget" since Sir Robert Peel's time. During this period, exports of home produce surged from £113 million in 1842 to £363 million in 1865 while imports grew from £65 million to £181 million. The import of essential goods like butter, bacon, and rice which were negligible at 8,355 cwts in 1842, surged to an 713,346 cwts high by 1865. Similarly, egg imports soared from under one million to nearly four million. The export of foreign and colonial produce experienced an equal increase, from £18 million in 1842 to £52 million by1865. The expansion of exports in manufactured goods also so an increase with cotton exports almost tripling, while machinery exports growing by tenfold, woollen yarn exports increasing eightfold, and items like linen, silk, hardware, leather, and iron and steel showed exponential growth, with many of these sectors seeing four to sixfold increases. Haberdashery also exports multiplied sevenfold. These advancements were bolstered by the repeal of the navigation laws, which facilitated a threefold increase in British shipping tonnage entered with cargo, from 5.4 million tons in 1842 to 17.4 million in 1865. Foreign tonnage also surged, growing from 1.9 million to 7.5 million tons during the same period. The steamship industry, a testament to technological progress, saw tonnage rise from 186,687 in 1851 to 823,533 by 1865, more than quadrupling.^[161]

Gladstone, however, increasingly found it difficult to reconcile his role as Chancellor with the pressure to fund Palmerston's defence initiatives. The growing defence budget, including proposed expenditures for the military, led to frequent clashes between the two. Gladstone felt that the increasing military costs were excessive and detrimental to the nation's finances. At one point, he even threatened to resign on multiple occasions over the issue, expressing his frustration with Palmerston's disregard for fiscal discipline. Despite these tensions, Palmerston remained steadfast in his belief that military preparedness was paramount, going so far as to tell the Queen that it would be better to lose Gladstone than to compromise Britain's defence capabilities.^[160]

Relationship with Lord Lyons

During the advent and occurrence of the

Richard Lyons, 2nd Baron Lyons. Palmerston had first appointed Richard Lyons to the Foreign Service in 1839, and was a close friend of his father, Edmund Lyons, 1st Baron Lyons, with whom he had vehemently advocated increased aggression in the Crimean War. Palmerston and Lyons both had similar sociopolitical sympathies: both advocated monarchy and foreign interventionism. Throughout the American Civil War, Palmerston and Richard Lyons maintained an extensive confidential correspondence. Their actions were responsible for the peaceful resolution of the Trent Affair. When Lyons resigned from the position of American Ambassador, Palmerston attempted to persuade him to return, but Lyons declined the offer.^[162]

American Civil War

Palmerston's sympathies in the American Civil War (1861–65) were with the secessionist Confederate States of America. Although a professed opponent of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery, he held a lifelong hostility towards the United States, and believed a dissolution of the Union would enhance British power. Additionally, the Confederacy "would afford a valuable and extensive market for British manufactures".^[163]^[164]

Britain issued a

William Seward, threatened to treat as hostile any country which recognised the Confederacy. Britain depended more on American corn than Confederate cotton, and a war with the U.S. would not be in Britain's economic interest.^[165] Palmerston ordered reinforcements sent to the Province of Canada because he was convinced the North would make peace with the South and then invade Canada. He was very pleased with the Confederate victory at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, but 15 months later he felt:

"...the American War... has manifestly ceased to have any attainable object as far as the Northerns are concerned, except to get rid of some more thousand troublesome Irish and Germans. It must be owned, however, that the Anglo-Saxon race on both sides have shown courage and endurance highly honourable to their stock."^[166]

The Trent Affair in November 1861 produced public outrage in Britain and a diplomatic crisis. A U.S. Navy warship stopped the British steamer Trent and seized two Confederate envoys en route to Europe. Palmerston called the action "a declared and gross insult", demanded the release of the two diplomats and ordered 3,000 troops to Canada. In a letter to Queen Victoria on 5 December 1861 he said that if his demands were not met:

"Great Britain is in a better state than at any former time to inflict a severe blow upon and to read a lesson to the United States which will not soon be forgotten."^[167]

In another letter to his foreign secretary, he predicted war between Britain and the Union:

"It is difficult not to come to the conclusion that the rabid hatred of England which animates the exiled Irishmen who direct almost all the Northern newspapers, will so excite the masses as to make it impossible for Lincoln and Seward to grant our demands; and we must therefore look forward to war as the probable result."^[167]

In fact, Irishmen did not control any major newspapers in the North, and the U.S. decided to release the prisoners rather than risk war. Palmerston was convinced the presence of troops in Canada persuaded the U.S. to acquiesce.^[168]

After President

overthrow of the Greek king and the growing Eastern question with regard to Russia. The British Government had to determine whether the situation in North America or the containment of Russia was more urgent. The decision was to give priority to threats closer to home and to decline France's suggestion of a joint intervention in America; the threatened race war over slavery never happened.^[169] Palmerston rejected all further efforts of the Confederacy to gain British recognition.^[166]

The long-term issue between Britain and the United States was the

commerce raiders for the Confederate war effort. The U.S. accused Britain of being complicit in gunrunning and sales of warships by private firms to the Confederacy that actually sustained the war by two years.^[170]^[171]^[172]^[173] This was later evidenced by Palmerston's refusal to stop firms from selling arms and ships on the basis that it had a right to sell such things to both sides as a neutral country, even though the South was still part of the U.S. (as ruled in Texas v. White in 1869 by the U.S. Supreme Court). As such, many Americans viewed the British as interfering with American affairs and indirectly committing an act of war against the U.S.^[174]

The raiding ship

Alabama claims for damages against Britain, which Palmerston refused to pay. After his death, Gladstone acknowledged the U.S. claim and agreed to arbitration, paying out $15,500,000 in damages. However, no compensation for damages done to the U.S. by British-built blockade runners carrying arms supplies to the Confederacy was offered.^[175]

Denmark

The Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck wanted to annex the Danish Duchy of Schleswig and the neighboring German Duchy of Holstein, whose Duke was the King of Denmark, chiefly for its port of Kiel, and had an alliance with Austria for this purpose. This was part of the longstanding Schleswig–Holstein question. In a speech to the Commons on 23 July 1863, Palmerston said the British government, like those of France and Russia, wished that "the independence, the integrity, and the rights of Denmark may be maintained. We are convinced—I am convinced at least—that if any violent attempt were made to overthrow those rights and interfere with that independence, those who made the attempt would find in the result that it would not be Denmark alone with which they would have to contend".^[176] Palmerston's stance derived from the traditional belief that France was the greater threat to Britain and was much stronger than Austria and Prussia.^[177] In any case, France and Britain were at odds over Poland, and Paris refused to cooperate with London on the Danish crisis.^[178] Public opinion in Britain was strongly pro-Danish, thanks especially to the Danish princess who married the Prince of Wales. However Queen Victoria was intensely pro-German and strongly urged against threatening war.^[179] Palmerston himself favoured Denmark but he also had long been pacifistic in this matter and did not want Britain to become militarily involved.^[180]

Dano-Prussian War

in 1864.

For five months Bismarck did nothing. However, in November the Danish government instituted a new constitution whereby Schleswig was bound closer to Denmark. By the year's end, the Prussian and Austrian armies had occupied Holstein and were massing on the

River Eider, the border with Schleswig. On 1 February 1864, the Prussian-Austrian armies invaded Schleswig

, and ten days afterwards the Danish government requested British help to resist this. Russell urged Palmerston to send a fleet to Copenhagen and persuade Napoleon III that he should mobilise his French soldiers on the borders of Prussia.

