Lord Stanley of Alderley

“ Being under age at the time of her father's death she became a ward of the King, and he, as previously mentioned, gave the disposal of her in marriage to his favourite, Thomas, the first Lord Stanley, who made the most of his opportunity by marrying her to his third son, Thomas Stanley, thus securing for him and his descendants a very handsome patrimony, embracing the manor of Weever and the lands in Over and Nether Alderley, &c.. ”

“ I wrote so much to your brother of all the Duke of Bedford said of the old statesman being of use to the young one, and the young statesman taking to the old one (words on which he rings the changes till he makes me sick) , that I can’t write it all over again; but by dint of positively declining to understand, and by being so intensely stupid as to ask which Lord Stanley he meant (perhaps he of Alderley) , and by writing him short, savage notes in the intervals of the weekly luncheons he takes here, I hope I have rather enlightened that slightly damaged article—his mind. ”

“ He was always ready to bring Indian grievances before the party leaders, the press, or parliament. He was a warm supporter of the National Congress movement, and would often quote the Arabic proverb that 'a child that does not cry gets no milk.' To Indians resident in England he was a friend and frequent host. He was a keen sportsman and a strict total abstainer, closing three inns on his Alderley estate. Stanley died at Alderley from pneumonia on 10 Dec. 1903. He was buried, by his own desire, in Alderley Park with Moslem rites, the Imam of the Turkish embassy officiating. ”

“ For two days the struggle with nature continued, and on the evening of the 6th, in the presence of his wife and daughters and his son, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, calmly and unconsciously, as if in a dream, he passed into his rest.
In life he had expressed a desire to be buried in the churchyard of Alderley, among those with whom he had so long lived, [Pg 97] unless that "circumstances and the wishes and judgment" of those on whom he most confided "might decide upon the spot which had been the last scene of his ministerial labours." ”

“ Sir John Stanley was a natural son of James Stanley, warden of Manchester, and afterwards Bishop of Ely, a younger son of that Thomas, Lord Stanley, who placed the crown of the vanquished Richard upon the head of the victorious Richmond on the field of Bosworth. ”

“ One source from whence we have derived some information, though well known to the comparative few who have explored these by-paths of history, may not be thought uninteresting to the general reader, especially as it is connected with the most eventful portion of our narrative.
An ancient metrical account of the Stanleys, Earls of Derby, is contained in some uncouth rhymes, written about the year 1562, by Thomas Stanley, Bishop of Sodor and Man, [12] and son of that Sir Edward Stanley, who, for his valour at Flodden, was created Lord Monteagle. ”

“ Against the wall on the same side of the chancel is a tablet of white marble in memory of Edward Stanley—the Bishop of Norwich—and his wife and their two sons, Charles Edward and Owen Stanley, and their daughter Mary.
From these marble memorials of the dead you turn to the galleried pew where, in life, those they commemorate were wont to worship. The front of that little enclosure is resplendent with heraldic blazonries, and tells, in the language of the "noble science," the story of the marriages of the lords of Alderley for a couple of centuries or more. ”

“ Younger than Lord Stanley he had not Lord Stanley's solidity and caution; but he had much more of original ability; he had brilliant ideas, great readiness in debate, and a perfect genius for saying bitter things in the bitterest tone. The younger son of a wealthy peer, he had, in consequence of a dispute with his father, manfully accepted honorable poverty, and was glad, for no short time, to help out his means by the use of his pen. ”

“ The younger line of the Stanleys, with whose fortunes we are more immediately concerned, commences properly with a younger brother of Sir William Stanley of Hooton, Sir John Stanley, who married Isabel, the daughter and sole heir of Sir Thomas Lathom, lord of Lathom, whose ancestress had also been heir of Sir Thomas de Knowsley, lord of Knowsley, and who thus, in right of his wife, became master of the extensive estates around which his descendants' princely property has accreted. ”

