Conclusion: ‘Female Politicians’?

This conclusion explores what Mary’s life in politics might tell us about political life in Victorian Britain. It argues that Mary’s life illuminates particular aspects of Victorian political culture. In particular, it stresses the importance of incorporating informal political processes into the construction of high political narratives. It suggests that focusing on the activities of informal politics might offer new insights into familiar preoccupations of historians of high politics: of parliamentary dynamics, of party politics, of civil servants, and of public opinion.

‘Amphibious Agents’

By the mid nineteenth century, the terms ‘female diplomacy’ and ‘female diplomat’ had begun to creep into contemporary usage, as women sought to exert influence in international politics. This chapter places Mary within this wider context of female diplomatic activity and focuses on her role as an agent of international politics. It examines her involvement in international affairs, considering her connections with diplomats, ambassadors, and foreign politicians. It explores two connected facets of her activities as a diplomatic agent: her role in the dissemination of news and intelligence and her function as an advisor. It also explores Mary’s intellectual ideas about international affairs, and her opinions on key diplomatic developments. As this chapter will suggest, incorporating the activities of diplomatic women into the narrative of international affairs forces us to think afresh about the types of sources used to construct diplomatic history, as well as the nature of nineteenth-century diplomatic life itself.

‘It is the next best thing to a “chat” in St J squ’

At heart of this book lie thousands of letters sent to and from Mary. These letters have either been overlooked or underused by political historians. This chapter considers what Mary’s letters can tell us about Victorian political culture and it is divided into three parts. The first section charts the history of Mary’s archive. It draws attention to the uneven patterns of survival that characterize the archives of aristocratic women and stresses the importance of historicizing the archives used by historians of high politics. The second section explores how Mary used the letter as a political tool to amass and exercise political influence. The final section explores the composition and form of Mary’s political network. Using network analysis, it reconstructs Mary’s position in political society and plots her proximity to the networks that sustained political life at Westminster. Overall, it argues that a close reading of epistolary culture offers a valuable insight into the labyrinthine networks that sustained Victorian political life.

‘Begin afresh’

Complementing the discussion in Chapter 4, Chapter 5 examines Mary’s interaction with the machinery of the Liberal Party. It considers Mary’s attempts to work with and act alongside members of the Liberal Party in the late 1870s and 1880s. In contrast to her involvement with the Conservatives, her relationship with the Liberal Party was born out of necessity rather than ideological impulse and speaks to the restraints aristocratic women often worked within. In 1878, Mary and her husband found themselves cutting all ties with the Conservative Party. In an attempt to keep her political influence alive, Mary turned to the Liberal Party. This chapter considers, in turn, her relationship with local party officials, her only recorded electioneering efforts, her alliances with the Liberal leadership in the build-up to her husband’s appointment as Colonial Secretary in 1882, and her experiences of and involvement in Liberal cabinet politics.

‘That Miserable Party Spirit’

Chapter 4 considers Mary’s relationship with the Conservative Party in the late 1860s and early 1870s. In order to examine the influential role Mary played at the heart of the Conservative Party, this chapter considers three connected case studies. The first considers the disquiet over Disraeli’s leadership of the Conservative Party during the years 1868–1874 and examines the attempts by Mary and her political allies to oust him as leader. The second case study examines the intersections between Mary and the 1874 Conservative cabinet. It pays particular attention to her pivotal role in the formation of that cabinet. The third case study develops this narrative and explores her involvement in the processes and tensions of cabinet government during the years 1874–1876. In doing so, it considers the challenges and constraints offered up by the post-1867 landscape. Significantly, this chapter also casts new light on the fragility of Disraeli’s leadership of the Conservative Party.

‘History will judge us right’

Chapter 1 provides a biographical sketch of the woman at the centre of this book. Starting with her childhood, it charts Mary’s domestic life. We are introduced to Mary as daughter, wife, mother, and widow. It pieces together the little we know about Mary’s childhood, considering the political and social experiences that shaped her early years. It explores Mary’s two marriages: the first to a man thirty-three years her senior, James Cecil, second Marquess of Salisbury, and the second to Edward Stanley, fifteenth Earl of Derby. It considers her experiences of motherhood and widowhood, and what her domestic family life was like. Finally, it explores contemporary impressions of Mary, which reveal much about her personality and interests.

‘I am behind the Scenes’

Chapter 7 focuses on the diplomatic role Mary played during the first eighteen months of the Great Eastern Crisis. Sparked by internal unrest in the Ottoman Empire, this major diplomatic event engulfed European politics during the years 1875–1878. The chapter places Mary within this international narrative and considers her role as ‘diplomat’. It reveals the reality of her political and diplomatic activities at the centre of the British Government and it explores Mary’s specific forms of influence: acting as an intermediary between the Foreign Office, the Prime Minister, and her contacts inside the Ottoman Empire; offering diplomatic advice to the cabinet; instructing the British representatives in Constantinople; and working closely with the Russian Ambassador to avert an Anglo-Russian conflict. In uncovering these activities and placing them within a wider international narrative, this chapter represents a critical intervention in the history of female diplomatic activity.

Introduction: Aristocratic women and Victorian political culture

This introductory chapter examines why historians have often overlooked the pivotal role Lady Mary Derby played in mid-Victorian politics. It argues that, despite the processes of political reform, the Victorian aristocracy still retained their political status. It explores how this status combined with particular features of political culture to help facilitate the political careers of aristocratic women. As such, it suggests that by paying close attention to Mary’s activities, we are afforded a fuller picture of Victorian political culture than might otherwise be the case. It then considers Victorian understandings of political femininity, exploring how contemporaries sought to explain, delineate, and confine female political influence. Finally, this chapter closes with an outline of the chapters that make up the rest of the book.

‘I should be open to the still graver charge of betraying H. M. Govt.’

In the months leading up to the Christmas of 1877, a series of rumours began to gain traction in political society. At their heart, they all had the same kernel—that details of cabinet discussions were being made known to the Russian Government in St Petersburg—and they implicated and involved a wide range of political society, from the Prime Minister to civil servants, ambassadors to the press. By Boxing Day, the rumours had morphed into something more damaging. The Queen, through her chaplain, the Dean of Windsor, accused Mary of leaking government secrets to her friend the Russian Ambassador. While little scholarly attention has been paid to the role rumour and gossip played in political society, public men, as Trollope warned, ‘felt horror at the thought of being made the subject of common gossip and public criticism’. This chapter charts the origins of and journeys these rumours took through political society and considers their implications for Mary’s political reputation.

‘The most attentive hostess in the world’

Throughout her political career, Mary politicized the space around her, particularly her family homes. The chapter examines how Mary used the home as a political tool. It explores her political entertaining at Hatfield House as Marchioness of Salisbury, examining the influential role she played in political life during the late 1850s and early 1860s. Using the parliamentary debates that foreshadowed the Second Reform Act of 1867 as a backdrop, this chapter goes on to explore the symbiosis between the political space Mary constructed and the agenda of the national polity. This analysis is further developed by a consideration of how Mary used the family home for political purposes during her second marriage. Throughout, Mary’s use of political space is understood as an expression of her agency and ideology, rather than the physical manifestation of the obligation she felt as a wife.