Palmerston replied that the fleet could not do much to assist the Danes in Copenhagen and that nothing should be done to persuade Napoleon to cross the Rhine. Britain had a small army and it had no powerful ally to help.[177] Bismarck remarked that the Royal Navy lacked wheels—it was powerless on land where the war would be fought.^[181] In April Austria's navy was on its way to attack Copenhagen. Palmerston told the Austrian ambassador that if his fleet entered the Baltic to attack Denmark the result would be war with Britain. The ambassador replied that the Austrian navy would not enter the Baltic and it did not do so.^[182]

Palmerston accepted Russell's suggestion that the war should be settled at a conference, but at the ensuing London Conference of 1864 in May and June the Danes refused to accept their loss of Schleswig-Holstein. The armistice ended on 26 June and Prussian-Austrian troops quickly invaded more of Denmark. On 25 June the Cabinet was against going to war to save Denmark, and Russell's suggestion to send the Royal Navy to defend Copenhagen was only carried by Palmerston's vote. Palmerston, however, said the fleet could not be sent in view of the deep division in the Cabinet.^[182]

On 27 June, Palmerston gave his statement to the Commons and said Britain would not go to war with the German powers unless the existence of Denmark as an independent power was at stake or Denmark's capital was threatened. The Conservatives replied that Palmerston had betrayed the Danes and a vote of censure in the House of Lords was carried by nine votes. In the debate in the Commons the Conservative MP General Jonathan Peel said: "It is come to this, that the words of the Prime Minister of England [sic], uttered in the Parliament of England [sic], are to be regarded as mere idle menaces to be laughed at and despised by foreign powers." Palmerston replied in the last night of the debate: "I say that England stands as high as she ever did and those who say she had fallen in the estimation of the world are not the men to whom the honour and dignity of England should be confided".^[183]

The vote of censure was defeated by 313 votes to 295, with Palmerston's old enemies in the pacifist camp, Cobden and Bright, voting for him. The result of the vote was announced at 2:30 in the morning, and when Palmerston heard the news he ran up the stairs to the Ladies' Gallery and embraced his wife. Disraeli wrote: "What pluck to mount those dreadful stairs at three o'clock in the morning, and eighty years of age!"^[184]

In a speech at his constituency at Tiverton in August, Palmerston told his constituents:

I am sure every Englishman who has a heart in his breast and a feeling of justice in his mind, sympathizes with those unfortunate Danes (cheers), and wishes that this country could have been able to draw the sword successfully in their defence (continued cheers); but I am satisfied that those who reflect on the season of the year when that war broke out, on the means which this country could have applied for deciding in one sense that issue, I am satisfied that those who make these reflections will think that we acted wisely in not embarking in that dispute. (Cheers.) To have sent a fleet in midwinter to the Baltic every sailor would tell you was an impossibility, but if it could have gone it would have been attended by no effectual result. Ships sailing on the sea cannot stop armies on land, and to have attempted to stop the progress of an army by sending a fleet to the Baltic would have been attempting to do that which it was not possible to accomplish. (Hear, hear.) If England could have sent an army, and although we all know how admirable that army is on the peace establishment, we must acknowledge that we have no means of sending out a force at all equal to cope with the 300,000 or 400,000 men whom the 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 of Germany could have pitted against us, and that such an attempt would only have insured a disgraceful discomfiture—not to the army, indeed, but to the Government which sent out an inferior force and expected it to cope successfully with a force so vastly superior. (Cheers.) ... we did not think that the Danish cause would be considered as sufficiently British, and as sufficiently bearing on the interests and the security and the honour of England, as to make it justifiable to ask the country to make those exertions which such a war would render necessary.^[185]

Europe's leaders were unable to settle the matter by peaceful compromise. Palmerston's biographer William Baring Pemberton argued that his "failure to understand Bismarck lies at the root of his misunderstanding of the Schleswig-Holstein question, and it derived from an old man's inability to adapt himself to a changing world".^[186] Thus Britain was militarily unable to stop Bismarck's armies and misunderstood Bismarck's ambitions. Russian historian V. N. Vinogradov writes: "In place of the former insight came bias in judgments and stubbornness in defending outdated views. Palmerston continued to consider Prussia 'an instrument in the hands of Austria', its army weak and doomed to defeat, and its public to consist of romantically minded students and dreamy professors. And Otto von Bismarck quietly annexed the two Duchies to Prussia, and at the same time the County of Lauenburg".^[187]^{[verification needed]}

Electoral victory

Palmerston won another

Viceroy of Ireland, Lord Wodehouse

, to take measures against this, including a possible suspension of trial-by-jury and a monitoring of Americans travelling to Ireland. He believed that the Fenian agitation was caused by America. On 27 September 1865 he wrote to the Secretary for War:

The American assault on Ireland under the name of Fenianism may be now held to have failed, but the snake is only scotched and not killed. It is far from impossible that the American conspirators may try and obtain in our North American provinces compensation for their defeat in Ireland.[189]

He advised that more armaments be sent to Canada and more troops be sent to Ireland. During these last few weeks of his life, Palmerston pondered on developments in foreign affairs. He began thinking of a new friendship with France as "a sort of preliminary defensive alliance" against the United States and looked forward to Prussia becoming more powerful as this would balance against the growing threat from Russia. In a letter to Russell he warned that Russia "will in due time become a power almost as great as the old Roman Empire ... Germany ought to be strong in order to resist Russian aggression."^[190]

At eighty, Palmerston continued leading the country, though despite being acutely aware of the changing tides that would define the coming age. Reflecting on his eventual successor, Palmerston predicted that Gladstone would soon take over, saying "Gladstone will soon have it all his own way; and whenever he gets my place, we shall have strange doings".^[191] In July, he gave his last formal speech regarding the services provided by members of private businesses. Palmerston traveled to his constituency of Tiverton, where he engaged in a "one more brush" with the Chartist butcher Mr. Rowcliffe. Concerns over a weak voice quickly disintegrated following his performance.^[192]

Death

Palmerston enjoyed robust health in old age,

Jesus Christ, Palmerston replied: "Oh, surely."^[194] His last words were, "That's Article 98; now go on to the next." (He was thinking about diplomatic treaties.)^[194] An apocryphal version of his last words is: "Die, my dear doctor? That is the last thing I shall do." He died at 10:45 am on Wednesday, 18 October 1865, two days before his eighty-first birthday. Although Palmerston wanted to be buried at Romsey Abbey, the Cabinet insisted that he should have a state funeral and be buried at Westminster Abbey, which he was, on 27 October 1865.^[195] He was the fifth person not of royalty to be granted a state funeral (after Robert Blake, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Nelson, and the Duke of Wellington

).