“ Edward Stanley courageously came forward as its advocate, and was enrolled as one of its early vice-presidents. A one-sided development of the mind was then the characteristic of the older universities, and men often-times left college without a single idea concerning the common things of every-day life or the slightest knowledge of any of God's works. The rector of Alderley was in many respects self-educated ”

“ Descended from a younger branch of the Barons Audeley, of Audeley in Staffordshire, the name of Stanley, from the manor of that name in this county, in the reign of John, was assumed by William de Audleigh. Sir John Stanley, K.G., Lord Deputy of Ireland, in 1381 married the heiress of Lathom, and thus became possessed of Knowesley; it was this Sir John also who obtained a grant of the Isle of Man, which afterwards descended to the Murrays Dukes of Athol till 1765. The principal branch of this family became extinct on the death of James, tenth Earl, in 1736 ”

“ If there was one man more distinguished than another by the royal favour in that august circle, he was Stanley, Lord Chamberlain. Sir William Stanley had burst upon Richard III. at Bosworth Field, at the critical moment, slain his standard-bearer, and, by his followers, killed the tyrant. His brother, Lord Stanley, had put the crown of the fallen monarch on Henry's head. For this he had been created Earl of Derby, and had been allowed to ally himself to the throne by the marriage of Henry's mother, the Countess of Richmond. ”

“ Sir Peter Stanley, who succeeded as second baronet on the death of his father, Sir Thomas, in 1672, served the office of sheriff in 1678. He died in 1683, having had by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Leigh of Northcourt, in the Isle of Wight, two sons and seven daughters. Thomas Stanley, the eldest son, who succeeded to the barony and estates, was born at Alderley on the 25th March, 1652, and baptized there on the 15th April following. He added to the family estates by his marriage with Christiana, daughter and heiress of Sir Stephen Leonard, of West Wickham, Kent, Bart. ”

“ His speeches are all the speeches of a steady, respectable, thoughtful sort of Liberal, inclined to study carefully both or all sides of a question, and opposed to extreme opinions either way. He will never, it is quite clear, be guilty of the audacity of openly breaking with his party while his father lives; and perhaps when he becomes Earl of Derby, there may be nothing distinctively Tory worth fighting about. Lord Stanley is indeed totally devoid of that generous ardor which makes men open converts. He is no longer young, and he will probably remain all his life where he stands at present. ”

“ When I was at Holmwood, I used to engage a little carriage and go out for long excursions of eight or ten hours into the country; and when I returned just before dinner, Lady Stanley was so anxious to hear my adventures, that she would not wait till I came down, but would insist upon the whole history through the bedroom door as I was dressing.
If people were not afraid of her, Lady Stanley liked them the better for it, and she always heartily enjoyed a joke. I remember hearing how one day at Alderley she raged and stormed because the gentlemen sat longer after dinner than she liked. Old Mr. ”

“ It is material to bear in mind, that Thomas Lord Stanley (afterwards first Earl of Derby, of that surname) , married Eleanor Neville, daughter of the Earl of Salisbury, and sister of Richard Earl of Warwick (the King Maker) ; which circumstance, in addition to the violence of party, may easily account for the conduct of Lord Stanley, and of his brother William Stanley, on the occasion of that battle. ”

“ And I will express my conviction, that when that statement shall have gone forth to the public, the character of my noble friend will stand, if possible, higher than ever."
Here, then, we have a sketch of Lord Stanley's political character on the 28th February 1851, under his own hand, unconsciously delineating features beaming with manly determination, noble frankness, and sagacious intellect; of a man who, on a signal occasion, proved himself true to his Queen, to his country, to himself, and to that Higher Power by whom actions are weighed, [D] and who rules the destinies of mankind. ”

