Titans of History

DISRAELI

1804–1881

Mr. Disraeli … has always behaved extremely well to me, and has all the right feelings for a minister towards the sovereign … He is full of poetry, romance and chivalry. When he knelt down to kiss my hand, which he took in both of his, he said “in loving loyalty and faith.”

Queen Victoria, letter to her daughter Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia (March 4, 1868)

The greatest showman of British leaders, the most literary, and one of the wittiest, Benjamin Disraeli—known appropriately by everyone, even his wife, as Dizzy—matured from an adventurer into a heroic statesman, superb parliamentarian and virtuoso orator. Under him, the Conservative Party developed its guiding ideology, one that was to endure for over a century: fervent support for the monarchy, the empire and the Church of England, but also a commitment to achieving national unity by social reform. And although baptized a Christian in 1817, he remains the only British prime minister to have come from a Jewish background (let alone a Sephardic Moroccan one), a source of pride throughout his career. “I’m the empty page between the Old and New Testaments,” he told Queen Victoria. When he faced anti-Semitic taunts in Parliament, he proudly replied, “Yes I am a Jew and when the ancestors of the Rt. Hon. Gentleman were living as savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon.”

Most of Disraeli’s political achievements came late in life. The son of the writer Isaac d’Israeli, he was best known in his early years as a rakish literary figure, Byronic poseur and financial speculator. (Indeed, he and Winston Churchill remain the only outstanding literary figures among British leaders.) “When I want to read a book, I write one,” he once said; his books included romantic and political novels—the most famous being Coningsby—which often earned him substantial sums of money. He traveled the Ottoman empire and visited Jerusalem, where he rediscovered and reinvented his exotic persona as a Jewish Tory. He was famed for his extravagant dress sense and bumptiousness, which made him as many enemies as friends. His financial life was rackety, his sex life was shocking and, at one point, he lived in a ménage à trois with the lord chancellor Lord Lyndhurst and their joint mistress, the married Lady Henrietta Sykes. It was all a far cry from the sobriety of his arch-opponent, the Liberal leader W.E. Gladstone, with whom he had a fiery, combative relationship. He married late—childlessly but happily.

Disraeli entered Parliament in 1837, his maiden speech a disaster as the bumptious dandy (in green velvet) was booed: “You will hear me,” he said as he sat down. Before long he was recognized as a brilliant speaker and a tricky character. In 1846 he was instrumental in splitting the Conservative Party, by opposing the repeal of the Corn Laws in defiance of his leader, Robert Peel. When the Conservative Party formed a minority government in 1852, the earl of Derby appointed Disraeli chancellor of the exchequer. But his first budget was rejected by Parliament, and Derby’s government resigned after just ten months. Disraeli served twice more as chancellor under Derby, in 1858–9 and 1866–8.

It was in 1867 that Disraeli—now in his sixties—made his first great contribution to posterity, when he and Derby vigorously pushed through the 1867 Reform Act. This nearly doubled the number of people entitled to vote (although it did not enfranchise any women) and had the effect of underpinning the two-party system in England, lining up Conservatives against Liberals. When Derby became so ill that he had to resign the premiership in 1868, Disraeli was the natural choice to lead the Conservatives and the government. But his premiership was short. Gladstone’s Liberals returned to power at the end of the year.

After another six years of opposition, Disraeli was prime minister once more (1874–80). “I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole,” he said. This time the Conservatives had a majority. Queen Victoria adored him—in contrast to Gladstone, whom she loathed. He joked that with royalty it was necessary to “lay on the flattery with a trowel.” He flattered Victoria as “we authors, ma’am.” In 1876 Disraeli gave the queen the title of empress of India, and he was created earl of Beaconsfield, describing his presence in the House of Lords as “dead—but in the Elysian Fields!” In foreign affairs he successfully impressed upon Europe and the world that Britain was indeed “Great.” He protected British shipping interests and the route to India by arranging the purchase of a controlling stake in the Suez Canal. In European politics he played a canny hand to contain Russia’s ambitions as the Ottoman Empire, the so-called “sick man of Europe,” declined.

One of Disraeli’s most influential achievements was in creating an imperial ethos for the British empire. He sang the virtues of imperium et libertas (empire and liberty), and he saw Britain’s mission as not just to trade and establish colonial settlements, but also to bring British civilization and values to the diverse peoples of its ever expanding dominions. He was convinced of Britain’s unique and preeminent position in international politics, and to an extent his belief was vindicated at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, where his cunning and flamboyance dominated the attempts to solve the Russo-Turkish problem and the nationalist aspirations in the Balkans, securing peace and resisting Russian territorial ambitions. He also brought Cyprus under the British flag. “The old Jew is the man,” said the German Chancellor, Bismarck. The “old wizard” Disraeli received a hero’s welcome following the congress.

Throughout his political career, Disraeli maintained an intense feud with Gladstone, whom he called “that unprincipled maniac … [an] extraordinary mixture of envy, vindictiveness, hypocrisy and superstition.” The feeling was mutual. Gladstone compared Disraeli’s defeat in 1880 to “the vanishing of some vast magnificent castle in an Italian romance.” Though Gladstone outlived Disraeli and served as prime minister a total of four times (the last time in 1892–4) he never had the same charm, vision or style.