Queen Victoria wrote after his death that though she regretted his passing, she had never liked or respected him: "Strange, and solemn to think of that strong, determined man, with so much worldly ambition – gone! He had often worried and distressed us, though as Pr. Minister he had behaved very well."[196] Florence Nightingale reacted differently upon hearing of his death: "He will be a great loss to us. Tho' he made a joke when asked to do the right thing, he always did it. No one else will be able to carry things thro' the Cabinet as he did. I shall lose a powerful protector...He was so much more in earnest than he appeared. He did not do himself justice."^[196]

Having no male heir, his Irish viscountcy became extinct upon his death, but his property was inherited by his stepson William Cowper-Temple (later created the 1st Baron Mount Temple), whose inheritance included a 10,000-acre (4,000-hectare) estate in the north of County Sligo in the west of Ireland, on which his stepfather had commissioned the building of the incomplete Classiebawn Castle.^[197]

Legacy

As the exemplar of British nationalism, he was "the defining political personality of his age."^[198]

Historian Norman Gash endorses Jasper Ridley's characterisation of Palmerston:

Fundamentally he was a professional politician, shrewd, cynical, resilient; tough and sometimes unscrupulous; quick to seize opportunities; always ready either to abandon an impossible cause or bide his time for a more favourable opportunity. He liked power, he needed his salary, he enjoyed office, he worked hard. In later life he took an increasing pleasure in the game of politics, and ultimately became an adroit and successful prime minister.... in the end he became one of the great Victorian public personalities, a legend in his own lifetime, the personification of an England that was already passing away.^[199]

Historian Algernon Cecil summed up his greatness:

Palmerston placed his trust... in the Press which he was at pains to manipulate; in Parliament, which he learnt better than any man then living to manage; and the Country, whose temper he knew how to catch and the weight of his name and resources he brought to bear upon every negotiation with a patriotic effrontry that has never been excelled.^[200]

Palmerston has traditionally been viewed as "a Conservative at home and a Liberal abroad".^[201] He believed that the British constitution as secured by the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was the best which human hands had made, with a constitutional monarchy subject to the laws of the land but retaining some political power. He supported the rule of law and opposed further democratisation after the Reform Act 1832. He wished to see this liberal system of a mixed constitution in-between the two extremes of absolute monarchy and republican democracy replace the absolute monarchies on the Continent.^[202] More recently some historians have seen his domestic policies as prime minister as not merely liberal but genuinely progressive by the standards of his era.^[203]

It is in foreign affairs that Palmerston is chiefly remembered. Palmerston's principal aim in foreign policy was to advance British national interests.

Lord John Russell said that "his heart always beat for the honour of England".^[205] Palmerston believed it was in Britain's interests that liberal governments be established on the Continent. He also practised brinkmanship and bluff in that he was prepared to threaten war to achieve Britain's interests.^[204]

When in 1886 Lord Rosebery became foreign secretary in the Third Gladstone ministry, John Bright, a longstanding radical critic of Palmerston, asked Rosebery if he had read about Palmerston's policies as foreign secretary. Rosebery replied that he had. "Then", said Bright, "you know what to avoid. Do the exact opposite of what he did. His administration at the Foreign Office was one long crime."^[206]

In contrast the Marquess of Lorne, a son-in-law of Queen Victoria, said of Palmerston in 1866: "He loved his country and his country loved him. He lived for her honour, and she will cherish his memory."^[207]

In 1889, Gladstone recounted a story of 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.'"^[204] When Winston Churchill campaigned for rearmament in the 1930s, he was compared to Palmerston in warning the nation to look to its defences.^[208] The policy of appeasement led General Jan Smuts to write in 1936 that "we are afraid of our shadows. I sometimes long for a ruffian like Palmerston or any man who would be more than a string of platitudes and apologies."^[209]

He was an avowed abolitionist whose attempts to abolish the slave trade was one of the most consistent elements of his foreign policy. His opposition to the slave trade created tensions with South American countries and the United States over his insistence that the Royal Navy had the right to search the vessels of any country if they suspected the vessels were being used in the Atlantic slave trade.^[210]^[211]

Historian A. J. P. Taylor has summarised his career by emphasising the paradoxes:

For twenty years junior minister in a Tory government, he became the most successful of Whig Foreign Secretaries; though always a Conservative, he ended his life by presiding over the transition from Whiggism to Liberalism. He was the exponent of British strength, yet was driven from office for truckling to a foreign despot; he preached the Balance of Power, yet helped to inaugurate the policy of isolation and of British withdrawal from Europe. Irresponsible and flippant, he became the first hero of the serious middle-class electorate. He reached high office solely through an irregular family connection; he retained it through skilful use of the press—the only Prime Minister to become an accomplished leader-writer.^[212]

Palmerston is also remembered for his light-hearted approach to government. He is once said to have claimed of a particularly intractable problem relating to

Prince Albert, who was dead; the second was a German professor, who had gone insane; and the third was himself, who had forgotten it.^[213]

The Life of Lord Palmerston up to 1847 was written by Henry Bulwer, 1st Baron Dalling and Bulwer, volumes I and II (1870), volume III edited and partly written by Evelyn Ashley (1874), after the author's death. Ashley completed the biography in two more volumes (1876). The whole work was reissued in a revised and slightly abridged form by Ashley in 2 volumes in 1879, with the title The Life and Correspondence of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston; the letters are judiciously curtailed, but unfortunately without indicating where the excisions occur; the appendices of the original work are omitted, but much fresh matter is added, and this edition is undoubtedly the standard biography.^[214]

The popular Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope published a very readable memoir of Palmerston, one of his political heroes, in 1882.

Places named after Palmerston

Palmerston Lodge, Fairburn, North Yorkshire, hunting lodge built by Lord Palmerston in Fairburn, Yorkshire.

The Town of Palmerston located in Southwestern Ontario, Canada was founded and named after Palmerston in 1875. Palmerston is now part of the amalgamated town of Minto.
The former township of Palmerston in Frontenac County in Eastern Ontario, now part of the amalgamated township of North Frontenac
In New Zealand, the town of Palmerston, in Otago in the South Island, and the city of Palmerston North, in Manawatu in the North Island.
The Australian city of Darwin was previously named Palmerston in honour of the Viscount. A satellite city called Palmerston was established adjacent to Darwin in 1971.
Palmerston Atoll
is the most northerly of the Southern Group of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. Amongst the 15 or so islands of the atoll, Palmerston Island is the only one which is inhabited.
In the Rathmines area of Dublin 6 in the southern suburbs, villas are named after Palmerston, as well as Temple Road and Palmerston Road. Both are quasi-translated variously as Bóthar an Stiguaire, Bóthar P(h)almerston, Bóthar Baile an Phámar and Bóthar an Teampaill.
Palmerston Forts
Several places in Portsmouth are named after Palmerston – notably Southsea's main shopping precinct, Palmerston Road.
Palmerston Road in East Sheen, London, SW14.
Palmerston Place in the West End, Edinburgh, EH12.
Palmerston Road in Walthamstow, London & The Lord Palmerston Pub at the junction of Palmerston Road and Forest Road.
Palmerston Road and Palmerston Grove in Merton Park, London
The Lord Palmerston public house in Dartmouth Park, London, NW5 is named after Palmerston.
Palmerston Park and the Palmerston Hotel in Tiverton, Devon, Palmerston's constituency, are named after him.
Palmerston Road in Bournemouth
Palmerston Park, Southampton was named after him, as was nearby Palmerston Road. A seven-foot high marble statue of Palmerston was erected in the park and unveiled on 2 June 1869.^[215] Temple street in Sligo is also called after him
Palmerston Street in Derby.
Palmerston Street in Bedford.
Palmerston Road and Palmerston Park in east Belfast.
Palmerston Boulevard and Palmerston Avenue in Toronto are named for him.
Palmerston Street in Romsey, Hampshire; there is also a statue of him in the market place.

Cultural references

Indian rebellion of 1857 is about to break out.^[216]

1862 – Palmerston is featured in the alternate history novel by Robert Conroy, depicting an American Civil War in which Great Britain allies itself with the Confederacy after the Trent Affair at the direction of Palmerston.^[217]

Stars and Stripes trilogy – Palmerston is featured in the alternate history novel by Harry Harrison, depicting an American Civil War in which Great Britain invades both the United States and the Confederacy after the Trent Affair.

