GLADSTONE'S WIFE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 137, 6 December 1935, Page 4

GLADSTONE'S WIFE

A REMARKABLE WOMAN

HIS BUSINESS MANAGER

HER TAUT IN POLITICS

The father and mother of Catherine Gladstone were both descended from Crusaders, says a writer in the Melbourne "Age." Sir Stephen Glynne was twenty-fourth in descent from a Norman chieftain who came over with the Conqueror, and her mother, Mary Neville, had for an ancestor Richard de Grenville, who died in the Holy Land in 1147. Chatham, Pitt, and other statesmen were related to Lady Glynne. Sir Richard Grenville, the hero of Tennyson's "Revenge," was a member of her family, and among her ancestors she counted William the Conqueror, Harry Hotspur, and Edward I.

Born at Hawarden Castle on January 6, 1812, she grew up as a lively child with curly, golden hair, and at the age of fifteen she was taken to Paris by her mother, where among her tutors was Liszt. She and her sister had a gay time in Paris, and when in 1832 Queen Victoria and her mother, the Duchess of Kent, visited Hawarden Castle, they were greatly charmed with the "beautiful Miss Glynnes." Their upbringing was careful, the practice of reticence and self-control being carefully instilled, and kindness to the poor made one of the prime duties. They were excellent horsewomen and skilled in archery, the favourite pastimes of the day. , Catherine and her sister Mary differed in age by only eighteen months, were married on the same day—Catherine to Mr. Gladstone and Mary to Lord Lyttelton. As girls they had a-fine gift of humour and intuition, were beautiful and noble-look-ing, Mary having the more regular features, and her sister the more brilliant colouring. IN ITALI. How came she to meet Gladstone and link her life with his? In November, 1838, he was in Naples, and on reaching his hotel found it pulsing with excitement. "Una gran famiglia Inglese c arrivata questa sera." The great family was Lady Glynne and her daughters and suite, travelling in state in their own roomy coach or berline, as it was called. Gladstone had been at college with two of the Glynne family, and had already visited Hawarden Castle, so at Naples he dined frequently with the Glynnes, climbed Vesuvius with them, and accompanied them on various expeditions. He met "them again in Rome, where he saw more of them, and was deeply impressed with Catherine's fear that they were not justified in spending so much upon luxuries. It was in the Eternal City that Gladstone formally offered ' marriage to Catherine, and of all places and times it was the most extraordinary that could have been chosen for such a purpose. It was done by moonlight in the Colosseum. Catherine, however, did not respond, but after he returned to England her letters to her brother about "Gia," as they called Gladstone, showed that he had not spoken in vain. He, however, wrote in his diary that.he had been precipitate''and incorrigibly stupid. He was at this time busy in the Commons and in his Government office. At last, at Lady SheUey's garden party at Fulham, he won Catherine's consent The garden by the river was a more appropriate place for a proposal, and there, too ; he told her of his former passionate desire ,to take holy orders. The two sisters were married on the same day, and they used to tell how it was a shock to them both when any little time had to be spent at a railway station, instead of love making both husbands took little books of classics out of their pockets and became engrossed in the reading. It is on record that Lord Lyttelton was to be seen at cricket matches at Eton lying on the grass with his face down reading between the overs, but never missing a ball! THE BEST MAN. Sir Francis H. Doyle, professor of poetry at Oxford, was Gladstone's best man, and wrote a poem entitled The Two Sister Brides, in which, referring to the "eldest flower," he says:— Bo them a balmy breeze to him, A fountain singing at his side; A star, whose light is never dim, A pillar, to uphold and suldo. The exhortation was remembered and obeyed, and Catherine Gladstone will go down to history as a model wife. She merged her life in that of her brilliant husband, watched over him with unceasing care, and saw to it that at Hawarden he secured release from all the cares of State. Burke once said that he1 never had an outside trouble which did not vanish at the sight of his wife when he crossed the threshold of his home. Gladstone could have said the same. Catherine "watched him with the skill of a nurse and the vigilance of a guardian angel." Not only at home but in the house, in society, in his great political campaigns, and on the Continent she was his inseparable companion. When he was about fo make an important speech she would drive, with him to the House, take her seat in the ladies' gallery, and keep her eyes fixed on her husband. A writer in "The Woman at Home" says:—"The spectacle of the sweet old face and of the gracious figure with the fine old lace round the shoulders touched many a politician who had no sympathy with her husband." Her provision of refreshment for him on his great efforts was the subject of considerable genial satire. It consisted of a yellow-coloured beverage, egg beaten up with sherry, which she herself prepared. BIS MANAGER. Sir Henry Lucy refers to a short thickset pomatum-pot, from which when cheers created a pause he drew the cork and proceeded to refresh himself. History will refer to that pomatum-pot, and its ill-fitting cork "that baffled the frenzied efforts of the orator to replace it." On one occasion at a society gathering, his wife was not with him, and his hostess, noticing he had been standing for a long time, suggested he should sit down. He declined, and she replied:— "Ah, but you know that if Mrs. Gladstone were here you would have to." Thereupon he sat down instantly. She used to tell him that while he could, no doubt govern the country admirably he had belter leave the arrangements for a railway journey to her—and he invariably did so. He was about to make a speech to a deputation when she intervened. "Stop, stop, where is our reporter?" She wanted the public to hear every word, and proved herself an excellent business manager How she sat out such deluges of oratory is a sheer marvel, but "love never faileth." On one occasion when he was feeling the.infirmity of age others tried to help him to the platform but she herself grasped his ankle and steadied him. "Mr. Chairman," he began, when suddenly, she pulls at his overcoat and one sleeve comes free Impatiently he stops while she tugs at the other sleeve, and the coat has scarcely gone from him when he is nourishing in our faces the free hand. Gladstone had a name for punctuality but he owed it to his wife never hay-

ing kept him waiting for anything. The ideal wife rendered signal service to the State. HER CHARITY. No sketch would do justice to Catherine Gladstone if it did not give prominence to her widespread charitable enterprises. Refuges, industrial schools, orphanages, and convalescent homes were a kind of passion with her. and her time and means were generously devoted to such institutions Her literary efforts included the introduction to a little book on "Early Influences," and her own work on •'Healthy Nurseries and Bedrooms " in connection with the Health Exhibition in London in 1884. Her part in politics was publicly recognised when she became president of the Women's Liberal Association in 1887.

Mr. Gladstone died on May 19, 1898 and when he was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey and the last strains of the Dead March were dying away Mrs. Gladstone knelt by the open grave. The Prince of Wales (Edward VII), Prince George, and others kissed her hand. About a year afterwards she was laid by the side of her husband. It is said that ere she passed away to join him she had murmured-— "I must not be late for church." She was not. /

History rarely does full justice to those who behind the scenes are really the power behind the throne. Her delightful gaiety of temperament, her boundless charity, and her incomparably beautiful service to her husband proclaim her to have been a perfect wife, a tender mother, and a self-sacri-ficing citizen. She had "great duties to be nobly done" and the memory of the just is blessed.