“ The nephew of Sir John (who was a younger son) removed the chief seat of the elder line of Stanley to Hooton in Wirral by marriage with its heiress (Dugdale ii. 247; Ormerod ii. 411) . A still more fortunate alliance (before October 1385) with Isabel, daughter of Sir Thomas Latham, made Sir John Stanley himself lord of great part of the hundred of West Derby in south-west Lancashire, including Knowsley and Lathom (Rot. Parl. iii. 205; cf. Wylie, ii. 290) . ”

“ He was secretary of state for war and for the colonies and president of the board of trade; and was governor-general of Canada from 1888 to 1893. He died on the 14th of June 1908, when his eldest son, Edward George Villiers Stanley, became earl of Derby. As Lord Stanley the latter had been member of parliament for the West Houghton division of Lancashire from 1892 to 1906; he was financial secretary to the War Office from 1900 to 1903, and postmaster-general from 1903 to 1905. ”

“ But whether it was due to conviction, or to ambition, or to temper, or to anything else, it made the Whigs who remained Whigs, very sore. Lord Clarendon, a typical Whig placeman, said that Stanley was "a great aristocrat, proud of family and wealth, but had no generosity for friend or foe, and never acknowledged help." Some allowance must be made for the ruffled feelings of a party which sees its most brilliant recruit absorbed into the opposing ranks, and certainly Stanley was such a recruit as any party would have been thankful to claim. ”

“ Last Thursday I was up forty times." I was not much surprised at this in Lord Althorp, as he is certainly one of the most modest men in existence. But I was surprised to hear Stanley say that he never rose without great uneasiness. "My throat and lips," he said, "when I am going to speak, are as dry as those of a man who is going to be hanged." Nothing can be more composed and cool than Stanley's manner. ”

“ He explained his position in the House of Lords on 28 Feb., not without expressing some bitterness at his followers' want of courage. As yet, however, his party had hardly a sufficiently definite policy to have justified their taking office. Stanley himself was still in favour of moderate protection, though prepared to abandon any return to it, if the next verdict of the constituencies should prove to be unmistakably against it. In June his father died, and he succeeded to the earldom. On 21 Feb. 1852 Russell again resigned, and Lord Derby formed a ministry ”

“ He frequently accompanied Stanley abroad, and was with him in Italy just before his marriage and his decision to accept the deanery of Westminster in 1863; he was present at Stanley's deathbed on 18 July 1881. He declined an invitation to succeed Stanley in the deanery at Westminster, on the ground that he wished to remain what he had always been—a private person. He died, unmarried, on 13 April 1882, and at his funeral in Sonning church, on 18 April, Lord-chief-justice Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, Benjamin Jowett, John Walter, and Professor Goldwin Smith were among the principal mourners. ”

“ Furthermore, Stanley had, in richest abundance, the great natural gift of oratory, with an audacity in debate which won him the nickname of "Rupert," and a voice which would have stirred his hearers if he had only been reciting Bradshaw. For a brilliant sketch of his social aspect we may consult Lord Beaumaris in Lord Beaconsfield's Endymion; and of what he was in Parliament we have the same great man's account, reported by Matthew Arnold: "Full of nerve, dash, fire, and resource, he carried the House irresistibly along with him." ”

“ Their cue distinctly was to have extolled Lord Stanley to the skies, as a man utterly beyond the reach of prejudice, open to conviction, docile to the voice of reason, and persuaded of the error of his ways. Had they done so with sufficient adroitness, it is not beyond the verge of possibility that here and there some benighted people might have been induced to swallow the fable, and to conceive that because one statesman—whom we name not now—proved false to all his former professions and protestations, such changes are mere matter of course, sanctified and approved by custom. ”

“ Stanley, who had proved himself to be a strong man in the wrong camp, and therefore the evil genius of his party, now carried his unquestionable skill, and his brilliant powers of debate, as well as his imperious temper and contracted views, to the service of the Tories. One other man held a prominent place in Peel’s Cabinet, and proved a tower of strength in it—Lord Aberdeen, who was Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and who did much to maintain the peace of Europe when the Tahiti incident and the Spanish marriages threatened embroilment. ”