CS Forester, Horatio Hornblower meets a young Palmerston on returning to England.^[218]

Wagons West! - Palmerston is portrayed early in the book series in opposition to American settlement of Oregon Country.^[219]

The Simpsons - in "Homer at the Bat", Barney Gumble argues with Wade Boggs that Palmerston was the greatest prime minister, with Boggs arguing for Pitt the Elder.^[220]

Palmerston, the resident Chief Mouser of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office since 13 April 2016, was named after Palmerston.^[221]

Victoria (2019); the series dramatises his turbulent period as foreign secretary.^[222]

Palmerston's First Cabinet, February 1855 – February 1858

Palmerston addressing the House of Commons

Lord Palmerston – First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons^[223]

Robert Rolfe, 1st Baron Cranworth – Lord Chancellor

Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville – Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords

George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll – Lord Privy Seal

Secretary of State for the Home Department

Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

Sidney Herbert – Secretary of State for the Colonies

Lord Panmure – Secretary of State for War

Sir James Graham, 2nd Baronet – First Lord of the Admiralty

William Ewart Gladstone – Chancellor of the Exchequer

Sir Charles Wood – President of the Board of Control

Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley – President of the Board of Trade

Dudley Ryder, 2nd Earl of Harrowby – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

Sir William Molesworth, 8th Baronet – First Commissioner of Works

Postmaster-General

Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne – Minister without Portfolio

Changes

Later in February 1855 – Sir
R.V. Smith
succeeds Wood as President of the Board of Control

July 1855 – Sir William Molesworth succeeds Russell as Colonial Secretary. Molesworth's successor as First Commissioner of Works is not in the Cabinet.

November 1855 – Henry Labouchere succeeds Molesworth as Colonial Secretary

December 1855 – The Duke of Argyll succeeds Lord Canning as Postmaster-General. Lord Harrowby succeeds Argyll as Lord Privy Seal. Harrowby's successor as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is not in the Cabinet

1857 – Matthew Talbot Baines, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, enters the Cabinet.

February 1858 – Ulick de Burgh, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde succeeds Harrowby as Lord Privy Seal.

Palmerston's Second Cabinet, June 1859 – October 1865

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

Lord Palmerston – First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons^[224]

John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell of St Andrews – Lord Chancellor

Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville – Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords

The
George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll – Lord Privy Seal

Sir
Secretary of State for the Home Department

Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

Henry Pelham-Clinton, 5th Duke of Newcastle – Secretary of State for the Colonies

Sidney Herbert – Secretary of State for War

Sir Charles Wood – Secretary of State for India

Edward Adolphus Seymour, 12th Duke of Somerset – First Lord of the Admiralty

William Ewart Gladstone – Chancellor of the Exchequer

Edward Cardwell – Chief Secretary for Ireland

Poor Law Board

Sir George Grey, 2nd Baronet – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

Postmaster-General

Changes

July 1859 –
President of the Poor Law Board
(Milner-Gibson remains at the Board of Trade)

May 1860 – Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley succeeds Lord Elgin as Postmaster-General

June 1861 – Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury succeeds Lord Campbell as Lord Chancellor

July 1861 – Sir George Cornewall Lewis succeeds Herbert as Secretary for War. Sir George Grey succeeds Lewis as Home Secretary. Edward Cardwell succeeds Grey as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Cardwell's successor as Chief Secretary for Ireland is not in the Cabinet.

April 1863 – Lord de Grey becomes Secretary for War following Sir George Lewis's death.

April 1864 – Edward Cardwell succeeds the Duke of Newcastle as Colonial Secretary. George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon succeeds Cardwell as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

July 1865 – Robert Rolfe, 1st Baron Cranworth succeeds Lord Westbury as Lord Chancellor

Arms

Coat of arms of Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

Crest

A talbot sejant Sable plain collared Or.^[225]

Escutcheon

Quarterly 1st & 4th Or an eagle displayed Sable (Leofric, Saxon Earl of Mercia), 2nd & 3rd Argent two bars Sable each charged with three martlets Or (Temple).

Supporters

Dexter a lion reguardant poean sinister a horse reguardant Argent mane tail and hoofs Or.

Motto

Flecti Non Frangi (To Be Bent Not Broken)

See also

History of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom
Foreign policy of William Ewart Gladstone

International relations (1814–1919)

Timeline of British diplomatic history

References

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^ Brown, Palmerston: A Biography (2010) pp. 210-11.

^ Franz Mehring. "Karl Marx. His life story". Moscow. Gospolitizdat. 1957. p. 264

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^ Ritchie 1866–67, pp. 314–315.

^ Jenkins, Brian. Lord Lyons: A Diplomat in an Age of Nationalism and War. McGill-Queen’s Press, 2014.

^ Ridley, p. 552.

^ Kevin Peraino, "Lincoln vs. Palmerston" in Peraino, Lincoln in the World: The Making of a Statesman and the Dawn of American Power (2013) pp. 120–69.

ISBN 978-0547225647
.

^ ^a ^b Ridley, p. 559.

^ ^a ^b Ridley, p. 554.

JSTOR 558199

S2CID 143983887
.

ISBN 9-7808-1317-7151
.

^ Civil War Chronology, 1861-1865. Naval Operations Office. 1966. p. 114.

^ David Keys (24 June 2014). "Historians reveal secrets of UK gun-running which lengthened the American civil war by two years". The Independent.

^ Paul Hendren (April 1933). "The Confederate Blockade Runners". United States Naval Institute.

Kent State University Press
. 2003. p. 3.

^ Adams (1925)

^ Ridley, pp. 570–571.

^ ^a ^b Ridley, p. 571.

^ Kenneth Bourne, The Foreign Policy-of Victorian England 1830–1902 (1970) p. 108.

^ Bourne, p. 373.

^ Herbert C. F. Bell, Lord Palmerston (1936) 2: pp. 9–10, 364.

^ Stephen Cooper, "Dreadnoughts without Wheels," History Today (Aug 2014) 64#8 pp. 16-17.

^ ^a ^b Ridley, p. 572.

^ Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) pp. 573-74.

^ Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) p. 574.

^ 'Lord Palmerston at Tiverton', The Times (24 August 1864), p. 9.

^ William Baring Pemberton, Lord Palmerston (Batchworth Press, 1954) p. 332

^ V. N. Vinogradov (2006). "Lord Palmerston in European diplomacy". New and Recent History [ru] (in Russian) (5): 182–209.

^ Ridley, p. 579.

^ Ridley, p. 581.

^ Ridley, p. 582.

^ Guedalla 1927, p. 493.

^ Guedalla 1927, p. 496.

^ Hibbert, Christopher Disraeli: A Personal History (2004) p. 256

^ ^a ^b Ridley, p. 583.

^ Stanley, A.P., Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (London; John Murray; 1882), p. 247.

^ ^a ^b Ridley, p. 584.

^ "Profile of an Irish Village-Palmerston and the Conquest, Colonisation and Evolution of Mullaghmore, Co. Sligo". Retrieved 26 September 2013.

^ Jonathan Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (1993) p. 194.

^ Norman Gash, ‘’The English Historical Review’’ (Jan. 1972) 87#342, p. 136 online

^ Algernon Cecil, British Foreign Secretaries, 1807–1916 (1927) p. 139

^ Ridley, p. 587.

^ Ridley, p. 588.

^ David Steele, Palmerston and Liberalism, 1855–1865 (Cambridge University Press, 1991).

^ ^a ^b ^c Ridley, p. 589.

^ The Times (10 November 1865), p. 7.

^ Ridley, p. 591.

^ Edinburgh Review. 1866. p. 275.

^ Martin Gilbert, Winston Churchill. The Wilderness Years (London: Book Club Associates, 1981), pp. 106–107.

^ W. K. Hancock, Smuts. Volume II: The Fields of Force. 1919–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), p. 281.

^ J. R. Oldfield, "Palmerston and Anti-Slavery" Palmerston Studies 2 (2007): 24-38.

^ Leslie M. Bethell, "Britain, Portugal and the suppression of the Brazilian slave trade: the origins of Lord Palmerston's Act of 1839." English historical review 80.317 (1965): 761-784 online.

^ A. J. P. Taylor, "Lord Palmerston," History Today Jan 1991, Vol. 41#1 p. 1

ISBN 978-0-297-85851-5
.

^ Stanley Lane-Poole, 'Temple, Henry John', Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, Volume 56.

^ "Palmerston Park". City Centre Parks. Southampton City Council. Archived from the original on 21 April 2012. Retrieved 22 June 2012.

ISBN 9781573560665
.

ISBN 9781317383239
.

ISBN 978-1-61886-037-8
.

^ Frank McLynn (2007). Wagons West: The Epic Story of America's Overland Trails. Open Road. p. 122.

ISBN 9780307366092
.

^ Helena Horton (13 April 2016). "Palmerston the cat arrives for work at the Foreign Office". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 13 April 2016.

^ See "Laurence Fox is Palmerston" (2019)

ISBN 9781134240357
.

ISBN 9781134240357
.

^ Debrett's Peerage. 1865. p. 268.

Bibliography

Bell, H.C.F. Lord Palmerston (2 vol 1936) vol 1 online; also vol 2 online

Bell, Herbert C. "Palmerston and Parliamentary Representation." Journal of Modern History 4.2 (1932): 186–213.
JSTOR 1871668

Bailey, Frank E. "The Economics of British Foreign Policy, 1825-50." Journal of Modern History 12.4 (1940): 449–484. online

Bourne, Kenneth (1970). The foreign policy of Victorian England, 1830–1902. Clarendon Press.
ISBN 978-0-19-873007-1
.

Bourne, Kenneth (1961). "The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and the Decline of British Opposition to the Territorial Expansion of the United States, 1857–60". Journal of Modern History. 33 (3): 287–291.
S2CID 154863763
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Brown, David. "Lord Palmerston" Historian (Winter 2002) 76:33–35; historiography

Brown, David (2010). Palmerston. Yale UP.
JSTOR j.ctt5vks3x
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Brown, David. Palmerston and the politics of foreign policy, 1846-55 (2002) online PhD dissertation

Brown, David. "Palmerston and Anglo–French Relations, 1846–1865." Diplomacy and Statecraft 17.4 (2006): 675–692.

Brown, David (2001). "Compelling but not Controlling?: Palmerston and the Press, 1846–1855". History. 86#201 (281): 41–61.
doi:10.1111/1468-229X.00176
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Brown, David (2001). "The Power of Public Opinion: Palmerston and the Crisis of December 1851". Parliamentary History. 20 (3): 333–358.
doi:10.1111/j.1750-0206.2001.tb00381.x
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Brown, David and Miles Taylor, eds. Palmerston Studies I and II (Southampton: Harrley Institute, 2007); pp. 203, 207; essays by scholars

Cecil, Algernon. British Foreign Secretaries 1807-1916 (1927) pp. 131–226. online

Chamberlain, Muriel Evelyn. British Foreign Policy in the Age of Palmerston (Longman, 1980).

Chambers, James. Palmerston. 'The People's Darling' (John Murray, 2004).
ISBN 978-0-7195-5452-0

Eichhorn, Niels. "The Intervention Crisis of 1862: A British Diplomatic Dilemma?." American Nineteenth Century History 15.3 (2014): 287-310.

Fenton, Laurence (2010). "Origins of Animosity: Lord Palmerston and The Times, 1830–41". Media History. 16#4: 365–378.
S2CID 153007113
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Fenton, Laurence (2013). Palmerston and The Times: Foreign Policy, the Press and Public Opinion in Mid-Victorian Britain. IB Tauris. description
Fenton, L. "Palmerston and The Times - a study of foreign policy, the press and public opinion, 1846-51" (PhD Dissertation, University College Cork (Ireland); ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2003. U187638), Available online.

Friedman, Isaiah. "Lord Palmerston and the protection of Jews in Palestine 1839-1851." Jewish Social Studies (1968): 23–41.
JSTOR 4466386

Fuller, Howard J. (2014). Technology and the Mid-Victorian Royal Navy Ironclad: Royal Navy Crisis in the Age of Palmerston. Routledge. Excerpt

Golicz, Roman. "Napoleon III, Lord Palmerston and the Entente Cordiale." History Today 50.12 (2000): 10–17.

Henderson, Gavin B. "The Foreign Policy of Lord Palmerston" History 22#88 (1938), pp. 335–344,
JSTOR 24401363

Hicks, Geoffrey (2007). Peace, War and party politics: the Conservatives and Europe, 1846–59. Manchester University Press.

Hickson, G. F. "Palmerston and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty". Cambridge Historical Journal 3#3 (1931), pp. 295–303.
JSTOR 3020744

Hoppen, K. Theodore (1998). The Mid-Victorian Generation, 1846–1886., wide-ranging scholarly survey

Kingston, Klari. "Gunboat Liberalism? Palmerston, Europe and 1848" History Today 47#2 (1997) 37–43.

Leonard, Dick Nineteenth Century British Premieres: Pitt to Roseberry (2008) pp. 245–65.

Macknight, Thomas. Thirty Years of Foreign Policy, a History of the Secretaryships of the Earl of Aberdeen and Viscount Palmerston (1855), Online free

Martin, Kingsley (1963). The Triumph of Lord Palmerston: a study of public opinion in England before the Crimean War. Online free

Paul, Herbert. History of Modern England, 1904-6 (5 vols) vol 2 online 1855–1865

Judd, Denis. Palmerston (Bloomsbury, 2015).

Morse, Hosea Ballou. International Relations of the Chinese Empire: The Period of Conflict: 1834-1860. (1910) online

Ridley, Jasper (1970). Lord Palmerston. London: Constable.; Online free to borrow

Roberts, David. "Lord Palmerston at the home office." Historian 21.1 (1958): 63-81.
JSTOR 24437747

Rodkey, Frederick Stanley. "Lord Palmerston and the rejuvenation of Turkey, 1830-41." Journal of Modern History 1.4 (1929): 570-593. online
Rodkey, Frederick Stanley. "Lord Palmerston and the Rejuvenation of Turkey, 1830-41: Part II, 1839-41." Journal of Modern History 2.2 (1930): 193-225.
JSTOR 1872311

Seton-Watson, R. W. Britain in Europe, 1789–1914: A survey of foreign policy (1937) pp. 241–300, 400–63. online

Southgate, Donald (1966). 'The Most English Minister': the Policies and Politics of Palmerston. London: Macmillan.

Steele, E.D. Palmerston and Liberalism, 1855–1865 (1991)

Steele, David (May 2009) [2004]. "Temple, Henry John, third Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/27112. Retrieved 11 December 2010. (Subscription or UK public library membership
required.)

Steele, David. "Three British Prime Ministers and the Survival of the Ottoman Empire, 1855–1902." Middle Eastern Studies 50.1 (2014): 43-60. Covers Palmerston, Gladstone, and Salisbury.

Taylor, A. J. P. "Lord Palmerston" History Today (July 1951) 1#7 pp. 35–41 online

Taylor, Antony. "Palmerston and Radicalism, 1847-1865." Journal of British Studies 33.2 (1994): 157-179.
JSTOR 175909

Temperley, Harold, and Gavin B. Henderson. "Disraeli and Palmerston in 1857, or, the Dangers of Explanations in Parliament." Cambridge Historical Journal 7.2 (1942): 115-126.
JSTOR 3020795

Vereté, Mayir. "Palmerston and the Levant Crisis, 1832." Journal of Modern History 24.2 (1952): 143-151.
JSTOR 1872562

Vyčichlo, Jiří. Palmerston and Metternich’s Austria, 1830‒1841: Clash of Ideas in the Balance of Power (Walter de Gruyter , 2025).

Weber, Frank G. "Palmerston and Prussian Liberalism, 1848." Journal of Modern History 35.2 (1963): 125-136.
JSTOR 1899235

Webster, Charles. The Foreign Policy of Palmerston. 1830-1841 (2v. 1951) a major study

Weigall, David. Britain and the World, 1815–1986: A Dictionary of International relations (1989)

Ward, A.W. and
G. P. Gooch
, eds. The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783–1919 (3 vol, 1921–23), Volume II: 1815–66

Williams, Chris, ed. A Companion to 19th-Century Britain (2006). Chapters 1 to 4, pp. 15–92;

Wolffe, John (2005). "Lord Palmerston and religion: a reappraisal". English Historical Review. 120 (488): 907–936.
doi:10.1093/ehr/cei240
.

Primary sources

Bourne, Kenneth (1979). The Letters of the Third Viscount Palmerston to Laurence and Elizabeth Sulivan. 1804–1863. London: The Royal Historical Society..

Bourne, Kenneth, ed/ Foreign Policy of Victorian England, 1830-1902 (1970) Long introduction, +147 primary source documents, many by Palmerston.

Francis, George Henry (1852). Opinions and Policy of The Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life. London: Colburn and Co.

Philip Guedalla, ed. (1928). Gladstone and Palmerston, being the Correspondence of Lord Palmerston with Mr. Gladstone 1851–1865. London: Victor Gollancz. Archived from the original on 25 May 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2019.

Lord, Sudley ed. The Lieven Palmerston Correspondence 1828-1856 (1943) online

Partridge, Michael, and Richard Gaunt. Lives of Victorian Political Figures Part 1: Palmerston, Disraeli and Gladstone (4 vol. Pickering & Chatto. 2006) reprints 19 original pamphlets on Palmerston.

Temperley, Harold and L.M. Penson, eds. Foundations of British Foreign Policy: From Pitt (1792) to Salisbury (1902) (1938), primary sources pp. 88–304 online

Argyll, John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, Duke of (1892). Viscount Palmerston. New York: HarperCollins.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Sanders, Lloyd Charles (1888). Life of Viscount Palmerston. J. B. Lippincott & Co.

Guedalla, Philip (1927). Palmerston, 1784-1865. New York, London, G. P. Putnam's sons.

Ritchie, James Ewing (1866–67). The life and times of Viscount Palmerston : embracing the diplomatic and domestic history of the British Empire during the last half century. Vol. 2nd. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Other sources

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 645–649.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston.

Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Viscount Palmerston

Viscount Palmerston 1784–1865 biography from the Liberal Democrat History Group

More about Viscount Palmerston on the Downing Street website.

"Archival material relating to Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston". UK National Archives.

Papers of Henry John Temple, third Viscount Palmerston. University of Southampton.

Portraits of Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Edward J. Davies, "The Ancestry of Lord Palmerston", The Genealogist, 22(2008):62–77

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Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_John_Temple,_3rd_Viscount_Palmerston&oldid=1283867624"

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article: Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston. Articles is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license; additional terms may apply.Privacy Policy

[1] :10.1017/S006869050000338X
. Retrieved 9 July 2021.

[2] Little, Tony. "Viscount Palmerston (Henry John Temple), 1784–1865". Liberal Democrat History Group. If we date the modern Liberal Party from the 1859 meeting in Willis' Tea Rooms, we must accord Palmerston the honour of being the first Liberal Prime Minister, though he would have thought himself the Queen's minister and the nation's leader rather than a party's.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

[3] Brain, Jessica. "Lord Palmerston". Historic UK. In the years that followed, political infighting and international affairs would continue to dominate Palmerston's time in office. He would end up resigning and then serving as Prime Minister again, this time as the first Liberal leader in 1859.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

[4] Bulwer, Henry Lytton (1871). The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston: with Selections from Hid Diaries and Correspondence, in Three Volumes (3rd ed.). He began his parliamentary career as a Tory, defected to the Whigs in 1830, and became the first prime minister from the newly-formed Liberal Party in 1859.

[5] David Brown, Palmerston: A Biography (2010) p. 473.

[6] "Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston – MoPM". Museum of the Prime Minister. Retrieved 9 December 2024.

[7] Paul Hayes, Modern British Foreign Policy: The Nineteenth Century 1814–80 (1975) p. 108.

[Foxcroft2013-8] ISBN 978-1-4094-7984-0
.

[9] Joshua Ehrlich, "Anxiety, Chaos, and the Raj." Historical Journal 63.3 (2020): 777–787.

[10] Davies, Edward J. (2008). "The Ancestry of Lord Palmerston". The Genealogist. 22: 62–77.

[11] Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), pp. 7–9.

[12] Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) pp. 3-4, 32, 90.

[Ridley,_p._10-13] Ridley, p. 10.

[14] Ridley, p. 12.

[15] Ridley, p. 14.

[ODNB-16] David Steele, ‘Temple, Henry John, third Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009, accessed 11 December 2010.

[17] Ridley, p. 15.

[18] "Palmerston, Henry John (Temple), Viscount (PLMN803HJ)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.

[19] Ridley, p. 18.

[20] Ridley, pp. 18–19.

[21] ISBN 978-1-02-178473-5

[22] Ridley, pp. 19–22.

[23] Ridley, pp. 24–26.

[24] Ridley, p. 27.

[25] Ridley, pp. 27–28.

[note-26] Although peers of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom sat in the House of Lords and were not able to sit as Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, the Viscountcy of Palmerston was in the Peerage of Ireland which did not automatically grant the right to sit in the Lords. Palmerston was thus able to serve as an MP.

[27] David Brown, Palmerston: a biography (2011) p. 57.

[28] Ridley, pp. 29–30.

[29] George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life (1852), pp. 1–3.

[30] Kenneth Bourne (ed.), The Letters of the Third Viscount Palmerston to Laurence and Elizabeth Sulivan. 1804–1863. London: The Royal Historical Society, 1979. p. 97.

[31] Dick Leonard, Nineteenth Century British Premiers: Pitt to Rosebery (2008) pp. 249–51

[32] Ridley, pp. 64–65.

[FOOTNOTEChisholm1911646-33] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Chisholm 1911, p. 646.

[34] REPEAL OF THE TEST AND CORPORATION ACTS. HC Deb 26 February 1828 vol 18 cc676-781

[35] Ridley, pp. 147–153.

[36] Ridley, p. 98.

[37] Ridley, pp. 105–106.

[38] E. Halevy, The Triumph of Reform (London 1961) pp. 70-1

[39] G M Trevelyan, British History in the 19th Century (London 1922) p. 232

[40] Brown, Palmerston: A Biography (2010) pp. 143-88.

[41] Klari Kingston, "Gunboat Liberalism? Palmerston, Europe and 1848" History Today 47#2 (1997) pp. 37-43.

[42] Halevy, pp. 20-1

[43] R. W. Seton-Watson, Britain in Europe: 1789-1914 (1937) pp. 149-54.

[44] E Halevy, The Triumph of Reform (London 1961) p. 72

[45] David Brown, Palmerston: A Biography (2010) pp. 148–54.

[46] E Halevy, The Triumph of Reform (London 1961) p. 20

[E_Halevy,_1961_p._73-47] E Halevy, The Triumph of Reform (London 1961) p. 73

[48] G M Trevelyan, British History in the 19th Century (London 1922) p. 233

[49] Fishman, J. S. (1971). "The London Conference of 1830". Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis. 84 (3): 418–428.

[50] Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) pp. 122-37.

[51] E Halevy, The Triumph of Reform (London 1961) pp. 254-5

[52] R. W. Seton-Watson, Britain in Europe: 1789-1914 (1937) pp. 153-72.

[53] Henry Lytton Bulwer (1871). The Life of Henry John Temple Viscount Palmerston: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence. Richard Bentley. p. 170.

[FOOTNOTEChisholm1911647-54] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k Chisholm 1911, p. 647.

[55] Brown, Palmerston: A Biography (2010) pp. 210-11.

[56] Franz Mehring. "Karl Marx. His life story". Moscow. Gospolitizdat. 1957. p. 264

[57] Ridley, pp. 208–209.

[58] Anthony Evelyn M. Ashley (1879). The life and correspondence of Henry John Temple, viscount Palmerston. Richard Bentley. p. 361.

[59] ISBN 9780521289689
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[60] ISBN 9780367133269
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[61] Seton-Watson, Britain in Europe: 1789-1914 (1937) pp. 191-98.

[62] Ridley, Lord Palmerston, pp. 248–60

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[64] Glenn Melancon, "Peaceful intentions: the first British trade commission in China, 1833–5." Historical Research 73.180 (2000): pp. 33-47.

[65] ISBN 9780754607045
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[66] Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) p. 249.

[67] Ridley, pp. 254-256.

[68] May Caroline Chan, "Canton, 1857" Victorian Review (2010), 36#1 pp. 31-35.

[69] John K. Derden, "The British Foreign Office and Policy Formation: The 1840s," Proceedings & Papers of the Georgia Association of Historians (1981) pp. 64–79.

[70] Laurence Fenton, "Origins of Animosity: Lord Palmerston and The Times, 1830–41." Media History 16.4 (2010): pp. 365–378; Fenton, Palmerston and The Times: foreign policy, the press and public opinion in mid-Victorian Britain (2013).

[71] JSTOR 24425287
.

[72] K D Reynolds, Oxford DNB, 'Temple, Emily'. Palmerston left his family seat Broadlands to her fourth, but 2nd surviving son Rt. Hon. Evelyn Melbourne Ashley (24 July 1836 – 15 November 1907)

[73] David Brown, Palmerston: A Biography(2010), pp. 474-78.

[74] Bolton, Sarah (1891). Famous English Statesmen of Queen Victoria's Reign. Boston: C.J. Peter's and Sons. p. 85.

[75] Gillian Gill, We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals (2008) p. 263.

[76] Robert Remini, Daniel Webster (W. W. Norton and Co.: New York, 1997) pp. 538–565.

[77] David Brown., Palmerston: A Biography (2010) pp. 279–333.

[78] James Ewing Ritchie (1866). The life and times of viscount Palmerston. p. 648.

[79] David Brown, "Palmerston and Anglo–French Relations, 1846–1865," Diplomacy & Statecraft, (Dec 2006) 17#4 pp. 675–692

[80] Brown, Palmerston ch 9

[81] "Remembering 20,000 Famine refugees who died in 1847". The Irish Times. 26 November 2016.

[82] S2CID 32405352
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[83] "In Famine's footsteps: trail of death leads to Skeleton Park". The Irish Times. 30 June 2016.

[84] R. W. Seton-Watson, Britain in Europe: 1789-1914 (1937) pp. 241-49.

[85] Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) pp. 343-48.

[86] Herbert C. F. Bell, Lord Palmerston - Vol. 1 (1936) pp. 422-48.

[87] Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) p. 355.

[88] ISBN 9780857736512
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[89] Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) pp. 333-58.

[90] ISBN 9780191606823
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[91] "TREATY OF ADRIANOPLE—CHARGES AGAINST VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. (Hansard, 1 March 1848)". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). 1 March 1848. Retrieved 28 November 2021.

[92] Ridley, pp. 374–375.

[93] Ridley, pp. 379–81.

[94] S2CID 154617613
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[FOOTNOTEChisholm1911648-95] Chisholm 1911, p. 648.

[96] Ridley, pp. 387–94.

[97] Ridley, pp. 394–395.

[98] Ridley, p. 398.

[99] Ridley, pp. 398–399.

[100] :10.1111/j.1750-0206.2001.tb00381.x
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[101] Ridley, pp. 413–414.

[Ridley,_p._414-102] Ridley, p. 414.

[Ridley,_p._407-103] Ridley, p. 407.

[104] Ridley, p. 408.

[105] Ridley, pp. 408–409.

[106] Ridley, pp. 409–410.

[107] Ridley, p. 410.

[108] Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) pp. 403-405.

[109] ISBN 9780810866133
. Retrieved 18 June 2021. As war came closer the bulk of the British fleet was committed to the Mediterranean and on 13 June 1853, as tensions mounted, the British and French Mediterranean fleets were moved to Besika Bay, close to the Dardanelles, and ready to move to the support of Turkey.

[110] Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) pp. 415–416.

[111] Ridley, p. 419.

[112] Leonard, Dick (2013). The Great Rivalry: Gladstone and Disraeli. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 98.

[113] Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) pp. 433-36.

[FOOTNOTEArgyll1892165-114] Argyll 1892, p. 165.

[115] Orlando Figes, The Crimean War: A History (2010) pp. 402–408

[116] Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) pp. 437-53

[R467-117] Ridley, p. 467.

[118] J. Y. Wong, Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism, and the Arrow War (1856–1860) in China (1998)

[FOOTNOTESanders1888221-119] Sanders 1888, p. 221.

[120] Brown, David. "Lord Palmerston and Parliamentary Representation, 1830-1865" (PDF). www.parlements.org. p. 52.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

[121] "THE ADMINISTRATION OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON—LEGISLATION AND STATE OF PARTIES. (Hansard, 1 August 1862)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 6 December 2024.

[122] Walden, Harley Derek (1 January 2011). "Chapter Two: The Anglo-Indian Connection: Perspectives In Parliament". Sahib and Sepoy: The British Perspective on the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857. Marshall Digital Scholar. pp. 24–25.

[123] Hobson, Kevin. "The British Press and the Indian Mutiny". The British Empire.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

[124] Shafeeq, Samuel. British Reaction to the Sepoy Mutiny, 1857-58 (PDF). Denton, Texas, United States. p. 15.

[FOOTNOTEArgyll1892183-125] Argyll 1892, p. 183.

[126] Shafeeq, Samuel. British Reaction to the Sepoy Mutiny, 1857-58 (PDF). Denton, Texas, United States. p. 23.

[127] Trollope, Anthony (1 January 1882). Lord Palmerston. p. 179.

[128] Shafeeq, Samuel. British Reaction to the Sepoy Mutiny, 1857-1858 (PDF). Denton, Texas, United States. p. 21.

[129] Trollope, Anthony (1 January 1882). Lord Palmerston. p. 180.

[130] Trollope, Anthony (1 January 1882). Lord Palmerston. p. 182.

[FOOTNOTEArgyll1892186-131] Argyll 1892, p. 186.

[FOOTNOTEArgyll1892187-132] Argyll 1892, p. 187.

[133] Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) pp. 472-82.

[134] Victoria (1907). The Letters of Queen Victoria: A Selection from Her Majesty's Correspondence Between the Years 1837 and 1861. Longmans, Green, and Company. pp. 439–40.

[135] David Loades, ed., Readers Guide to British History (2003) 2: p. 998

[136] Ridley, p. 506.

[137] "THE ADMINISTRATION OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON—LEGISLATION AND STATE OF PARTIES. (Hansard, 1 August 1862)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 6 December 2024.

[138] "Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston". The British Empire.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

[139] Hancock, W. Neilson (15 September 1880). On The Anomalous Differences of the Poor Laws in Ireland and of England (PDF). pp. 6–7.

[FOOTNOTESanders1888214–215-140] Sanders 1888, pp. 214–215.

[141] The Thinker’s Library, No.78 The Man Versus The States by Herbert Spencer, London Watts & Co., First published in the Thinkers Library, 1940, P.10-11

[FOOTNOTESanders1888210-142] Sanders 1888, p. 210.

[FOOTNOTESanders1888202-143] Sanders 1888, p. 202.

[FOOTNOTESanders1888203-144] Sanders 1888, p. 203.

[145] "THE SECOND WESTBURY SCANDAL. L ORD WESTBURY has made the great » 1 Jul 1865 » The Spectator Archive". The Spectator Archive. Retrieved 7 December 2024.

[FOOTNOTESanders1888210–211-146] Sanders (1888), pp. 210–211.

[147] :10.1093/ehr/cei240
– via The Open University.

[148] Chris Williams, ed., A Companion to 19th-Century Britain (2006). p. 42

[149] Ridley, p. 565.

[150] Ridley, p. 563.

[151] Ridley, p. 566.

[152] Philip Guedalla (ed.), Gladstone and Palmerston, being the Correspondence of Lord Palmerston with Mr. Gladstone 1851–1865 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1928), p. 279.

[153] Guedalla, p. 282.

[154] Ridley, p. 564.

[:0-155] Express, Britain. "Palmerston's Ministry 1858-1865 | End of the Palmerston Era". Britain Express. Retrieved 1 January 2025.

[FOOTNOTEGuedalla1927452-156] Guedalla 1927, p. 452.

[FOOTNOTEGuedalla1927454-157] Guedalla 1927, p. 454.

[FOOTNOTERitchie1866–67313-158] Ritchie 1866–67, p. 313.

[FOOTNOTEGuedalla1927453-159] Guedalla 1927, p. 453.

[FOOTNOTEGuedalla1927456-160] Guedalla 1927, p. 456.

[FOOTNOTERitchie1866–67314–315-161] Ritchie 1866–67, pp. 314–315.

[Jenkins_Lyons-162] Jenkins, Brian. Lord Lyons: A Diplomat in an Age of Nationalism and War. McGill-Queen’s Press, 2014.

[163] Ridley, p. 552.

[164] Kevin Peraino, "Lincoln vs. Palmerston" in Peraino, Lincoln in the World: The Making of a Statesman and the Dawn of American Power (2013) pp. 120–69.

[165] ISBN 978-0547225647
.

[R559-166] Ridley, p. 559.

[R554-167] Ridley, p. 554.

[168] JSTOR 558199

[169] S2CID 143983887
.

[170] ISBN 9-7808-1317-7151
.

[171] Civil War Chronology, 1861-1865. Naval Operations Office. 1966. p. 114.

[172] David Keys (24 June 2014). "Historians reveal secrets of UK gun-running which lengthened the American civil war by two years". The Independent.

[173] Paul Hendren (April 1933). "The Confederate Blockade Runners". United States Naval Institute.

[174] Kent State University Press
. 2003. p. 3.

[175] Adams (1925)

[176] Ridley, pp. 570–571.

[Ridley,_p._571-177] Ridley, p. 571.

[178] Kenneth Bourne, The Foreign Policy-of Victorian England 1830–1902 (1970) p. 108.

[179] Bourne, p. 373.

[180] Herbert C. F. Bell, Lord Palmerston (1936) 2: pp. 9–10, 364.

[181] Stephen Cooper, "Dreadnoughts without Wheels," History Today (Aug 2014) 64#8 pp. 16-17.

[Ridley,_p._572-182] Ridley, p. 572.

[183] Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) pp. 573-74.

[184] Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970) p. 574.

[185] 'Lord Palmerston at Tiverton', The Times (24 August 1864), p. 9.

[186] William Baring Pemberton, Lord Palmerston (Batchworth Press, 1954) p. 332

[Vinogradov-187] V. N. Vinogradov (2006). "Lord Palmerston in European diplomacy". New and Recent History [ru] (in Russian) (5): 182–209.

[188] Ridley, p. 579.

[189] Ridley, p. 581.

[190] Ridley, p. 582.

[FOOTNOTEGuedalla1927493-191] Guedalla 1927, p. 493.

[FOOTNOTEGuedalla1927496-192] Guedalla 1927, p. 496.

[193] Hibbert, Christopher Disraeli: A Personal History (2004) p. 256

[Ridley,_p._583-194] Ridley, p. 583.

[195] Stanley, A.P., Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (London; John Murray; 1882), p. 247.

[Ridley,_p._584-196] Ridley, p. 584.

[197] "Profile of an Irish Village-Palmerston and the Conquest, Colonisation and Evolution of Mullaghmore, Co. Sligo". Retrieved 26 September 2013.

[198] Jonathan Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (1993) p. 194.

[199] Norman Gash, ‘’The English Historical Review’’ (Jan. 1972) 87#342, p. 136 online

[200] Algernon Cecil, British Foreign Secretaries, 1807–1916 (1927) p. 139

[201] Ridley, p. 587.

[202] Ridley, p. 588.

[203] David Steele, Palmerston and Liberalism, 1855–1865 (Cambridge University Press, 1991).

[Ridley,_p._589-204] Ridley, p. 589.

[205] The Times (10 November 1865), p. 7.

[206] Ridley, p. 591.

[207] Edinburgh Review. 1866. p. 275.

[208] Martin Gilbert, Winston Churchill. The Wilderness Years (London: Book Club Associates, 1981), pp. 106–107.

[209] W. K. Hancock, Smuts. Volume II: The Fields of Force. 1919–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), p. 281.

[210] J. R. Oldfield, "Palmerston and Anti-Slavery" Palmerston Studies 2 (2007): 24-38.

[211] Leslie M. Bethell, "Britain, Portugal and the suppression of the Brazilian slave trade: the origins of Lord Palmerston's Act of 1839." English historical review 80.317 (1965): 761-784 online.

[212] A. J. P. Taylor, "Lord Palmerston," History Today Jan 1991, Vol. 41#1 p. 1

[213] ISBN 978-0-297-85851-5
.

[214] Stanley Lane-Poole, 'Temple, Henry John', Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, Volume 56.

[215] "Palmerston Park". City Centre Parks. Southampton City Council. Archived from the original on 21 April 2012. Retrieved 22 June 2012.

[216] ISBN 9781573560665
.

[217] ISBN 9781317383239
.

[218] ISBN 978-1-61886-037-8
.

[219] Frank McLynn (2007). Wagons West: The Epic Story of America's Overland Trails. Open Road. p. 122.

[220] ISBN 9780307366092
.

[221] Helena Horton (13 April 2016). "Palmerston the cat arrives for work at the Foreign Office". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 13 April 2016.

[222] See "Laurence Fox is Palmerston" (2019)

[223] ISBN 9781134240357
.

[224] ISBN 9781134240357
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[225] Debrett's Peerage. 1865. p. 268.

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